Seattle City Council Finance & Housing Committee 1292020

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you again for joining the Finance and Housing Committee meeting of the Seattle City Council.

Today is Wednesday, December 9th.

Thank you very much for being here.

This is our regular Finance and Housing Committee, not the Select Budget Committee, but this is a special meeting.

So thanks for all of you for joining.

The meeting will come to order.

It is now 1.03 p.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Vice Chair Herbold?

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

And Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda, there's six present.

Thank you very much.

I believe, just want to double check, is there five of us present, Council Member Morales as an alternate?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much for today.

And we appreciate all of your work.

I know it's been a long year, folks.

So looking forward to getting through today's agenda.

If there's the council rules are silent on allowing remote meetings and electronic participation at Seattle City Council to allow for this committee to be conducted remotely, the council rules will need to be suspended.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow for the finance and housing committee meeting to meet remotely.

There's no objection.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

We will continue with today's meeting remotely.

Thank you again, colleagues, for joining us.

As you can see from our agenda today, it is a long meeting.

We have a number of items for consideration today.

The 2021 draft annual action plan, which also has a public hearing, the fourth quarter supplemental bills, the small business assistance bill, and finally, the loan that we are going to be authorizing for the community roots housing.

I have asked for our agenda to be slightly tweaked so that there's a reorder, not anything new, but just a reorder to put all four bills regarding the quarter four supplemental at the end.

I believe you received a notice from our central staff, but the following items will be reflected, the following items on the agenda I'd like to have in the following order.

Keep item number one, which is the draft 2021 action plan and public hearing.

Item two will instead be item number five, which is our restaurant bar and worker relief bill from Council President Gonzalez.

Item number three would be what is listed as item number six on our agenda, which is the community roots housing.

And that begins our quarter four lineup.

The next bill would be currently listed as item number two, which would be the grant acceptance, Council Bill 119971. Then we would go to item number three, which is Council Bill 119970, the supplemental bill.

And then we would end with Council Bill 119972 regarding SPD provisos.

So again, the order is draft action plan, restaurant and bar and work relief bill.

Then going into the budget items, community routes, housing, which we have a long list of presenters.

So that's part of the reason we want to get those folks in first.

And then the grant acceptance supplemental bill and SPD proviso.

We also have asked our CBO and SPD partners to be with us in the last half of the meeting.

So they have plenty of time to answer questions for us.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

All right, let's go ahead and get started with public comment.

We do have 19 people signed up.

I will give one minute for each person to allow for us to have 20 minutes of public testimony.

We will go until...

1-30 at the latest, just to accommodate for additional calling of names.

And folks, you are all probably pretty familiar with this process, so let's get underway here for our public comment.

We're going to ask for your patience as we continue to make remote public comment available.

We have a list of 19 people today.

I'm gonna call folks in the order in which they appear on today's list.

You will be given one minute to speak with a 10 second chime at the end of your allotted time.

That's your clue to go ahead and wrap up.

If you do not get a chance to say all of your comments, please note that you can email us or call us and you can also email council at cl.gov and we will distribute your public comment.

You will hear you have been unmuted before you begin speaking.

Remember, that's your clue to push star six on your end so that you can unmute your own line.

So again, once you hear you have been unmuted, push star six and then begin speaking by introducing yourself and the item that you're speaking to on today's agenda.

If you get done speaking, please remember, go ahead and hang up and listen in on all of the listen in options listed on today's agenda.

Thank you very much.

Public comment is now open.

The first three speakers that we have listed are Sophia Hofacker, Jesse Huey, and Isabel Pagel.

Good afternoon, Sophia.

Hi, Sophia, just because she's wonderful.

Hi, my name is Sophia Hofacker.

I live in District 2 and I'm the Amplify Program Manager at Puget Sound SAGE.

I'm calling today to ask that Council hold the line against the Mayor and SPD's attempt to push through an extra $5.4 million for SPD's 2020 budget.

We supported the earlier resolution stating that Council would no longer be backfilling SPD's overtime spending, and I'm commenting today to ask you to honor your word.

A huge amount of SPD overtime this year is due to violent police response at Black Lives Matter protests this summer.

Don't reward them for this violent waste of resources.

Council must say no to the mayor's request in order to say yes to a city where black, indigenous, and people of color workers, families, and communities can thrive.

The city must divest from SPD and make investments towards keeping our community safe.

Instead of spending money on police overtime for terrorizing protesters, we must invest in making sure that everyone in Seattle has access to housing, healthcare, healthy food, transit, and cultural services.

Please honor your word and end the era of unaccountable SPD spending.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next person is Jesse.

Good afternoon Jesse.

Hi.

Thank you for taking my call.

My name is Jesse Huey and I'm a Seattle voter calling to yet again encourage you to listen to the demands of the people and dismantle the beloded and violent Seattle Police Department.

I'd first like to address Councilperson Gonzalez.

In 2010 you represented an innocent young man racially profiled and beaten by Seattle police officers.

I just wanted to let you know that despite having extensive records before, as well as after this incident, all of the officers involved are still employed by SPD and making very high wages.

In addition to employing a number of known violent racists, I'd like to inform counsel of how police resources are currently being used.

Yesterday, I attended the morning march with about 25 nonviolent activists.

While attempting to end our march, we were surrounded on all sides by police.

20 squad cars, several motorcycles, bike cops, and an arrest van showed up to harass us.

Because we were well within our rights, police were only able to issue a single ticket to a driver for failure to comply with a stop sign.

The police escalation caused for more traffic blockage than our march had, and a number of the officers refused to wear masks or socially distance despite being asked repeatedly to do so.

These are some of the highest paid public

Thank you very much, Jesse.

If you could email the rest of your comments in, that would be great.

We do want to hear the rest of that testimony.

Isabella, good afternoon.

You are up next, followed by Walker Thomas, Riley W., and Kelsey McGrath.

Good afternoon, Isabella.

My name is Isabella.

I am a Seattle resident and voter in District 2, and I'm calling to urge you to please hold your word about your commitment to Black lives and to deny Jenny Durkin's stupid request of adding 5.4 million to SPD's budget.

They are here to protect and serve and they do nothing to protect nor serve.

They harm day after day.

They harm black and indigenous and people of color across the city.

They continue to terrorize protesters, including putting protesters into critical condition.

Why is this allowed and why is the city council even considering this?

Please say no.

Just a few weeks ago, there was a protest and SPD arrested every single person while a rape call was called in and they were told that they could not go.

SPD can't even do their job.

They don't need more money.

If Black Lives Matter, prove it.

Thank you.

And the next person is Walker.

Good afternoon, Walker.

Hello.

Hello.

My name is Walker Thomas.

I am a Seattleite, and I'm calling in to make sure y'all hold the line and knock down the CB 119972 thing about paying police extra for overtime.

I would just point out that a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush found the Seattle police in contempt just this week because they were throwing blast bombs at people they had no reason to.

They were throwing blast bombs at them because they didn't like what they were saying.

This is ridiculous, outrageous, thug-like behavior.

And they absolutely should not get paid extra to do it.

I work in a homeless shelter.

We are stretched so thin right now.

People are quitting right and left.

We have no overtime money.

People are getting sick.

Homeless people are literally dying.

We have no money for this.

It is really, really bad.

And the idea that you would give extra money to the Seattle police force for throwing blast bombs at us and abusing us all summer and hurting us and putting people in the hospital and putting people in critical condition is totally outrageous.

Y'all need to prove that we are serious about getting these racist, violent thugs out of here.

We need a real public safety system.

The SPD is not it.

Do not pay them to hurt us.

This is unbelievable.

Hold the line.

The next speaker is Riley W. Hello, my name is Riley and I live in District 5. This summer, you passed a resolution clearly stating that you will not support any budget amendments to increase SPD's budget to offset overtime expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 or 2021. Please hold the line and do not give into the mayor's request to grant SPD an additional $5.4 million over the amount the council budgeted for the rest of the year.

SPD does not need the additional money and should not be rewarded for harassing and attacking protesters.

Literally just yesterday, SPD continued their harassment and assault on a small group of protesters in defense of Black lives, sending 20 units after them, including a van that is used in mass arrests.

They tried to force protesters to move the cars that they were protecting them.

While at the same time, SPD has acknowledged that someone had called in saying they were going to ram through protesters.

This continual escalatory and often retaliatory behavior, SPD should not be further funded by the city council.

Do not give SPD any additional money that you already had budgeted for.

They have only used their overtime to further inflict violence against protesters in defense of Black lives.

This era of unaccountable SPD spending is over.

I yield the rest of my time.

Okay, the next person is Kelsey McGrath.

Good afternoon.

Hi there, I'm Kelsey and I'm a renter in District 3. I'm also asking that you hold the line against the mayor and SPD's attempts to push through an extra $5.4 million for SPD's 2020 budget.

I appreciate their resolution stating that the council would no longer be back filling SPD's overtime spending, and I'm asking you to continue to honor your word and hold the line against the mayor and SPD's unaccountable spending.

Instead of spending money on overtime for police officers that are upholding white supremacy and terrorizing our communities, The city should be spending money on dignified housing for all before more of our unhoused neighbors are killed from the city's cold disregard for their lives in the midst of a triple pandemic.

This money must not go to SPD.

SPD's overtime was used to brutalize protesters in defense of Black and Indigenous lives.

They absolutely should not be rewarded for terrorizing people.

Please hold the line to defund SPD.

Okay, thanks.

The next three speakers are Kyla Newcomer, Stevie Peterson, and Catherine Dawson.

Stevie, it says you're not present if you want to dial in.

Kayla, apologies for that.

Kayla, good afternoon.

Hi, my name is Kayla Newcomer.

I'm a resident of District 6, and today I'm testifying on behalf of Youth Care about a critical gap in services for youth and young adult experiencing homelessness in the Q4 supplemental budget.

So when COVID hit YouthCare converted our three engagement centers to a 24-7 model using the supplemental COVID funding.

Previously these three centers were only open for certain parts of the day or evening.

However when we received our contract renewals for 2021 they reflected pre-COVID amounts and there were no supplemental contracts to provide enhanced funding needed to continue the COVID level 24-7 services.

Closing the centers during the day and reopening at night puts young people and our staff at higher risk of exposure.

We want to thank Council Member Lewis for sponsoring this important amendment to ensure these three engagement centers, Orion and South Lake Union, UDYC and the University District and South Seattle Shelter in Maynard Valley can remain open for youth and young adults 24-7 during the pandemic.

We urge your support of this important amendment and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And Kylie, excuse me, Stevie, I see you still this is not present.

We're going to go to Catherine.

Catherine, good afternoon.

Okay, Catherine, if you could hit star six one more time.

It looks like you're still muted on my end.

Okay, and then after Catherine, it says, Catherine, just a reminder, star six one more time if you can.

It still shows you muted.

After Catherine will be Summer W., Michael Malini, and Quan Lui.

Catherine, I'll come back to you.

It looks like you're still muted here.

Just star six on your end if you can hear me.

Okay, let's go ahead and go to Summer and Catherine will come back to you.

I see you still on the system here, but it's still muted.

So folks, when we hear you have been unmuted, just hit star six, unmute yourself.

Summer, if you can hear me, go ahead and hit star six as well.

Hi there.

Hey Summer, can you hear me?

You are.

No longer muted, but your phone itself might be muted.

Just want to double check that.

Thank you.

Hi, Summer.

Hi, I'm commenting on how SPD budgets not be increased.

And to my understanding, there are there have been budget pressures because police are needing to respond to protests, which To me, it doesn't make any sense because literally what demonstrators are asking is for money to be reinvested into the community.

So to spend that money on more policing is completely counterproductive and it's silly that this even needs to be said.

And I feel that if we look at how resources are being used, it is clear who are being served by our public servants because I want to know how random sweeps of encampments are serving our communities.

And why aren't we using these resources to get people the services that they need?

Thank you.

Thank you for your time today.

Let's go back really quick to see if we can unmute Catherine again.

Catherine, just star six one more time to unmute.

OK.

Catherine, sorry, we're having trouble here.

We will come back to you at the end.

There's only about 10 more folks to call.

Let's go on to Michael.

Michael, good afternoon, Michael.

Hi, my name is Michael Mullaney.

I'm a renter in District 3, and I'm also calling for the blocking of the $5.4 million requested by the mayor and SPD for overtime.

As many people have just referenced, our city faces major budget shortfalls in many crucial areas during the pandemic, and SPD should not be rewarded for their response.

to the protests calling for reducing their funds this summer.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The next three speakers are Quan Li, Dennis Saxman, and Katie Nooner.

Quan, it shows you our list is not present.

If you want to dial back in, we'll get to you.

Let's go ahead and go to Dennis.

Dennis, good afternoon.

Hello, this is Dennis Saxman.

I am calling regarding Council Bill 119973. I urge a no vote on that bill because I don't think you should reward an organization like Community Roots Housing, of whom I have been a tenant since February 2009, for poor stewardship of public funds and public property.

I sent all the members of the committee and the alternate Tammy Morales an email And hopefully you will look at that for more detail.

Thank you very much.

Bye.

Thank you.

We will take a look for your email.

Appreciate it.

The next person listed is Katie Nooner.

It says that you are listed as not present as well.

So we're going to go ahead and go to Jessica.

Jessica Toosnot, followed by Justin Young, Ramsey Campos, and finally, Claire Crist.

Jessica, good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon.

Thank you so much for the time.

I'm Jessica Toosnot, Executive Director of Seattle Restaurants United and founder of Seattle Hospitality Emergency Fund.

I first want to say thank you so much for setting aside $5 million for our industry.

eating and drinking establishments have been disproportionately affected by the closures and mandates resulting from COVID-19.

And the acknowledgement of the city of this is heard loud and clear by those who have been waiting for relief.

So thank you so much for your considerations as we move forward in this process.

Additionally, I want to say thank you for the Jump Start program.

We're horrified to find that the Chamber of Commerce has come forward with a lawsuit.

And I just want to say thank you for your work there.

And if there's anything that we can do to support continuance of that program, we'd be so happy to.

Thank you.

We really appreciate that.

Thank you, Jessica, for all of your work.

Justin, good afternoon.

Just star six on your end one more time.

Wonderful.

Hi, my name is Justin Young, and I'm a small business owner.

I own a couple of gyms in Seattle, and following up on that comment about the $5 million grant, I appreciate the effort and why I don't disagree that the restaurant industry is in need.

There are a lot of other customer-facing industries that are in need and actually have been hurt further than the restaurant industry.

Restaurants have been deemed essential businesses and have been allowed to do takeout and delivery services throughout the pandemic.

Businesses like ourselves have been shut down completely with no ability to generate revenue and are hurting just as much, and if not more, than restaurants.

So we ask that you expand that $5 million to other industries that have been hurt as much as restaurants, or if not more, such as gyms as ourselves, or movie theaters, entertainment venues, kids' activities, dance studios, and such.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your time, Justin.

And I know we will continue this effort in various industries, appreciate you flagging that.

Ramsey Campos, you are the last person listed as present.

And Claire Christ, it still shows you not present.

If you are present, please feel free to dial in.

Good afternoon, Ramsey.

Hello, I'm calling to hold City Council accountable for taking generic divestment from the Seattle Police Department every day as CDO reutilizes their militarized resources to simply torment BIPOC communities for no reason.

We don't need police.

The community is able to take care of each other, and we show that time and time again.

City Council keeps egging on on-the-ground activists that we're being prioritized when no actual legislation or policy has been introduced to support this.

Do not vote to increase the Seattle Police budget.

They wouldn't need more resources if we originally invested their budget into the community and we have the necessary resources to take care of each other.

Hold the line, stop the tweets, and that's black, and start making actual policy to begin police abolishment.

Thank you.

I yield my time to the chair.

Thank you very much.

And I do see Catherine Dodson is present.

Dawson.

Hello, Catherine.

Thanks for calling back in.

Hi.

Sorry, I had some tech issues.

No problem.

My name is Catherine Dodson, District 3 renter.

I'm also calling to ask that you reject the mayor and SPD's attempt to get an extra $5.4 million for last year's budget and supportive of the earlier resolution that stated the council would no longer backfill SPD's overtime spending.

Cops should not get a blank check to perpetuate state violence.

The budget is one of the few tools that we have to restrict police violence, and there's no reason that we should pay for SPD's bloated spending due to an over-militarized and aggressive response to ongoing protests.

Thank you to the earlier speakers, just to add on to their testimony about violence at We've seen a large number of cops spend the entire last day circling Cal Anderson Park for hours, likely racking up huge overtime pay with the sole goal of violently sleeping around house neighbors and destroying their belongings.

I think that's an atrocious use of city money, and this is a great opportunity for the city council to limit that type of unaccountable spending.

Instead, we could spend that $5.4 million on affordable social housing, COVID relief, libraries, transformative justice programs, education, Please do everything in your power to reduce the police budget, past, present, and future.

Thank you for your time.

Excellent.

Thank you for your time.

Folks, that does conclude everybody who is present.

It looks like Stevie, Quan, Katie, and Claire, we still have you listed as not present.

Always happy to take your testimony via writing, via email, or if you'd like to give us a call, and we will circulate those messages to the committee members.

At this point, that concludes our official public comment period for our meeting.

We will go into item number one on the agenda.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item one in the agenda?

Agenda item one, 2021 draft annual action plan for public hearing, briefing, and discussion.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

And I see Amy Gore from Central Staff.

Great to see you again.

I believe we also have Dan Burton from the Human Services Department.

I'm going to turn it over to Amy first to make some comments about what is in front of us regarding the annual action plan submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And then we can ask some questions.

We will then hear from Dan, and we will get a chance to have official public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

This is Amy Gore from Council Central Staff.

As Chair Mosqueda mentioned, today we're having the public hearing for the draft 2021 Annual Action Plan.

The plan is submitted to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development each year to outline how the city will spend the four HUD grants administered by the department.

The plan before you is a draft based on estimated grant funding for 2021 and reflects the budget that was just passed by Council After Congress makes the 2021 appropriations, the plan will be finalized to reflect the actual grant amounts and will be brought back to council for approval.

Having the public hearing on the draft plan today fulfills the public participation requirement from HUD that will allow the city to do what's called pre-award spending, which means they can begin funding programs in January.

And that is a very brief overview, but I will turn it over to Dan Burton who is the Federal Grants Manager at the Human Services Department to discuss the plan a little bit further.

Yeah, thank you, Amy.

You touched on most of the points I was going to.

This is the 2021 Annual Action Plan.

It's the fourth year of our five-year consolidated plan, and we are funding programs in a consistent way as we have been before, covering homeless services, rental assistance, small business support, equitable development, parks, ADA upgrades, housing development, and rehabilitation.

And this is through four major grants, Community Development Block Grant, Emergency Solutions Grant, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS Grant, and the Home Investment Partnerships.

Because of the current economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have moved $1 million this year to support the Office of Economic Development Small Business Stabilization Program.

in addition to other funds.

Now, one thing I did want to point out, these federal programs have received a significant amount of CARES Act funding.

That is not reflected in this 2021 action plan.

This is a regular plan for our regular allocation.

The CARES Act funds we receive are being dealt with through, I believe council approved a plan amendment earlier this year.

There'll be another one coming up early next year to take care of those funds.

So this is just talking about what we're going to do with our regular allocation next year.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

That was short and sweet.

I appreciate it and all that you do at HUD and all that you've done this year, Amy.

Thank you so much.

Folks, this plan lays out the city's priorities for federal grant funding, which provides support for our homeless neighbors, small businesses, immigrant and refugee community, helps provide housing for low-income neighbors in accordance with the annual budget, and to make sure that we are able to fulfill our participation requirements.

I'm really excited that we are able to have this opportunity for council colleagues to ask questions and then to have an official public hearing on the 2021 draft annual action plan.

Do any of our committee members have any questions or comments on the annual action plan?

Okay.

Council member?

Okay.

Dan, before I open it up, Mr. Burton, just want to say thank you for all the work you do at HUD.

And I don't think it's overly political to say we are very eager to continue to hear about where there will be additional dollars provided to cities like Seattle and other large cities who are grappling with the affordability crisis of housing and the homelessness crisis, given that we have two declared states of emergency on that.

And we have seen last year was the 40-year historic low for federal dollars to be invested into housing from our federal partners.

And I know that requires action in Congress too.

So I just want to reiterate our participation with you or our partnership with you is very much appreciated.

And we will be looking forward to working with you and others as we seek additional partnership and funding from the feds for housing.

Excellent.

Okay, seeing no additional questions, we will now open up the public hearing on the 2021 annual action plan.

Each speaker will again have one minute to provide their comments, and please remember to push star six before speaking.

We have a sign-up list, and I don't see anybody currently there.

I do want to do what our good chair of land use did this morning and have the IT team confirm that I'm looking at the right sheet.

Do we have anybody signed up for the public hearing for agenda item number one on the annual action plan?

We have two signed up, but they're not present.

Okay, thank you so much.

I might be looking at the wrong sheet.

Do you mind just reading their names in for the record so we can note that they did sign up?

Katie Nooner and Ramsey Campos.

Oh, thank you very much.

I see that now.

And we did have them listed on our previous list and they were also not present there.

So appreciate you reading those names at this point.

We're going to close public hearing.

There's always an opportunity to send us comments.

Again, if you can send it to council at seattle.gov, feel free to send it and we will circulate to our committee members.

Amy, is there anything else for the go to the order on agenda item number one?

Nope.

I think like say once HUD comes back to Dan at HSD with the final allocations, we will get the plan finalized and bring it back to council.

for approval, which will probably be next spring.

Wonderful.

And Ms. Burton, anything else from you before we go on to the next item?

Oh, thank you for listening to this one.

Absolutely.

Very short and sweet.

Appreciate it.

Good to see you.

And if we don't see you until next year, thanks for everything you do.

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

This is our new agenda item number two.

agenda item number five, council bill 119977, an ordinance amending ordinance 12600, which adopted the 2020 budget, making appropriations from the general fund for public assistance during the COVID-19 civil emergency for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

We have our presenters with us, Amy Panucci, from Central Staff, and Amy, sorry, I said Amy, Allie, I still see Amy up there.

Allie, if you would like to provide a summary, then I'll turn it over to the prime sponsor of the bill for putting it in front of us.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, good morning committee members.

I'm Allie Panucci of your Council Central staff.

Council Bill 119977 authorizes $5 million of spending in 2020 and would carry forward into 2021 to provide financial assistance to restaurant and bar owners and to workers in the hospitality industry.

The bill itself is a relatively straightforward appropriation bill.

It authorizes $2.5 million of appropriations to the Office of Economic Development to support Seattle's restaurants and bars, and the remaining $2.5 million will be directed to the Human Services Department, and that money will be used to contract with a local organization to provide support to working individuals and families, with a focus on supporting workers in the hospitality industry.

The funding will be distributed through an application process.

My understanding is that the funding provided to the Office of Economic Development, they will be using the applicant pool from the most recent application round for their small business stabilization grants that closed on November 30th.

And more than a quarter of the applicants represent owners of bars and restaurants.

And then the funding to the Human Services Department, like I mentioned, through a contact with a local organization.

There is one amendment for the committee's consideration today, but before I describe that amendment, I'm happy to take questions or turn it over to the Council President.

Thank you so much.

Let's get the bill in front of us officially.

I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 119977. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Council President Gonzalez, a sponsor of the bill, would you like to speak to it?

Sure.

Colleagues, I am really excited about being the sponsor of this particular bill.

I want to thank Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Morales, who's not a member of this committee, but is a co-sponsor of this really important relief bill to provide additional support to workers and small businesses across the city.

Um, and, of course, this came about, um, in in large part in response to Governor Inslee's recent renewal of additional restrictions that have a direct impact on restaurants, bars and the hospitality industry in general.

So we all know that this is, um, This $5 million investment is not going to be enough to meet the amount of great need that has grown throughout this pandemic as closures and restrictions are announced.

All as a measure to curb the ongoing spread of the COVID-19 infection and the really problematic rates and surges of COVID-19 that we continue to see.

So again, the whole goal here is to make sure that this relief package is focused on a particular industry that we know is experiencing a pretty significant disproportionate impact as a result of restrictions that prevent restaurants and bars who only have indoor space from continuing to function.

National publications like Apartment Guide have reported that Seattle is number five of best cities for foodies out of more than 300 cities and towns in the United States.

They also rank Seattle high for our per capita of 28 restaurants per square mile in cities with populations over 100,000.

And by their estimate, this total is more than 2,400.

This kind of urban density is good for our local economy because of the number of people that the restaurant and bar industry and hospitality industry in general employs, whether it's in a direct restaurant or bar service setting, or if you are one of the vendors, farmers, suppliers that are also crucial to operations for our restaurants and bars.

So really what our restaurants and bars and the hospitality industry do is both create that mainstream economy, but also attract people to come and and recreate in our city, and we want to be able to be poised well to continue that vibrant economy into 2021. According to a 2017-2018 data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumers in Seattle spend an average of $2,174 per capita.

on food outside of their home.

This is ranked highest among major metropolitan areas that are tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What the data tells us is that the restaurant and bar industry in Seattle is incredibly vibrant, that in Seattle we love to dine out, as the numbers show, and that it is a good living wage job for our service industry workers, thanks to pro-worker policies adopted by this city council, like secure scheduling and $50 minimum wage.

paid sick and safe time, and many other labor standards, and that people in this city love to support our local restaurants and bars, our local and small restaurants and bars.

So Seattle's food and hospitality scene did not, of course, happen overnight, and it seems that every month we are reading about dozens of permanent or indefinite closures in this period of COVID-19 related economic recession.

I've been hearing like many of you from constituents who are service industry workers who have yet to earn a paycheck in nine months.

The restrictions of indoor dining means that staffing needs will continue to keep many out of work or see a severe reduction in their income.

Yesterday the Seattle Times reported that 624 closures have happened in Seattle since the beginning of the pandemic.

This is according to a survey completed by the Washington State Hospitality Association.

This represents more than half of the closures that have happened in King County and more than a quarter of closures statewide.

In the week after Governor Inslee's announcement on November 15th, restricting indoor dining, the state's employment security department saw 8,824 initial unemployment claims filed from people from the accommodation and food service industry.

In this same week, beginning November 15th, the overall number of claims was 30,274.

This is nearly 30% of claims in the largest industry cluster.

The adaptations of the restaurant and bar and hospitality industry have had to make to help curb infections have meant a lot of workers have unfortunately lost their jobs or have seen a significant reduction in the hours that they are able to work and are offered to work and that of course, results in a significant loss of income, if not in a complete loss of income.

While restaurants and bars hope typically, restaurants and bars, of course we know, typically operate on thin margins in good times.

And right now in these rough times, it does mean that the most significant expense by restaurants and bars is their people.

And that means that people are being left out of the opportunity to continue to work.

So I acknowledge, as we heard during public testimony, that there are other industries in the city of Seattle and throughout the state that have been severely impacted by ongoing restrictions from the state in order to curb the spread of this infection.

But as we know, all these business models vary.

Restaurants and bars, unlike other industries, don't utilize staffing models where people are employed as independent contractors or as business operators, nor can they go virtual and sell their product online.

So this industry of service and accommodation inherently relies on in-person staff.

Those individuals are absolutely necessary to the operations and success of restaurants and bars.

And likewise, restaurants and bars are absolutely vital to the ability for service workers to continue to have a place to work in our city.

So this is one of the reasons why I believe, these are the reasons I really believe strongly that it's important for us to focus these $5 million on the restaurant bar and hospitality industry, in order to help small businesses continue to survive, but also to provide some level of short-term relief to their workers who are being negatively impacted as a result of these recent restrictions.

And just really quickly, I know we've been having a lot of conversation about the restaurants and bars in particular.

Our language in here does include the hospitality industry in general.

Just wanted to highlight some numbers related to the impact, particularly on the worker side, for hospitality industry workers.

According to numbers collected by Visit Seattle, revenues at hotels in downtown Seattle have plunged by more than 95.6% this year.

That's 95.6%.

A report from the American Hotel and Lodging Association found that more than 23% of hotel-related jobs in Washington state have been lost.

since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Specifically, the report found that 44,021 jobs of the 190,566 hotel-related jobs in Washington state have been lost due to the pandemic.

So I share those data points because I know that Council Member Mosqueda is bringing forward an amendment to acknowledge that the worker side, the $2.5 million of the $5 million is intended to be available to those who apply who may be working in the hospitality industry and not necessarily just specifically in the restaurant and bar industry.

And so I think it's important for us to acknowledge that there is a significant impact there and that these two industries are highly codependent on each other and incredibly related.

And the numbers that I just cited to the council members of this committee bear that out.

And certainly when we look at the employment security department numbers around unemployment filings, accommodation and food service industry workers tend to be clumped into the same industry category in terms of the number of unemployment claims being filed at the state.

So with that being said, I'm really excited about this bill.

I think it's appropriate for us to do it now.

And obviously, we know that this does not meet the full scale of the need.

We still need the help of our federal partners and our state partners to really create some longer term benefits for all workers, including these, and look forward to conversation here and look forward to your all support and do consider Council Member Mosqueda's amendments to the underlying bill to be friendly amendments and ones that build on the original intent of this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

Are there any additional questions or comments regarding the bill?

Okay, seeing none, I do have a few comments myself, and then, Allie, we will turn it back over to you.

I also want to reiterate my appreciation.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez, for your prime sponsorship on this.

I want to appreciate the Mayor's Office for their work to convene folks, and Council Member Morales for her work as well, specifically, with some local and small businesses in her district.

I'm really excited about this piece of legislation.

It allows for us to provide direct assistance to smallest businesses and workers hardest hit again by this next wave of COVID, recognizing that if we don't act now for both short and long-term support, then we will be looking at a recovery that doesn't include many of our lowest wage workers, our workers who've been hit hardest by COVID and our smallest businesses.

And I'm remembering the conversations we had this summer about how if we really want to spur local activity, if we want to jumpstart our economy, we need to be investing in small businesses and to provide direct cash assistance to workers because all the data showed from the last recession that that is how you prevent the recession from being prolonged.

And so this is very much in line with what the data shows.

We are really excited that the Restaurant United members, Seattle Restaurant United members, small businesses and labor members have weighed in.

over the last few weeks and months have to help provide a greater understanding of the unique needs that they provide, that they are seeing in restaurant and bars, especially as they face closures and that those closures are hardest hit by our local small businesses.

They're not being hit as hard by our national fast food chains or large entrepreneurs.

And we wanna make sure that these local entrepreneurs get the support they need and their workers as well.

I'm really excited that what this legislation has done already is to continue to emphasize that we need support for the smallest businesses that have around 10 or FTEs or less.

Really, we lifted that cap, but the majority of people that have come in that need assistance are our smallest businesses with 10 FTEs or less.

The data has shown that and that there's a large number of BIPOC small businesses who are being supported by this.

So I am looking at this as an enhancement, as a way for us to continue to grow, our diverse and inclusive economy.

And again, for us to be thinking about not only how we survive this recession and downturn due to COVID, but how we make sure that we are investing in ways that are more equitable so that when we recover, we have a more equitable economy that lifts up our smallest businesses and our workers.

With that, if there's no other questions or comments, Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Just thanking everyone for their great work on this.

This is important.

It sounds like you answered my one question, which is, Council Member Mosqueda, is your amendment speaking to 10 employees or 10 FTEs?

I will let Ali speak to that, but I believe that the FTEs is the most important threshold there.

Great, thank you so much.

Excellent, yes, and we, in conversation with the mayor's office, haven't been too specific, right?

We didn't want to create too firm of sideboards, but we do know that the data bears out that, as Ali's putting up there, over 85% of the businesses had 10 or fewer employees, and I think the current category of looking at who's eligible looks at FTEs.

Ali, I'm not seeing any additional hands, so why don't we turn it over to you for a description of this amendment that you have teed up here?

Thank you.

Amendment one to Council Bill 119977 sponsored by Chair Mosqueda would add a number of recitals to the bill that is just adding a bit more specificity to some of Council's intent.

And then this this first recital that I've just zoomed in on on, um, The screen is representing some initial analysis from the most recent round of applicants demonstrating the work that the Office of Economic Development has been doing to really focus on smaller businesses, businesses owned by the BIPOC community.

and in various locations around the city.

And so as the chair noted and Council Member Strauss referred to, the criteria for applicants for this most recent round was that businesses with up to 25 FTEs could apply.

The data I have initially is based on number of employees, not FTEs, so that is what is described here.

As well as they also businesses that applied couldn't have a net revenue annual net revenue greater than $2 million cannot have more than two locations in Seattle, and they could not have received a grant from the small business stabilization fund in previous applicant application rounds.

Um, from the city.

So it is focusing on, um, the, those businesses who have not received that support from the city to date.

Um, it also adds a recital, uh, emphasizing that smaller restaurants and bars should be prioritized for receiving, um, funding through this $2.5 million.

Um, and, uh, excuse me, I think I have the wrong version of the bill up here of the amendment up here.

That next recital isn't included.

Let me just get the correct version up.

Apologies.

Also this wrong version.

And then it notes that it should be focused on workers in the hospitality industry providing direct cash assistance and that supporting low-income workers that has benefits to the greater economy and allow workers to meet their immediate needs.

So it's just simply adding recitals, but I will just note that this version inadvertently has a recital related to proportional need that was struck and I will be distributing a revised version in just a moment.

Okay, thank you so much.

And again, that was in partnership with the mayor's office that we worked on that.

So I appreciate, Ali, that you are able to strike that last piece and send that around.

Thank you, because we want to honor that work.

So colleagues, let's go ahead and get this amendment in front of us for the purposes of discussion.

And Council President, I appreciate your comments on this.

And I will move to amend Council Bill 119977 as presented on version Can I say version three, Allie?

That'll come around.

As presented and described in version three to amendment one, which is being distributed as we speak.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments on version three of amendment one?

Council member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate Councilmember Mosqueda clarifying the intent in this amendment specifically as it relates to the broadness of our definition related to the hospitality industry.

As we know from data cited in recitals in this discussion and from the budget office during the budget process, the hospitality industry is generally suffering with significant declines in revenue impacting workers in the hospitality industry.

The updated amendment broadens the support for workers to the hospitality industry in general.

And just from my conversations with Unite Here, Local 8, they clarified as well that the hospitality industry, which restaurants and bars are a subcategory, is the hardest sector and that we should consider the hospitality industry broadly.

As a city of foodies, who love to patronize our neighborhood restaurants and know service staff by name because we do that.

I'm glad that we are remembering that the hotel workers that we might have less interactions with in our day-to-day functions, on a day-to-day basis, that they're part of that larger, very devastated hospitality industry.

I want to just mention, I do still have questions about, that we don't have to resolve today.

I'm in separate conversations with the Human Services Department, which will be working to allocate the funds to an agency with employment services.

But I just want to highlight here, I do still have questions about whether or not workers must be employed by small businesses to apply.

Again, after working with Unite here, local eight, and speaking with them last night, they questioned why it is a worker who, for instance, works at a restaurant such as the Edgewater and has been closed for nine months, should not be allowed to apply to this fund.

I understand from the explanation that Council President as Loren Gonzalez explained on Monday, that it is true that as a business, small businesses are more impacted because of the difficulties, either with a small footprint or not having outdoor space.

the workers of restaurants, I think, are universally impacted, whether or not they're at small restaurants or large restaurants, if those restaurants are actually closed and not functioning.

So that's just, I'm just putting a pin in that for ongoing conversations.

It's not something that we're I appreciate the work that the council is doing in dealing with in the legislation as it relates to the worker relief.

I appreciate that the funding for the business owners is focused on small businesses and completely support that as well.

Thank you.

The exchange that council member herbal than I had during council briefing on that particular point.

I went back and took a closer look at the, at the language of the bill.

And this is not being amended today.

There are some, you know, the recitals.

are obviously just intent language.

They're non-binding.

It's not the actual law.

It's just sort of indicating facts and other things to consider as part of why we are motivated to pass this particular relief bill.

But I did go back and look a little bit more closely at the language related to how the funding will be distributed.

And wanted to just make sure we were on the same page as it relates to what it says.

Because if we're not on the same page about it, then we have time to sort of work on some language between now and Monday to sort of make sure that the language is what we intend it to be as it relates to worker relief.

in who for workers who are being negatively impacted as a result of working in the hospitality industry or the rush, whether it's a restaurant or bar or hotel.

And so for me, the lane for me, the language that is included currently in the council bill is broad enough to cover all workers, regardless of their employer size.

And so I want to make sure that we're on the same page with that understanding.

And if we think there is ambiguity, I think there's an opportunity to correct that ambiguity between now and Monday.

So specifically, the language says that funding shall be distributed pursuant to an application process.

The application process must include eligibility criteria, and it's specifically subsection two.

for workers who have lost or experienced reductions in income due to employment changes and business closures or reductions stemming from the crisis.

So I'm not seeing any qualifying language as it relates to the worker relief part.

And I acknowledge that there is a and between the first The 1st section and the 2nd section and maybe we just maybe this fix is as simple as changing it changing that and to an or if there is a assumption.

That that the 2 criteria must be available so that the other criteria that is listed for eligibility criteria is 1 for restaurants and bars who have had who have been economically impacted by the coven 19 crisis.

and for whom such assistance will provide economic benefits to the public by saving or creating jobs, moderating impacts to local tax revenue by supporting continued operations of small businesses and ensuring that businesses can modify operations as necessary to comply with public health guidance, and two, for workers who have lost or experienced reductions in income due to employment changes and business closures or reductions stemming from the crisis.

So when I read that, I read it broadly that there is no employer size restriction for the worker relief aspect, that there is only a size restriction as it relates to the small business relief portion.

But I'm going to look to Ali to help me reconcile whether the language meets the intent of not imposing a size, employer size restriction on the worker relief side.

You are reading that that correctly that it is not restricting I mean it may not be the most elegant sentence ever written.

And I don't know who wrote it, but, um, but, uh, I do think it is broad enough and there is nothing binding the, the, um, human services department from requiring a, uh, business size in the, in the contracting, the additional criteria could be included in a contract, but this legislation is not dictating that it can only support workers from a certain size of, of a business.

Thank you, and I agree with Unite Here's perspective as articulated by Council Member Herbold and as communicated directly to my office as well, that we shouldn't restrict access to direct cash assistance to workers who have been negatively impacted, who are in the hospitality industry, who are in restaurants and bars, and who happen to just work for a bigger shop, we shouldn't be penalizing those workers if they're still realizing negative impacts to their income as a result of business closures or reduction in business operations.

And so I wanna make sure that the language does actually allow for greater flexibility in terms of making sure that we're meeting Um, hospitality industry workers needs regardless of the size of the place that they're working for.

Any additional comments on that questions thoughts about the.

Suggestion for additional clarification needed if needed on Monday.

Council President, I want to thank you again for your support of this amendment.

Thank you Council Member Herbold for your comments and lifting up the words from Unite Here.

appreciate that they have also reached out and provided additional context for the potential amendment in front of us.

I'm really excited about two things.

One is lifting up the ways in which we can provide flexible cash assistance.

We've already talked about quite a bit and then also recognizing that there is language in here looking at flexible options for outdoor dining.

This is something that came through loud and clear when we had some of those stakeholder calls with local small businesses.

I appreciate the conversation and I know Councilmember Hurdle has been involved in some of the emails regarding how we can provide additional assistance to small businesses for heat options outside and given our current codes regarding gas gas lamps and ways to make sure that folks can have patrons outside and additional flexibility that the Seattle Fire Department, especially the Chief Scoggins, he reached out and said that they're working to make sure that folks know what the requirements are, but they are not fining folks.

They're trying to really help to make sure that all of our small businesses and establishments have the support they need to be able to comply with existing codes and we'll I look forward to continuing to work with them.

I'm also really excited that there's language in here recognizing the plethora of the type of establishments.

It's not just sit-down dining restaurants, but we're also talking about some of our smaller local establishments who need help as well, grab-and-go type local entrepreneurs are also being supported by this.

And I look forward to continuing to work with all of you.

We know that we've done a lot with the COVID relief bill from last year.

We've done a tremendous amount in our budget that we passed just a few weeks ago now, feels like months already.

And this is a really important step, especially as the council president noted, in light of the latest round of COVID restrictions that are much needed due to the continued spike in COVID cases in our area.

So with that, I move to amend council bill 119977 as presented in version three of amendment one, which was distributed.

We already did this.

So the amendment is in front of us.

Is there any additional comments?

Okay, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of version three of amendment one?

And thank you, Allie, for circulating that so quickly.

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

The bill as amended is now before the committee.

Are there any additional comments on the amended bill?

Seeing none, again, thank you, Council Member, and especially Council President Gonzalez.

Let's go ahead.

and do final passage of Council Bill 119977. Will the clerk please call the roll on the bill as amended?

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes, sorry.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended will be sent to the December 14th Seattle City Council meeting for the full council's consideration and final vote.

Okay, it's two o'clock.

We're moving into our list of quarter four budget items, and we are going to begin with our housing presentation.

We do have item number six in front of us to get us started here, and I see some of our presenters already popping into the screen.

Why don't we have Madam Clerk, if you could read Item number six that is on our agenda related to Roots Housing into the record for us.

That's Council Bill 119973.

Agenda item number six, Council Bill 119973, an ordinance relating to affordable housing, authorizing a loan of up to one million in general funds to Community Roots Housing, a Washington public corporation to mitigate the financial impact of COVID-19.

For briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much for today.

We have presenters present that I see on the screen, and I will read them from my list.

If there's anybody I'm missing, please let me know.

Director of the Office of Housing, Emily Alvarado, Christy Beatty from Department of Finance and Administrative Services, Director Ben Noble from the City's Budget Office, and Tracy Rathcliffe from the Seattle Central staff team.

Anybody I'm missing?

Okay, wonderful.

I will go ahead and I think turn it over to Tracy for some opening comments about the bill in front of us, and then we'll have our esteemed presenters add in.

Hi, Tracy.

Hello.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Tracy Bratsliff, Council of Central Staff.

You have in front of you Council Bill 11973, which does, as the title indicates, authorize the Director of the Office of Housing to provide a loan of up to $1 million for Community Roots Housing to address the financial impacts to that organization of the COVID pandemic.

I will let the executive get into the details about that loan.

Suffice it to say that they have done a lot of work, and we've had a lot of conversation about the work that they've done, reviewing the different options for Community Roots Housing to ascertain their need for this, and that they've taken advantage of all the other options for addressing this hopefully temporary financial situation, but I'll let them get into more details about that, as well as the anticipated loan terms for this up to $1 million.

Thank you, Tracy.

I'm going to take a few moments to just provide a little bit of background and then turn it over to the team from the Office of Housing to give you and FAS to give you more details on the loan itself.

The first thing I wanted to talk about was how it is that we can offer a loan of this form.

As you know, there are restrictions on the city's abilities to lend you credit under the state's constitution.

So I want to explain the how first.

And then, probably more importantly, the why, and why I think this is appropriate at this time.

In terms of the how, it's important to understand that community roots housing previously called Capitol Hill housing, just for context, is a city-chartered public development authority.

So it is an arm of the city.

Other public development authorities that we've chartered include SCIPTA, the Seattle Chinatown International Public Development Agency, the Pike Place Market, PDA, and actually the Art Museum has a PDA that's connected to it as well.

In general, these entities stand as separate financial entities, and they support themselves.

The city's financial involvement typically involves helping them borrow money in order to implement capital projects.

Sometimes we borrow money directly for them.

Other times we underwrite their borrowing so they have a better credit rating and are able to borrow at lower costs.

Typically those loans are for capital purposes.

This particular one is for operating, and I'll talk in a minute about why that's the case and why we're proposing it.

Just as a quick bit of background, we have been in conversation with the other PDAs that the city has chartered beyond community roots.

Several of them have faced financial challenges associated with COVID, and we're taking steps, some of them administrative, to help provide some relief.

This is an example, letting them tap into some reserves to help make bond payments as they manage some cash flow issues and the like.

For community roots, after some careful evaluation, we determined the needs were more significant.

And we're very invested in the success of Community Roots.

They maintain a large, and again, OH will give you more details here, a large portfolio of affordable housing.

They faced significant financial pressures on the commercial rental side.

They have a commercial portfolio, you know, ground floor and other, it's larger than many of our other housing providers.

They're facing rent delinquencies there in a completely understandable way, potentially, and in addition, residential delinquencies.

So the fact that they're under financial pressure, not a surprise, but a reality.

A particular challenge for this organization is that because they are a PDA, they actually were not and are not available for the federal relief programs.

So for instance, the PPE, Paycheck Protection Program, other nonprofits have been able to access that, including other nonprofit housing providers.

But as a PDA, their category of community roots is categorically uneligible, ineligible.

We've been working with our other affordable housing providers to, again, assist them in the ways that we can.

But for community routes we determined what was really needed at this point was a loan to keep them with sufficient So what's proposed here is a $1 million loan to be repaid in relative short order.

One of the reasons we're comfortable doing this, and again, that's why I'm going to turn it over, but they do have a commercial portfolio that once the economy turns, they'll have rental streams that we are confident we'll be able to repay this loan over time.

So that's how we can do this and a bit of the why, and I will turn details to others.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ben.

Hello, council members.

Good afternoon.

So just building off of Ben's comments, a few things to point out.

Again, we know that there are many affordable housing agencies that are struggling right now as they have fewer, less revenue and more expenditures.

This is not a singling out Community Roots Housing as a special housing provider.

It is about singling them out because they are a PDA and were ineligible for other kinds of federal benefits that other housing providers were able to achieve.

I think based on the rough math that was done, they roughly, given the size of their payroll, would have been eligible for approximately a $1.37 million payroll protection loan.

And that program, as you recall, they would have had the opportunity to have that loan forgiven.

In this case, this is a loan that has repayment.

That said, Community Roots Housing does have a special place in the ecosystem of affordable housing in the city of Seattle, just to give a sense of scale of what they do.

They have 40 regulated buildings, that's the most in the Office of Housing portfolio.

1,332 regulated units, of which most are at 30, 50, and 60% of area median income.

A lot are at 50 and 60, which is unique because that means that they are supported by tenant-paid rent.

Many of the same workers who you talked about struggling earlier in today's conversation are paying rent.

There's not a tenant-based subsidy on those units.

They were first funded by the city in 1986. This is a long-term relationship we have with the agency.

And they have several significant pipeline projects of affordable housing that we want them to be financially secure to be able to continue to undertake.

That includes Africatown Plaza, Yesler Family, a partnership with Skipta, the Eldridge LGBTQ senior project in Capitol Hill, and a TOD project up at Northgate.

Unlike many of the partners in the office housing portfolio, as Ben mentioned, this is an agency with a significant commercial rent deficiency because of how many commercial tenants they have.

And actually, it's that $700,000 gap that they have right now, which is the primary justification for the sizing of this loan at this point.

Just want to call out that we're working hard in part because of your support to make sure that all affordable housing providers have stability and support from our office.

We immediately put in place some regulatory relief.

including the opportunity for providers to defer their loan payments.

And we've worked with commerce to put that regulatory relief in place as well.

We're allowing agencies to, we're expanding approval for them to tap their operating reserves.

Again, modest things, but we're trying to support them.

The biggest thing, just to give some background to you all, is that because of your support, There was a rental assistance program created in the Office of Housing, first with $1.4 million of CDBG, of which that has been distributed to 11 agencies, and Community Roots Housing received $82,000.

And then the $4 million in coronavirus relief funds, which as an update, we have already committed or distributed $3.2 million to 18 agencies, of which Community Roots Housing was the greatest recipient at $1.3 million, serving 800 low-income rent-paying tenants who were economically impacted by COVID.

So we were able to address a significant amount of their rent deficiencies on the housing side, But these other challenges around commercial rents remain, which and some vacancy loss and additional operating expenses, which helps to justify the million dollars.

And at that point, I will turn it over to Christy to talk about the terms.

Just last thing on the rent assistance program, for your information.

At this point, we're really pleased to say that we have been able to fully satisfy requests for the rent assistant delinquencies across the affordable housing portfolio in units in which there is not a tenant-based subsidy.

So all of those have been taken care of and we'll continue to work with partners on that.

Christy.

Okay, great.

I'll take just a minute to talk with you about the loan terms that are provided in a term sheet that is an attachment to the fiscal note.

As described, the amount of the loan is up to $1 million.

This is sourced from General Fund and will also be repaid directly to the General Fund.

Once a loan agreement is executed between the Director of the Office of Housing and Community Roots, Community Roots would be able to draw on the funds by providing a written request in 2021 for the funds.

Allowable uses for the funds, as described, would be to support their operating needs.

This could include rent, payroll costs, utilities, insurance, taxes, that type of an expense.

and they would need to be expenses that can't be met through other revenue sources available to the organization.

The term of the loan is set up right now as five years.

This would allow for draws to occur on the $1 million in 2021, and then provide a year where repayment is not required in 2022, and then three years of repayment in even payments during 23 through 2025. Um, and that schedule is included in your, um, term sheet there.

Um, and then in terms of the interest, um, the loan will bear interest, but the interest will be borne by the city.

Um, and that would be at the city's, um, internal rate of borrowing.

Um, and then finally, we will include in the final loan documents, um, some reporting requirements, um, in which community routes will report to the city on how the funds have been used.

Thank you all so very much for that presentation.

I'm gonna go ahead and move to put the item in front of us for further discussion.

I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 119973. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the committee recommends passage of the bill.

Are there any additional comments or other questions for our panelists on their presentation?

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I'm interested to know a little bit more about, given the fact that the public development authorities are not eligible to apply for COVID-19 federal assistance, how the city is helping other PDAs that have I'm interested in those properties, those public development authorities that have properties that are occupied by residential tenants, although I recognize there are some very notable ones that are also occupied by commercial tenants.

Sure.

We were contacted by a number of PDAs back in the spring, and that essentially started our work in this area due to COVID.

One of the entities that we are currently assisting through the 2021 budget that you've all just adopted is the Pike Place Market.

And what you'll see in the debt section of that budget is authorization for bonds to be issued in 2021. up to $6 million that would support the capital needs of the market.

That would support both on the housing side, commercial side.

And that would be available to the market either as one issuance in 2021 or through a series of issuances as they have needs consistent with our debt policies.

And then another organization that we are helping and working with right now is Skipta.

We are working with Skipta to look at how we can administratively adjust some of the reserves that are in place for the debt that is outstanding for LTGO bonds that were issued previously by the city.

And so that would allow them to access some funds.

Those bonds are in the final years of repayment.

I believe there's just about four or six years left on those bonds.

So it's a time in which the city can take some administrative action to help S.C.I.P.T.A. And then we've also been in some discussion with some of the other PDAs in the case that they need future support.

And we've indicated that some of those mechanisms like lending would be available to them for capital purposes if needed.

Thank you.

I don't, I don't want to play favorites among our PDAs, but you mentioned the two that were foremost in my mind, so appreciate it.

Council Member.

Go ahead, Ben.

We share the interest and the concern, particularly around housing, but not exclusively, and looking for ways to assist them, while at the same time minimizing the city's financial involvement, just because we have, obviously, our own issues.

But being able to provide low-cost debt is a way that has been useful, or in the case of Skip, to let them lean on some reserves as a guarantor that we have a vested interest in those reserves.

But in this context, this seems to make sense, and with a marginal risk that we are certainly willing to take, just as an example.

Council Member Herbold, I'll also add that both Historic Seattle and SCIPTA applied for and received what they had asked for in terms of rental assistance.

So we were able to satisfy rent delinquencies on that side, obviously a much smaller portfolio.

And for the purposes of SCIPTA, they have a lot more tenant-based operating subsidy to help continue to cover the rent of those extremely low-income units.

I'll also just mention that for SCIPTA, Community Roots Housing acts as the financial guarantor on some of the partner projects like Yesler Family.

So having Community Roots Housing's financial stability helps them together.

Thank you.

Great.

Additional comments or questions?

Council President, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, just really quickly, my iPad is frozen up, so I can't I'm having a hard time pulling the actual bill up on my iPad.

So I apologize if this is this this question is answered in the bill, but maybe just for the benefit of the public and us as council members, it would be helpful to hear you all.

talk just from a fiscal policy perspective, how you evaluate risk with this kind of a loan, sort of like what are the things you consider, what are the factors and criteria in the process that you all undertake in your analysis to determine that this is a, as Director Noble just mentioned, a low risk debt proposition.

I could speak to that just a little bit.

In FAS, our city finance division over the years manages issues as they come up that are financially related for PDAs.

So we're kind of on point working in partnership with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations working with PDAs.

And one of the things that we do is we just watch each year how the financials for the PDA may change.

or be affected.

Certainly COVID has been an extreme situation of that.

And so going into this, we had a sense of the financials for each of the PDAs, and I think that was really helpful.

And then we're also able to look at what reserves they have in place and what their ongoing set of services are.

As mentioned, commercial is really strong for Community Roots, as is housing, and we know commercial has been affected right now in terms of being able to make those payments, but we expect that to come back in the future.

And then additionally, the rate of return right now for the city, as we know, interest rates are quite low.

And so while it's very helpful to Community Roots, the actual cost of the city is fairly small in terms of covering that interest rate in the coming years.

So we felt that that was something that the general fund would be able to manage.

And again, it is a fully repaid loan, so it's not being structured as a grant, but rather as a fully repaid loan amount.

Thank you, Council President.

Are there any additional questions or comments?

I do have one question before just a few comments.

Director Alvarado, my understanding was that Roots Housing, being a PDA, meant that they were not eligible to apply for the federal COVID-19 aid or qualify for loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, PPP.

I thought I heard you say something different.

Is that correct, still?

My understanding is correct.

No, that is correct.

What I did is I quoted a number of what, hypothetically, they would have been eligible for, would they have been eligible, which was about 1.37 million.

OK, excellent.

Well, that leads into my comments, precisely because of the restrictions on the PDA and their inability to access the PPP loan program or additional federal support, the expected shortfall of close to a million dollars that they currently have, the way in which the crisis has impaired their ability to collect revenues, both from commercial and residential tenants.

You know, it's expected to be far more than we're able to offer right now.

It's about 3.2 million.

And I think that our ability to help give them these dollars, free up these dollars, obviously gives them the ability to continue to provide critical services, if not hopefully leverage more opportunities in the future.

And given that they partner and provide over 1,300 rent and income restricted housing units across, what did you say, over 40 properties, 41 properties?

Across the city, I just think this is a huge way for us to continue to not only sustain, make sure that folks can sustain during this crisis, but that we're providing them the vital service they need.

in order to stay healthy and that is a place to call home.

So I am happy that we are able to offer this no interest loan, support community roots and insurance support their tenants, which further supports our city.

And I look forward to continuing to work with all of you as we help folks get back on their feet and also look at the consequences of the rolling COVID pandemic.

waves and how we can continue to extend more support, especially as we think about, what is it, Tracy?

$63 million in affordable housing dollars coming in in 2022 as a result from Jump Start.

There's just a lot of opportunity on the horizon here, so excellent.

Okay, there's no additional comments?

I'm really excited about this piece of legislation.

Thank you for bringing it forward to us.

I know Director Noble, you flagged it early.

I'm glad that we were able to get it in before the end of the year.

The motion has been made.

The bill is in front of us.

There is no amendment.

So, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 119973?

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Question favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the December 14th Seattle City Council full council meeting for final vote and consideration.

Thank you all.

Let's move on.

We are moving on to our second and third items on our agenda as published.

These are Council Bill 119971 and 119970. Madam Clerk, will you please read these two items into the record?

That will, I think, allow for our central staff and potential partners from CBO to be able to address some of these together.

So again, items two and three on our published agenda.

Agenda item number two, Council Bill 119971, an ordinance authorizing in 2020 acceptance of funding from non-city resources, authorizing the mayor or mayor's designee to accept specific grants.

Item number three, Council Bill 119970, an ordinance amending Ordinance 12600, which adopted the 2020 budget, including the 2020 to 2025 Capital Improvement Program.

for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Excellent, thank you so much.

So we have a number of presenters with us.

I believe the first presenter is going to be Lisa Kaye, followed by Tom Mikesell.

We also have with us the budget director, Ben Noble, and we have some partners who are available from other departments, specifically SPD if needed.

So we are gonna go ahead and turn it over to Lisa to walk us through item number two on our published agenda, Council Bill 119971, which is the quarter for grant acceptance.

And then Tom will turn it over to you to walk us through Council Bill 119970, the quarter 4 supplemental bill.

Does that sound right?

Yes.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Hello, Lisa.

Good to see you.

Hi, Madam Chair.

How are you?

Long time no see.

It must still be budget season.

I'm Lisa Kay with central staff.

And as you said, Tom Mikesell and I will be tag teaming the fourth quarter grant acceptance and the supplemental budget ordinances.

And so with your permission, we'll both give introductory remarks at this time.

So the fourth quarter grant acceptance ordinance would accept 40 grants totaling about $19.2 million.

80% of these grant funds would go to three agencies with the Seattle Fire Department receiving 18 grants totaling about $7.3 million.

Seattle Police Department would receive nine grants totaling about $5 million.

And the Seattle Department of Transportation would receive three grants totaling about $4 million.

In addition, the remaining of the grants are divided up with two grants each to the Office of Sustainability and Environment and the Seattle Parks and Recreation, and then Office of Arts and Culture, Seattle Center, Human Services Department, the City Attorney, and Seattle Public Library each would have one grant.

18 of the grants, of the 40 grants are $100,000 or less.

and six are greater than $1 million.

You'll see descriptions of all the grants on attachment A to the summary and fiscal note that's in your packet.

So after, if council chooses to accept these grants through approval of this council bill, council would then appropriate the grant funds through the fourth quarter supplemental.

And that's where I will now turn this over to Tom to talk about that bill.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee, Tom Mikesell with your Council Central staff.

So building off of Lisa's intro, Council Bill 119970 is the fourth quarter Supplemental Appropriations Ordinance.

Through a number of changes, both up and down to appropriations, the end result is this bill reduces 2020 appropriations by approximately $83 million.

It's actually a net result.

of a $232 million decrease in capital appropriations that more than offsets a $149.6 million increase in the operating budget.

So within those high-level numbers, there's about $84.5 million that's backed by new revenues.

$14.5 of that is in the general fund, which is a particular scrutiny by the council.

Within that amount, $19 million is in the grant acceptance ordinance that Lisa described.

$12 million of that is general fund.

The remainder is from an assortment of other non-grant revenues, such as inter-fund transfers, charges, reimbursements, and the like.

The staff memo submitted with this ordinance goes section by section, explaining the ups and downs in the different appropriations, there's a great level of detail in that attachment that I won't go into unless there's a particular item of the committee's concern based on their review.

But with that said, SAP is aware that there are questions specifically about some of the SPD-related items, which is why we are joined today by our executive partners from CBO and SPD.

So at this point, I'll pause and see if there are any specific questions about any non-SPD items that I can address.

And then if there are SPD-related ones, then perhaps turn that over to Dr. Noble and SPD representatives.

Thank you very much, Tom.

Thank you, Lisa.

Good suggestion.

So colleagues, questions and comments on the non-SPD-related items.

I see Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thanks.

I have a request moving forward related to some of the questions that I think some of my colleagues might have around some of these items.

Because bound up in some of these grants are things that some of us might support and other things that Some of us might not support, but it's very difficult to tease these things out when single grants sometimes pay for multiple things.

And it's difficult to address this after the fact, because again.

In some instances, we're accepting the funds for purchases that have already been made.

So I'm wondering whether or not we could, moving forward next year, have some council oversight in advance of applying for grants so that we can have a little bit more of a transparent and engaged conversation about the funds that the police department seeks in advance of applying for them.

Council Member Herbold, it's Alec Cooch again with your council central staff.

I'm happy to work with Director Noble.

I know I think we have a shared interest in thinking more about the supplemental budget processes generally and we can build into that discussions on the grant acceptance and how how that all works and the timing of when decisions is made.

So that certainly we can, I'm happy to work with Director Noble.

You have thoughts now.

Thank you, Ali.

I think my question, I appreciate that answer, but I do think my question is more directed at Director Noble to find out whether or not there is a willingness on the part of the executive and the budget office to do that moving forward.

And just before you answer, I want to underscore a component of the request.

The request is for us to make sure that we have advanced notice before the grants are accepted.

And I think that's really important, not just throughout the year.

No, not before they're accepted, before we apply.

Before we apply, even more important.

The position that I think we find ourselves is we've applied for grants.

We've, in some cases, gone and bought the thing that the grant was supposed to pay for, and now we are accepting the grants.

And, you know, I just, I don't want the city to be in the position of having a hole in our budget for things that we've already done based on an assumption that we were going to accept some grants.

If I might, absolutely open to discussion.

And I'm familiar with that because it's been an ongoing tension over time.

I would note that as a matter of general practice, we don't We instruct departments not to purchase ahead of grant acceptance.

I'm not going to deny that there are scenarios where necessity, you know, some critical service or whatever it might be, you know, and we choose, the language we use is talking about spending at risk because, you know, and that's not a comfortable position for any of us to be in.

Just as a side note, it's not a generalized practice.

In terms of a pre-review, if you will, I don't have a better language, I'm absolutely open for that.

The challenge that I've encountered in thinking about this in the past is the volume of grants, so the extent that that can be focused, and I'll just name it for what it's worth right now, SPD, for instance.

I understand these issues there and that they're important policy questions embedded.

I'm not saying there aren't in other grant situations, but it is difficult.

And I think Lisa mentioned that, I don't know how many of the grants, 30 of the grants are under $100,000 or something.

You can appreciate that there's some stuff that is just too time-consuming and onerous.

But I think we could work with Allie to identify those that are the highest priority and work through that.

Another point, and I It's just a dynamic in this.

I don't, you know, this is not to say that it's a problem per se, is that on the SBD side, some of what we're doing is accepting federal grant dollars for the region.

We are the regional coordinator of these federal grants and then allocating those monies to some regional partners.

And that creates some issues because the policy priorities of our city versus others might not be identical.

But at the same time, there is some advantage in being the administrator of the loans, excuse me, of the grants.

So just only to say it's complicated and that it will require this coordination, but absolutely willing to engage and look for a path that can work for everybody.

Well, Member Herbold, I appreciate you raising that.

I know that there are other council members that will want to ask questions specifically to SPD grant acceptance issues.

are there, and thank you for teeing that up, I want to underscore the importance of us having an opportunity to daylight before an application has gone forward so that we can potentially have a better say on how this aligns with the council's values and the legislative branch's priorities as it relates to the budget before transactions occur that we're then expected to authorize in the aftermath.

additional comments related to non SPD items before we get into SPD overview.

I think that Tom is going to walk us through some SPD related issues and then we will have a chance to dive a little bit more into SPD items.

Okay, Tom, I am not seeing any additional hands.

Would you like to walk us through some of the SPD related items which I know are of concern to this committee and as you've heard from the calls this morning or this afternoon, folks are very interested and concerned about these items as well.

Chair Mosqueda, I do not actually have a list, a prepared list.

I do have the amendments teed up, some of which have been in response to some of the issues, though in terms of a running list of questions, I do not have that.

All right, so where we're at right now is we have items three and four read into the record.

Director Noble, I'm going to allow for you or ask for you to do any overview you'd like.

And then before we consider any amendments, we will then tee up the bills officially.

But just in terms of a broad overview, if you had anything else you wanted to provide for context on these items before we proceed with deliberations on the bills specifically, that would be welcome at this point.

Yeah, I'm not sure the level of detail you want.

Again, at a high level, we've been working with SPD, Angela Sochi in particular, but the chief as well, and have been over the course of the year, particularly in the past two to three months, as we look towards the year-end in determining what resources would be needed.

That's been a holistic approach.

There have been a number of financial pressures and some financial relief, if you will, that SPD is experiencing on the pressure side.

Ongoing protests have required staffing beyond normal levels, as an example.

To both the good and the bad, unanticipated separations, so either retirements or resignations, have reduced payroll to an extent, day to day if you will, but at the same time required significant expenditures for separations when employees leave, they're entitled to pay out of a portion of their sick time as well as compensatory time.

In addition, we have an ongoing practice of managing requests related to paid parental leave, which we fulfill at the end of the year for all departments, SPD being one of them.

Similarly, and so the fourth quarter includes distribution of paid parental leave, backfill as we call it, to multiple departments, SPD included.

Similarly, we've been dealing at year-end with increasing department budget authority to deal with expenses related to COVID, expenses that we anticipate FEMA reimbursement for.

So there are multiple requests for authority for FEMA-related expenses.

SPD is among those departments.

So that's in terms of some of the specific financial asks in the fourth quarter for SPD.

There's a specific ask for approximately $1.6 million to deal with the unanticipated separation pay.

And then there's additional budget authority for backfill for paid parental leave and additional budget authority for FEMA reimbursement, each of those for approximately $1.9 million.

Those are the key ones in terms of SPD's direct expenditures.

There are then a set of grant acceptances of federal dollars, again, for a variety of purposes.

Much of that money to SPD, some of it to FHIR, and as I described earlier, some of it to agencies surrounding public safety agencies in other municipalities that we coordinate those grants.

Separately, we have legislation that provides those, but I don't think those are the focus right now.

So that's in my mind the highlights for SPD as it's called out in the fourth quarter.

Thank you very much.

You mentioned grant acceptance, and I saw Council Member Strauss have his hand up earlier regarding that topic as well.

Council Member Strauss, would you like to ask any questions or comments?

Yes, thank you.

And thank you, Director Noble, for our conversation yesterday.

I have more questions than I believe can be answered in the short period of time that is before the end of this year, since this is our only committee and our last council meeting is next week.

And so I'm just letting the record reflect some of my frustration.

at the amount of time that we had to process and digest.

the amount of information coming in.

So I have a number of questions about the grant funding from JAG, funding for SPD and other neighboring jurisdictions, supporting crime prevention coordinators.

That is the entirety of the information that has been presented to me.

Can we have more information on this?

Good question.

Appreciate it.

I see Greg Doss from Central South.

Greg, you are off mute.

Did you have something you'd like to chime in on?

No, I mean, the short answer to Councilmember Strauss is a question is that that is the justice assistance grant and that it supports a few of our crime prevention coordinators.

I'd look to SPD to to not if I'm I'm right about that.

And then a portion of it will will be transferred over to King County for their share of the federal dollars coming in there.

But you're you're absolutely right to note that that there's not a lot of information on that.

And then as pursuant to the questions you have asked me around both the UASI item and the State Homeland Security item, there are a number of purchases associated with those that we've received information from the executive on, but there's a sort of another layer there that would require more research by central staff to be able to answer the kinds of questions that I know you're interested in asking, Council Member.

I don't know whether, Angela, you can provide any more detail about the JAG grant in particular that could be helpful.

Or the UASI grant.

I'll touch on Homeland Security in just a minute.

Yeah.

For the JAG item, that grant funding supports three crime prevention coordinators who work out of three of the precincts in the city.

If you're not familiar with the crime prevention coordinators, they are civilian employees who are responsible for coordinating with local businesses, community groups to address various public safety issues and do problem solving.

It is meant to be a liaison between SPD and and different groups to do more of that focused problem solving and strategic work.

The department has five positions total, along with an Asian liaison and a liaison position within the same group, but a different classification that does immigrant and refugee outreach, but serves a similar role from a crime prevention standpoint.

speak generally to the UASI item and SHSP item, Council Member Strauss, if you would like.

Or if you have specific questions, more than happy to field those.

Let's talk about UASI real quick.

As my Homeland Security questions, I have more of an understanding of.

I still have not received any information about what is within this UASI grant.

And just noting that if I I don't feel that I'm able to do my job as an elected official making good decisions without understanding this information.

So this will determine my ability to vote on these measures today.

Yeah.

I'd be more than happy to walk through the items that are specifically funded under the UASI grant.

As Director Noble pointed out, this is a regional grant.

So there are items in here that will be distributed to local jurisdictions, Bellevue, King County, Pierce County, and Tacoma.

I'll just run through the list in front of me right now, just from a funding breakout.

There's about $260,000 built in for grant administration and sustainment, about $67,000 set aside for the Office of Emergency Management, for community preparedness with a special focus on individuals with limited English proficiency.

There's $147,000 for a regional planner.

This position works in concert with all of our regional UASI partners.

They do a number of the project management or manage the projects associated with the grant.

You've got a regional emergency mass care shelter planning professional.

Sorry, that's a mouthful.

This position works in the Human Services Department to help coordinate mass care shelter planning in the event of a disaster.

We've got 10 bomb suits at $243,000, which will be shared across all of the regional bomb teams.

There are, there are, let's see, There's $35,000 set aside for law enforcement training.

The specific training has yet to be identified.

But again, there's $35,000 there.

There's $27,000 for equipment also to be shared with the regional bomb teams.

These are what we call micro robots.

They're subject to the Surveillance Ordinance and have been included in the Surveillance Ordinance Impact Report.

In addition, there's also, let's see, I believe that is the entirety of, I've got, 450,000 for contract analysts.

And then I believe my list here is starting to creep into the SHSP item as well, potentially.

There's a first responder.

Let's see, a first responder application that would be installed on cell phones that allow us to track first responders in the event of a event of some sort, whether it's a natural or man-made disaster.

A 3D printer for the sheriff's office, a video downlink system, which is for the...

Sorry, this is actually an upgrade of an existing system for the North Seattle Maple Leaf Complex.

There's a number of items on here, management and administration.

I'd be happy to share this list.

I actually think it may have been sent to central staff.

Yeah, if you could send it, and maybe, Greg, if you could send it.

I guess with the short duration of time that I had able to focus on this body of work between my meeting yesterday and today, I focused solely on the Homeland Security grant.

And so I appreciate your update here.

If you could send over that information, that will be important for you, for me to be able to vote for these items.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for raising that.

I also want to note my concern.

It does not make me feel more at ease that this is a grant that we act as a pass-through organization for, especially as it relates to issues like training for law enforcement.

I do appreciate that there is that we need to be prepared for.

I agree with Councilmember Strauss that having additional information about these grants and as Councilmember Herbold has noted, additional heads up prior to potential grant acceptance.

I know this is an issue that came up the year past and the year before that as well.

Councilmember Herbold, please go ahead.

Just wanna, as long as we are talking about the UASI grant, I wanna add a couple of items that I didn't hear mentioned, but that I see from attachment A.

So please correct me if I'm wrong, but there's also a fire department portion of this grant to provide funds to enhance the city's ability to increase and sustain capability for structural collapse and rescue response, and also for the fire department to purchase chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive hazmat suits for not just our fire department, but regional partners who are also in this line of work.

That's correct, Council Member.

And just in general, I really.

We provided good information in detail to central staff over the past few days.

So we had tried to be completely transparent and communicative about these grants.

I understand the concern on their potentially important policy matters essentially being funded here, but have provided some information and happy to provide any additional detail as required either today or in the coming couple of days.

So I just want to be clear about that.

Okay, folks, I'm not seeing any questions, so I do have a series of questions that I'm going to ask, and then we'll open it back up again.

I'm looking at RCW 35.32A.090, budget mandatory, other expenses void, liability for public officials and penalties.

And sub one says there shall be no orders, authorizations, allowances, contracts or payments made or attempted to be made in excess of the expenditure allowances authorized in the final budget as adopted or modified as provided in this chapter.

And any such attempt to have excess expenditure shall be void and shall never be a foundation for a claim against the city.

So here we are, it seems like again, we're being asked by the city council to backfill funding for authorized or allowed expenditures above what was authorized by the city council per the ordinances that we've passed.

I have a question about how this continues to happen.

The council was explicitly clear in our budget ordinance that SPD had a certain allotment to spend.

We, the council, neither the council nor council members are liable under 3532A090 for overspends because we did not authorize or allow this.

I understand that there is certain things that have been, spent money has been spent on certain things.

And now the request specifically is for things like separation pay leave pay and additional money so that we have FEMA reimbursed.

I'm sure things that I think all of us want to be able to support.

My biggest questions are Arguably, these items should have been paid first before things like overtime were paid.

Can you please speak to who authorizes or allows for the spending to occur in the sequence that it occurs?

So, for example, why wasn't the funding allocated to separation pay, leave pay, and FEMA reimbursable expenses?

first.

Point of order question.

Oh oh please council member.

I'm so sorry are we done with the grant acceptance legislation now?

Oh no we have read them into the record both of them so if you would like to ask questions on grant acceptance we can still do that as well.

Would you like to have the grant acceptance ordinance considered first, and then we can debate it, and then we can consider potential amendments before overall questions?

If that works for everybody, that's just the way my mind works, that we get rid of that one and then move on to the next one, if that's okay?

I'm happy to do that, because my list of questions, I think, applied to the overall categories there, but I know we're limited on time, but that is a great suggestion, Vice Chair.

I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 119971 to put it in front of us for discussion and potential consideration.

This is the grants and private funding.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Is there additional questions and comments on this item for official consideration, questions, comments, or amendments?

Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Herbold wants to go first.

I'm happy to.

I'm just going to speak directly about Homeland Security.

Sure, I want to speak about some items that are not police department related.

I want to just highlight a couple of items that are important, I believe, to my constituents and the city.

I want to recognize the $600,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the Duwamish Valley Program, and then also upwards of $300,000 from the state to HSD to improve COVID relief for aging adults, an issue that I've been really focused on with HSD.

And then finally, funding from Washington State Library for more Wi-Fi hotspot distribution, super We are excited about that and doing everything that we can to add to the number of hotspots that we have available.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you and thank you to everyone who has answered the long list of questions that I've had regarding the Homeland Security grant.

In short order, I I can't support accepting this grant.

I mean, the discussions about how we have wanted to demilitarize the police department have been occurring for many months now.

Beyond that, at the outset of the protests, I was at a And when George Floyd was murdered, I was at a place of, well, as long as we demilitarize the police, then it'll be fine.

And I was quickly reminded that for so many people in our community, it's not meeting a militarized police officer, it's meeting an officer when no one else is around.

And so I think demilitarizing the police department, when no one else is around is their biggest fear.

So I think that demilitarizing the police department is one of the most important low-hanging fruit opportunities that we have.

And so I guess I'm surprised to see us looking to accept a grant from Homeland Security.

The list that I've received is for a breaching tool, power sonics, loud hailers.

night vision canisters and masks, ballistic protection, and applications that track SPD personnel for situational awareness.

Those are items that I can't support.

And I do have an amendment to strike our acceptance of the Homeland Security grant.

I think that there are a number of items within this grant, the law enforcement training, I have many questions about what that training is, medical supplies for first responders and staffing of Seattle personnel at the fusion center.

Those are things that I can support.

It's been my understanding from central staff that because of the short order that we've received this information and then had to create these amendments that a way to do a line by line item Cut would require a new bill and a proviso.

And so that was not able to be created within this short time frame, which is why my amendment is a blunt tool.

I don't like to use blunt tools, but my amendment today would just cut this entire grant acceptance.

I would love to hear from Dr. Fisher and from Angela about the law enforcement training aspect and any additional information about this grant because on its face it doesn't seem like something that I can support.

Thank you very much Council Member Strauss and I know you haven't made a formal motion yet if you do make a formal motion I will support that formal motion.

I have you have a question in to SBD and then I have Council Member Lewis next in the queue.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate those comments from Councilmember Strauss, which is what kicks off some of my questions just for my own clarification.

I did review the materials and have an opportunity to get some of my questions answered by central staff and want to inquire about some of the equipment just to make sure that my understanding is correct.

Based on Councilmember Strauss's description, my understanding is that the canisters are like the oxygen canisters for the respirators to operate.

So I just wanted to check and see if that's the case and not canisters of munitions, which I agree, I am not keen to accept that kind of equipment.

But if it's canisters of oxygen for respirators to work for our first responders, I wouldn't consider that necessarily military equipment.

My understanding is also the breaching tool I mean, firefighters use breaching tools all the time in the city of Seattle to get into, you know, a residence if there's a heart attack, for example, and the door is locked or an emergency, and would like to maybe learn a little bit more about the nature for that, because my understanding is that breaching tool is not being requested for military use.

But if I could maybe just get a little more clarification after Councilmember Strauss' uh...

representations to make sure my understanding is correct because i i similarly to to the sentiments he expressed that i am not keen on accepting uh...

uh...

uh...

additive military equipment that would further militarize a civilian police force uh...

but but my understanding is a lot of this equipment is more benign than that and and does have more on I don't know if that's the right way to put it.

It doesn't have those implications.

I want to clarify that.

Just to make sure that that's the right understanding.

The loud hailer, I was under the impression that that was a speaker system, not a munition in any way.

And then the ballistic protection, I believe are, I did ask this question, I don't remember hearing back, but I believe those are, those are bulletproof vests.

And also the ATAC application is a civilian version, it's not a military version.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss, did you want to reiterate your question as well before we turn it over?

Yeah, thanks.

I mean, I think hearing from colleagues there, you know, it takes all of us in a short period of time to understand these things.

So hearing from Dr. Fisher and Angela about You know, the difference between canisters and masks, the difference between an oxygen mask for going into a building on fire and a gas mask is an important difference.

So any any further information about any of these items and especially what type of training and how that would occur would be helpful.

Thank you.

I can speak to and just confirm that the canisters and masks are indeed respirators meant to It's personal protective equipment for first responders in the event of a disaster.

The same goes for the breaching tool.

This is a cutting tool intended to be used in rescue operations.

As for the training, in my notes, it does say, I think there's an amount of money, in this case, $35,000 that was set aside for training.

I believe the regional task force is responsible for distributing that money or approving Approving its use.

It says in my notes that it's exact training is unspecified at this time, and so I don't have more information on that piece.

And the loud device.

Is this the L rad device that has caused a lot of concern in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Chris, I don't know if you want to respond to that.

You may have more context than I do.

I do know that this is a speaker system intended for use.

Chris, do you have more detail on this?

Your video is slightly angled down.

There you go.

I'm not sure if this is the speaker system that we've currently had since we responded to the recommendations from the accountability partners to ensure that individuals can hear orders to disperse and other commands in large demonstrations.

And then I know there was a question, I think Council Member Herbold, and also Council Member Strauss around the ballistic protection, that is the rifle plates.

We continue to see high caliber and high counts of rounds when we have gun violence around the city.

And so as part of our sort of commitment to ensuring our first responders on the front lines have the safety equipment they need to enter any sort of scenes of violence, we do have to routinely replace the rifle plates.

They do have expiration dates.

It was news to me, but they do based on the manufacturer and we would have some claim vulnerability if we did not keep things up to date in terms of being within the specified period of how long they're viewed as fully functional.

Can I just double check?

I thought this was the LRAD device.

I'm not sure if this, we already have it.

And my understanding is this grant, none of this funds have been expended.

I don't know if this is paying for that or if there was intent to buy a new one.

I don't.

So I'm not sure.

I don't.

make the purchasing decisions.

But my understanding was this is that technology.

I don't know if this is paying for the one we have or if there is an intent to get an additional one for us or as part of the region.

I'm not sure.

I don't know if Angela's notes have the if this is a back pay or a or a proposed spend.

I know we haven't we have not expended any of the grant funds here to date.

These are all all of the funds here are unspent.

So anything on this list would be a forthcoming expenditure.

Council Member Strauss, did that get, I'm sorry, Council President Gonzalez, please go ahead.

Sorry, I missed your hand.

Oh, no, it's okay.

I just raised it.

So I guess I'm a little confused by your answer, Dr. Fisher.

And so I'm trying to just, get a better understanding here.

So I understand from Angela that these are for 2021 expenditures.

So just to verify, the $415,000 that are represented by the state Homeland Security grant items, the items that are listed there have not been purchased yet by Seattle Police Department.

Is that correct?

Right, the grant just became active October 1st.

Federal grants, the federal fiscal year starts in October.

We were awarded the grant in October 1 and it runs for the next three years.

Okay, so these are for potential purchases with those grant dollars in 2021.

And I mean, I guess it potentially could be in 2022 if, you know, sometimes grant purchasing and grant processing, that's why they give you a multi-year.

I'd ask Angela, you know, she keeps track of the books.

If that's a one-time 415 or if this is gonna be subsequent years, I'm not aware.

Yeah, and I think what I'm trying to get at here is that I think there's confusion in my head and perhaps in others around whether this is, whether these 2021 grant dollars are intended to reimburse the city for things or programs we already have in place in 2020?

No.

No.

These would all be in addition to or supplement to the SPD budget.

The $415,000 does extend over a three-year period.

With any grants, there's an automatic carry forward provision that's built into the grant acceptance ordinance and appropriation ordinance.

The remaining funds that go unspent in 2021 would carry forward into future years.

And to reiterate, as a matter of fact, the departments don't have the authority to spend ahead of a grant acceptance for items that were to be funded by the grant.

I can't guarantee that there aren't exceptions that have happened, but that is not, you know, departments are told to hold while we process these requests and bring them forward to you, just to be very clear.

Yeah.

So, I mean, basically that means that, like, you can accept the grants and you might have the grant money parked somewhere, but you haven't spent it on the thing that you are saying in the ordinance you want to spend it on.

Because we'll have administratively accepted the grant, but legally accepted the grant until you act just to be clear.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I think that's important clarification because I think it was getting a little muddled in terms of what.

What the, what the grants are paying for and when and so I, that provides me a lot more clarity in terms of.

in terms of that issue.

So just to go back to the list of the state Homeland Security grant items, which again, my understanding is that totals about $415,000.

There's a mixture of stuff in here.

Some of it is, I understand, designed for emergency preparedness effectively.

So if there's a disaster or if there is a significant event in the city that requires some of this equipment, then this would allow the Seattle Police Department to be ready to respond to some of those issues.

The thing that I think I need a little bit more help understanding is that this power sonic loud hailers, it's $25,000 of the $415,000.

And what I'm not understanding, just from a quick Google search, is whether a power sonics loud hailers which, you know, Greg Doss from our council central staff put in parentheses, speaker systems.

I don't know if it's a copy or paste, or if you put that in there, but is, is that the same thing as a long range acoustic device or an L rad as, um, uh, chair mosquito was referring to and, and, um, more commonly known as sound cannons.

I just don't understand, I mean, I just don't understand whether we're talking about the same device or whether it's a different device.

And in the list, it does list it as loud hailers, plural.

And so I don't know if it's more than one or if that's just a, slip of the keyboard.

I just want to clarify that the list I forwarded you, both the state Homeland Security list and to all councilmembers along with the UASI list, that came from the department.

And so the description they're giving about loudspeakers is that I just forwarded information from them.

Thank you, Greg.

I didn't mean to attribute editorializing to you if it wasn't yours.

I recognize as I was speaking that perhaps that was just a copy and paste thing from you.

But I would just like to hear from Chris and Angela and whether Is there a difference between the long-range acoustic device and this PowerSonic's loud hailers, or are we talking about the same equipment?

Council President, we'll have to get the specific back to you.

I'm not a equipment expert.

Nor am I, which is why I was asking the question.

From what I can tell, they're the same area of technology.

They are Amplification for sound, they may just may just be different sort of brand names of a loud speaker.

So, we will get counsel back exactly what this 1 is and why it was being purchased.

Thank you.

It is not a sound cannon, though.

A sound cannon is a weapon.

LRAD is a speaker system.

There were complaints about that it was turned up too loud.

OPA is monitoring its use.

The LRAD is not a sound cannon.

A sound cannon is a weapon.

So I just want to be clear.

I get that these might be different brands of different things.

But the two things that we were talking about, the LRAD and the thing that this Grant would pay for our speaker systems to communicate with crowds, not to assault them with sound.

Yeah, not it's in other words, it's used to alert people of a dispersal order.

One of the big one.

I mean, I think there is a difference, right?

If there is a speaker system that is being acquired by the police department for for protest and crowd management purposes, In order to make sure that people who are at protests are able to actually hear dispersal orders and comply, then I think that's an appropriate equipment purchase and in fact would be aligned with the intent expressed by.

I think all three of the accountability entities which have said one of the issues here is it's unclear whether people in the back can actually hear dispersal orders, thereby giving them ample opportunity and reasonable opportunity to comply with those orders before being subjected to escalating levels of force.

And so I was just a little, I just am, I just think it would be helpful to really clarify exactly what this thing is.

LRAD, I recognize, is actually a, it's a brand of a munition.

And so I'm assuming that it's different than the PowerSonics thing that is listed here that is only $25,000.

And so I think it would just be helpful to understand what it is we're actually seeing this money is going to be used for, because I want to make sure that we're not allowing acceptance of grants for munitions or additional weapons that could go in contradiction to some of the stated intent that this council has made pretty clear through our legislation in the past.

If it's helpful, given the time constraints dealing with legislative actions by year end, I'm happy to generate something formally to communicate to you that we would not move on using these dollars ahead of further consultation with you about in answer to these questions.

I just know that we're very clear that's not the intent.

And again, I'm pledging to you that now, but I'm more than happy to put that into writing, if you will, just to formalize that.

Because I understand that you have important questions, and if we can't answer them by Monday and the calendar is what it is, we can find a solution that addresses your needs and that this might be it.

And I'm happy to offer that if it is.

OK.

Holly, it looks like you may have something.

I was just going to suggest, well, I want to I want to confirm whether or not it is critical that this grant is accepted in 2020 because given all of the questions.

If you could go with director noble suggestion of having something in writing, you could not accept this grant and remove the associated appropriations in the fourth quarter bill and just take this up.

In early 2021 knowing you're going to have to, you're going to be asked to come back, but that we get more clarity and understand exactly what limitations or restrictions the council may may want to impose, or you could just.

wait until a day and decide if you want to remove it on Monday or not.

But I think that given that the money has not yet been spent, it is not necessarily needed to be spent in 2020 that this could all be delayed.

And I believe we have a amendment prepared to strike the acceptance of the grant and then make a associated amendment to the fourth quarter bill to remove the associated appropriations.

Colleagues, thank you so much, Ali.

Colleagues, I think hearing Ali's suggestion there, that's the path that I would be the most comfortable with, Dr. Director.

Ben Noble, I appreciate your offer for additional information as well.

I think that that could time up nicely for a conversation, I believe, in January.

And I think that there's a number of questions in the category that we obviously don't have time to get into today.

I recognize that we are already over 3 PM and we have more items on the agenda and I'm sure more questions.

So council member Strauss.

I want to thank you for teeing up these questions and Council Member Herbold, your area of expertise, Council President Gonzalez, your area of expertise as well in covering this in the past, and Council Member Lewis, your questions and reaffirming the council's commitment to moving away, as you and Council Member Strauss have said, from militarized equipment, I think aligns well with our statement of legislative intent that we just passed in the budget as well, and would be more comfortable with this coming out of the budget today with the recognition that we can get more information and potentially consider.

in January.

Council Member Strauss, did you want to officially move your amendment?

Well, I guess I did want to check in with Dr. Fisher and Director Noble to, and Director Noble, I appreciate you and you clarifying for us that grants dollars are not used without ordinance.

It is the second line in the city charter No gifts of munitions, military supplies, gas, or police equipment shall be accepted by the city without approval by ordinance.

I appreciate you sticking firm to that.

Keeps us in good graces.

I guess my question is, since this is for 2021, these dollars have not yet been used.

We have many questions outstanding.

Can we move the grant acceptance to next month, or does that really just throw some large sticks in your spokes?

Actually, the greatest challenge may well be to our regional colleagues who are counting on these resources and have budget processes of their own that I don't have detail on.

And that would be my biggest concern.

It is both a duty, but in some ways a privilege and a responsibility to be the administrator of the loan, excuse me, of the grant.

But that would be, I don't think for our own operations, there's a particular concern that I'd look to Angela Dr. Fisher for that input.

But that would be the only concern that I have, and I have difficulty evaluating how significant it is.

Just for a point of clarification, are we speaking specifically to the Department of Homeland Security items, or are we contemplating postponing the entire grant package?

If the latter, there are items in here that have much shorter- It's not the latter, it's the former.

Okay.

Well, at this point I have thank you for sending over this USA I project details I there are.

There's a lot of really great information in here.

And for me, what's really important, much like many folks have said, there are good aspects of disaster preparedness that we don't want to limit.

And then there's some other items that I have deeper, more intensive questions that have yet to be answered.

So for me at this time, I am not comfortable.

I'll be abstaining from this vote today.

I think that making a blunt cut of just removing the Homeland Security grant would I think that it needs to be done line item by line item which requires a separate bill if is that correct understanding alley councilmember Strauss I may

have Lisa Kay jump in to add more here, but my understanding is that you can either accept the grant or not, and then provide the appropriation authority.

If you want to provide specific limits or restrictions on exactly what those dollars can be used for, that would require introduction of a new bill, because the current bill before you for the fourth quarter supplemental does not contemplate imposing provisos, so restrictions on that spending.

And so I think, just to reiterate, if there was one grant that you had concerns with, you could not accept that and remove the associated appropriations, or you could accept the grant but not give the appropriation authority and hold on that and impose those limitations at a later date.

Did I get that right, Lisa?

Yes.

It will be very helpful as the discussion continues to make sure we know if we're talking about just Homeland Security grant or also including the UASI grant.

The amendment that we have crafted would only strike the Homeland Security grant at this point.

And so I guess I will defer to the chair as to what your direction would like to be.

I can hold my amendments and we can bring these up for full council on Monday.

If you need me to support this to just get this out of committee and address it at full council, I'm happy to do that as well.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Council Member Strauss.

Ali, I would like for the amendment to be shared on the screen.

I think that we have heard that this is You know, it's 3rd, 3 more weeks left in December.

If we are able to get some of these questions answered and the formality of having to go through this process in January seems like a legitimate time frame to assume that there's a lot of folks who are going to be on leave in the last part of the month here wanting to get a better sense from our community partners.

I'm sorry from our department partners here on answers to the questions specifically about the type of devices and I think the training.

Those are the two big questions for me without wanting to hold up everything else.

The good pieces that council member Herbold spoke to, I would be inclined to want to see that amendment posted and just want to make sure that we have the motion in front of us and then recognize that we're going to be working with the CBO.

And I think we've done this in the past as well to make sure that we get all of our questions answered specific to Homeland Security, given some of the concerns that have taken place in the past.

We just, I think, want to be prudent here.

So if you could zoom in slightly there.

Council Member Strauss, I think my preference would be that we move forward on this amendment.

If you do not want to move this, I would be happy to.

Sorry, Council Member Strauss, you are on mute.

Sorry.

Yes, just with the, you know, hearing about some of the good things and hearing some of the bad things, for me, I would want to, this up at full council.

So if you'd like to move this amendment forward, please feel free to.

Thank you very much.

Ali, I cannot see this well, but Council Colleagues, I'd like to move to strike item 1.33 in table section number one.

Also amend the total in the last line of the table to read as follows in the amendment presented here, and renumber the existing lines in section one as appropriate.

Is there a second?

Madam Chair, if it wouldn't be out of order, can I just ask a clarifying question?

Please go ahead.

Yeah.

So just, I mean, based on the conversation we just had to clarify, it sounds like the only outstanding question is the nature of the sound speaker.

Is that correct?

Is that the main one?

I had questions about the type of training as well, but.

Okay, all right.

I just wanted to clarify that.

Appreciate.

The opportunity to just ask that.

Okay, great.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Oh, excuse me.

There's additional clarifying questions.

Yeah, so so really what we're talking about.

We're striking $415,000 worth of grants from the grant ordinance, but.

My understanding after the debate and discussion is that the concerns are related to $30,000 worth of grant dollars of the $415,000.

It's $10,000 for the law enforcement training and $25,000 for the power sonics loud hailers.

And it sounds like everything else does not have an objection from from the committee.

Is that an accurate summary?

I think that's accurate, Council President.

Council Member Lewis.

This is indeed a very blunt tool.

So we're striking $415,000 over $35,000, when this should probably just read $35,000.

Right.

And so just to build on that a little bit more, I guess in terms of timeline, if we've narrowed it down to those things as our questions, Is it an unreasonable timeline to get clarification and time for Monday?

Or do we think it's going to take longer?

So we'd rather punt this whole thing to January.

Good question, because the preliminary information that we've gotten in the committee, I mean, I'm just I'm just saying the preliminary information I heard.

seems to imply that that outstanding amount will probably have a benign answer.

But I would like an answer before final passage of this.

I guess my question is just if we're not going to get it till Monday, Sure, you know we should delay acceptance until January, but if if the Department and the Budget Office think we can get it by Monday.

I see no reason we can't answer this for us in January, but but I'm just throwing that out there.

If my understanding is wrong, then then we can.

We can certainly proceed with this.

I would support proceeding with this amendment, but I just want to.

I just want to check in on that.

OK, great director Noble and then I saw.

In an obvious way, A, we owe you the answer, and B, we are well-motivated in terms of the timeline.

So more than a reasonable request.

And I'm not communicating to SPD as I make this pledge.

We will figure this out and get you this answer ASAP and address your concerns to the extent feasible, and I think we can.

Um, happy to do.

Obviously, you know, your end time constraints become a challenge for you as well for us, but we'll get you this information.

Okay, I think that that satisfies the questions and the concerns.

Greg, did you have something else on this?

Yeah, just one more thing, and that is that as council members are putting together any questions they might have on the State Homeland Security grant, they might also use the same opportunity to forward any questions on the UASI grant.

That's the first group of projects that Angela read off, and it's also represented in the spreadsheet that you all received.

And that way, hopefully just for efficiency sake, everything can be handled I think it's important to make sure that we're all at one time, rather than, you know, stuff coming in on Monday right before you have to vote.

Excellent.

Well, I'm seeing nods from the council colleagues.

If we were in person, everyone would see that happening as well.

I can see all of you here.

So I'm going to change my motion.

I'm not seeing any additional questions or comments.

I was going to move for the final consideration of the bill.

Is there any additional questions or comments?

So with the recognition that we will get additional questions answered by Monday, specific to these items that have been asked about here, we have Council Bill 119971 in front of us.

Are there any additional comments?

Okay, I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 11971. I'm sorry, it's already in front of us.

Madam Clerk, if there's no more questions, will you please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 11971?

Second.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

And the motion passes, and it will be in front of full council on Monday, the 14th, along with the answers to the questions.

Thank you, council colleagues.

We already had a presentation from central staff on item number three on our agenda, which is Council Bill 119970. And I appreciate council members be sticking with us.

I know we're over time, especially Council Member Herbold.

I know you have a conflicting meeting right now.

So I will turn it over to you all.

for questions, given that central staff have already done a presentation.

Council Member Herbert, I'll just turn it to you first to see if you have any comments or questions recognizing your time constraints.

Okay, so have we done the presentation?

I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time following.

Have we done the presentation on the fourth quarter supplemental yet?

We have with Tom who followed Lisa earlier, we had both items read into the record for central SAS request and did a short presentation.

But would you like a quick overview since we spent quite a bit of time on the grant acceptance?

It was basically last year because it happened in the 2 o'clock hour.

Totally fair.

Remember our day long meetings not so long ago, this feels like one already, I'm sure.

Would you like anything to be summarized from central staff council member?

No, I think there are a couple amendments associated with this bill and mine is not the first.

So I appreciate you deferring to me, but I think there's another amendment from another council member that is amendment one.

We can go ahead and get right into it then.

Council Member Lewis, you are the sponsor of Amendment Number One.

You're recognized if you'd like to go ahead and move passage of Amendment Number One.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I move Amendment 1A to Council Bill 119970.

I'll second it.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Lewis, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Thank you.

I brought this amendment after talking to some of our friends over at Youth Care who run the Roots Young Adult Shelter that folks may be familiar with.

Roots is a really critical provider in the University District, serving particularly young people experiencing homelessness.

Recently, Roots has expanded their shelter capacity.

They're a good partner at their new location near Greek Row in the U District, and they want to expand to have 24-7 access to the shelter, which, as we know, is essential to guarantee efficient access and effective delivery of service.

Like a lot of our providers right now, youth care is really suffering to be able to deliver on maintaining that level of service.

This appropriation that we're proposing right now will allow them to maintain a 24-7 intake and service for young people who are experiencing homelessness.

I just want to comment briefly on the source of the revenue.

It is, or the, of this appropriation, it's the underspend from the non-congregate shelter investments that we made in the supplemental budget.

Just as a little bit of background to that, this is essentially the money that was accruing every day that HSD had not successfully contracted for non-congregate shelter options.

Um, and so that money instead, you know, that money, uh, was then, um, accumulating as an underspend.

Uh, and that's what we are taking this from now.

Uh, I know there's potentially some concern, uh, because that money could roll over and be part of our, um, uh, hotelling.

I think we are in a position as revenue recovers to backfill the hotel and commitment on the other end of the supplemental budgets next year to make up for the difference in this appropriation to give the hoteling investments that we've made as a council, my understanding will not be impacted by this.

But this is sort of the liquid money that we have right now to be able to assist youth care to maintain this 24-7 service.

They're a very important provider and it's really important that we make sure that they get this assistance.

So I'm happy to answer other questions or defer to central staff on questions of a more technical nature and happy to bring this forward.

I see Allie with her hand up and then Council Member Herbold.

If you still have something, I see you off mute as well.

Okay, great.

Council, Central Staff, Panucci, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I just wanted to clarify, this is Amendment 1 to Council Bill 119970. I think the motion was, if there was a motion, I think it referred to Amendment 1A, but I just want to clarify it is Amendment 1, Council Member Lewis, that you are intending to move here that would cut $800,000 to be reused for this youth homelessness sheltering.

Oh, I apologize.

For some reason, my script says 1A.

No problem.

I just wanted to make sure.

So I think it is amendment.

It's amendment one that's in front of you and that this is the amendment you intend to

to make.

I need to just belt and suspenders on this.

If I need to formally move Amendment one and request a second, I'm happy to do that at this time.

So we're procedurally safe.

Let's do it.

Let's go ahead.

Do that.

Second Amendment one.

Thank you very much for your description.

Is there any additional comments or questions on Amendment one?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries, and Amendment 1 is adopted.

I am aware of another amendment.

Council Member Herbold, I will turn it over to you to move Amendment 2.

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 119970 as presented on Amendment 2, which was recently distributed, sponsored by myself and Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you.

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I'll turn it back over to you to describe the amendment.

All right, thank you.

So this amendment expresses an intent to amend the police department's 2021 appropriation authority by at least $5.4 million.

As background, the reason why we are amending this bill to express an intent about the 2021 appropriation authority for the police department is in recognition of actions that we have taken as a council over the last six months.

For instance, resolution 31962 adopted by the city council on August 10th during our summer rebalancing package stated under section seven that the city council will not support any budget amendments to increase the SPD budget to offset overtime expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 or 2021. We also express an intent to reduce the police department's budget in phases, and in doing so, increase funding for community-led research and participatory budgeting.

The three appropriation increases to the Seattle department, police department's budget, increased total $5.4 million.

$1.6 million of this is for separation pay for officers leaving.

$1.9 million is for FEMA reimbursement, for reimbursement that we anticipate receiving from FEMA in the future.

And $1.9 million is for parental leave.

As I understand from conversations with both the budget office and the police department, Each of these is connected to the use, the additional use of overtime and backfilling work, use of overtime above what was budgeted in the 2020 budget.

Again, on a broader level, just like I did with the grants issue, I think I wanna pull back and talk about sort of what the bigger problem is here that we are, I think, working together, collaborating with the executive and with the police department in addressing, is that the council has not received regular ongoing updates about police department spending.

And that's why we end up in this end of year spending bill situation.

So in order to bridge this gap moving forward, the council included two actions in adopting the 2021 budget.

One is requesting monthly reporting on overtime use.

I have discussed this with Interim Chief Diaz.

He is tracking it daily.

I appreciate his attention to that.

But I think it's important for the council to start getting monthly reports on overtime use.

We do know that the budget director And we also understand that there are in addition to the chiefs review of it, there are.

folks in the command staff that receive that information regularly.

We know specifically overtime management reports are sent to all bureau chiefs, sworn commanders, and civilian managers every month.

These reports contain detailed information for all employees who worked overtime in the prior month.

Again, the budget director receives monthly reports.

And so I think my expectation for the remainder of 2020 is that everybody together would be working cooperatively to do more to manage overtime.

There's a lot of use of police department resources that I wish I could unsee, but I can't unsee.

Back on October 31st, Chief Diaz announced that SPD was changing their approach to demonstrations.

And I quote from the blotter.

recognizing the visible presence and appearance of officers at a demonstration can impact interactions with the crowd and reducing the department's presence when safe and feasible.

But yet only five days later, on November 4th on Capitol Hill, there appeared to be what looked like almost 100 officers present at a demonstration of about 20 to 30 people.

We heard again today in public comment that large numbers of officers are continuing to show up to protests of small groups just this week.

So, you know, I am not a person who is is rigid, even in saying that I'm not going to, in August, that I wouldn't support any more overtime.

I would probably be inclined to reconsider that commitment if it wasn't for what I'm seeing on how overtime is being used.

And so for that reason, I really think that there needs to be a consequence for the continued large expenditure of overtime resources.

And, you know, we don't want to cut these funds from this year's budget because we understand that there are liability implications of doing so.

And so the best way I can think of, of ensuring that there is a consequence for The need to reduce overtime funding is to make a commitment today in this ordinance that we are going to take this up in the next couple weeks.

I think we're going to be getting a bill that we will refer to committee.

It's going to be on the introduction and referral calendar for 2021 to reduce that budget.

Thank you.

I really appreciate the historical context that you gave to the rationale behind this amendment.

This is how we hold the line as has been described by community partners.

We are making sure that there is a reduction, a proportional reduction in 2021, and I appreciate that this amendment I know that central staff recognizes there are legal restraints that have been now imposed if certain funds are not paid for, but there does have to be a reckoning in the 2021 budget.

I appreciate your work on this, and I know that central staff is on the line to talk about any questions about process, but we, I think, can anticipate seeing the introduction or referral calendar have that bill on Friday for introduction on Monday just seeing central staff pop in, if there's anything else that you'd like to add there on process, you're welcome to.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda and Councilmember Herbold.

I just want to note we are doing our very best to have the bill ready to get published to the introduction and referral calendar and hope to meet that expectation, but I just want to flag that We've been busy with amendments, so if we're not able to meet all of the deadlines, it may need to be walked on, but we will do our best and we'll coordinate with the Council President's office as well.

Completely understood.

You have been working around the clock for all months in December.

Council President, did you have comments or questions?

Okay, Council Member Strauss, I see you're online as well.

Okay.

I appreciate the Council Member Herbold's explanation here.

and I don't see any additional questions or comments.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of amendment number two?

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

If in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Are there any additional comments or questions on this item?

Our quarter four supplemental budget in front of us.

Director Noble, I did have a series of questions.

I think what I will do is send you a letter regarding those questions and concerns.

I know that we are very much over time here, but much of those questions and concerns dovetail to the sort of historical concerns and questions that Council Member Herbold alluded to.

I'm very appreciative of her leadership as Chair of Public Safety.

So we'll make sure to send that to our colleagues on this committee and to Director Noble.

And I believe Director Noble probably more I think it's appropriate to direct those to SPD for some of the questions about appropriation, authorization, and expenditures.

So I will also note that you don't have the answer to all those questions on how those and when those decisions get made, but we would like answers to those questions.

And I think the process that we've set up for 2021, as Council Member Herbold alluded to, will ensure that we have monthly reporting, that we have a better sense in real time of when these expenditures are happening.

and we can do a better job of daylighting some of these concerns early before it comes to a quarter four discussion.

If I could just say, I think that's a really great idea.

The reality is that the budgeting and finances are very dynamic this year in particular.

So I think your ability to monitor and see what we're seeing in essentially real time and understand what's happening and what the likely implications are really essential to your conducting the oversight in the way that you want to and which I think is appropriate.

So I look forward to that and I'll be happy to respond to your questions in consultation with SQD.

Council President Gonzalez.

Yeah, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge, as the former public safety chair for four years, this issue around overtime was one of the first things that I dug into, in large part in response to the results of the city auditor's work, identifying significant issues related to internal I just want to acknowledge that in the past we have had And unfortunately, I think unbeknownst to us, something happened where that lapsed and we stopped getting the reports.

And so I think it's good for us to get back into the practice of receiving the reports regularly for the oversight and accountability reasons that we've been discussing here.

And I also just want to thank Dr. Noble publicly, as I have privately.

He and I have actually worked together pretty closely on this issue around overtime expenditures.

And I know that he, as the city budget officer director, really shares the concerns around making sure that we have good fiscal policies here and good oversight as it relates to overtime.

expenditures and I have enjoyed the opportunity to work with Dr. Noble around making some course corrections over the years around the overtime expenditure, the overtime budget as a whole, and doing good work there.

So thanks to CBO and to SPD for continuing to provide us that information.

And yeah, Dr. Noble, just thanks for the partnership on that on that front because I know it's been it's it's a shared goal of ours to get the overtime budget under control and to have greater oversight of of those expenditures because those are general fund dollars and those are our most valuable flexible resources for all city priorities and so we we we are all best served by making sure that we're We are moving in the right direction.

We are working and moving in the same direction on that point.

Thanks to you and our current public safety chair for continuing the good work in this space.

A lot more to do but we are moving in the right direction.

I'm looking at my notes on reports that dated back to 2015, 2016, 2017. And Council President, I know that that's part of what you're referring to.

So we have not only been hearing about this concern, but we have data that tracks the very concerning managerial aspects of how overtime has been deployed in the past.

And I think we all are anticipating and looking forward to hearing more about how that practice can continue to be reined in.

But it is, I think, whether we're talking about how overtime gets allocated or our responsibility in terms of management, we have to take responsibility to make sure that this is not happening year after year.

And as it comes to the budget, making sure that we're not backfilling dollars that have already been spent is incredibly important.

We are going to continue to have these issues reviewed monthly.

And I think that we have some good ideas for how we can put some potential better controls on the BSL levels in the budget in future iterations to make sure that we understand within those BSLs how potential spending is ideally directed.

Recognizing, again, that the legislative branch doesn't have full control over how the dollars are spent, which is sort of why we're in this situation.

we are not just allowing for additional overtime to be paid for, we are ensuring there is a proportional reduction in the 2021 budget which will soon be forthcoming.

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the bill as amended is passed.

This bill will be sent to the full Seattle City Council for consideration and final vote on December 14th.

Okay, colleagues, we are now almost an hour over.

My recommendation is that the committee does not take action on item four on our agenda for today.

We are three weeks towards the end of December, and I know that there is ongoing conversations about additional data that we continue to receive on underspend.

My interest is in making sure that we allow for that potential underspend to continue to We have a better sense of what the total universe of dollars is.

At this point my suggestion is that we don't take action on this.

Thanks so much.

I'm just wondering in terms of process, if we allow for this item to not be taken up today, I think that we could potentially see a need for true up in next year's budget.

I think we all are committed to making sure that there is a true up if needed, but that cleanup could be more informed, better informed if we have a better sense of the total universe of underspend at the end of the year.

Do you have any thoughts about that or is that accurate?

Yes, I, I agree with that assessment.

Chair Mosqueda, as you and your colleagues know, there is an annual exceptions ordinance that that is typically taken up in the months following the closing of the books of any given year in the event that your projection and expectation that the Seattle Police Department does not, you are projecting that the police department will have sufficient resources and won't need to lift the provisos because of the savings that may occur in the in November and December, potentially because of higher than anticipated separations or other changes that may happen in the balance of the year.

In the event that that projection is mistaken or is incorrect, the final opportunity to do the administrative cleanup, if you will, to ensure that The city's budget for the Seattle Police Department is in line with the actual expenditures that can take place in the exceptions ordinance, which would be expected to be taken up sometime in 2021.

Thank you very much, Greg.

I see your hand.

You're welcome.

Yeah, just just wanted to add 1.1 point to Dan.

Just Jan's comments just for clarification and and that is that the value of the proviso lift legislation is approximately 2.9M.

So that is the value that.

that the department would have to achieve enough savings to cover by year end.

So that when Dan mentioned that, I just wanted to put the dollar number to the description he was giving.

And if I might.

Please go ahead, Director.

I understand where you're coming from, but you and colleagues understand that our best projections are at this point are that the department will need to use that almost $3 million of resource in order to meet its obligations and particular personnel payments and the like through the end of the year.

So it would be unusual for us to enter to proceed with essentially, from our end, the expectation of an exception, but if that's the council's judgment, understood, and so be it.

But just do want to flag from our, more than guess, our strong prediction is that we'll be back at you in the early new year for what we technically call an exception, which would essentially retroactively grant a budget authority.

But the resources, if the proviso means that the resources will be there, that they won't, that the department won't have spent them, so they will lapse into the general fund.

So if we would bring forward legislation to do that, that we know where the resources would be, rather where they would come from.

So that's just, you have our perspective on that.

And again, it's a high degree of certainty that we will be back, but understand where you're coming from nonetheless.

Thank you very much.

Okay, seeing no additional questions.

Council Member Lewis.

Right, so I mean just to clarify where we are before we close out today.

My understanding is with the amendment we just passed from Council Member Herbold, our expectation is that we are going to cut this amount of money supplementally in the next year, which makes sense to me.

I'm fully in support of that and pursuing that.

So, Madam Chair, maybe I didn't, I don't understand completely, but is, so what, what is the reason then that we wouldn't move this forward today, if that's our expectation of how we are going to, ultimately square this obligation that we have as a council to make sure the budget is balanced because it seems like we are just deferring the question.

I don't really know that there is going to be new information as the director just intimated.

It sounds like the plan is to I don't think we have the capacity to approve the lifting of these provisos and then make cuts equivalent to that early next year to backfill it and hold the department accountable for spending in violation of the provisos.

I want to clarify why we would wait to take action if that is the case.

Yes, Council Member Lewis, the previous action that you took on the fourth quarter supplemental added $5.4 million to SPD's budget, among other actions, and included in Council Member Herbold and Chair Mosqueda's amendment a statement of intent to cut $5.4 million out of next year's budget.

This action that's before you right now on the agenda is a proposal to lift spending restrictions on the 2020 budget.

And that action is what my understanding is that Chair Mosqueda is proposing to take no vote on at today's meeting and essentially allow the provisos to remain in place through the end of this year on the expectation that uh, Director Noble's, um, anticipation that the spending will be needed, uh, notwithstanding, um, the no vote that, uh, Chair Muscat is proposing, um, that there will be indeed enough money that, um, that those provisos will not impact this, the anticipated spending in 2020. What I was saying was that in the event that that expectation is not correct, that the spending is needed, The true up could happen in the exceptions ordinance that the council would be expecting to take up sometime in 2021. I hope that clarifies the situation, but I can answer any further questions.

And I also think it's fair to say that we still have November's potential underspend and December's potential underspend to take a look at.

I know that there has been greater than anticipated attrition.

That doesn't always equal underspend.

We know we do have to pay for additional dollars as people have separation pay.

However, I think it's important for us to have the full universe of picture of the full picture in front of us before acting to lift any of the provisos given that there's potential ability for an underspend throughout the rest of the year.

All right, I think I understand and I appreciate this clarifications.

We're essentially going to keep the sideboards in place for the rest of the year, knowing that it is likely the department will exceed those sideboards based on the limitations here.

So we may have to take care of tying up the loose ends with a squaring up ordinance later.

That's basically what I'm hearing.

And just to be clear then, Dan, and I mean, maybe this is a question for the law department, but that also squares up our obligations to create a plan for a balanced budget.

Yes, I believe that the proposal to leave the provisos in place, and if necessary, address any further changes in the exceptions ordinance does square with the council's obligations to maintain a balanced budget.

All right, thank you.

Good questions, thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Council President Gonzalez.

Yeah, I just want to be really clear that I understand what's going to happen in 2021. So in 2021, we will consider lifting these provisos in an exception ordinance.

The question will be what the amount of the difference will be.

I think it's a little, it amounts to a yes, but by the time you take up the exceptions ordinance, you will no longer be lifting provisos.

You will have to appropriate funds to, I think that's right.

I think that you are.

I just want to be clear that eventually we're going to be in a situation in 2021, whether it's through lifting provisos, for a separate budget bill, we're going to be adding dollars to SPD's budget to address the dollars we've encumbered in 2020. I don't want to be too cute with what we're doing here through the strategy of punting this to 2021 to steal a phrase from Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, so I think technically what happens here is the provisos and the appropriation authority for 2020 expire at the end of the year.

So if you do nothing, the provisos are no longer in play and the money that is restricted goes back into the general pot of the general fund.

And so if I think essentially what the council would be suggesting if you adopt, if you don't take action on this, is that you think that SPD still has an opportunity to fulfill the obligations of the provisos and not spend that amount of money.

What Director Noble is saying is they expect right now to need to spend that amount of money and therefore they will be coming back to you with an exceptions ordinance to give basically retroactive appropriation authority for that same amount.

of money in 2021 so it's a little different ask it's not a lifting of the proviso it's it's restoring appropriation authority for it for that same amount and so we'll be back in a month or two to find out.

where the numbers land.

That's right.

And I think that's the most important part.

I don't think anybody's trying to be cute.

I don't think we have enough information right now on what the underspend is throughout the rest of the year.

So my real intent here is to make sure that we have a better understanding of if there is any greater than anticipated attrition or any other potential ways in which we see additional cost savings throughout November and December.

And I understand from Director Noble this morning, We do have information that's coming in about greater than anticipated attrition in November.

The question for me is whether or not there's any additional dollars that could be used from that potential underspend and how it could be applied to the dollar amounts that might be needed to true this up.

My hope is that we get through the end of the year, keep these provisos in place both for, I think, the importance that they represent when we pass them, but also recognizing we don't have the full universe of information about what dollars may be available, and that we do have a conversation in 2021 to true up any potential areas where there may need to be cleanup in the exceptions ordinance.

I just, I guess I'm just, I mean, I just want to be really, make sure that we're really clear here though.

The provisos expire at the end of the year.

These provisos don't roll over into the next year.

We didn't take an action in our fall budget process to roll these provisos over.

So these provisos, which represent approximately $2.9 million worth of dollars that we've restricted SPDU from spending, are in many ways right now just artificial, because we know they're going to expire at the end of the year.

And so a take-no-action approach, in effect, would have the same effect as us voting to lift the provisos.

Not exactly, Council President.

So the provisos say there's $2.9 million currently in SPD's account, for lack of a better term, right, that they cannot spend unless you lift the provisos.

If they have $2.9 million of expenses, they need, right, they will need underspend of other dollars, so they need whatever 2.9 times 2 is 4. 5.8.

I shouldn't do math on camera.

But in order to pay $2.9 million, because they have the money in the bank, they cannot spend it in 2020 as long as those provisos are in place.

But they can spend it in 2021. It rolled over.

Did the $2.9 million roll over or not?

The appropriation authority for SPD goes away.

So the $2.9 million stays within the city's general fund, but SPD would not have the appropriation authority to spend it.

And that's what they would be coming back in 2021.

to basically ask for that authority back.

And so the theory here is that we think that the underspend is going to be greater than $2.9 million and SPD is not going to have any other financial budgetary needs, so it all washes out.

And what I'm hearing Ben say is that he doesn't believe that that's going to be the case?

Our best forecast, and it is a forecast, for the remainder of the year.

When we put it together a couple weeks ago, it's a tenth of a year.

This is a foreign, not less, but it's a large operation, so it is a forecast of expenditures.

This isn't a revenue issue.

It's a forecast of expenditures.

Most of those are payroll, and we know what they are.

So again, we don't think we can underspend, the department can underspend by the amount of the provisos, which is why I fully expect to be back at you next year with, again, as Allie described, it's a retroactive granting of budget authority.

It's an unusual thing.

We generally do it in these cases where we make a mistake or where there's an expense that happens on Christmas Eve that we couldn't have possibly forecast.

But there is a mechanism for it and we can take advantage of it.

Yeah, that's council's choice in this scenario to see.

And get it in some sense, the budget exactly right by doing it after the fact.

And so the question is, is what the amount is, like, we don't know what that delta is.

And so the, so the exercise here is. is wait until you close out the year so that we understand what the delta is.

But I think where I'm having a disconnect is that I'm hearing an argument from some of my colleagues that we don't think there's going to be a delta.

And I think that there is going to be a delta.

And I just want to be, I guess, I just need clarification on that.

to be clear for myself and Councilmember Herbold, I don't mean to interrupt you.

I think that, as I said before, we don't have enough information right now about what the potential Delta is.

If there is a Delta, then I think that we have said that there may be necessary action to clean it up with an exceptions ordinance.

So I think there's recognition that there could potentially be a Delta.

Councilmember Herbold?

the, I don't know if I've spoken on this item yet.

I don't think I have.

But for me, it's not at all in anticipation that it's gonna be a wash, right?

It just, what is the right number?

Because we don't wanna allocate more than what the right number is, given the scrutiny that we've had over the police department's budget this year and our desire to maintain that scrutiny.

Thank you.

And this is a question for Director Noble or Angela.

Thank you both for all of your diligent work on this.

So if I could maybe just put in plain terms, what I'm hearing from you is that you believe that there is a $2.9 million delta at this point from your forecast.

Is that a correct understanding?

I'm seeing.

Yes, we think that they'll need this additional, that they'll need to, it's actually not additional budget authority, but they'll need to use the existing authority that's constrained by the provisos to meet their obligations through the year end.

And what we don't know right now is what the underspend from your already allocated authority is for the months of November and December.

Is that a correct understanding?

At this point, we probably have November almost in the can, if you will.

But yeah, that's the question is, we're forecasting burn rates at the end of the year and see that we're going to need to access these dollars.

But basically, it's a forecast rather than absolute data.

I appreciate that.

And what happens if there is a delta?

Does the City of Seattle still retain the current level of service that we are experiencing today?

Our intent will be to operate the Police Department at a level that is consistent with spending up to this $2.9 million increment.

We actually have limited tools to reduce spending this late in the year.

So what I'm hearing from you is a confirmation that we will continue to have the police service, the service of the Seattle Police Department.

And that is in part based on this conversation here where I'm hearing very clearly that council, if we need these dollars to do is what you just described, it is council's intent to provide this retroactive budget authority.

And I'm not so that, you know, given the nature of this conversation, that seems to be everybody's, but the goal is here.

So that is in fact what we would, what we will do.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Director Noble, I want to thank you for that.

And And we know that you all are working to crunch the numbers on the attrition numbers in November.

So we look forward to hearing more about that soon.

And we can anticipate having a better sense of what the true spend or underspend is for 2020 when we convene again in January.

Seeing nods from central staff.

Okay, Council President Gonzalez, please go ahead.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to belabor the point.

I just want to make sure I'm really clear about what we're doing here and what the effect of not doing anything on these providers is for 2021. So I'm sorry that I keep bringing this up.

So I think what I'm hearing Council Member Herbold say is that we in 2021 in an exceptions ordinance may need to restore less than the $2.9 million, and so we want to have the benefit of knowing whether it's less than the $2.9 million.

And I think what I'm flagging is, what I'm flagging is, what I'm hearing from this conversation, specifically from Director Noble, and maybe I'm hearing it wrong, is that there's a possibility that they actually may end up needing the $2.9 million plus more.

So I'm just having a hard time understanding why we think it would be less than $2.9 million based on the forecasting information that Dr. Noble has.

And I know that there's a lot of variables.

And so I guess I'm just, for the record, expressing that I'm concerned that we may end up in a situation in 2021 where we're going to be put in a situation of not only having to to do the $2.9 million, but also a sort of a compounding amount on that.

And so I just, and maybe I heard Dr. Noble incorrectly in sort of his information related to that, but I don't wanna be, I just wanna make sure that I heard accurately that there's a possibility that it could actually be the $2.9 million.

plus more.

To be clear, I thought about saying that, but I specifically did not.

It is, we think we can manage, and our forecast, the reason we've asked, you know, structured the fourth quarter as we have, is we think we can manage to the 2.9.

What I thought about saying and didn't is there is the abstract possibility of, you know, again, if there were some event on Christmas Eve, And I can't imagine what it would be.

I'm just saying that there is that abstract possibility.

But our expectation is that we need, the department will spend as much as this 2.9, not more.

But we do expect to spend all of it.

But again, false precision in these, it's hard to know, obviously.

So I don't expect to do more than 2.9.

The abstract possibility exists.

So I've said it, but that's not what we would anticipate.

Okay, Director Eder.

I was just going to point out that as I indicated earlier, on an expected basis, there is going to be an exceptions ordinance in 2021 to true up the 2020 budget.

There was in 20 for 19, there was in 19 for 18, there was in 18 for 17. It happens generally every year.

We don't know exactly which departments and which funds will be affected, but there is generally a need for a true up ordinance.

So that just points out that there's uncertainty about the numbers, both on, it could be lower, it could be higher, it could be exactly on point.

We will find out as Allie mentioned in a couple of months.

Okay.

Any additional comments?

I think it's important to also reiterate that we would not be having this conversation if some of the provisos, I know not all, because some of them may have been held up due to the timing of the veto and then the override, but had some of the provisos been adhered to or our amount that we had asked for for spending within SPD been stuck to, instead of authorizing excess payments beyond what the city had authorized in our budget, we wouldn't be here.

And this is getting to the conversations that we've had all year long about wanting to both have an inquest into the SPD budget, better understanding and controls over spending, and better ways to basically insert ourselves or interrupt business as usual.

We will be interrupting business as usual monthly next year.

We would not be in this conversation if there was greater more of a willingness to try to meet some of those provisos, even the ones that couldn't be accomplished in the short period of time, given the veto and the veto override.

We need a partner who is going to be working with us to help put those sideboards in place.

And that makes it so that we are not in this situation at the end of December.

I look forward to working with our colleagues monthly and with the members of the public safety committee and the budget committee here to make sure that we have these robust conversations so we're not in this position again and that we have greater adherence to the budget that is set out and ideally any future provisos that are put into place.

Colleagues, we are at the end of our agenda here.

Thank you for the discussion today.

We are almost at 430. If there's nothing else for the good of the order, okay.

We are going to not have any more meetings in 2020, as you've heard already.

We will begin reconvening in January.

I believe January 5th is our first official meeting.

And then we have the 19th as well.

So two meetings right out of the gate in January.

A huge thank you for everybody.

I know it's been a long meeting today, but Director Noble, I just want to say to your team, you and Sochi SC is still on the line.

We appreciate you being with us today, but also you all have been present throughout the last 10 months, 11 months, 12 months.

So we really appreciate your time and your willingness to get into these details.

And just want to make sure you hear our appreciation for your time, especially in this committee over the last few months.

Thank you.

And thanks, except on behalf of a team.

I'm just the voice, if you will, a lot of folks doing a lot of work and have appreciated the partnership.

Thank you.

Excellent.

And if you'll all join me in thanking our tremendous central staff, this is the last meeting of the year, so it would be a wonderful opportunity for us to celebrate their work.

Ali Panucci, Dan Eater, Tom Mikesell, Lisa Kay, everybody, Greg, Greg, we've asked, speaking of overtime, we've asked so much of your time this year, so thank you very much for all of your work, and we see you still on the Zoom here.

It's been a long year and appreciate everybody's time and engagement on this conversation and much more to come as we just previewed in 2021. Have a great rest of your evening.

We will see you on Monday the 14th to take up these bills that just passed committee today.

Take care, everyone.

Bye.

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