Good morning.
Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled meeting.
I'm just passing out copies of our minutes.
And so as we begin, I'm joined by Council Member Sawant, Juarez, Pacheco, and Gonzalez.
And there are two minutes that we are passing out.
And so if there's no objection, the minutes of the May 28th and June 3rd, 2019 meetings will be approved.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are approved.
We have just by way of sort of explanation we have two executive sessions this morning And both may require some time so just sort of forewarning you nothing from to vote from the governance and equity and technology committee we do have a since I don't see councilmember O'Brien I'll mention that this Tuesday June 11th at 530 there's a a notice and call of a special meeting, which is a public hearing at the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.
That's Tuesday, June 11th, 2019 at 5.30.
Of course, the topic is ADUs and the issues associated with attached dwelling units.
And I think I'll stop there and just go around the table and talk about today's full council actions or any other items of importance.
Council Member Sawant.
Thank you, President Earl.
Good morning, everyone.
There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renters' Rights Committee.
The next meeting is scheduled for its regular time, which is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 11th at 2 p.m., where we will have consideration of appointments to the Seattle Renters' Commission.
One is for Dina Brasio, and the other is for Mac McGregor.
Thank you, Council Member Schwartz.
Council Member Juarez.
Thank you, good morning everyone.
So there are no items today on today's calendar for the Civic Development, Public Assets and Native Communities Committee.
However, we did have our committee meeting June 5th and it was very informative and much needed and I think to some level pretty emotional.
A presentation on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by the Seattle Indian Center's Chief Research Officer Abigail Echo Hawk and the Government Affairs Officer Aaron Sparrick.
They illustrated the lack of accurate data collection and classification of missing, murdered, indigenous women and girls cases filed by law enforcement at all levels of government.
As you all know and as we've shared, there are many, many barriers to fully understanding the scope of this problem, but we have sufficient evidence to show that numbers of missing, murdered, indigenous women and girls are sad and are wrong and we must do better and we hope to do that.
I'll be working in partnership with UIHI to develop a plan for this and also my council members to tee up some legislation.
If you're interested in learning more you can visit the Seattle Channel and watch the presentation or read the report at www.seattlechannel.org.
I want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez, my Vice Chair Councilmember Bagshaw, Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Sawant, and Councilmember Pacheco for attending.
Thank you for your time and your support on this very urgent and much needed topic that we need to address.
Our next meeting for our mic committee is June 19th at 2 p.m.
Councilmember Bagshaw, thank you very much for stepping in and sharing that for me.
So next, on June 6th, I had the honor, which I've done three years in a row, to ring the bell to start the Lake City Farmer's Market in the 2019 season, but the University District stole our bell this year.
Yes, I just said that.
Able, so we want our bell back.
The rain did not stop our neighbors from coming out and enjoying the delicious food, flowers, and local fair of D5.
I love this event because it demonstrates the strength of our community.
My team and I, as usual, will be regularly attending the farmer's market throughout the summer and fall, and I look forward to catching up with old friends and constituents.
And Friday I had the opportunity, and also Council Member Bagshaw as well, to attend the annual SPLASH fundraising event with many others at the Aquarium.
They made a million dollars.
We were there.
They gave out two guitars for $27,000 signed by some guy in some band.
I don't know if it was Nirvana or the other one.
What's the other one?
Soundgarden.
No, it was another group.
What's the other big group?
Soundgarden, Nirvana.
What was it?
Pearl Jam.
Pearl Jam.
Thank you, Pearl Jam people.
Anyway, they sold two guitars for $27,000.
Been around for a while.
Yeah.
Wasn't my era, generation.
Wasn't paying attention.
Anywho, not that they're not a good group.
I'm just saying.
I just wasn't sure who they were.
Moving on.
Moving on.
Many people.
And they raised a lot of money for the aquarium.
I want to thank Bob Davidson and Bob Donegan.
They were both great in raising the money.
And of course, we want to thank Martha Consgrad and her husband, Peter Goldman, who were also co-chairs, I believe, in the event.
Thank you.
So good morning.
You didn't call on me, but I'm going.
I'm sorry.
Council Member Bekshaw, you're up.
Thank you, President Harreld.
We have nothing on the Finance and Neighborhood Committee from the committee today, this afternoon.
We do have a committee this Wednesday on June 12th, and we've got an ordinance from a Seattle Public Utility Wharf building lease.
And the big one is a response from the sweetened beverage tax and short-term rental tax funds and what we're going to do with those.
how we're going to invest them.
That first conversation will happen in my committee, and we're also going to be having our first conversation appointing Bobby Humes as director of the Department of Human Resources.
The following meeting is June 26th in my finance committee, and I just want to alert people that things are going to start building in terms of not just only enthusiasm towards the budget, but the excitement we always get around the finance committee.
But on that day, on June 26th, I have invited the folks from CSRS, our Seattle City Employees Retirement System, to come and talk to us.
I had asked for a response.
Many of you know that Senate Bill 5240 had been introduced by Senator Reuven Carlisle, which would have given the city of Seattle an opportunity to take its investment and roll it into the state's investment through the Investment Advisory Board.
And I had asked for an independent analysis to take a look at that, what the options would be, whether that would be in the city employees and retirees' best interests.
And I know for those of you who have been around for the last decade, there were some significant problems last decade with some investments and the employee's retirement system.
had really, was really compromised in some key areas.
Since then, we've done a lot of work and I want to acknowledge the finance department and Jeff Davis himself and Jason Malinowski.
They have brought a team on board that have made critical improvements and changes to CSRS.
So those of us who are invested in it, I had asked for an independent analysis to come back and say, how are we doing?
And the analysis was offered two weeks ago, and I've asked Jason and Jeff Davis to come back to my committee on June 26th and talk about the system itself, the financial health, and really the decision on why they do not want to be joining in with the state.
So if that is of interest to you or anybody who's listening, June 26th to my committee.
And that is it.
Thank you so much.
There are nine PLEZ related items on the full council agenda today, six appointments to the Seattle Design Commission, Council Bill 119505 which adopts the Ballard Neighborhood Design Guidelines, Council Bill 119506 which adopts the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Design Guidelines, and Council Bill 119489 which allows for major institutions in a small area of industrial zones near SPU.
The next PLEZ committee meeting is on Wednesday, June 19th.
First, say congratulations to all of the graduates that will be in District 4 this week, all the graduations, and recent graduates at the University of Washington.
And I want to thank all of the volunteers from this weekend's Seattle Works Day who volunteered on Saturday throughout our community.
And this lunchtime, I will be with United Ways Emerging Leaders Program doing a Facebook Live event to get more young people engaged in our community.
Thank you, Councilmember Pacheco.
Thanks for that representation.
Councilmember Herbold.
Thank you so much and good morning.
Full council items from the Civil Rights, Utilities and Economic Development Committee on the agenda today include an appointment of Bobby Lee as the Director of the Office of Economic Development.
We've had two committee meetings where we've heard his appointment, shared questions developed by the council as well as Mr. Lee's answers and in addition last week council members should have all received a council expectations letter for appointment Lee, who we will confirm today.
In addition, we will have a bill coming out of last week's committee, well actually the public hearing that we held last week.
This bill would amend ordinance 125-650 to extend the effective date of the ordinance by six months.
This is the council bill that established an interim expansion of the Pike Place Market Historic District passed last year.
The legislation will allow the Department of Neighborhoods additional time to complete the work that the council asked it to do last year in Ordinance 125-650.
And the central staff memo accompanying this legislation notes that the Department of Neighborhoods expects that their consultant will complete much of the work necessary to develop a preliminary recommendation by the end of this month.
We had a number of folks come out to testify in support of the legislation at the public hearing last Tuesday.
And folks coming out to support the legislation highlighted the basis for keeping the property within the boundaries on a temporary basis, consistent with the Council's decision to do so last year.
and pointed to a number of factors that make these deliberations align with the intent of historic districts.
Namely, that the market was established in 1909, the Showbox building itself opened in 1919. Today, even many visitors go to both places.
When the Showbox opened, it opened actually as a public market, and there is both synergy of commerce in that people go to both places, but there's also a physical synergy between the building and the market itself.
Other items coming up this week for me, I have a committee meeting on Tuesday.
On the agenda for tomorrow's committee meeting includes a geographic and demographic analysis of hate crimes in Seattle.
presented by Dr. Tim Thomas from the University of Washington.
This is work that was commissioned as part of the City Auditor's work that I requested that the City Auditor do to look at hate crimes impacts in the city.
And so we've heard the report on the enforcement side of things, how cases are being handled by SPD and by the courts.
Basically a hypothesis that we asked the professor to test to see whether or not there are any geographic or demographic trends that can be identified by mapping the locations of hate crimes in Seattle.
In addition, on the committee agenda for tomorrow, we have a briefing item for SPU and the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to discuss their efforts to implement new solid waste storage and access requirements in new construction.
This is an item that I have brought up with both SPU and SDCI.
We had talked about it during our MHA discussions.
were interested in potentially making those changes during those discussions, but SPU and SDCI thought it better to handle them differently, but the upshot is that we know that people do a better job in multi-family housing recycling if the recycling, the garbage, and the compost facilities are all co-located on the same floor.
And so this would be changes to the building code to require new construction to have access to each of the three types of waste disposal facilities on each of the floors.
And so we're going to hear from SPU and SDC on their progress on drafting legislation and engaging with stakeholders in the development community about the need for this.
And then finally, we're going to have another briefing from the Arts Office on our fantastic Creative Advantage program and their good, amazing progress in getting creative advantage in all of the schools in the public school district.
They've made great progress.
As far as major events coming up this week, on Thursday, we'll be having a bunch of second graders from Roxhill Elementary coming to do a tour of City Hall and visiting me and my offices, as well as having some time here in council chambers.
Also, Thursday, I will be giving the Excellence in Advocacy Award at the Seattle Human Services Coalition's 27th annual Human Services Award event.
In addition, in the morning, also on Thursday, I will be attending The Shape of Trust, which is an effort of the city working with acclaimed playwright Sarah Porcabob, who has written an original script actually using our city employees' accounts of racial harassment, discrimination, and other experiences in the workplace that are evidence of the progress that we need to make as employers.
These stories were collected through the city's RSJI surveys, and I'm really excited to see this production.
If you recall, Council President Harrell, one of our One of the RSJI retreats that we had as a council was the one-man play on Langston Hughes.
The power of that event, I think, was a springboard for many on trying to figure out how we can use art to express the experiences of folks in our workplace.
And then lastly, on Saturday, I will be attending an event fundraiser honoring the Southwest Houston Family Services and the West Seattle Helpline.
This is a fundraiser that is held and sponsored by the Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation.
Thank you.
Councilmember Herbold, quick question on a related subject, but one that you didn't bring up.
At Pike Place Market, at that intersection of Western and Virginia, I've heard for much of a decade about the concern people have trying to drive through there and wait for pedestrians.
And SDOT has said for years to me, there's nothing that they want to do because it's a safe intersection.
Nobody's ever gotten squished, and so they think it's okay.
But the backup every summer gets to be pretty horrific.
Buster Simpson came up with an idea a couple of summers ago, and we pitched it to them, Ben Franz-Knight, of the idea of working with our police department, but bringing in an artist, and like what they've done in London, and other places, dressed up as a bobby, or in some cases, it's dressed up as a mime, but it gives pedestrians priority, but then stops the pedestrians and lets the cars go through.
We actually have somebody who is interested in putting forward money for the summer to give it a try, a pilot, but I'd love to see if it's something that you'd be interested in working with the artist Just as a pilot to give it a shot because it would make the neighborhood very happy.
Pretty creative.
That's Mary Gonzalez.
Thank you.
Good morning.
There's nothing on this afternoon's agenda from the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.
We are, however, scheduled for a regular meeting this Wednesday, June 12th at 930 a.m.
here in council chambers.
We will have only two items on that morning's committee agenda.
The first one will be a bill to consider allowing the mayor to enter into an interlocal agreement with King County for purposes of allowing a countywide emergency medical services levy.
to be put up for renewal on the ballot for King County voters at the next general election, which would be November 5th of 2019. So again, this council bill would authorize the mayor to enter into an interlocal agreement with King County and would further authorize King County to place on the ballot for the general election on November 5th, 2019, this initiative.
If approved by King County voters, a new levy would provide $436 million during a six-year period in total revenues to the City of Seattle's Fire Department for emergency medical services.
So, important bill.
It is expiring soon and it'll be important for us to submit a proposal for King County voters Seattle voters to consider renewal of these critical services.
The second item will be a presentation from the Department of Education and Early Learning who will be giving us a presentation on their RSGI work and so we will have their change team at the table providing us an update on their work in DEEL.
Really excited about that.
Some notable events that I'll be doing this week.
On Thursday, June 13th at 5.30 p.m., I'll be joining Councilmember Herbold and others at the Seattle Human Services Coalition for their 27th Annual Human Services Award Reception.
And I'll have the honor of presenting the 2019 Outstanding Organization Award.
Super excited about that.
And on Friday, June 14th at 10 a.m., I'll be joined by fifth grade students from Maple Elementary School.
It's like Councilmember Herbold and I have the same flavor of calendar this week.
And I'm really looking forward to having an opportunity to talk to them about the work that City Council does and making sure that they have that Civics 101 component as some of our younger constituents in the city.
And then later that afternoon, on Friday, June 14th, my office and I will be going up to District 4 for a field trip with a non-profit organization called Outdoors for All.
This is a non-profit dedicated to enriching the lives of children and adults with disabilities through outdoor recreation.
Really excited that my team and I have an opportunity to actually cycle around the district on adaptive bicycles, which I have never ridden, but looking forward to it.
So stay tuned.
We'll be posting lots of pictures and videos, I am sure of it.
On Saturday, June 15th at 7 p.m., I'll be joining the graduating class of the Institute for Democratic Future in Belltown to congratulate them on the culmination of their fellowship and the graduation of their class.
And then just sort of a point of personal privilege here, Cody Ryder from my office is actually graduating from that program on Saturday, making it a total of three of my legislative aides who will have graduated from that program, the other two being Brianna Thomas and Vee Nguyen.
So super excited about being there for that momentous occasion.
And then lastly, on Sunday, June 16th, at 1 p.m., I'll be joining neighborhood Safe Street organizations from all around Seattle right here at City Hall for a Rally for Safe Streets.
I'll have an opportunity to provide some remarks to the folks before all of the advocates who are gathering here will take a ride down 4th Avenue to Westlake Park.
It's a family-friendly event.
Starts at 1 p.m.
here at City Hall in the Plaza.
So if you are interested in Advocating for safe streets across our city join us on Sunday, June 16th at 1 p.m.
Here at the City Plaza at City Hall again.
It's a family-friendly event.
So if you Want to bring your kids and their bikes, please feel free to do so.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Councilman Gonzalez.
Councilmember O'Brien, I didn't mention the hearing on Tuesday of your committee in your absence.
Are you asking me not to repeat that to show that kind of leadership?
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee has one item on this afternoon's agenda.
It's an appointment to the Pedestrian Advisory Board.
And then, thank you for mentioning that.
The only committee meeting we have this week is the public hearing tomorrow evening.
really quick just for those that are tracking this on the out there you all are aware of the typical protocol and I just want to be clear with folks will the meeting will start at 530 central staff will give a brief presentation and I'm guessing it'll take about 10 minutes just a really high level overview of the types of changes that are being proposed in the legislation that I'm putting forward and And then I believe they will also walk through a couple of areas where they've heard there may be amendments and stuff, just to highlight those for the audience.
Then we'll immediately jump into the public hearing.
Folks will have up to two minutes each to talk.
We'll be here as long as it takes to get through everyone.
Like we often do, I've said if three or more people want to come to the microphone together, and combine their time for either one person to speak for five minutes or to share it across five minutes.
That would be fine too.
Just want to be clear with folks, when you come up to the microphone to be part of a group, that's your public comment.
You don't get to circle back with multiple other groups and then get your own two minutes.
But anyway, we expect to have a pretty decent crowd and probably be here for a couple hours tomorrow night.
That is all from me, Council President Harrell.
Thank you, Council Member O'Brien.
Okay, so we're going to move into Executive Session unless anyone has anything good for the order.
We are going to, as Presiding Officer, I'm announcing that Seattle Council will convene into Executive Session.
We actually have two subject matters that I explained earlier.
The purpose of the Executive Session is to discuss pending, potential, or actual litigation.
This gives us an opportunity for the full Council to discuss Confidential legal matters with our city attorneys is authorized by law, and a legal monitor is always present to make sure we reserve questions for policy for open public sessions.
And we expect this session to last one hour.
So we'll say a little over one hour.
So we'll say till 11 o'clock AM.
And if it goes beyond that period, I'll announce its extension and open session, and we'll extend it.
So having said that, let's move into executive session.