Seattle City Council Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee 6/26/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

It is Thursday, June 26th, and the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 2.02 PM.

I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee.

Council member Rivera will be joining us a bit later, but she did have an excusal for the first part.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

And we also have a council member Hollingsworth online.

Thank you.

Council member Rivera.

Council member Solomon.

Here.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Chair Nelson.

Present.

For present.

Thank you very much.

Okay, today we've got a mayoral appointment to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission for reappointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission and a roundtable discussion about downtown retail.

And no, that is not code for talking about organized retail theft, et cetera.

Rather, we've invited retail to the table because that's how we experience downtown, frankly.

things break.

And so retail is an extremely important sector in our economy, which we will delve into in much more richness later on.

But retail is also what differentiates one downtown from another.

So it's extremely important to recognize its importance and how government can help because I wanted to note that earlier today, coincidentally, there was a retail study workshop organized by the Office of Economic Development, where many of the roundtable panelists participated, and I was not able to attend that event, but I really appreciate and love how there's alignment and excitement between the executive and the legislative branches on this issue across the city.

So this is a sign that we're just beginning to really think about and delve into this important sector and how we can work together to improve it.

We shop, after all, browse, eat, drink, consume in retail establishments.

And we rate them and take photos and celebrate in them.

So they're a big part of our lives and yet, I don't know when we've ever asked as policy makers, how they experience the customer environment.

And I don't know if we've ever asked them what they think of our help or lack thereof.

So we just want to bring both sides, the inside and the outside together at the same table and talk about some fun stuff.

All right, we all want, after all I think, obviously, I'm not gonna speak for all of us, but I always say that we want a safe and vibrant downtown.

So supporting our brick and mortar retail sector is extremely important.

That's the agenda.

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

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

And now we'll move into the hybrid public comment period.

How many people have signed up today?

Chair, we have one in person and three online.

Okay, we'll start with the in-person speaker.

Everybody gets two minutes and then we'll move to the online.

Our first speaker is Alex Tismerin.

Hello, hello.

See hi, my dirty damn Nazi Gestapo pig, a bandita.

I love Seattle.

Hitler, fascism, 12th year.

Stalin, fascism, Tory year.

Mussolini, fascism, 25th year.

Seattle fascism will be go forever.

25th year will have the warranty.

My name, Alex Zimmerman.

It's about accountability.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I'm president of Stand Up America.

I support Trump for beginning.

I spoke in Consul Chamber 5,000 times, have 6,000 days of trespass, five times prosecute, and yesterday a Nazi fascist Gestapo pig cut my head.

Statement for election, totally, 200-year, 200-word, out.

Yeah, exactly.

This is exactly what I love, Seattle fascism.

Everything goes so long.

And I don't see future.

Can be changed?

No.

Look, nobody here.

700,000 idiot never come here right now.

It's a good sign.

Maybe we can change?

I don't think so.

When we have fascism, we have Gestapo, we cannot change this here.

In Europe, people did this.

But these people, not European people, these degenerative idiots who accept everything.

They accept one minute for talking.

They accept everybody.

They accept socialism.

They accept everything.

And nothing changed.

I lived here for 40 years.

And for last 25 years, I think, my God, ever Mussolini have only 25 years.

Yeah, you understand?

So I right now speak to everybody, the degenerative idiot, who not here, I'm only alone.

Viva Trump, viva new American revolution.

That is our only in-person speaker.

Thank you.

Please proceed with the online speakers.

Thank you.

And as a reminder for those online, when you hear the chime, you'll have 10 seconds left.

If you exceed that time, your microphone may be cut off so we can move on to the next speaker.

And please make sure to press star six to unmute yourself.

Our first online speaker is John Engber.

John, you can go ahead.

President Nelson and honorable committee members, my name is John Ingber, and I live in Seattle, where I'm the director of the Retail Industry Coalition of Seattle, a coalition of over 100 small Seattle retailers.

I'm calling to express our strong support for the Retail Roundtable.

Small retailers face many challenges, from public safety problems to the high cost of doing business in Seattle.

Increasingly, I'm finding retailers who are greatly reducing or totally eliminating employee hours.

In some cases, their stores are only open for the hours that the owner is available to serve your customers.

I really appreciate your taking the time to listen to the needs of Seattle retailers, especially the small retailers that are really the heartbeat of our communities.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next virtual speaker is Alberto Alvarez.

Thank you.

For the ethics board appointment, Seattle just fought back and defended our values against council corruption.

This is a victory to all who don't have a million dollar safety net of political influence.

The past year and a half has asked a lot from the ethics panel and director Wayne Barnett.

Mr. Barnett, if you are there, thank you for the many times you have been asked to do your job and the work you do for our city.

The decades of knowledge and public service you have are precisely what Seattle needs in this very moment of rampant corruption and chaos.

Also, As the tariff-driven economic downturn guts our city, the business types, just retail, will say, cut wages, roll back safety, let us exploit people for profit.

For the labor board appointments, you must protect our working class from thieving business owners.

and provide the stability we will need to weather the coming storm.

Hold strong and defend every right we have as the workers that keep Seattle strong and vibrant.

Thank you all and have a good day.

Our final virtual speaker is David Haynes.

David, go ahead.

All right, thank you, David Haynes.

Is there any way that council president can shift one available council member, perhaps herself, to take over the Housing and Human Services Committee?

Because there seems to be a lack of real effort from the landlords on the council to solve the homeless crisis.

Because nobody wants it in their district, but every district has to make an effort.

And we do not see that from this council.

And it doesn't seem fair that you all are just going to allow for the Housing and Human Services Committee to be counseled.

because an unelected special appointed counsel and co-chair member, who's also a landlord lying about it, weaponizing a technicality in the law, has better things to do than solve the homeless crisis with committee issues and agenda.

Counsel, because there is too much power-tripping accoutrements of privilege from the dais and more focused campaign propaganda coming out of a sensational, race-baiting, white man-hating special committee on federal administration and policy changes.

Even landlord council member Maritza Rivera, who's not there yet, counseled her committee meeting as the library continues to suffer the same public crisis and public health crisis that's impacting the budget and the economy crisis that the mayor has failed to address proper.

That council praises and defers to as if that's the image city hall wants to portray of going along to get along instead of solving the problems exacerbated by the executive and progressives on council who still represent bad policies from the dais.

failing at public safety crisis, the homeless crisis, the housing crisis, the small business and workers crisis, as if council is so preoccupied and motivated behind the scenes lobbying and questioning the ethics board and appointing a progressive law firm to see what the landlords on council can get away with, while rushing impatiently in committee meetings, watering down the integrity of deliberation and transparent governance, while continuing to sabotage the comprehensive plan with restrictions and state-bared minimums.

while raciously pointing the one Seattle plan to line the pockets of BIPOC community voting blocs of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protesters hiding behind racist, unqualified non-profit.

Thank you.

That is the final commenter.

All right, thank you very much.

Will the clerk, so we've reached the end of our list of public comment speakers, so the public comment period is now closed.

All right, we move on to agenda item one.

Will the clerk please read the title into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment 03145, appointment of Kai Smith as member of Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission for a term to December 31, 2027 for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Please introduce yourselves and then you may begin.

I'm Wayne Barnett, executive director of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

My name is Kai Smith.

I'm a partner at Pacifica Law Group.

Welcome.

Have at it.

All right.

Well, I'll just introduce the commission and I'll turn it over to Kai here.

Yep.

As you know, the commission, we administer the ethics code, the elections code, the lobbying code, the whistleblower protection code.

So that's our main, our main role is like educating folks on those and also enforcing those.

So, and Kai is volunteered to join the commission to help me do that.

Thank you, Wayne.

Yeah, I'm honored to be nominated and looking forward to serving the city of Seattle in this capacity if I'm approved.

Thank you very much for your willingness to serve.

Would you like to share a little bit about your background?

I'm happy to, yeah.

I've been a partner at Pacific Law Group for eight years now.

Much of my practice is representing public entities and nonprofits, and I see this hopeful role as a way to continue to serve the public as I do in my current capacity.

I have two young kids, very young kids, who are two years old and 10 months at home.

We live in Wedgwood with my wife, and happy to, as I said, happy to serve in this role.

Thank you.

Is there anything that you would like to add?

No, no.

And this is a mayoral appointment.

Uh, I think we last committee meeting or maybe it was the one before we also had a, uh, a council appointment.

Uh, do my colleagues have any questions?

And I'm also looking at the, go ahead.

Council member kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Welcome.

And I just wanted to bring up this real quick.

Mr. Smith and Director Burnett, welcome back.

A little quieter today than last time that you were here.

I was curious, because I had...

because of the earlier time.

I had some meetings with Mr. who I think is also, if I remember right, from Pacifica Law Group as well.

And his area of focus dovetailed quite nicely in terms of experience for this.

What is your area of work in terms of the law and your experience generally and specifically as it relates to the Ethics and Election Commission?

Yeah, happy to speak more about that.

I'm a litigator and counselor.

Many of my clients are public entities.

Full disclosure, the city of Seattle is one of them, but public entities from state entities to local governments, nonprofits, as well as public interest groups and advocates.

That litigation can be include everything from constitutional challenges under the federal and state constitution all the way down to contract disputes between vendors or parties.

In terms of how that work specifically rates to the Ethics Commission, much of my work is interpreting and guiding and litigating state statutes, sometimes city codes as well, city ordinances.

having that capacity to analyze sometimes dense and complicated ordinance or guidance material and applying that in the real world.

Something I do daily and I believe I'd be able to serve the commission in that way.

I should also note too that much of my work involves work in the election space as well.

I regularly litigate ballot titles at the state level and advise clients on the constitutionality and legality of legislation and proposed ballot measures.

Okay, that definitely, particularly that last part, definitely lines up in terms of experience related to the commission.

I was just curious too, In terms of the community involvement, I see the work that you've done.

Full disclosure, my wife's an attorney, so I've seen that she's done some similar work, similar organizations, and I was just curious if you could speak to your community involvement and how it's shaping your view generally or your desire to serve on this commission.

I'd be happy to.

I currently serve on the board of the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, which is a nonprofit organization that serves as a think tank and sometimes advocacy organization for economic justice.

I've served in that role for two years and look forward to continuing to do so.

I also serve on the Federal Western District Pro Bono Committee, which is an organization of lawyers that help to coordinate the pro bono program operated by the Federal District Court here in Seattle.

Our role is to make sure that cases that have been designated for hopeful pro bono assignments get assigned correctly and to make sure that that program runs smoothly.

With two kids, very young kids at home, I'd love to have more capacity for public service.

And I'm looking forward to taking on this role as well.

Yes, you get a pass with two young children.

Thank you.

Trust me.

But yes, I'm half tempted to say something about fairing the tree, but I won't go there.

Thank you, Council President.

Oh, I'm sure there is.

Okay.

Let's see, I'm not seeing any further questions or hands raised on here.

I have a question.

We are heading into, if not already, in what some people call the silly season, and so I've always wondered how the commission's demands change throughout the year, every two years or so.

So I understand the major blocks of work that the commission opines about, but does it just get really jammed at this time of year with elections?

It does, yes.

I will receive many more complaints in the next four months than I've received probably the other two years combined.

So yes, it does spike.

Mm-hmm.

And so do you meet quarterly, usually?

Usually you meet monthly.

Okay.

And so then I imagine sometimes you have to call for special meetings to deal with things.

Yes, we occasionally do have special meetings as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Confirms what I was thinking.

All right.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's see if there are no further questions.

Go ahead, please.

I just want to say you had me at CLU because I'm also an alum, so...

Go Red Hawks.

Yes.

Well, clearly you've got the experience to speak of not just the lobbying and the whistleblower complaints, I would imagine, but also your work on behalf of, I think it was the challengers to some of the initiatives last year does make you a great candidate for dealing with our elections questions.

So thank you again for your service.

And seeing no further questions, I would like to, let's see, I am moving up to this part.

I would like to move agenda item one and call for a vote on that.

Unless there's further discussion.

I move and I need a second.

Second.

Second.

Okay.

Go ahead.

It's been moved and seconded to proceed with a vote.

And let's go ahead and call the roll, please.

Council Member Solomon.

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Four in favor.

None opposed.

Excellent.

The motion carries and we will recommend your confirmation to the full council.

You're welcome to come to that meeting.

It will not be this coming Tuesday, but the following Tuesday.

And thank you very much again for your willingness to step up and serve.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, chair and council members.

I appreciate it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, our next item on the agenda is will the clerk please read items two through five as a slate into the record as they're all appointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission.

Reappointments, yes.

Appointment 3212, appointment 3213, appointment 3214, and appointment 3215. Reappointment of Marissa Baker, Greg Ramirez, Amanda Powder, and Samuel Hilbert as members of the Labor Standard Advisory Commission for a term to April 30, 2027 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much, and we're also joined at the table by Diana Salazar from OLS, the Office of Labor Standards, and three of the four appointments are here virtually, so thank you very much for joining us today.

With that, please say your name for the record, and then you may begin.

Thank you, Chair Nelson.

Good afternoon.

Members of the committee, my name is Diana Salazar.

I am a policy analyst for the Office of Labor Standards.

I am also a board liaison for the other board that our office supports, the Domestic Workers Standards Board.

This LSAC is actually supported by Shushan, who was already scheduled to be out of office when this was agendized, so I am here willing to do my best to represent the Labor Standards Advisory Commission, so I hope I can answer all your questions.

I will just give a brief introduction of what is LSAC, and as you mentioned, we do have three members remotely that can introduce themselves and answer any questions as well.

So the Labor Standards Advisory Commission, or LSAC, was established in 2016. It is a commission of 15 members comprised of business, community, and labor leaders tasked with advising our office, OLS, the mayor, city council, and other agencies regarding wages, working conditions, worker safety, health, and other labor standard protections.

The commission also provides feedback to OLS on the implementation of labor standards and the almost 20 ordinances that our office enforces.

Finally, the Enabling Ordinance, SMC 3.15, tasks LSAC to recommend efforts to achieve workplace equity for women, communities of color, immigrants, refugees, and other vulnerable workers.

That is my brief intro of LSAC, and I will pass it to three members that are online to introduce themselves.

Would you please call them in order so they're not wondering who's going?

Yes.

Let's go with Greg.

Good morning.

My name is Greg Ramirez.

Do you want me to just do that kind of brief introduction about who I am and my interest?

Do you want everybody to introduce themselves and then go from there?

Yeah, go straight into your intro and your experience.

Sounds good.

I can do that.

So again, good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Greg Ramirez.

I serve as Deputy Director and Chief of Staff of SEIU 6 Property Services Northwest.

We represent 10,000 members throughout King County, but majority of them work in Seattle.

Janitors, security officers, and then again, we have some airport service workers.

I have dedicated my career to being an advocate around workers' rights and labor standards.

And, you know, when this opportunity initially came about, I saw it as a way to kind of continue to, you know, engage around what I'm passionate about and representing not only like the members I represent, but just, you know, workers throughout the city of Seattle who may not be a part of a labor union.

For me, the biggest thing with LSAC is being able to continue to support OLS's efforts around education, not only for workers, but for businesses around what labor laws exist in the city of Seattle.

I think it's very important for folks to know what they are entitled to and as well as for businesses to understand what they are obligated to do under the law.

and ensuring there's a level playing field for those businesses, right?

And we're not giving unfair competitive advantage to those folks that adhere to those laws and others that may not.

And so again, this is a great opportunity and I'm hoping to be reappointed and I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any, but thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

Can we go with Amanda next, please?

Hi, thank you.

My name is Amanda powder.

I'm a resident of district six and a small business owner.

Perfect copy and print on Capitol Hill and district three.

I was appointed to LSAC last year and really excited to bring my experience and perspective as a business owner to the Commission and to learn more about how the Office of Labor Standards does its important work.

I continue to be energized by the ability to bring business owner perspective and have found the folks on the Commission and OLS very open and welcoming to work on this with our shared goals of a stronger community.

I've appreciated being able to join the LSAC Budget Subcommittee and help articulate the importance of outreach and education for businesses to make it as easy as possible to understand and implement ordinances on top of the abundance of things we have to manage and care about in order to run a business.

I was happy to see that budget preserved last year and thank the council for recognizing that.

LSAC recently I partnered with the Domestic Workers Standards Board and others to host a Know Your Rights forum geared towards both workers and business owners understanding the impact of immigration enforcement and how labor ordinances interact.

The presenters covered information for business owners like things like I-9 audits or different types of warrants and how to support our shared values, workers and businesses in Seattle.

Great information like this helps minimize the disruption to our businesses so owners can focus on the hard job of running the business and workers can thrive.

And then earlier this year, I was elected to co-chair LSAC joining Billy Hetherington, and I'm really excited to help continue to elevate and include business owner voices as we work with OLS, the mayor, the council, and other organizations to help Seattle's worker and business community be strong and grow at this critical time.

Thank you for consideration.

appreciate to be reemployed in thanks thank you amanda um samuel perfect hello i get to go last i think of this so um samuel holbert here i use he him pronouns i own a little sellers that's why i've got the pretty background behind me today um a little sellers we have locations on capitol hill ballard and queen anne i'm also a d7 resident uh i serve on the gsba board of directors and i'm on the queen and community council board as well so I love being involved in the community have really enjoyed my short time so far on LSAC similar to Amanda came in there was a big focus to make sure that there was a the voices of the business community were also represented through here really appreciated that because labor is very important to all of us but also at the same time it's important to make sure that that we talk about how we to communicate to the business community and also keeping the small businesses in mind at that same time personally on uh this is more on a state level but i get my first employee getting ready to go out on paternity leave um and i'm thankful for paid family and medical leave because he has the ability to do that at the same time and getting to see those opportunities from my employees has been exciting uh in our eight and a half years that we've been running so far in this small micro business and finding those resources and helping work through those resources on the seattle level as well i've been very excited to get to introduce lsac to some of the newer council members i've met with council member solomon and council member rink in that uh instance uh i'm also familiar with a few more of you sometimes in other in other situations as well that i've been working in uh but really excited to bring that uh the uh the voice of business to this commission and get to work with amanda as an uh the new co-chair there as well as well as Billy since the very beginning there.

So thank you for this opportunity.

I really hope for that chance to be reappointed to this commission.

Thank you, Samuel.

And we can take questions.

Yes.

Do my colleagues have any questions or comments?

Council member Solomon.

Thank you very much, council president Nelson.

A couple of quick things.

Greg, I think we've come across each other because I see in your background that you were at youth care.

And I believe our paths crossed because I was on the Board of Youth Care.

So I knew your name looked familiar.

So thank you for continuing to, you know, want to serve.

And then Samuel, I was looking at your background, seeing that you were at the Windermere office on Capitol Hill.

Were you working with Pat Graham at all?

Yes, I've been texting with him today, actually.

So yeah, I still actually work at that office.

Oh, interesting.

Okay, yeah.

Full confession, we were classmates at Seattle Prep.

So tell myself, hey.

And Amanda, thank you for your service and you continuing to serve.

The fact that folks were giving of their time to do this work speaks volumes about your commitment to how we function in the city.

And I do thank you all for your service.

And again, just wanted to give you, you know, those folks some acknowledgements and some shout outs.

So thank you very much, Madam President.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

For everybody online, I just wanted to say thank you for putting your name forward.

I should have said this last time, last agenda item with the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission.

to volunteer yourself does take time, takes effort.

There's trade-offs, so I appreciate standing up and looking to support our city in this, with labor standards in this case.

Really appreciate the varied background You know, we have a brick and mortar retail coming up and I noted, Samuel, that, you know, Mr. Hilbert, that you have that in your case and District 7, which may make you my favorite of the, sorry of the appointments.

Sorry to be parochial.

I think it's important to note, and I've done this each year, I have an annual meeting with OLS to get a baseline in terms of how they are seeing things, where are the issues in terms of labor standards and the like, and I think that's important for me to get from OLS, and I suspect it's important for OLS and the broader ecosystem to have this advisory kind of role and input, so I thank you for bringing it, and I do appreciate the varied backgrounds and perspectives that the three of you bring.

I also wanted to note too, and Mr. Ramirez, you spoke to this a little bit, but we recently passed a piece of legislation related to algorithmic rent price fixing.

And in my remarks, I noted that it is important in different aspects of that.

But also important was the idea that in America we have a level playing field.

And I think that's something that we should be mindful of in this area as well.

And so I think that's a concept in an American kind of way.

A little bit of the underdog, but the idea of a level playing field.

And it went to the price fixing legislation.

But I think it applies here too.

Having this kind of varied background, I think helps the ability to do that.

So thank you for volunteering your time.

By the way, I'm looking over my shoulder, because that's where I could see all of you at the same time.

And thank you for volunteering, Chair.

Thank you.

And I see that Council Member Hollingsworth has your hand up.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Just thanking Greg, Samuel, and Amanda for your service.

I know that it's volunteer.

You all have jobs, small businesses, all the things that you do.

So to add this to your resume and to the list of things that you're doing just speaks a lot about who you are as people.

And I also love what you all spoke about regarding the mix of the council and having just different perspectives, which I think is important.

I don't ever think business and labor should be fighting.

They need each other.

And so trying to figure out how they all work together uniformly and figuring out, hey, how we move forward together, I think is always a beautiful thing.

So just thanking you all wholeheartedly for your time.

And I know that you all will continue to do great work and work with our council to make sure that, you know, we can support our labor, our workforce, and also support our small businesses as well.

So and come out with some good policy.

So thank you.

Yes, and I will second that, those thoughts that it's important to have both the management and labor or the two sides together because I think they can both inform what they need and it provides for easier dialogue and what gets hashed out at those meetings is really important for the state of small business and workers rights in Seattle.

So, let's see, I move.

Did I already move?

I always forget.

Okay, great.

All right, if there are no further questions or comments, and I'm seeing none, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 03212, 213, 214, and 215. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded to confirm those appointments.

And unless someone raises their hand right now, I'm not seeing any, we will vote on those appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of appointments 03212, 213, 214 and 215. Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Five in favor.

Thank you very much.

The motions carry and the appointments have been confirmed.

So thank you very, very much for being here, for all of you for tuning in.

I'm looking at the screen here in front of me.

Congratulations on your reappointments and you are welcome to come on a week from Tuesday if you would like, but it's not necessary.

Thank you again for your time and effort, expertise.

Thanks, bye-bye.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

All right, moving on to our last agenda item.

And I will note that we have been joined by council member Rivera.

Yep.

Will the clerk please read item six into the record.

Brick and mortar retail round table discussion.

Okay, and so I would invite folks to come to the table.

I'll give a little spiel before we begin.

So come on up and feel welcome.

All right, so I think that It's a truism that, or I think most people buy into the notion that to be a world-class city, you have to have a world-class retail core in your downtown.

And since the pandemic, we've heard over and over again in different context that Seattle has struggled a bit more than other cities to bounce back from the pandemic in either the numbers or the length of time it's taking to get to some of those milestone numbers.

And I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for this, but more to the point, more salient, I think, is that there is, you hear more and more, as if it is obvious, but I question this, that brick and mortar retail is dead.

That's what you hear all the time, that e-commerce is taken over, but we really don't have to look very far to see that that's not true.

In fact, Bellevue Square, U Village, Alderwood Mall are all doing fairly well.

And I would say also that so is downtown, although it depends on what metrics you're looking at.

If you're looking at it from a quality of life and what it takes to feel like one belongs to a city, that might not be true for everyone or most people.

But the point is that to me, Brick and mortar matters.

And that is why I wanted to bring us all together here to talk about how we can strengthen the retail sector, the brick and mortar retail sector downtown.

So this is the third constituency specific round table discussion I've hosted in committee, in the economic committee.

and this new council has not been here for the first two.

The first one was a round table discussion I convened at my second committee meeting in 2022, February.

And it was with small business owners and representatives of neighborhood business districts that that I invited to come talk about the impacts of rising crime on their staff, on their customers, and on their own personal livelihoods.

And then the second roundtable discussion brought together small housing providers to talk about the rental housing market conditions and the challenges that they're facing there.

And they also spoke to some issues regarding permitting that elevate the burden of the increasing cost of renovations and repairs.

So this, however, I believe is the first time in recent history in Seattle, in, you know, Seattle government, that we have had major retail voices at the table to talk about what they're seeing in the retail space downtown, from the problems they're facing to some of the great new things that are happening, and what the city can do to help and support.

And we also have City Attorney Ann Davison at the table.

because a lot of her work on the high utilizer list directly impacts the retail sector when it comes to organized retail theft.

If that is still the expression, I think it might have changed to organized commercial theft.

Anyway, my point is that City Attorney Davison will add some thoughts about how some of her office's work has perhaps helped the downtown retail scene.

But regardless of who is here, it's very important to talk about how the city government can be aware of and help the sector that defines the city as Seattle.

When you really think about it, you think when people leave from a trip here, they think about where they went around the city.

And even people that live and work downtown also recreate in the retail sector.

So with that, I will simply ask each of our guests to introduce themselves.

The list of folks that we've got joining us online include Washington Retail Association and who will provide, this is, well, John Scholes and Alicia Shemwell will provide a general state of play overview.

We've also got the Downtown Seattle Association who's been working with Downtown Works, talk about some recent work they've been doing to cultivate retail downtown.

So that's John Scholes again and Midge.

And then we've got the city attorney, Ann Davison, followed by, it might not go in this precise order, representing Nordstrom is Laura Best, and BH Properties, Janelle Jensen, also, and that is the group that is a parent company, I believe, to Pacific Place.

And then finally, I'll provide some closing remarks if you're not super bored and wanting to get out of here by that time.

So with that, please introduce yourselves.

We'll start with the folks at the table and then move to the people joining us remotely.

Well, good afternoon, and thank you, Council President, for inviting me to participate in this.

Retail has been a very large part of my life for, I would say, the last 40 years.

And I am the founder and principal of a consulting firm called Downtown Works.

And Downtown Works is exactly what it says.

We work with downtowns to make the retail work, retail being the most visible of all land uses in a city or in a town, that it's important that we get it right and we keep it right.

Years ago, it was the malls who were the important purveyors of retail sales.

And all of a sudden, people realized, oh, well we have these wonderful cities and we have a lot of vacant stores, what are we gonna do with them?

And fortunately, Downtown Works was around to help them out.

And I would say we started this in the late 80s, working with business improvement districts and with cities and with small developers on creating merchandise mixes on what would be the best strategy to, what would be the best stores to populate their streets, but more importantly, how do we go about getting these best stores?

I've had many conversations with John Scholes over the years, and I've talked to him about the need for having a retail advocate that knows retail, that works in downtown for his organization, unfortunately, because the city made it possible through some funding to pay to have a retail advocate for downtown.

And when John talked to me about it, I said, oh, great.

I said, I'd be happy to train someone to do that.

And he said, no, I want you to do it.

And I thought, well, that'll keep me off planes and I can stay in Seattle.

Our practice is national, so we've worked in many major retail markets across the country.

And what we found was that if you had a will...

Hold on, hold on.

I would like you, can you talk about what you found a little bit later?

I was hoping for people to...

Oh, okay, just...

Yeah, just the name, affiliation, and then we'll move on.

Okay, that's it.

Thank you.

But that was a good teaser.

Right, and I have my colleague here with me, Tom Boudreau.

Go ahead.

who's come in for the day.

I'm Janelle Jensen here with BH Properties.

I've worked my entire career focused on retail in the greater downtown Seattle area from a number of different perspectives.

I started my career as a broker.

representing local business owners as well as national tenants and owners in the market, and then worked for a previous ownership group and have touched every side of a lot of different transactions, working with local business owners, working with local landlords, and now working with the ownership group at Pacific Place.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Thomas Boudreaux.

I am the operations advisor to Downtown Works, and basically I'm the numbers guy.

City Attorney Ann Davison, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, let's go up there starting with Alicia, please.

good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity for this round table today my name is Alicia Shumwell and I represent a number of different organizations that deal with retail interest in particular Washington Retail Association the Washington Business Properties Association and the International Council of Shopping Centers I've always lived in Seattle and I love this town and retail has been a part of my life since I think for over 25, 30 years.

So just excited that this we have this opportunity to be here today.

Thank you.

Laura, please.

Good afternoon.

My name is Laura Best, and I'm the store manager at the flagship Nordstrom.

And I also really want to thank you for inviting Nordstrom to be a part of this meeting.

I've been with Nordstrom for 38 years this year.

I recently managed our Bellevue store for the last six years and have been downtown for about eight months now.

And I love it.

I live in Seattle.

I've always lived in Seattle since I've been here and part of the community.

I'M VERY APPRECIATIVE OF BEING ASKED TO PARTICIPATE.

THANK YOU.

AND GO AHEAD, JOHN.

GOOD AFTERNOON, COUNCIL MEMBERS.

JOHN SCHOLZ, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE DOWNTOWN SEATTLE ASSOCIATION.

THANKS FOR ORGANIZING THIS IMPORTANT CONVERSATION TODAY.

All right, thank you all very much for being here.

So the order of speakers that we have, we'll begin with Alicia from the Washington Resale Association, who will be joined by John with sort of the higher level overview of what we're gonna be talking about today.

And then we'll proceed with Midge and John, then City Attorney Davison, then Nordstrom with Laura Best, and Pacific Place, Janelle Jensen, and then closing remarks.

So let's, if we can resist asking questions during their remarks, that would be great.

But if you have to ask a clarifying question, please feel free to do so.

All right, with that, I leave it to Alicia and John.

Go ahead, please.

I would never cut in front of Alicia except for this one moment because I'm at the airport and about to jump on a plane.

Otherwise, I wouldn't do that.

And I would be there in person, not joining you virtually.

So sorry for not being able to do that.

But I did want to just offer a few opening uh comments um from the perspective of of downtown and that is one uh you know as mitch noted uh brick and mortar retail is is alive and well around the country around the world people want to have this in-person physical retail experiences and you can see that in bellevue you can see it in parts of seattle you can see it in tokyo london and other places uh two a healthy retail environment for downtown is important for a host of reasons.

Job creation, strong tax base, alive and active and safe streets.

And I want to thank you, Council Member Kettle and Council President Nelson Council or City Attorney Davidson for your work to create a safer operating environment for our retailers and everybody else and to the other council members who've taken a number of votes to do that we're in a much better place because of your efforts to improve safety in downtown and another neighborhood business districts and in a city and in a state where sales tax is so important to our local regional and state budgets a healthy retail sector and core in downtown and in Ballard and Capitol Hill and other parts of the city is important to how we fund important services to our city.

We have made progress over the last number of years and we have more openings and closings, but we still have a ton of work to do.

We have a record number of vacancies in our downtown and those empty storefronts mean fewer jobs and fewer tax revenues to the city.

We're grateful for the partnership we have with the Office of Economic Development to be able to bring Midge on board to support additional prospecting and recruiting, get closer to our existing retailers, many of whom have really strong stories to tell about their sales numbers, and enlisting their help in helping us recruit and prospect for other retailers to come into our downtown.

So we are committed to this work.

The help that the city can provide is to continue to create a safe, predictable operating environment to ensure that the operating costs are competitive with other areas.

And I will say the B&O tax proposal that was announced yesterday is not a helpful selling point to our efforts to attract retailers to Seattle.

There's a lot of large spaces that are vacant from Nike Town to many others, 10,000, 20,000, 25,000 square foot spaces.

They're not easily divided.

So to secure a tenant into those spaces, it's somebody that's gonna be subject to that new B&O tax.

That's not a welcome message that that they're wanting to hear as they consider lots of other options for where they can locate whether it be Bellevue or lifestyle centers or other downtown.

So we appreciate the partnership we've had with the city to create a safer environment to recruit and retain look forward to the conversation.

And we have some of the best assets in our downtown in the Nordstrom flagship and Pike Place Market.

These are two anchors that any downtown would just die for.

And so we've got a lot to work with as we rebuild, but we are in a fragile place and we're in a rebuilding phase.

And I think the best days are ahead of us, but we've got our work cut out for us and thankful to have a great set of leaders at the table, Janelle, Midge, Tom and Alicia and Laura on the line as well.

So I'll be listening in, but we'll leave it at that.

And again, thank you, Council President, for organizing this important conversation.

All right.

Thank you, John.

And actually, hold on just a second, please.

Thank you so much for squeezing us in and prioritizing this, even though you're on the road.

So thank you, John.

Go ahead, Alicia.

Sure, he covered a lot of what I was gonna say, but what is great about having this is that I was hearing from a lot of our members that there hasn't been an official forum or the retailers have not been asked to be a part of a discussion and have a place to go to look at how to remove obstacles, come up with ideas.

Let's look at the future, let's make those changes.

The best way to attract new retail is for the existing retail to be part of that story and help attract.

And so just having this forum, having conversations, thinking about ways that we can make it easier for retailers to come in and to want to come in, I think are going to be very important.

And I look forward to hearing from Laura and Janelle regarding some of the ideas they have based on their actual facilities in downtown Seattle.

And full disclosure, I have to say that J.J.

McKay arranged this meeting between you and me and just thinking that we should talk, knowing our respective interests.

And we really took off.

And you convinced me that it only makes sense to ask for the perspective of the retail sector.

And I just want to say that this conversation today is going to be highlighting just what's happening in the retail sector and what you're experiencing.

It's not just going to be about what is going wrong.

It's also going to be about what is going well and give us some insights because you are people that see retail across the board in other cities.

And so that is That is why I value your perspective and I'm sure that we will come out of this meeting with some ideas for how the city can help that are practical and implementable.

Sorry to interrupt, but please go on.

No, that's very appreciative.

You know, just eager to partner with the city and come up again, looking at how to move forward, how to make Seattle, you know, as great as possible and retail, you know, Ground level retail and hospitality is so important to the vitality of a city.

It creates the community.

It represents what we are.

And so, you know, this whole forum is just to look at how we can get there.

We've made a lot of progress coming back.

It's just how do we get there further?

Right.

And why don't you just tell people where you are right now and then we'll move on to midge.

I am in my hotel room.

I am at the Washington retail board retreat right now and had to step out of it for this, but I'm, it was worth it and I'm excited to be here.

And give a report back to them.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's see.

I think on my next list, go ahead, please.

Go ahead, Mitch.

Why don't you provide your, I'm sure that you are not finished speaking.

I've never finished speaking.

When it comes to retail, as I was saying earlier, as I was going out of turn here about what we want to talk about retail-wise, I found out many years ago that you can orchestrate on city streets the same way a mall developer would by creating a strategy, what are the types of stores we need for the customers that we have here in our market, and how do we get the stores that we need.

And so you strategize, and it's easier to do when you have a mall and you have one owner, but that owner also has probably financial partners that have to be a part of the decision-making.

But in a city, it's very different because you have multiple landlords, and they're not all working to make one another better.

They're working to make their projects as good as they possibly can.

So, we found that after I left working for a large shopping center developer, that it was about the infancy, it was the time when bids were in their infancy, And New York City had some of the largest ones, but they were probably part of the first 10 business improvement districts in the country were run by Dan Biederman in New York City.

in the Grand Central Partnership.

He had Bryant Park Restoration, and he had 34th Street.

And they were, two of those three were very large bids, and he needed retail help.

So he asked my partner and I if we would come and work with him in New York.

So for seven years, we were consultants to them.

And we had 700 different landlords.

And we found that with hard work and with a good story to tell, that you could make a difference, and you could make stores look better, you could bring in better mix of stores, and they would then, as a whole, perform better.

And when they performed better, the rents went up.

So the landlords were happy, the retailers were happy, And the customers were happy.

So we found out that, yes, with a well-articulated plan, you can sell things to multiple landlords, and they will work together and realize that their properties become more valuable.

is kind of our thoughts took us across the country to work in a variety of different cities to create plans.

But what was missing was how do you implement the plans?

And what we found is if you had somebody who worked, generally it was with the business improvement districts, often funded by the city, that they, because they had the close relationships with the landlords, that you could sell your plan.

And we called this person a retail recruiter, because their job was to go out and find retailers.

And they worked with both nationals and locals in the independents.

And the nationals are not pioneers.

They won't be the first in.

They follow good local merchants, successful local merchants.

So we realized that, well, who is this person that's going to shepherd the plan, the retail recruiter?

So we would train people to go out and recruit stores.

And these were people who knew good retail from bad retail.

They were people that were tenacious.

Can you talk a little closer?

Had a passion for their downtowns, for the cities that they lived in.

So I've trained over 60 different advocates across the country.

And that was when John came and asked me if I would do it for Seattle.

So that's what my role is in downtown right now.

And if I hadn't asked, it is that when my contract is up, I don't care if you hire me or somebody else, but this is a position that you need to...

Thank you.

This is a position that is long-term in nature.

It takes a long time from the time you meet a retailer until an actual deal is made.

The job of the retail advocate is not to be the deal maker, but is a matchmaker, is to bring prospects to landlords or the landlord's representative, the brokers, because we don't want to cut the broker out of the deal.

We want to make the broker's life easier, because the job of a retail advocate is a is a salaried position, so it's not based on commission or how speedy a deal gets made.

It's a long-term proposition.

So that's one thing I would ask the city, that you continue a role like this.

These retail advocates are very important to their to their downtowns and to the success of retail through working with the landlords, working with the prospects, and working with city officials and permitting and going through the construction process.

It's a very important position.

Thank you.

I'm going to interrupt just from my own rule, just allow other folks to join in.

You told me this four years ago when I met you on the campaign trail in 2021. And it really made an impact on me that the best cities support the retail sector by actually having a plan for recruitment.

And we hadn't had that, and so I worked that into my campaign plan.

We cannot take for granted that we've got a beautiful city, and so people just want to come here.

We have to go pitch our city to other people, but it has to be the right businesses and the right location.

And the thing that I remember you saying is that a rising tide floats all boats.

Yes, and I think I have to say after meeting with a variety of stakeholders, landlords, and retailers in downtown through my research over the last several months, that there are retailers that are excelling in their sales in downtown right now, and all they're asking for is to have good neighbors like them because the more neighbors like them, the stronger the sales will be, the stronger the business will be, and the more we'll attract.

And I was talking to someone whose job it is to retain businesses in a city, and I said the best way to retain your retail is to bring in good neighbors to those retailers.

That's the best way to retain.

Thank you.

Let's see, who is next?

Let's see, Tom, did you want to add anything to that?

Go ahead, please.

I thank you.

The city, I believe through the OED, has engaged a consultancy to help analyze data for the downtown core to figure out exactly where retail should be going.

And this morning, there was a workshop at the DSA that was conducted by Mr. Bobby Boone, the consultant.

And the most interesting conversation that was unexpected blossomed forth from that.

that workshop, and that is that there seems to be an unfortunate lack of coordination amongst a variety of stakeholders.

And that's extremely unfortunate because a lot of money and a lot of effort is being spent, yet it doesn't seem to be coalescing through a glue that's holding everyone together.

So Midge had her ask of hoping that the city or through other sources will consider a full-time retail advocate.

My ask of the city and to all of those present is that there become a more coordinated effort amongst all of those stakeholders to ensure that this very important project, this goal, is achieved.

I thank you.

Thank you.

Sounds like we need a dot connector and a sort of an encourager, a professional encourager.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

And let's, I would like to speak, so does it make sense I have you, City Attorney Davison, next on the list, but why don't we, I think maybe since we're going with external partners, Laura Best, you are next on my list with Nordstrom, so please go ahead, I'm looking at the screen here.

Thank you.

I think I'm not adding a whole lot of differences than what's been brought up, but I guess the one thing I would say is Nordstrom has been a long part of the Seattle community.

Next year, we're celebrating our 125th year, and it all started about two blocks away from here.

So we've been heavily involved in the community down here.

For us, the vibrancy of downtown is gonna require us, as Mitch said, to have a surrounding cast of restaurants.

and other retailers that bring people down for more than just one trip.

It's coming down for an afternoon of shopping or spending time downtown.

And we need help with ensuring that we're getting, attracting new retailers, but also working to keep the retailers that are here from leaving.

And I think there's been quite a bit of attrition over the last few months and years actually.

So any efforts made there would be helpful for us to keep those people in place And of course, just, you know, the continued focus on safety or even the perception of safety downtown.

I think, you know, having been here for eight months, I feel like it feels there's been a lot of progress made, but I'm not sure that other people see that or know that maybe outside of here.

So far reaching in other parts of our city to make sure people know it is safe here.

That perception I think would change a lot of folks from making their decisions to go to other shopping destinations.

It would give people that security about coming downtown.

And I guess probably one of the biggest things I hear from people in the store and around is just the parking is hard.

If you're going to go shopping, you know, if you go to Bellevue or Alderwood or any of those other places, there is obviously free parking.

which for customers that are deciding where they're going to shop, I think that's an important component.

And any efforts that we could do to subsidize parking or something that would make it easier for people to come down and shop, I think would be really important.

And I think we're just really appreciative of the efforts and the attention to the subject of getting retail going downtown.

We are obviously We're here, we're part of this community, and we are really looking forward to partnering with everybody in the community and everyone in this committee to see what can be done to improve the traffic downtown.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, go ahead, please, Janelle.

I don't know how much time I have, but I could seriously talk forever on this subject from so many different perspectives because I live in the city of Seattle.

I have two young kids.

I'm a consumer.

I spend tons of time downtown Seattle.

And then obviously in my career have spent all of my time kind of helping, trying to shape and move forward the retail experience downtown Seattle.

And I do appreciate what everyone said.

I mean, I think we are moving in the right direction, but I want to really strongly emphasize how fragile that is.

And I think if we don't continue to put more support and infrastructure and emphasis on retail in downtown, we could very quickly go in the wrong direction.

Doing deals and attracting tenants across every industry and local, regional, and national is a really difficult thing right now.

The cost of doing business in Seattle is higher than anywhere in the country, and that is a huge factor in the decision-making for all of these different groups.

They could go open a store in a lot of other places, and it could be less expensive, easier, all of those things.

And I think we're all working really hard to do what we can to make it more compelling for those operators, despite those things, to open stores downtown and support the retail in Seattle.

And I mean, Again, it's a huge component of the sales tax revenue for the city, so it really should be an important focus.

And it's also outside of the airport really the first and sometimes only experience anyone visiting Seattle has in our region, so it really is so important.

I feel optimistic as I'm having conversations with operators every day, but they're really, really difficult creative deals that we're structuring.

So I just want to balance out.

There's optimism, but there's still a lot that needs to be done.

And I think Midge's ask is really important because there are a lot of us that are volunteering our time to support the efforts and join roundtables this morning and do whatever we can to continue to cultivate this grassroots effort around it, but I think it does need to be more organized and thoughtful and with support from the city and the city council.

Most of us haven't touched on the public safety element because we feel like it's moving in the right direction, but I think it's not.

Again, it's a very fragile thing, and if that changes, it has a devastating impact on our efforts to change things downtown.

I will say in my current role and in past roles, I've participated with the Office of Economic Development to support the Seattle Restored program.

And I've had the opportunity to do probably 12 different deals with different ownership groups on the landlord side to support that effort.

And I I think it's been a pretty successful program and I hope to see it move forward and we're hoping to sign three leases with them probably tomorrow in Pacific Place.

But I think there's a lot more opportunity with that program because there is a lot of vacant space downtown and I think there's some ownership groups that haven't been able to experience the benefit of it and could be motivated in other ways to participate.

So I would put that out there as something to think about and to add to the list of potential opportunities of ways to improve the landscape and experience in the short term.

I know there's a lot of emphasis around that with FIFA coming.

And I'm just going to say, which I've said on a panel with Midge before, I think we're behind in terms of the opportunity to improve the ground floor landscape in the short term for that FIFA experience.

And so I think providing some quick short-term focus on that in partnership with the Office of Economic Development and possibly Seattle Restored or whatever that looks like, There's a lot of opportunity there.

I think the other opportunity I see as something that is a direct ask for this group goes hand in hand with what Laura said.

Both from a retailer perspective and a consumer perspective, a challenge of operating or consuming in a downtown urban environment are the cost of parking.

And as a resident in South Seattle, I have the decision to get on I-90 and drive to Bellevue and have safe, free parking with my two kids and my stroller or go north and go to U Village.

But because I love downtown and I care about downtown, I come downtown, but I always end up paying for parking.

And that is a significant variable in how a lot of people make decisions.

And I don't know how many years ago, 10 or 12 years ago, the downtown, I don't know how it was structured, but there was a subsidized retail Parker program that the city offered in conjunction with some of these parking lots throughout the city, which are underutilized in off hours that aren't, you know, when office workers aren't there, there's a plethora of stalls in the downtown environment that just sit empty.

And so I think that there's an opportunity there to bring back a program like that that encourages people to spend their money in the downtown environment and therefore support retail and help us support stronger sales to retain a lot of these operators and then use those sales to recruit more retailers to the downtown environment.

So I think that that is something that I would highly recommend putting some focus around and also just kind of back to Midge's ask, like having someone focused on retail downtown helps move initiatives like that forward and then bring more of those dollars into the city of Seattle versus sending them to Bellevue or other places.

You're talking about private parking underneath, like Pacific Places garage, not surface parking lots.

Yeah, not surface parking.

I mean, there's a lot of office buildings in proximity to all of the retail that no one's utilizing that parking in off hours.

And I know from work...

Sorry, what?

I said, oh, yeah.

Yeah, and I know from work with previous ownership groups, that's one way that they can contribute and help support things moving in the right direction.

So I think there's just, I mean, I could dive into more detail in a smaller group about my ideas of how that could function.

And I'm sure there's plenty of other parking experts that could do the same, but I think it's just one thing.

small thing that we can do to support retailers like Nordstrom's and all of these, not all of these, there's really kind of only a handful of soft good retailers left in the downtown environment right now.

But I think that's something that we could do to support the effort and help build back more of a retail district in the core of Seattle.

Thank you.

Okay.

Noted.

All right, go ahead, State Attorney Davison.

Well, I don't wanna turn it to some of the problem identification because I do really appreciate being able to listen to all of you and kind of have the story here.

I just wanna say thank you because I have lived in Seattle for nearly 30 years And one of the first things I noticed and really resonated with me was, wow, people live and work and recreate downtown.

I've not been in a downtown place that has that.

And so that was in the late 90s.

And so it sounds like the plan was already underway and it was taken notice by me to where that's why I wanna be part of the, continue the revival.

I agree with all of you that we've made some improvements, but it is precarious and we have to make sure that you all and your expertise and the plans and the things that my colleagues here, the council can provide is pursued.

I fully agree with the FIFA World Cup part that we need, this is our opportunity and we probably are behind a little.

from that, because I did go on Monday to the game.

And so it was interesting from that standpoint.

But Taman, if you want to put up the slide I brought, perfect.

I just wanted to at least highlight some of the things that does provide the look for the progress that maybe the retailers, the brick and mortar stores have experienced over the last couple of years.

But again, noting that we're not at a place where I'm settled whatsoever on it.

And so really it was started in March of 22 with the High Utilizer Initiative, which helped us with data to provide that 118 individuals were responsible for over 3,500 police referrals.

So it really was a small number of people to focus on who really were causing a lot of chaos and a lot of criminal activity.

And a lot of it was associated with retail theft.

And so that's been a significant piece that we've been focused on as we were part of that.

Vibrant Cities with the National Retail Industry Leaders Association and working on this program that my office started.

So we can start to see how we can supplement so you all can stop worrying quite so much about public safety, hopefully, and get back more into this subject matter.

And if I stay focused on my role, which is making sure I'm the enforcement piece after the police send things to my office that we prosecute.

So that's why we have the charge rate down there at the bottom to show that my increase from 21 when we really probably all recall what it was like and not a lot of retail activity going on.

We're trying to supplement that.

And as you said, bring in more neighbors to the retailers that are there to help them.

So the increase of the prosecution for retail theft has continued and will stay that way.

That is a main focus for me because really, it not only is just that it harms, as people were saying, like from the tax revenue for the sales tax, but it's the shrinkage rate, right, that the retailers are having to just swallow themselves in the form of if there's not prosecution for the criminal activity, we're not gonna deter it.

And so then the retailers are not gonna wanna be here because they're having so much shrinkage from retail theft that's not prosecuted.

And then that leads to then the lower of the sales tax that we all have to rely upon for revenue streams.

So I see that my part is really critical as you then start to do this next phase.

And so just to help support you all and say that I'm here and happy to come to any location and just really fascinated with all of the plans that I hear you all do as a consumer, mainly myself.

in your space.

It's really fantastic to know all these things are thought through so well.

So I really do thank you all for your efforts to make our city a place that is vibrant and exciting and people talk about.

And I just did a Times interview about people who just talk about it online.

Like what's it like in Seattle?

Is it really that bad?

We do need to take that opportunity to change our national reputation.

We are on the upswing.

We are in a different direction and we are a place where the laws matter and people should feel that can come here and invest and be a tourist and have their family members come.

And our vibrancy in downtown core is where we need to highlight that and show we have things working well.

Thank you.

Thank you for that input.

I'll just say two things.

Number one, I have heard from precinct captains around the city that your high utilizer list is helping them identify the people who are repeat offenders and focus their attention on those folks and getting you the information that you need to file charges.

So I'll say that it is having a positive impact.

And the other thing I would like to say is that at our next committee meeting, we will have the auditor's office at the table to talk about their end of the year report in which they will be providing information on the progress on the implementation of all of their recommendations, including the organized retail theft Just tell me what the term of art right now is.

Do you?

Well, there's different levels.

The organized retail theft is at a felony level.

So that's not where I prosecute.

I'm the individual.

So that still is an item.

So that you should be focused on because it is organized.

But then I'm at the individual activity where it really does matter, though, because Again, when you look at our chart here, the number of people that were the repeat offenders has gone down because the message has gone out that there will be prosecution.

You cannot just go and do one or two or three thefts and we're not now paying attention to you.

And it became known that this was something to avoid because we were able to get around the booking restrictions that we previously had at King County Jail.

with that list and so it became known and officers frequently knew these people anyway but we're thankful to be able to have a partner for the work that they do and they respond to retail locations that someone is there to prosecute that.

Okay.

Uh, is there anything that anybody forgot to say, which is what I always do?

All right.

I would like to, um, open up the conversation to, uh, questions and comments from my colleagues.

Council member Solomon.

Thank you very much.

Uh, Madam council president, uh, want to get to, um, getting to the bottom line, right?

Uh, I'm thinking about the vacant storefronts that we have downtown.

I'm thinking about the, vacant spaces that we have at Pacific Place.

What's your top three?

How do we get these spaces filled?

How can we incentivize that?

I don't know if I can narrow it down to three, but I think, I guess, yeah, one of the things I didn't touch on is permitting, and that's going to be huge.

So I've just joined the team at Pacific Place 10 weeks ago, so I'm new to the job, so I'm not going to take responsibility for the past, and my company has only owned the asset for a year.

But I've made a lot of early progress in the past 10 weeks based on just relationships and knowledge of the market.

So I think permitting is huge, streamlining the permitting process, especially for a second-generation environment like Pacific Place.

And I'm happy to work with whoever to get into more specifics about my experience with that.

In my past role, I worked in a handful of markets, and I will say that is one thing Portland did really well, is have a dedicated permit reviewer for specific larger assets to make things easier so someone's not learning on the job and trying to get up to speed.

So I think permitting is top of my list.

I think, I mean, midges ask around a specific person that is focused on retail is probably number two because In all of my conversations with retailers, they want to understand the sales volumes in the market to support opening a store and being able to pay rent in the city.

And that's not information that's readily available.

You have to go make a million calls to get one sales volume to help then continue that conversation with a retailer to say, X, Y, and Z has a strong volume, and that will then help you support your ability to feel comfortable that you can do the sales and move forward in especially a city that's expensive to do business in.

So I think that would be very helpful.

Do other cities have a publicly available database?

No, I don't know of any.

So, you know, it's not as easy as that because those are things that people keep close to their vests for one reason or another.

So it is kind of a grassroots effort to get the information that you need to to have to be able to have those more creative conversations, especially because a lot of the deal structures that are happening right now are not a traditional rent structure.

The environment has changed, especially in a city like Seattle.

Tenants aren't like, yeah, I'll come pay a ton of rent to lease your space.

You're having to structure really creative economics based on sales, a percentage of sales.

So having that information is really helpful to support getting them comfortable with that.

I'm trying to think of what number three is.

I mean, I do think interim programs like Seattle Restored are really helpful, and I think a great resource to start to make these spaces feel vibrant in the short term.

That is my goal in partnering with them in past roles.

And specifically at Pacific Place, I'm really excited about that opportunity for a partnership to start to give people a safe environment to come and bring their kids and have things to do other than the couple of tenants that we have there right now.

And it also is a great incubator for small businesses to test operating in the downtown environment and showcase their brand.

And, you know, sometimes it works and sometimes it's not what they want to do, but it was a great opportunity for them to try to do that.

And it's very...

It's a very synergistic opportunity, I think, on both sides from a landlord perspective and a tenant or a local business operator perspective.

I mean, those are some of the things.

I think it's a much longer conversation.

I mean, I was a part of the round table this morning and There's a lot of other things that came up, and I don't know that it makes sense to get in that much detail right now.

But I do think continuing this conversation and this forum to help everyone understand how complex that situation is right now.

Excuse me.

Great, thank you.

And if I could just do a follow-up.

You had mentioned parking subsidies.

I realized, you know, having been to Pacific Place a lot and having parked there a lot, I actually see that parking revenue as something that benefits the property owner or the company.

So if we were to essentially have free parking, that would be a financial hit to your folks, wouldn't it?

So I think that there's a way to structure it where it's a partnership, right?

Like it's a partnership with the city and it's a partnership with different building owners.

But I think doing anything to encourage getting people downtown that are not coming downtown is a positive thing, right?

And then being able to generate those bodies to support the sales is a rising tide.

Like, having a vacant building with no retailers is not a positive situation.

And so you need to be able to get those bodies downtown to then be able to bring in more retailers in the downtown environment.

So yes, it could be more challenging if there's other garages where parking is subsidized or free.

But I think you set up a platform where it's a partnership between both the city and the different garage owners.

So anyone has an opportunity to participate if they want.

It doesn't necessarily need to be fully subsidized by the city.

The owner of the garage has to be willing to participate in some way to balance that out.

Thank you very much.

And I'm thinking that with office towers that don't have the retail destinations on the weekends or maybe during the week when people, because of the vacancy rates, are not parking there already, a little bit of money would be better than no money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm sure that also, I'm also thinking about our nightlife, the component of downtown, you know, and if there were, if there was reduced cost parking, I'm supposed to really say people should be coming in on buses and light rail, but the point is that the benefits would accrue to our art sector as well downtown.

I can see that.

And that helps with security costs and just safety concerns, right?

Having more people doing good things in an environment, especially on nights and weekends, helps push away the negative.

So there's a lot of benefits.

And layered on top of this, not to bring public safety into every single meeting, but that's what we do is that we know that the city's responsibility is to do everything possible to create a safe environment for people to want to come downtown.

So we are not at all unaware of our role, which is one of our charter responsibilities.

So I got that.

Okay, I see Council Member Hollingsworth.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll be super, super quick because I just had one quick question.

And we only have one retailer here right now, right, which is Nordstrom's representative.

Thank God for Nordstrom's, okay?

I'm going to say what we all, what a lot of people say, okay?

Seriously.

Just because of, I do believe that you all, there's a bunch of stores downtown, but you all are really the anchor.

for a lot of businesses.

And thank you for staying downtown and leaving in Seattle.

So I just wanted to say that first off.

The second thing, and what a lot of university district and Bellevue and other places have in common, because I'm thinking life after the public safety piece, because people said, hey, if you make it safe, great.

It's incredibly clean.

University District and Bellevue.

It's well lit.

It's clean.

And I think that really makes a difference.

And it's a sense of safety as well.

I know we talk about safety in the sense of first responders, mental health, cleanliness, lighting is huge.

And so my question to you all is the old days of you know, the downtown, sorry, Nordstrom, the Macy's and the Bon Marche and all those things.

Those, you know, I know a lot of people when I talk to folks are like, yeah, you know, and that nostalgic, right, the 90s, the early 2000s, that's just not coming back.

And so what types of businesses can we as a city council do to encourage, and I'm not saying it's not coming back, but I think there's a shift in the attraction of millennials, Gen Zs, and young people to reestablish what downtown, because right now, if you're a young person, your downtown is usually Capitol Hill.

That's what, there's a lot of people, that's where a lot of the nightlife is, Capitol Hill.

Older millennials with kids, you go to U Village, because they have the places for the kids, they have the, you know, areas, parking, all these different things.

But when I go to Vancouver, BC, whose downtown is vibrant and popping, and a lot of people at all hours of the day, a lot of the things I also see down there is not just retail, but it's a mixture of activities.

It's the attractions.

It could be a dog park.

It is the massive thing that they have for kids to be able to play indoors and whatnot.

things that you think that the council needs to look forward for downtown to figure out how we can make it more attractive for event spaces, just things that stimulate downtown in addition to the shopping piece.

Thank you.

I can make one comment related to that because I'm just very in touch.

Oh, I can make one comment related to that.

And I think you're spot on in almost everything that you said.

And yes, Nordstrom definitely needs to be acknowledged for kind of carrying the burden of being that single large flagship in the downtown environment, and it's so important to support them in whatever ways that we can.

But yes, I think shifting, downtown is shifting, like downtown is now its own neighborhood, right?

Like we have residents there and the soft good retail is important, but I think, and this will be hopefully reflected in the efforts that we have at Pacific Place, but I think it's important for all of downtown is incorporating different components from a retail perspective that aren't just soft goods, but support daily needs in different ways.

And I think adding some additional food and beverage and local operators to me are always the most interesting, right?

Like, and I think that does attract a lot of the reason that demographic that you're describing is going to Capitol Hill is because there is a really dynamic, interesting food and beverage scene.

So I think having more local operators doing that downtown is super important.

Also, you know, retail is just, and experiences are just changing, and there are so many great, interactive, innovative, experiential concepts that exist.

And actually, there are a lot of those that are interested in downtown, and it's finding the spaces that fit their requirements.

And we're working on a couple of those at Pacific Place that I'm really excited about.

And some of those are short-term requirements.

And so I think that ties back to the permitting request, because there's these operators that are nimble and I think could get open in the city before FIFA and Pacific Place or many other environments, but they, you know, we have a short window of time to do that now, and they just need kind of an open box space.

So if we can support those efforts, I think that will help to bring a lot of those users to the downtown environment on a short-term, on both a short-term lease and some of them are looking at long-term leases.

So I think That's an area of focus for sure and a great tenant group that helps re-energize the experience downtown as something new and fresh and gives someone maybe from the east side a reason to come to Seattle and then they end up paying for parking and eating and doing other things and supporting those other businesses and hopefully popping into Nordstrom's while they do that.

And I had a thought on, and this may not be the right place to be talking about this, but we incentivize the building of retail on the ground floors for multi-use buildings, for mixed-use buildings.

And while that doesn't require that you put retail there, incentivizing it generally does mean that what developer is going to pass up being able to put in an extra floor or two on their building if they put retail on the ground floor.

We don't need retail in every building in downtown.

There are certainly other uses.

I think residential podiums at the ground level are very, very desirable, and one doesn't have to go very far or any further than Vancouver, British Columbia, to see where that works, where they only have retail on maybe two major...

Take Yaletown.

They have two streets where you have retail.

and then where the residential is, you're not allowed to put retail in those buildings.

So retail does not belong everywhere in a downtown, and while you don't require it, you do incentivize it, and most developers are gonna take advantage of those incentives, and they hate having to do retail, but they do it because they get more apartments, or it used to be in the old days they got more office space.

I remember talking to you a long time ago about the stoop model in Vancouver, and you said, yeah, we do have a glut of retail space.

Maybe think about mixing it up a little bit.

Yes, because retail is, I mean, you know, it is, and floor plates are shrinking.

Existing retailers that used to be 7,000 or 8,000 square feet have downsized to 2,000 or 3,000.

Restaurants, the sweet spot for restaurants these days is 2,500 to 3,500 square feet, where it used to be 7,000 and above.

Interesting, okay.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to thank everyone for joining us today across the board and also City Attorney Davison.

I've got a couple hats here.

One, I'm representative for District 7, which is the downtown area, the greater downtown to include South Lake Union, Belltown, Uptown, and the rest.

And then obviously there's other areas too, like Queen Anne and the like.

And they have varied types of retail niches and focus.

which is interesting for me.

And then separately, I'm also chairing the Public Safety Committee.

And Council President, that's my line about turning every meeting into a public safety meeting, which is something I do on a regular basis.

And we're making great progress.

And I just had a meeting, funny enough, with another.

I generally have meetings with the property owner, property manager, you know, commercial real estate piece as opposed to the stores themselves, the exception being actually Nordstrom.

And one of the pieces is the public safety piece.

And with our strategic framework plan, we're putting in place a lot of pieces across the board.

We've got 20 bills in 18 months, a lot of them in cooperation and coordination with city attorney, so I thank her for that.

And that's making a difference, although I do make the point about expectation management.

We're, as some of you noted, we're moving in a positive direction, but for a lot of these pieces to get fully in place, it's gonna take some time.

And so there's like this bridging moment.

And I note, by the way, in our vision statement for the committee that we're looking for a time when businesses don't have to have private security.

So I should just say, by the way, up front, thank you to the entire business community for having private security because it's a bridging function.

And it gets us to that point.

And I really appreciate it because it does make a difference.

And so with that said, and by the way, I'm happy to meet with anybody in this space from either the Public Safety Hat or the District 7 Hat and do so again with like Nordstrom.

Because I've met with a former general manager.

I've met with the Nordstrom family members in the past.

But I'm looking to continue that.

Because there's a lot of different issues, too.

And as I'm writing notes to myself, listening to the conversation, there's always the idea or questions related to different ways.

We've got our anchor tenants.

It's like, how can we do that smart?

Sometimes it's restaurants, whatever it may be.

Sound Transit III mitigation.

I know that is a major issue, mitigating the impacts of Sound Transit III.

And so I'm aware of that.

It's not come up yet.

And we need to be able to do that smart.

We do need to have partnership on organized retail crime because what retail does or does not do, it plays into how things play out in terms of organized retail crime or somewhat unorganized retail crime as well.

And having that, You know, it's kind of like a commercial block watch kind of, you know, or as my colleague, who is the king of SEPTED, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, placing these pieces in play help.

And each of these help the overall posture, the public safety posture.

So, you know, that kind of communication and work is really helpful.

And technology.

You're going to start hearing about this.

The Real Time Crime Center is coming online.

It started its initial operating capability with CCTV and the like.

It is coming online.

And again, preview, in the next month, two months, you're going to start seeing examples of how this is making a difference.

tying in the commercial piece in terms of the public facing aspects of commercial cameras that the street views, the sidewalk views and the like will only help this push to create a more positive public safety posture.

And so these are the partnerships that we need to have on the public safety side and I think it's gonna make a big difference.

By the way, I hear the points about parking, too, on a more practical side, and I will admit Pacific Place parking is, we shouldn't talk about it too much because it's a little bit of an inside secret about where to go.

It's affordable and the like, and so thank you for that.

And again, Council President, I think it's important that we keep pressing on all these.

And again, my door's open to meet with you specifically about issues, particularly given my chairmanship of the Public Safety Committee.

And part of this too is, how to create that piece, that momentum.

Nothing builds momentum than momentum itself.

And we do have this big thing called FIFA World Cup that's doing some momentum pieces.

And it's the little things.

Like if I see Fido's on First Avenue reopen ahead of World Cup, the Irish pub, which is where I went to go see the 2010 World Cup when I was stationed in Bremerton, That gives you the sense, like, okay, here we go.

And it's the same thing in terms of the, like, what's happening on third, like, with Bumper Shoot Cannonball, and, you know, kind of this energy in pieces like that.

The more we build that momentum, and mindful, too, since I see Nordstrom on the screen, too, you know, protect the, you know, the crown jewels of retail, and, you know, and so I'm here for that.

I think we'll be in good stead.

So I'm bullish on retail here in Seattle.

I recognize, mindful of all the challenges.

And that's a long way of saying I'm here to help, even though I'm from the government.

And so thank you very much.

Thank you.

And when he's talking about the Real-Time Crime Center, He touched on this.

I want to make it explicit that there will be invitations.

Now, correct me when I make a bunch of errors in what I'm going to say, council member.

But I do believe that there are invitations.

Private.

Commercial, yeah.

Yeah, private video feeds will be invited into the retail.

I mean, not the retail, but the real-time crime center.

This is what every modern American city, progressive, conservative, has already stood up.

I saw their impressive one in DC, and they rely on information from private entities across the city.

And I happen to know that when people get robbed and the officers come to the house, if they do, oftentimes the shopkeeper wants to provide the video feed and yet it's kind of cumbersome in that form.

So that is gonna be a real advance.

Council President, just to piggyback on that point, they're already there to work.

And in fact, because I like I have a meeting tonight, constantly having meetings with like neighborhoods who are being impacted, the businesses, residents too.

and engaging.

And so for example, West Precinct is working with those businesses.

And then what I'll do sometimes is on the way in, and I vary my routes through the city to the district to get a sense of what's happening on the street, I'll stop and check in with that one business.

It could be services, it could be anything.

And they are engaged.

I did this once on second.

And I'm like, oh.

They're like, hey.

I go, has West Precinct been by?

Yeah.

OK, the sergeant met you that next morning?

Yeah.

OK, positive.

In addition, detectives have been.

And they looked at our cameras.

And they said, oh, you need to tweak this.

So they did the coordination.

And that kind of coordination is really going to make a difference.

And we need that partnership, just to reemphasize that.

And by the way, the more that we do on this, we enable better, smarter, faster prosecution.

which in turn, again, it's momentum builds momentum, and that will help out.

So thank you very much for that in advance.

And will it be also residential, sort of the ground floor lobbies of apartments and condos as well?

Well, it's primarily commercial, although the commercial real estate side, you know, there's a piece of that.

But it's not, at this point, designed for the more general residential.

There's a big difference between the more general residential through other parts of the district versus a downtown building, somebody had mentioned that point about not every building, man, not every building has retail.

That's a different kind of residential compared to the single family or the multi-family, those kinds of, so there's differences.

So there's a difference between those.

Commercial establishments to steal whatever.

Yep.

Okay.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Sorry, I need to go rejoin AWC, so I'm going to make some really quick comments, and then I need to take off.

First, I just want to thank all the panelists for being here, and I want to thank you, Council President, for convening this really important panel.

because this is a really important issue with our retailers in Seattle.

I'm going to make three quick points.

One is I'm going to thank Nordstrom for being downtown, for sticking with us, for being such a great partner downtown, but not only on the retail side, but also all the contributions that Nordstrom makes to downtown, including the waterfront.

So I really, this is really important because our retail partners, yes, they provide our service to our constituents, and then they have this other side where they are really, they care about our city and they really provide contributions in other ways that are really important to the city, like the waterfront.

So wanted to say that.

Separately, FIFA.

FIFA is important to the city.

It will help with our economy in the city.

And so people should welcome it, welcome people because it generates revenue for the city.

And also we need to not only be talking about ways that we can help retail as we are looking at FIFA but what happens when FIFA leaves so like that is equally important right we're like constantly post COVID struggling with downtown and then not just downtown which is my final point which is we have retail in all the corridors in the neighborhoods across the city downtown is really important because any city, downtowns are important.

It's where the business sector is.

And we really should have a vibrant downtown.

If you want to look at how well the city is doing, you look at their downtown and also how well their small businesses are doing across the city.

And so we have, like I said, retail in our commercial areas in our neighborhoods, including the D4.

And so I'd love to also expand the conversation to talk about how we help our retail businesses in the commercial corridors.

I know our BIAs, and we have one in the U District do a great job, and how do we all partner together to make sure we're all helping each other?

So thank you, thank you all.

Thank you.

Is your hand up?

Okay, go ahead, sorry.

It's buried on my desktop.

Yes, thank you, Madam President.

I would love to continue having a conversation with you all because as a Seattle kid, native born and raised here, having worked downtown at the Pay and Save at 4th and Pike, if anybody remembers that.

And before Nordstrom's headquarters was Nordstrom's headquarters, it was Frederick and Nelson's.

And I worked there.

as a young person.

I remember Jay Jacobs being right across the street.

I have a lot of memories, fond memories of what downtown was and dreams about what it can be again.

So I definitely want to partner with you.

There was some earlier legislation that we got passed regarding storefront or ground-level retail and repurposing what could actually go into those spaces so that we could activate some of those empty storefronts, looking at what more we can do to activate those storefronts, bringing more businesses downtown.

I know a large part of what I've heard from the hospitality industry is not necessarily public safety concerns but perception about public safety which is driving a lot of people over to the east side because folks don't feel that downtown is safe.

You look at the numbers, the numbers are trending in the right direction.

But if people don't feel it's safe, they're going to act like it's not safe.

So what can we do to help change that perception that it's OK to be downtown?

At the same time, we do have to recognize that, yeah, when you see somebody shooting up in a doorway at Macy's, it's not a good look.

so we have to address that reality as well um looking at what can we do to incentivize uh folks go you know businesses going into those vacant storefronts you know there's some ideas that have been floated around uh even recently to make it easier and thank you for the idea about uh permitting reform i know that permit reform is something that sort of great interest to many of us on this council.

So how can we make it easier for businesses to occupy those spaces?

What can we do to incentivize higher tenancy at Pacific Place?

I miss the Barnes and Knowles there, by the way, just saying.

I miss the Gordon Bush there, right?

So all that to say that I definitely want to work with DSA, with the MED, with the Chamber, with all y'all to see what we can do to revitalize downtown and partner with the rest of my colleagues.

Again, downtown may be a D7, but I'm a Seattle kid, so downtown is in my blood.

So thank you very much, Madam President.

Thank you.

I have some closing comments, but I want to provide you the opportunity to say anything else.

Okay, so I just want to hear some action steps that I heard here and remind me if I forgot anything or perhaps we can get a document that we will then attach to the agenda for this meeting as well as the information that City Attorney Davison provided.

So what I'm hearing is that parking.

creative way to subsidize parking or provide for parking in other locations that are underutilized would be a real help.

So thank you very much for that.

I am also hearing that having a designated person, a retail consultant that will help connect the dots, that will recruit and curate businesses that would work really well downtown and raise the tide for the boats of all retail in the area, in the central business district.

And I always think about Karen True and how she went out and she gathered great businesses and really enlivened Pioneer Square.

You're talking about the same thing.

And so I really appreciate that.

So noted again and again and again.

Thank you.

keep the storefront repair, not the storefront repair, but the Seattle Restored program going, figure out how to make it more, if there's a way for the city to support the property owners, the general managers of those spaces in a way that would make it easier and faster for smaller business to locate there and incubate.

it's good for everybody and it enlivens the streetscape and it also helps the business have a sense of what it means to be a brick and mortar and then grow accordingly.

A dedicated permit reviewer.

I have a better idea.

I actually do have, I've talked with my colleagues a little bit and I've been in consultation.

I am putting together a package of permitting reform efforts, everything from establishing timelines or actual requiring that a certain kind of project has to be finished in a certain amount of time, 60, 100, 120 days, and I didn't think of this myself.

It came out of Olympia, and the date that it's supposed to be effective is July 1st, and so straight up conforming to that legislation would be a great idea.

Another law that came out of Olympia a couple years before that was that internal...

transformations, tenant improvements that are restricted to the interior of a building might not have to go through permit review.

Not sure how we can sell that, but anyway, that is a law that is also supposed to go into effect in July.

And then I did bring together a group of architects, which I forgot to mention in my spiel about roundtable discussions and the importance thereof, but basically the possibility of architect self-certification so that they're taking on the risk, you know, their license is on the line if they're not, if there's a problem with their plans.

Otherwise, it does cut out a lot of time and effort and time is cost when it comes to to those things, so that would be under your purview, Council Member Solomon as Vice Chair of Land Use.

And then finally, let's see, I did want to say that the kiosks that were the legislation that authorized the DSA to install and monitor in relationship with a vendor of these kiosks, that legislation was passed on Tuesday.

That is something that DSA has been working on for years and years and years.

It's so many win, win, win, win, win after each other.

I liked it because it supports the small businesses or large businesses in our city, local independent businesses, and it also will generate revenue to DSA through a cost share with the vendor, and that will support their work that makes downtown Seattle so much better.

And I read off lists when this was in my committee of all the things that they could do with $1.1 million of revenue share.

I want to point out that I've been reading the buzz since this passed out of full council on Tuesday and people thinking these are just giant cell phones.

Why do we need these things all over the place?

And here's why I want to talk about some of the specific benefits that relate directly to the retail sector.

And one of the things is that any BIA can promote local events like street fairs, festivals, or location adjacent attractions through one of the shared advertising panels.

So, you know, something close to Pacific Place could take advantage of that feature.

They also include specific apps to promote local businesses.

Berkeley, for example, there was an app on the Ike kiosk that provided maps and information related to a historic cultural walking tour of the neighborhood.

Well, how about a walking tour of landmark OG Seattle retail businesses that people might want to, that they know when they come to Seattle they want to go to, but here's a really fun way of getting to them.

Kiosks promote local artists and they can, in passive mode, they can showcase the work of local artists in addition to the advertising.

I know that a lot of retail spaces do have space co-location for art.

And of course kiosks provide free Wi-Fi within 85 feet of these kiosks and that's really great for international travelers who might not have a Wi-Fi enabled cell phone on them or a smartphone.

So that is an added public benefit and information is provided in multilinguals.

And then finally, important note.

This is not a business pay-to-play system where businesses can have their location listed first, as with other search models that one might carry around on a smartphone.

Instead, all information is presented fairly based on proximity to that kiosk.

Again, people can trust that when they're standing in front of Pacific Place or down toward the market or whatever, that they can have access.

They know what is close to them and they can read about it right there.

So this, I believe, will also help the retail sector once they start getting installed and the timeline is driven by the World Cup, but we could maybe see them before that.

So just that is something to look forward to on a positive note that can help your sector as well.

Thank you so much for coming and sharing your knowledge and expertise.

And I commit to you to be a strong partner for actually taking some really concrete steps to improve and enhance and nurture and learn from you here at the table and beyond.

So thank you so much for your time and expertise.

I appreciate it.

All right.

OK.

Yes.

Just a second.

Oh, just a second.

I am thanking something.

Hold on.

Just a moment, please.

Oh, and of course.

I'm including you, City Attorney Davison, as part of this sector, but it is your work, your groundbreaking work, that has enabled, that has really reduced the number one problem I've been hearing ever since I've been in office of the, what do you call it?

There's a term of art bleed, is it bleed?

What is it?

What?

Shrinkage?

Shrinkage?

Yeah, shrinkage.

Right, the shrinkage.

The incursions into your bottom line that is sometimes the reason why people leave town.

So we have City Attorney Davison for ameliorating those conditions that have produced that decision.

So thank you very much.

I did not mean to leave you out of my gratitude.

Not at all.

Can I just comment one thing on your kiosk?

It's like it's the indoor version of the mall, like where to go for the mall sign, as you were just describing for the neighborhood.

Right.

That's how you envisioned it, Councilor President.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you very much for coming, everybody.

Let's be in touch.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm scanning to see if anyone has their hand up, because we've reached the other business part of our agenda, and I'm not seeing anyone.

So this concludes the agenda of the June 26th meeting of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee, and our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, July 10th.

No more further business, so we will adjourn.

It is 4.03 p.m.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.