Seattle City Council Briefing 452021

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back.

The April 5, 2021 Council Briefing meeting will now come to order.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, President of the City Council.

The time is 9.31 a.m.

Colleagues, as we discussed last week, Councilmember Strauss is not going to be able to join us today at Council Briefing or at the City Council meeting.

He has been excused for both.

He is serving jury duty, so he will not be with us this morning.

So with that being said, will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Present.

Herbold?

Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Present.

Morales?

Mosqueda?

Present.

Council President Gonzalez?

here.

Six present.

Thank you so much.

Approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of March 29th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report.

I do not have a president's report this morning, so we'll just dive right into the state legislative session update and we hand it over to Director Lily Wilson-Pudea to do a round of introductions and kick off the report.

Thank you, Council President.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing it to Robin Kosky.

Robin Kosky, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing it to Quinn Majewski.

Quinn Majewski, State Relations Director, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'll pass it to Hannah.

Hannah Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for making the time today.

We are before you with a state legislative briefing with approximately three weeks left in the 2021 legislative session.

And while we did a brief overview of budget highlights at our last briefing, we look forward to spending some additional time with you today on each chamber's biennial operating capital and transportation budget proposals.

given the outlook is much different than we had anticipated with the influx of federal dollars to the state from the American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

These final weeks of session will be focused on the 2021-23 biennial budget proposals and getting priority bills passed out of both chambers and sent along to the governor's desk.

Both chambers are working long days into the night and through the weekends on the floor, and both the House and the Senate Today we'll be spending full days on the floor considering bills that have not yet died.

The remaining two weeks of session, I should say, will be used for each chamber to reconcile differences in the legislation as they have changed, as they move between the two chambers.

And I also want to highlight one of the council's top, highest priorities, capital gains, continues to advance the session.

While we don't have a ton to report there, Quinn will speak to this more in depth, but we're thrilled to report that that is referenced in both the House and Senate budgets.

I will also note that the human services investments Hannah on our team will be speaking to in her portfolio are just remarkable.

The scale of these investments and their ability to help our most vulnerable families, parents, issues around childcare, protecting our most vulnerable, the immigrant and refugee communities that have been excluded through much of the federal aid and investments that we have seen at the federal level.

The state has really stepped up and I'm very much looking forward to Hannah's report today.

Robin will also speak to some remarkable investments in the capital budget around housing and homelessness with some exciting news on the expansion for rapid acquisition funding.

And we have a specific ask for you that I know she will be holding till the end.

to help us break some of those funds loose.

So a quick reminder on timing.

We have passed the fiscal committee cutoff last Friday, April 2nd.

Opposite house floor cutoff is coming up on Sunday, April 11th.

And sine die, the last day of the legislative session is scheduled to be Sunday, April 25th.

I will now turn it over to Quinn Majewski, our state relations director for a state budget update and council priority highlights.

Thank you, Lillie.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you, as always, for having us.

In the budget and revenue space, last week we covered a lot of the salient highlights of the different budgets.

In delivering the council bulletin over the weekend, Hana also provided a more in-depth overview of the capital and operating budgets, which in the interest of time, I think we're not going to go through item by item, We are happy to address those or look into them as councilmembers are interested.

Both the House and the Senate passed their proposals, their operating capital and transportation proposals on various days, but those are all now queued up for the budget leaders, the chairs, vice chairs, and ranking members to begin negotiations across the chambers.

Given the fact that there is a pretty significant amount of federal resources available as well as the continued improvement of the overall, the state's overall revenue forecast, I do believe that the budgets are not as far apart as they have been in previous years.

The starting point for negotiation should be a relatively good one, but there are differences that budget leaders will need to address.

Both budgets, as Lily mentioned, do include the capital gains tax, and although that legislation is not specifically moved out of committee, the fact that it is referenced in both budgets is a very positive development there.

I think the only other legislation updates to note here in budget and revenue is that the wealth tax, House Bill 1406, was passed out of the House Appropriations or sorry, the House Finance Committee.

Uh, and is now in the appropriations committee.

Uh, this is this is a very positive step for this legislation.

Um, you know, it, uh, it had a public hearing much earlier in session, but has sort of since been been dormant.

So I do think that it is it is. probably unlikely that it will be adopted past both the House and the Senate this year.

But seeing it move and continue to be part of the conversation is definitely a very positive development.

So I will pause there for any questions on budget and revenue.

Colleagues, any questions or comments on this section?

Sorry, I had to scroll.

I do see that Councilman, thank you Council Member Mosqueda for using the feature.

It makes it a little easier during presentation mode.

Go ahead Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Council President, and thank you, OIR team.

As always, I'm so impressed by this session, and I know that it has not been easy for those working on the outside and the inside.

So thanks for all the great news and for all of your incredible advocacy.

Quinn, I'm just wondering if you are also able to give a brief highlight of any of the capital budget investments.

I want to make an assumption that we're talking mostly about operating, but is there anything that you'd like to lift up from capital, especially as it relates to transportation and bridges?

Certainly.

So apologies, Council Member Mosqueda.

I was saving transportation for that section, but I'm happy to speak to that at this point.

The current law transportation budget So I guess to frame this, while revenues in operating and capital to a lesser extent have really bounced back since the summer period where revenues were down significantly and the state's budget situation was in a precarious spot, transportation revenues have not bounced back.

And so there is in the transportation budget about a just under $1 billion shortfall.

It's more than a billion when you factor in transportation revenues, but the Supreme Court's decision on 976 did restore about 300 million to the multimodal account.

Both the House and Senate backfill that shortfall with funds from the American Rescue Plan.

So the final sort of situation is very much a status quo when it comes to the current law transportation budgets.

So those budgets don't have any significant investments in bridges or infrastructure.

That said, Chair Fye, the House Transportation Committee Chair, did release a new law, Transportation Revenue Package Proposal, last week.

That did include, and we're parsing through this, and we'll provide an updated summary of this as well.

For Seattle specifically, in terms of Seattle-specific investments, you'll recall previously he didn't have a project list.

He did come out with a project list at this point that does include $25 million for the West Seattle Bridge, $54 million for the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor, which includes the Ballard and Magnolia Bridges, and $20 million for safety improvements in North Aurora, where there have been a long-standing issue with pedestrian injuries, but including recently several collisions and fatalities there.

So that's what's included specifically for Seattle projects on the House side.

And then on the Senate side, Chair Hobbs is scheduled to release a update for his forward Washington proposal later today.

and there will be a hearing on that tomorrow.

So in his previous version, he included $25 million for the West Seattle Bridge.

So we will see what comes out there.

And when we have that information, I'll provide a more detailed summary and comparison of those two, not just the Seattle projects, but also the overall buckets of spending, because there are some significant differences there.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Any other comments or questions on revenue?

Okay, hearing none, let's continue.

In the education space, a big update on the Fair Starts for Kids Act.

While both vehicles have been moving through so far, it's now been determined that the Senate bill will be the vehicle.

It was exact from appropriations last week and has been referred to rules and the full Fair Search for Kids Act is fully funded in both versions of the budget.

So good news there.

All the remaining education bills we're following have made it out of their fiscal committees before last week's cutoff and are now in rules.

So I'll pass it back to Quinn for environment.

In the environment space, we have some good news and some bad news this week.

In positive developments, House Bill 1091, which is the Clean Fuel Standard, passed out of the Ways and Means Committee, which is a positive development and was referred directly to rules.

I think there was some conversation about whether it would go to the Transportation Committee in the Senate, which is the location where it has experienced some difficulties in previous years.

It did not, which is not to say that It doesn't still face some challenges on the Senate floor, but that is one sort of obstacle that has existed in previous years that will not be an obstacle this year.

Unfortunately, on the flip side, House Bill 1099, which would have incorporated planning for climate change into comprehensive planning and growth management policies, That was somewhat surprisingly, at least to me and I think to other advocates, after passing out of ways and means referred to transportation.

And with only two days before a fiscal cutoff, it did receive a hearing, but it was not voted out of committee before that deadline on Friday.

And so that bill is dead for this year.

I think there are efforts to incorporate some of the provisions into other legislation, but at least as a vehicle, 1099 is no longer active.

And that, I'll pause for any questions on environment.

Any questions on environment, colleagues?

Not seeing any hands raised, so I think we can keep going, Quentin.

General government, all of the bills that we are tracking have moved out of the fiscal committees before their deadline on last Friday.

So I will just highlight a couple that I know are of interest.

House Bill 1016, the Juneteenth holiday.

House Bill 1173, the Armory Public Development Authority.

And House Bill 1258, the Microenterprise Home Kitchens, all passed out and are now in the Senate Rules Committee awaiting action there.

Pause for any questions on general government.

Any questions, colleagues?

I don't see any hands raised, so I think we can continue.

Moving on to health care, where we also are mostly good news as things continue to move.

So I'll just highlight a few bills.

House Bill 1477, which sets up the national 980 hotline, continues to move.

It's scheduled for an executive session today in Ways and Means.

There continues to be a lot of work behind the scenes to address some of the implementation timeline and just the scope of the task force, which includes a broad variety of stakeholders.

So that continues to move forward.

Senate Bill 5068, which is Medicaid postpartum, was pulled from rules and the policy is funded in both the House and Senate operating budgets.

And Senate Bill 5195 is also been exacting the rules.

So great news overall in our healthcare space.

I'll pause there for questions.

Colleagues, any questions?

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so I think we can continue.

Good morning, everyone.

A lot of good housing bills still moving.

Good news House Bill 1070 that allows the county to use the revenues that are generated by the health through housing sales tax for acquisition past the Senate and is on the way to the governor for signature.

House Bill 1108, which maintains funding for homeowners navigating the foreclosure process, very important as we are moving through this pandemic, passed out of the Senate on Saturday.

So I believe that may need concurrence, but that bill is on a path to finally pass.

I'm going to turn it over to you.

I think it's important to note that the parameters around transitional housing, permanent supportive housing and shelters is still passed out of the ways and means committee on Friday.

what those zoning parameters will be.

Right now, rather than being focused on zones where short-term rentals are allowed, it's being focused on transportation and areas that are within one mile of transit would be required to allow zoning for shelters, permanent supportive housing, transitional housing.

And I do think that there's a continued ongoing conversation.

So I will keep the council posted about that.

I know that we did send a letter to the legislature in support of this bill.

House Bill 1277 that would add $100 to the document recording fees to generate $100 million statewide is still moving along and has been scheduled for a public hearing in the Ways and Means Committee.

You know, I think there is an effort to make it understood that while there is some rental assistance that's being allocated through the American Rescue Plan dollars that the state is receiving and that cities are receiving, that this will be an ongoing need that will not disappear immediately after the pandemic is over, given the economic impact.

So I'm trying to do some education that this is a really needed bill to make sure we have that continuing resource once the federal dollars are no longer available to us.

House Bill 1494 that creates an anti-displacement property tax exemption on the first $250,000 of a home passed under the Finance Committee on Friday and is now in the House Appropriations Committee.

The constitutional amendment that's needed to enact that exemption, HR 4204, also passed out of finance on Friday.

And then finally, on the housing front, Senate Bill 5160 passed out of the Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

That includes legal representation for tenants, payment plans, an increase in the amount that landlords may receive from the Landlord Mitigation Fund, all to provide a path forward after the eviction moratorium is lifted.

and that's all that I have for housing today.

If anyone has any questions before I move on to police reform, I'll pause for a moment.

Thanks, Robin, for taking a pause.

I see that Council Member Lewis has his hand raised.

Please.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So I think this might be the appropriate time to ask this question about capital budget-related housing matters.

So my office, through our It Takes a Village initiative, has been doing a lot of advocacy this session around seeking state support to expand tiny house villages.

We have a goal of 12 tiny house villages, and obviously that comes with a lot of up-front capital costs.

We've been able to get $2 million in capital expenses into the House budget, but now that the capital budgets need to be reconciled and it isn't in the Senate budget, we are trying to make sure that we come out on the other side here with the $2 million in capital support for tiny houses.

Obviously $2 million would support the upfront capital costs for three tiny house villages and could support up to 120 people exiting homelessness into tiny house, well rather exiting unsheltered homelessness into tiny houses.

So I wanted to just ask, because I think we're at that point now where we are trying to reconcile the two capital budgets, where we are on making sure that $2 million stays in the final reconciled capital budget.

Councilmember Lewis, it's my understanding that the way that the Senate budget is written is quite flexible and could be used for a range of housing options for everything from creating a tiny house village to actually acquiring buildings.

And we're going to talk about that a little bit more at the end of this briefing.

But I do believe my read of the language is that, you know, certainly could be used for tiny house villages without an issue.

I think that's a good question.

I don't think there's a specific set aside.

In the Senate budget?

Yes.

That's how I would read the Senate budget.

That you could certainly apply to the Department of Commerce through the process and receive funding for such a project.

Okay.

So do you want me to defer my

You can certainly ask the question.

I think we'll talk a little bit more about advocating for some additional federal dollars statewide, but feel free.

I'm not sure I can answer all of your questions right now, but I'm happy to get back to you if you'd like to state them.

And then I can either answer now or do a closer read of the budget and get back to you.

Yeah, well, I guess that my question is just, I guess that this would just be, you know, if it's a matter of structure, that the House has structured their budget in a different way where things are more clearly delineated and the Senate has just sort of created a more large, general, more flexible amount of funds that can be applied for.

I guess that what I'm wondering is just if that $2 million that is in the House budget for tiny houses is still, it sounds like what you're saying is it's still reflected in the Senate budget.

It's just the money is applied for in a different way.

Is that a way to understand it?

Yes, I would say that that is correct.

My read of the Senate budget is that it is a flexible amount of money that could be used for tiny house villages.

As part of a broader pot of money.

Correct.

Okay, I think that's good enough for now.

Okay.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

Any other questions, exactly.

I'm not seeing any, so I think we can move on.

Wonderful.

Well, then I will move on to police reform.

where, as with housing, many proposals are moving along.

House Bill 1267, the governor's request legislation that would establish statewide centralized investigations for use of force.

Executive action was taken on that bill on the Ways and Means Committee on Friday, and as was the use of force bill, House Bill 1310, and those bills are both in the Rules Committee now.

Senate Bill 5051, the decertification bill.

Executive action was taken on that by the House Appropriations Committee last Thursday, and that's now in House Rules.

And Senate Bill 5066, the duty to intervene legislation was also had executive action taken on it last Wednesday, and it's now in the House Rules Committee.

So that's sort of the updates that I have today on police reform.

If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer those.

Any questions, colleagues?

I am not seeing any hands raised, so I think we can keep going.

Finally, in the area of public safety, executive action was taken on Friday on House Bill 1320 that streamlines all of the protective orders.

So that bill is still moving along.

Senate Bill 5226, driving with a suspended license, passed out of the House Transportation Committee on Friday.

And then finally, an update on where things are with the Blake decision.

Today, in the Ways and Means Committee at 10, Senator Dinger's bill, Senate Bill 5476, has a hearing.

That is the bill that would establish a personal use amount for controlled substances, remove the criminal penalty for possession of a controlled substance that doesn't exceed the personal use amount, and would authorize law enforcement to refer individuals to a forensic navigator.

The other thing that I found out is that it is not the intention of the bill to create a new misdemeanor that would be necessary for cities or municipal courts to manage for 18 to 21-year-olds.

Senator Dingra apparently did not intend that, and it looks like what will probably happen, although it's not in the bill quite yet, so we don't know for sure.

But it looks like the approach will be to extend the jurisdiction of juvenile court for possession charges for 18 to 20-year-olds.

And I think that is all that I have for public safety, if there are any questions.

And if not, I'll hand it over to Hannah.

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so I think we can hear from Hannah.

Great, thanks.

In the safety net and civil rights space, House Bill 1073, the paid family leave, continues to move forward and is in rules.

Funding for implementation was included in the budget.

Some exciting news on this public assistance bill, House Bill 1151, it was signed by the governor last week.

The bill allows consolidated emergency assistance to be provided more than once in a 12-month period, provides one-time cash benefit and transitional food assistance to families, and directs the Department of Social and Health Services to update the standards of need for their cash assistance programs.

And because of the early action COVID relief bill, there's an additional 12 million provided for families and individuals with children to access the disaster cash assistance program.

So really good human services bill there.

And two other strong safety net bills that we're following, 1297, the working families tax credit, and 5214, the TANF economic assistance bills are in rules and both are fully funded in the budget.

And to highlight a TANF-related budget item that I know has been of interest to some council members, the House budget includes an $80 a month diaper stipend for families with children under three.

I know there's been interest in the bill doing some similar work on diapers, so just it's in the budget.

And that is the highlights for us.

Thanks, Hannah.

Thanks so much.

Any questions or comments on the section?

Okay, looks like there are none.

Finally, in transportation, spoke already to the budget as well as the current status of negotiations on the revenue package.

So two quick updates on legislation.

First, House Bill 1301, which is the providing alternative enforcement methods, including non-monetary warnings instead of citations for sound transit.

That is in the Senate Rules Committee.

So it is passed out of the Transportation Committee and is continuing to move forward.

And then I know there was interest in a Senate Bill 5354. I do have an update there.

Unfortunately, despite passing the Senate by 46 to 3 margin.

There was some late opposition from state law enforcement on the legislation, and it was not voted out of committee prior to the fiscal cutoff on Friday.

So that bill is unfortunately not moving forward this year, but we'll continue to work on the issue over the interim.

I'll pause for any questions in transportation.

Thanks.

And any comments or questions on transportation, colleagues?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

All right, Lily, you want to make any closing remarks before I introduce the.

opportunity for Robyn to chat with us?

I think just we would appreciate your support on the letter that Robyn is going to speak to next.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Yeah, of course.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments on the report before Robyn talks to us about a really unique opportunity that is going to come potentially before us this afternoon?

Okay, I'm not seeing any other questions.

Robyn, why don't you go ahead and brief the council on the opportunity to signal support for some additional funding in the area of housing.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

So OIR has been working on a letter to the governor and legislative leadership to address housing and homelessness with some of the federal American Rescue Plan dollars that the state has received.

Of course, they're getting $4 billion.

And similarly to us, they are able to spend $2 billion this year and $2 billion next year.

So we are asking for an historic investment in housing and homelessness of $400 million so that we can bring people experiencing homelessness inside and secure more homes for vulnerable people in our communities.

This is a statewide ask, so we are asking many other cities to sign on so that we have a broad coalition asking for these resources.

And, you know, part of the reason why we started thinking that this would be a good idea in Seattle is that, you know, we're seeing a lot of unprecedented opportunities in the real estate market as a result of the pandemic.

This also happened during the last recession.

And I think looking back, we probably didn't capitalize on that the way that we might have.

So with a one-time investment in federal resources, we know that we can quickly purchase newly completed under construction land, hotels, or other buildings to provide affordable housing and shelter.

And the vision of this is that we know we have some opportunities to the clay that was purchased with office of housing resources.

It's an 80 unit building in Capitol Hill that's immediately being turned into housing for people who have experienced homelessness and veterans.

And we know that there are other there could be other opportunities out there like that.

But the idea is that communities could use the resources flexibly.

So that, you know, if you were in a different community and you needed shelter, you could do that.

We might choose to purchase buildings to create some throughput in our homelessness system.

The idea is for this money to meet community needs.

The idea is modeled off of California's HomeKey, where they invested $846 million in a six-month period to quickly bring 6,000 units of affordable housing and permanent shelters online.

And we believe that they're going to do additional investment in that program with their American Rescue Plan Act dollars at the state level in California.

So I think that's pretty much the long and the short of it.

And I guess I just also kind of want to highlight, too, that we're thinking of this as temporary acquisition.

We also really appreciate the longer term investments through the Housing Trust Fund.

that the state has invested, and also tremendous operating budgets investments in both the House and the Senate.

So appreciating that, but really wanting to make sure that we capitalize on this moment in time where we have the ability to use federal resources to bring people inside.

and we have a real estate market that would help us do this in a way that doesn't occur very often.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

I will circulate the letter to your offices right after this meeting as soon as I can get it out of my mailbox.

And you can feel free to give me a call if you have any questions, and I'm happy to follow up.

And also, I'm happy to answer questions now, but you may have some additional ones when you actually see the letter.

Yeah, thanks for that, Robin.

Appreciate you bringing this forward.

I know that you highlighted this opportunity for me over the weekend, and we had an opportunity to talk about it this morning.

I think it's a unique opportunity.

It's one that I hope we will pursue, but know that folks might have some questions both now, based on your oral briefing, but also It is my hope that we would be able to consider adding individual councilmember signatures to the letter this afternoon during other business.

meeting, so I'm hoping we can get questions answered either now or between now and 2 o'clock to effectuate that goal.

I do see that Council Member Mosqueda has her hand up, and if anybody else has questions, please do let me know.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you very much, Robin.

Coming from the Office of Housing, I know that this is a strategy that you and the Office of Housing have considered for a long time.

I just wanted to voice my support for this approach.

This is something that I've been raising over the last year at the Regional Housing Authority with Chair Balducci and King County, talking with the Sound Cities, who are members as well.

It's part of the message that I think we need to send across the region, and thank you, Robin, for working across the state, is that this is a win-win opportunity.

for those properties that potentially are going derelict or property owners who do not have the resources or desire to move forward.

We do not want there to be vacant properties, especially during the moment of a housing affordability crisis and a homelessness crisis.

especially in our region.

So this is truly something that we've been talking about, especially in light of the COVID-induced recession.

And this is part of the way that we can help build out of this recession by making sure that there's not derelict properties and that we're turning them into affordable housing and I think it also dovetails nicely with the jumpstart Seattle progressive revenue proposal that all of you helped pass, over $214 million a year.

Remember, $135 million of that specifically for housing and homelessness, and included in that was the concept of strategic acquisition.

And then finally, this relates to legislation that we passed in 2018. Thanks to partnership with the Office of Housing, we continued to see that we had missed opportunities to purchase properties that were going up for sale and in a very hot housing market, which this still is, even though we're in the middle of a recession.

We made it more possible for the office of housing to move quickly to acquire properties instead of having to go through a very long and cumbersome process to get approval from the city when it was clear that those properties were in alignment with previous legislation and position that the council had taken.

So I bring that up because we are on the cusp of having our first property purchased because of that legislation we changed in 2018. And while in housing we don't see overnight or the next day the type of policy changes that immediately lead to housing, this policy here today that Robin's talking about and our support of this letter and approach could make it possible for us to quite literally see transformation overnight like we're seeing at Clay Apartments.

very much supportive of this.

I think it is very much in line with our long-term commitments as a council and as a city to wanting to make sure that there's more property acquired and that we stop selling our city property as well to the highest bidder.

So this actually allows for the city to bring in more properties.

And Robin, love to work with you to see how we can make this longer term as well as the conversation progresses.

But really excited about this, as you can tell, and happy to sign on.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

I think that's a good point.

I should also just say this brought to mind, I think director Alvarado would be let me know that I was remiss if I didn't say that the funding for the clay is from a revolving loan fund.

However, it is not a permanent source of financing.

It's meant to revolve so that they could do it again if they found another property.

So takeout financing is needed for the permanent financing of that building.

And that's something that we could use these state resources for should they become available.

I should also say that, you know, your comments made me think, too, Councilmember Mosqueda, that this also gives us the opportunity to empower BIPOC-led organizations to be able to purchase real estate or own real estate, because they don't have to develop the capacity to actually develop the building, but they can certainly manage the resource to serve communities of color around the city.

So I just wanted to add that in as well.

Thanks for that additional piece of information, Robin.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions on the letter?

I know that you all haven't seen the draft of the letter.

That letter will be circulated as soon as we release OIR from today's council briefing.

So you'll have an opportunity to read the full contents and to ask Robin any additional questions.

It looks like folks don't have any more questions for council briefing.

I do think that this is an important opportunity for us to, again, engage in the strategic acquisition of underutilized properties strategy through a statewide approach.

I think it's important to acknowledge that there are several city leaders across the state that have already signaled support for moving in this direction.

So I think if Seattle can show up as a good regional partner in this effort, I am hopeful that we would all together across the state, both from the west side to the east side, be able to get this effort across the finish line to unlock some really significant new investments in this space.

So I want to appreciate our team at OIR for doing this work.

Thank you so much, Council President.

That concludes our briefing today.

Thank you so much for your help with the letter, and we'll get that out soon so that if anyone has any questions, they can field them to Robin, our expert in this area.

Absolutely.

Okay, folks.

Thank you so much.

We are going to let you go and we're going to continue on other items of business on our agenda.

Next up is agenda item four, which is the preview of today's City Council Actions Council and regional committees.

Today's order of reports will be as follows.

As a reminder, it'll be Councilmember Peterson followed by Sawant, Herbold, I will conclude this agenda discussion by giving both a report from Councilmember Strauss and then also giving my own report.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on today's full City Council agenda.

However, our Transportation and Utilities Committee has a meeting this Wednesday, April 7, at 9.30 a.m.

We published the agenda online this past Friday.

We have 12 items.

Please allow me to preview a few of the most substantive items regarding Seattle Public Utilities.

At our April 17 or April 7 committee, we will hear from Seattle Public Utilities on their strategic business plan.

This will lead into a discussion about SPU rates for clean water, wastewater, along with trash, recycling and compost.

Our city has become less affordable and utility bills by their very nature are regressive, with lower income households paying a higher percentage of their household income for their bills.

Therefore, our goal is to keep utility rates low.

Thankfully, during COVID, our city-owned utilities, both SPU and Seattle City Light, have managed to keep rates steady, increasing enrollment in our utility discount program and waiving late fees.

And with this new strategic plan, it appears that SPU can keep or even improve upon some of the promises on utility rates made with their previous strategic plan approved in 2017. We should keep an eye, however, on some cost drivers due to our governance structure with King County for wastewater treatment.

We noted a majority of King County Council, unfortunately, raised their wastewater treatment fee, which is passed directly through to our Seattle rate payers.

We want to make sure King County does not encourage urban sprawl and makes growth pay for growth going forward, especially for real estate development in suburban or rural areas of the county.

Here at City Hall, we also have to be mindful of the so-called utility tax that our city government's general fund takes from ratepayers.

Last year, our general fund relied on about $200 million from the utilities through a utility tax that we charge.

Charging this utility tax is a budgeting technique that Councilmember Herbold helped to daylight when she chaired the SPU committee and increased transparency of this by calling it out on customer utility bills.

To take next steps, we should consider reducing the regressive utility taxes that we charge and enable SPU to use the savings to take care of its aging infrastructure.

In sum, despite the COVID pandemic, despite the high pass-through rate from King County Council for wastewater treatment, and despite the utility tax that we charge, SPU's laser focus on affordability and equity by keeping its own costs down is a shining example to all city departments and directly benefits over 1 million ratepayers who, thanks to this strategic plan and revised rate path, will not need to suffer an average increase above what They had already been planned to be charged as promised in the 2017 strategic plan.

It's important to highlight that the customer review panel for SPU has endorsed this new strategic plan and its corresponding rate path.

I want to thank the dedicated volunteers of our customer review panel for their countless hours of service to Seattle as a watchdog and a sounding board for this $1 billion city-owned utility enterprise.

We will be hearing this legislation on the strategic plan and the rate path in at least two meetings of the Transportation Utilities Committee before we approve it.

I would like to make a motion to approve this item.

Even as we expand access to the Internet throughout Seattle, our Technology Matching Fund continues as a cornerstone of our efforts to connect all our city's residents to education, jobs, and other vital services.

Earlier last week, the City of Seattle announced the recipients of the 2021 Technology Matching Fund, and we'll have a presentation on the awards at our committee this week.

With a modest investment of $343,000, 15 local organizations can implement community-led projects to increase access to technology and provide digital skills training to over 2,000 people among underserved communities.

As we consider how to invest funds from the federal government from such new sources as the American Rescue Plan Act, we can be mindful of the digital divide that persists in the midst of our high-tech city.

Seattle may be a high-tech city, but we must also be an inclusive tech city, too.

That's why we unanimously approved the Internet for All Resolution Action Plan last year.

Because there were many organizations that did not receive grants due to the limited funding, the new federal dollars could be a way to quickly get additional investments out the door to address the digital divide.

At the following committee meeting on April 21st, our Information Technology Department will return to provide an update on the Internet for All Action Plan that we adopted last year.

surveillance impact reports.

Our committee will also continue work on the so-called Group 2 surveillance impact reports that assess technologies already in use by city government departments.

Pursuant to the foundational surveillance ordinance adopted in 2017 and refined in 2018, our existing technology and computer programs undergo an extensive review process by the executive departments, a community-led surveillance working group, and other stakeholders.

While technology is vital to enable local government to provide services more efficiently to the public, some technology can also have surveillance capabilities or privacy concerns that need to be evaluated with surveillance impact reports.

As we promised, we took the single council bill containing the five existing police department technologies introduced February 22nd and broke it into five separate bills so that we can be more nimble as we work to amend and vote on each bill out of committee this week.

We heard these bills on our March 3rd, March 17th committee meetings, so this is a third time to discuss them and finally vote them out this Wednesday, April 7th.

Thank you, committee members, for finalizing your amendments last week so our city attorney's office could complete a thorough review of them.

These amendments are already published on our committee agenda.

and I want to thank the council for approving the surveillance impact reports for Seattle City Light and the fire department last month.

We also have to look forward to groups three, groups 4A and 4B technologies to consider later this year.

And finally, the first item on our committee agenda is a project in Lake City, which I'll leave Council Member Juarez to speak about.

She'll also be attending our committee this week for at least that item.

In District 4, I really want to thank Sound Transit for their collaboration on two projects.

As we know, there are two light rail stations opening in District 4 in a few months thanks to Sound Transit 2 measure.

One station in U-District at Brooklyn Avenue and another in Roosevelt.

Regarding the U-District station, thank you Sound Transit for your willingness to listen to ideas from the small neighborhood businesses and business improvement area.

to adjust the fencing so we can open up Brooklyn Avenue several weeks sooner than originally planned.

This will open the heart of the U District, generate more foot traffic and customers for the small businesses that have been impacted by the ongoing street construction.

I also want to thank Sound Transit for their openness and allowing for the tiny home village at their former staging area.

That's the new village I've been working on at the corner of Northeast 45th Street and Roosevelt Way.

The nonprofit Low Income Housing Institute continues to conduct community outreach about that tiny home village, which so far has been well received due to the growing need to get people camping in our parks, inside, safe, and connected to services to improve their lives.

Special thanks to former city council member Abel Pacheco, who now works for Sound Transit, and to Don Blankeney, who's the new head of the University District Partnership.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, looks like there are no questions, so we'll keep going down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Sawant, followed by Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning.

Good morning.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for a special time Thursday, April 15th at 9.30 a.m.

At that meeting, we will hear from community organizers about the Green New Deal and their efforts towards making sure that Seattle gets on track to its goals on carbon emissions, which it is absolutely not on track of right now, which is what we went over at our last committee.

We need to rapidly electrify our city infrastructure and ultimately break the power of fossil fuel companies on our society.

Our last committee meeting ran over time, so we postponed this agenda item.

And so Thursday's meeting will be an opportunity to catch up on that important discussion, Thursday, April 15th.

Last week, my office sent to the city attorney's office for final review two renters' rights bills, and once they are reviewed, we will be sending them to the council president for introduction.

The first bill closes the loophole in Seattle's just-cause eviction protections using the same approach as the Federal Way ballot initiative that was passed in 2019. Essentially, the bill requires landlords to renew the leases of tenants on fixed-term leases unless they have a good cause for refusing to renew the lease.

I know council member Morales is also interested in closing that loophole.

The other renters rights bill would create a moratorium on the eviction of school children and their families and educators each year during the school year.

It is common sense, but there's also mountains of research showing that when children are evicted, it has devastating impact on their academic achievement, their learning and development, and also on their mental health.

Imagine trying to focus on your schoolwork while losing your home.

The Losing Home Report, which we have cited many times, besides this research, also found that of evicted respondents with school-age children, 85.7% said their children had to move schools after the eviction, and 87.5% reported their children's school performance suffered, quote unquote, very much because of the eviction.

Our bill will protect the eviction of children, prohibit the eviction of children, students up to 12th grade, their families and educators during the school year.

I continue to think that the fact that children are evicted in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world is a damning condemnation of global capitalism.

But at the very least, the city has the power to stop evictions during the school year.

Our bill is modeled after our winter evictions ban passed a little over a year ago from, that was introduced from my office and the renters rights movement, including recommendation by the city of Seattle renters commission.

And after, it's also modeled after a similar, but a little more limited renter protection in San Francisco.

We've sent the draft bill to get input from parents of public school students in Seattle and also to the Seattle Education Association and members of the Seattle, both the leadership and the rank-and-file so that we can get more input from them.

Finally, I want to address the 72-hour parking ban.

and the moratorium that has been instituted for the pandemic period.

I was extremely troubled to hear that Mayor Durkin plans to reinstitute the 72-hour parking rule, which is ticketing or towing cars parked for 72 hours.

essentially criminalizing people for being poor and hassling anyone without a driveway or garage.

Anyone with a driveway or garage will never get a ticket.

However, if you depend on street parking, the 72-hour rule can be extremely difficult.

If you leave town for four days, you need to find a street in the neighborhood where the 72-hour rule is simply not enforced.

In fact, that is one of the problems with this, that the enforcement of this is very much dependent on whether it's a generally well-off neighborhood or it's a more working class or poor neighborhood.

Things are even worse for our community members, many of whom are working people.

were forced to live in their cars because of the acute affordable housing crisis in our city.

During the pandemic, there is even more reason to stop this brutal harassment as the housing crisis continues and thousands are left in the economic lurch.

And for the community members who are forced to live in their cars, Durkin's move to re-institute the parking ban could be catastrophic, costing them not only their vehicle, but also their only shelter and all their possessions.

We know the pandemic has worsened the pre-existing severe housing crisis.

We need affordable social housing and we need full funding for a massive expansion of public transit, public transportation.

not harassment of neighbors struggling to survive.

My office has discussed this issue with organizers at Real Change.

Many of their vendors live in their cars and this has been reported in a recent Crosscut article and are currently terrified about what the re-institution of the 72-hour parking ban will have on their lives.

I joined these community leaders in urging Mayor Durkan to immediately extend the emergency moratorium on the 72-hour parking rule, and that is the most urgently needed.

I also believe that the 72-hour parking ban overall pandemic or not does more harm than good.

And because even in good times, a 72-hour parking ban exclusively punishes the poor and working class people who don't have access to driveways and garages.

And the solution to all of these issues, which there is a lot of unity on, is expanding the funding for affordable housing, social housing that is owned publicly.

housing that's affordable housing that's owned publicly by the city and also expansion in funds for public transportation, both at the city level by increasing the Amazon tax but also at the regional and the state level by taxing the rich.

And in addition to all of this we've also launched a petition from my office which has now already since just launching it on Saturday evening has garnered more than 300 signatures and really crucial stories from community members as to why they support this, not only from our homeless community members but from others who don't rely on this moratorium and yet they understand that socially it is important that we don't have such punitive rules that end up actually being punitive towards poor people as a whole.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

As it relates to the moratorium on the parking enforcement moratorium, I just want to, I appreciate Council Member Swann's concerns and I share those concerns.

I do want to just put within sort of a timeline context the fact that The police department had significantly limited its towing and enforcement of the 72-hour law as it relates to RV pre-COVID-19.

And so that's why we worked to develop the RV mitigation program.

So rather than focusing on an enforcement approach to the folks that people, the fact that people are living in RVs.

They worked with Seattle Public Utilities, the Police Department and Seattle Public Utilities to develop the RV mediation program.

And so this is sort of within the context of there being a pause, again, long before COVID, in doing the towing of these vehicles.

And I think it It's not just, I don't think it was just a policy that was formed merely by the need, the humanitarian need.

It's also, I think, in recognition that we do have a pending case in the courts around the legality of impounding the vehicles that people live in.

So I share Councilmember Sawant's questions and had actually been intending to ask this question of the chief in my regular meeting with him last week, but we had to reschedule and we'll look forward to sharing with folks what I learn when I do learn some more about this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold.

Any other comments or questions?

All right, I'm not seeing any more, so we will now hear from Councilmember Juarez, and then we will hear from Councilmember Lewis.

Good morning, Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning.

Caught me off guard there.

I apologize.

So let's see, you know, we were supposed to do a proclamation for Marcellus Turner last week and then we had some problems and scheduling issues, but we're back.

So I will be presenting a proclamation to honor Marcellus Turner, M.T., our librarian, 10 years of service to Seattle Public Library this afternoon.

Seattle City Council signed the proclamation, as you know, last Monday.

In regards to public assets and native communities committee, there are no items today on this afternoon's council agenda.

There is a committee meeting tomorrow at two and we will hold the second and last public hearing on the waterfront lid appeals.

I think there's a total of 69 total.

Update with parks as I do every week and provide to your offices an update of the clean city initiative.

This is the information that we get from parks by Friday.

before the Monday, so we have an idea that the money that we set aside for the Clean City initiatives in this last budget round.

So we actually know how the money is spent and what they're doing so we can track it.

So that's the information that I provide to you every Monday morning, starting with the week of March 22nd to the 28th.

Clean City crews removed 71 pounds of trash.

Crews also visited 62 encampments and cleaned up over 8,000 needles.

child care.

Last week, the Parks Department served 298 children at 17 child care sites throughout the city.

And of course, Earth Week.

Since 1970, I wasn't even born then, Earth Day has occurred each year on April 22nd because of the imminent threat of climate change.

Parks is expanding their Earth Day programming to beyond the 22nd this year.

So this year, Parks is excited to participate in a whole week of Earth Day activities via a broad network of environmental and outdoor groups around Seattle and the Puget Sound.

And in addition, here, I attended the Rider Experience and Operations Committee meeting last Thursday, where we voted to approve several contracts.

Just a quick update, as you know, the American Jobs Plan is pending.

and we're looking at $2.5 trillion.

And my understanding, what we heard from Mr. Rogoff is that we believe that Sound Transit can deliver on the Biden administration's priorities.

We are happy to report, and I'll report it again, that Senator Murray and Cantwell, their bill for 1.9 billion to Sound Transit passed last month.

And we are still working on the fare enforcement I'm going to turn it back over to you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

And in my sort of reviewing of the notes, I realized I accidentally skipped over Council Member Herbold.

I thought you did.

No, that's why I caught you off guard.

But I did not conclude this morning by completely forgetting about Council Member Herbold.

So I'm going to double back here and have Council Member Herbold give us her report.

And then after that, we will hear from Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Herbold, please.

so much.

Really appreciate it.

I will make it very quick.

Just a few words on health.

A recent UW study found that King County residents are doing a great job with public health precautions in the face of COVID-19.

Ninety percent of King County residents wore face coverings over the mouth and nose in public during the last four months.

If you're planning on keeping the April holidays with family or friends from another household as always remember to keep up your precautions whether or not you are fully vaccinated or not.

COVID testing has been extended at least through April 17th at the city run testing and vaccination sites in Rainier Beach and West Seattle.

You may recall that there was some some conversation about ending testing at those locations.

But because of a recognition that we actually have had rising COVID cases in our community, the executive and the fire department have agreed to continue to maintain testing at those two locations.

Of course, testing is free and available to all regardless of insurance or documentation status.

Last week, the city opened its fourth free vaccination site at North Seattle College.

Collaboration between the city, North Seattle College, and Seattle Visiting Nurse Association.

We now have four free public vaccination sites now in addition to North Seattle College.

We have Blumenfield Event Center, West Seattle, and Rainier Beach.

eligible residents can join the notification list for vaccine at these sites at vaccine.gov forward slash vaccine.

And for everybody out there who has not become vaccine eligible yet, all adults in Washington will become vaccine eligible on April 15th.

So that's some great news to start our week with.

As far as some updates from the Human Services Department, just want to let everybody know that enrollment opens today for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program.

That is a program that serves 8,000 low-income older adults who are selected randomly to receive $40 in one-time farmers market vouchers in July.

Applications are available in 11 languages and the program is for seniors who are ages 60 or above or above age 55 if you are American Indian or Alaska Native.

You can apply at agingkingcounty.org or call Community Living Connections.

Just a quick update on an issue that I know many folks have been following in my Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

You may recall that we voted a few weeks ago to make a recommendation for a draft bill relating to the less lethal weapons regulation.

We did not, we don't We don't have an introduced bill yet, and we haven't voted a bill, an introduced bill out of committee, but we have made some recommendations of what a draft bill might look like, and that is being reviewed under the consent decree process.

Just the news, the update here is that the U.S.

Department of Justice and the monitor overseeing the consent decree are considering the draft bill.

We had an initial meeting with the DOJ and the Monitor last week, and we understand coming out of that meeting that they will have some follow-up questions for the Seattle Police Department and Council Central staff.

I want to just highlight an item that I know Councilmember Mosqueda might be talking about in her update, but I wanted to just uplift it.

It is a briefing item that I have actually requested that Councilmember Mosqueda schedule in her committee and the reason for that special request.

And thank you to Councilmember Mosqueda for the city's labor standards advisory commission, otherwise known as LSAC, to develop recommendations to Last May, LSACT recommended to council some policy suggestions for a first modest step toward creating more transparency and access to information among people who are currently classified as independent contractors.

In short, they're recommending a policy that requires hiring entities to provide independent contract workers information so that they can understand the terms of their engagement and determine whether or not those terms have been satisfied.

So we are going to be hearing tomorrow in Councilmember Mosqueda's Finance and Housing Committee a presentation from two co-chairs with LSAC, Liz Ford and Gay Gilmore.

As far as items coming up for my attendance this week, I'll be attending the Regional Water Quality Committee meeting with Councilmember Peterson, who serves on that committee with me, and then also with Councilmember Peterson, the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting.

This will be our 18th meeting.

And then lastly, I'm going to close out with what is normally my opening.

There are no items on the full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, and the committee is not meeting this week.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Hurwold.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, now we will hear from Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

I will be pretty brief this week.

Again, two weeks in a row, not bad.

So there's no items from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments that are on the agenda this afternoon.

I do want to take this opportunity, given that we missed a committee meeting in March, due to some of the logistical timeline on setting up the shelter surge, that we are expecting a robust committee meeting for April on the shelter surge.

I do want to take this opportunity to give a little bit of an overview from our partners in the executive branch on how that is coming along.

I do want to foreshadow some of what I expect to be discussed and also take that opportunity maybe just to do a bit of an overview on sort of some of the outstanding items that the council passed in our budget that we are still So as many folks here on the council know, the council funded 545 additional shelter spaces, non-congregate shelter spaces, including 120 tiny houses, 300 hotel rooms, and 125 enhanced shelter spaces to be stood up in 2021. through the it takes a village initiative, my office is seeking to expand that number even further through public-private partnership by an additional 360 tiny houses, and that work is going along quite well.

I've been informed by the Low Income Housing Institute that they've raised about $2.5 million of the private fundraising goal, which is quite impressive.

I look forward to continuing that work to realize those additional tiny houses going together as a philanthropic community and a city government working hand in hand.

The council also recently approved $12 million in additional shelter capacity funding capable of conservatively supporting 200 more non-congregate shelter spots.

In total, in the aggregate, This council has funded and is seeking 1,105 shelter units to be stood up before the end of 2021, which we know will make a significant and demonstrable visible impact in our neighbors experiencing homelessness being able to get off the street and into a private, dignified, and supportive place to live.

To date, as of last month, Approximately 155 of these 1,105 shelter units have been stood up.

And I was very encouraged to see that news in March that the first two hotels are open.

Several hundred more shelter units are anticipated in the spring.

And I look forward to hearing at the end of this month the plan to set up some of these additional units.

We heard earlier from Councilmember Peterson of the great progress being made in the University District.

And I thank Councilmember Peterson for his leadership in that and for the leadership of Lehigh in the Human Services Department.

There will be another village in North Seattle going in fairly soon in the spring.

And I know Councilmember Juarez has been intimately involved in that and very much appreciate her leadership in that as well.

I've requested for a committee meeting on Wednesday, April 28th, an update from the executive team on the plan to implement those near-term additional shelter resources, as well as the rest of the shelter resources for the pendency of 2021, just so this council and the public and we are looking at how we can have more predictability and know when we anticipate these council funded assets will be coming online.

as I said earlier, my understanding in the near term is the recent appropriation of $12 million from the Council can be expected this spring with more hopefully to be coming along later.

So I do look forward to that robust presentation on the 28th.

I think it's more critical than ever as we are going into we are looking forward to what we hope to be a summer of recovery and want to make sure it is a summer of recovery for everybody including our neighbors experiencing homelessness and these shelter assets will help us to realize that goal.

Madam President, with that, I don't have any additional updates and I will turn it back over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for digging into those details that you described.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, next up is Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

There are no items on the agenda this afternoon from the Community Economic Development Committee.

I spent last week all over town, meeting with folks in the district and some of our city workers.

I joined HealthONE to observe how the team supports folks who are in crisis.

It was really inspiring and interesting to see how their process works and the like deep work that they do with the folks who they are going out to visit.

We went on two visits and in both cases the case manager made phone calls, set up home visits for people, One of the people we went to see did require an ambulance.

And so we stayed with the family until the ambulance arrived.

The social worker, the case manager who was with us, called the hospital and spoke to the social worker at the hospital to give them the necessary background information.

So it was a really important opportunity for Devin Silbernael and my staff and I to go and learn more about how that program works.

And I do want to thank Donna, Lynn, Roger, Chris, John, all the folks who shared their morning with us and let us know how that program works.

I was thrilled to volunteer at the Lumen Field last week.

I did spend Wednesday out there together with about a dozen other volunteers in my particular area, pharmacy support, where we assembled almost 4,000 vaccination bins with syringes, vaccination cards, and other items that are needed by the vaccinators.

So it was great just to be part of that process and really see on the back end all the work that goes into making sure that the front end vaccination lines go smoothly.

So I'm really happy to have had the opportunity to do that.

I also did a walking tour with Mount Baker residents.

I've been talking for a while now about the requests coming from that neighborhood.

So I met with neighbors and with folks from LEAD.

These neighbors are the same ones that I convened an interdepartmental meeting with last month.

And I will say that gunfire and drug dealing continue to be a challenge there within mere feet of a preschool facility.

So neighbors are concerned for very obvious reasons.

And I will say they are still waiting for a response from the executive.

and some of the departments who made commitments there.

In the meantime, they are interested in temporary use permits.

So I'll be speaking with the Office of Housing, who now owns the UW facility.

There's the King's Hall parking lot.

Folks are interested in trying to activate the space, maybe a community garden or some other kind of temporary facility, temporary usage so that there's more eyes on the street there.

And they're also looking to Sound Transit to provide better security and lighting for the space that's below the Mount Baker light rail station.

If any of you have stopped at that station, you know that it's elevated.

There's apartments underneath, but there's also some dark alleyways underneath.

Frankly, it was just poorly designed because at night there is no lighting, no visibility there, and that is where a lot of the drug dealing and bullets have been found most recently on Wednesday.

Last Monday, I joined neighbors, organizers, and advocates to kick off the Stay House, Stay Healthy campaign.

At the event, I talked about the legislation that my office has been crafting with members of this coalition.

since the beginning of the year to close the lease termination loophole that is in our Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

And some of you know that we have had this reviewed by law over the course of several meetings with my office in March.

And the legislation that we've crafted is meant to protect renters who are facing eviction from the pandemic as well.

Street sinks.

Just to give everybody an update, the funding applications are open through Department of Neighborhoods.

My office has been collaborating with D.O.N. and S.P.U. for the last several months to help get this funding off the ground and I really want to thank the folks at both departments who have been working closely with the Clean Hands Collective to address some of the challenges or some of the So, together with SPU engineers and other folks, they are working through that and I'm excited, are moving forward.

Throughout these meetings, my office has reiterated that we would like to see a model like those built through the Clean Hands Collective.

Versus other ideas that have been proposed, for example, just making these hand sanitizer stations, which defeats the purpose of having water available to folks.

We want to make sure that people have running water for their hygiene needs, especially since Seattle is sorely lacking in public restrooms.

If we can at least get these sinks out throughout the city, that would be very important.

So there is a webinar for folks who are interested, organizations that are interested in applying.

That's going to be on April 14th.

The application period closes April 23rd and funding will be awarded in May.

As always, I have office hours on Thursday mornings from 10 to noon and Sundays from 3 to 5. Constituents can sign up for an appointment through my website.

This past week, I spoke with constituents who are looking for an avenue to talk to parks about noise concerns that they're having, as well as constituents who are looking for a way to get information from OED about different kinds of project funding.

So we are helping folks work through those channels.

and Council President, that is all I have today.

Great.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right.

Hearing none, we're going to keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you very much for I do have a few questions for Councilmember Morales and Peterson, but I'll follow up afterwards because it's policy specific, but just want to flag that.

I'll reach out to you later today.

Colleagues, there are no items on today's full council agenda from the Finance and Housing Committee.

On the Introduction and Referral Calendar, there are three items that I wanted to flag for your attention.

We have an appointment of Joel Shapiro, who is going to be seeking a position at the Labor Standards Advisory Committee.

We also have Council Bill 120029, this legislation.

I am happy to co-sponsor with Council President Gonzalez.

So I'll be brief here in case Council President is going to speak to it.

Providing 1.5 million to invest in directly into the Asian American I wanted to note that this will be on our agenda for tomorrow's finance and housing committee.

Central staff has not had the chance that they normally would have to go through the piece of legislation in detail.

So we will have a panel from the executive committee as well as panel from the executive, as well as members from central staff who will be providing an overview.

But if you do have any questions or comments and you are not on that committee, please let me know.

I'm happy to help raise those questions as well.

A few highlights that I will note that we're really excited about 100,000 for the human services departments for community based organization intervention funding, including funding for counseling, mental health support, trauma response and care.

for the human services department innovation funds, for making sure that there's more response to future requests for proposals, and $100,000 to the office of civil rights for contracts with CBOs to fight hate crimes and bias, and very excited about the language in there regarding early learning, youth-led organizations being able to receive projects, and additional support for organizations who are raising issues I'm looking forward to having that discussion and happy to co-sponsor this with Council President Gonzalez.

The next item on the introduction and referral calendar is Council Bill 120030. This ordinance grew out of intensive finance and administrative services rulemaking processes on the jumpstart payroll tax.

Very excited to be able to continue the iterative process that is their leadership in the rule-making process and all the entities who worked with FAS as they listened to community partners and payors of the upcoming tax to hear how it would be applied.

This is, you know, an example of the long-standing process that I've always said that we have to be there not only when legislation is passed but after the ink is dry to make sure that the policies that we pass are implementable and workable.

And this is a great example of where we see an opportunity to improve the legislation to make it easier to implement And we've worked swiftly to help make these changes reflecting the conversations that have happened during the rulemaking process for this technical change to be applied.

This change would be additive.

It keeps the original formula for determining who is predominantly assigned in Seattle, and it adds an additional method for businesses to choose if they would prefer to use an hourly ratio formula to determine the employee expenses.

based on hours worked in Seattle in proportion to the employees' total hours worked.

Businesses would be able to use the original payroll assignment method if they choose to do so, which we've heard from a number of employers that they would absolutely prefer to use the existing language.

And we've also heard from a handful of folks through the rulemaking process that there is a desire for a hourly ratio option as well.

Very happy to accommodate this.

I think this technical upgrade makes it easier for payers to apply.

And I want to underscore that there's no changes to the underlying bill, who is assessed, the rates, et cetera.

So this truly is adding an additive option for those payors to be able to choose the best methodology for them and applying the Jumpstart payroll tax to those who are currently eligible under the current formula.

really excited about being able to offer this and I hope you will consider taking a look through it will be up for our discussion in our committee tomorrow as well.

Speaking of our committee tomorrow it's April 6th at 9 30 a.m.

The agenda will start as I mentioned last week with a touch point on the American Rescue Plan Act ARPA.

This is our federal funds to respond to the COVID response and as I mentioned in the memo that you received and in the briefing last week, we will start each meeting with 20 minutes of public comment.

We will also have the first half of the meeting dedicated to talking about ARPA's development, what we're thinking about here in the city, how it applies to what we know coming from the King County Executive and Council who are deliberating right now as well, how they will apply these funds.

And we will use the first half of each of our meetings between now and the end of May to look at the first tranche and the first ordinance in the first tranche.

And then we will use June to look at the second ordinance related to the first tranche of funds as well.

If you have any questions about that memo or the timeline that I sent around, please let me know.

We are definitely interested in making sure everybody has access to all of the timeline information.

And again, if you're not on the Finance and Housing Committee and you'd like to offer an amendment, ask questions, you are very much encouraged to attend the meetings.

We'd like you to attend.

And as the chair, I'm happy to bring forward a legislation on behalf of anybody who is not on the committee so you can fully participate in the discussions and your ideas can be well-represented.

Tomorrow during the meeting, we will kick off our discussions on the American Rescue Plan Act by hearing from other cities on how they plan to spend this funding and what processes they're going through.

I want to feature that we will have Council Member Vanessa Fuentes from the City of Austin, Council Member Robin Kanich from Denver City Council, and Council President Lisa Bender from Minneapolis City Council.

Thank you to our friends at local progress who not only have compiled an initial report on how various cities are applying the ARPA funds, but have helped reach out to make these connections so that we can all make the dots with similarly situated cities to understand how they are applying ARPA as well.

Then we will go on to other items on our agenda.

This includes the appointment of Dan Torres to the sweetened beverage advisory board and appointment of We have a number of dates that have a hold on our calendar for that item.

We will include the rental and this is providing almost $23 million for rental assistance, direct rental assistance.

I want to highlight two amendments that will be considered for the council colleagues' consideration.

The first amendment relates to making an amendment to the existing legislation as it was transmitted to instead of giving $1.5 million to City Light and public utilities, I want to retain those dollars for rental assistance, recognizing that there will be additional relief dollars offered to public utilities, specifically in the ARPA legislation.

In this legislation that passed Congress in December, This is our chance to I think at this moment get as much money as we can out the door to directly to those who are experiencing hardship and hardship related to the need for rental assistance and other issues that they might be dealing with.

And then we can provide additional relief to our city departments, hopefully through ARPA.

But this allows for us to make sure that there is the 1.5 million freed up directly to go to families in need.

And if I look at a conservative estimate of how much this could potentially help, it will help at least 300 additional families be able to have rental assistance.

If I look at the maximum that we are able to do that.

I am comfortable doing this because we know that pre-pandemic nearly 80% of eligible households have not signed up for the city utility discount program.

the ways in which we're constantly working to improve that program.

But this is a reminder that this is about a 60% reduction to your city light bill.

In order to qualify, you must be earning less than 70% of the state's median income.

And that amounts to about 7,000 a month or 72,000 a year for a family of four.

And there's lots of information on the website about how to apply for the UDP program.

So looking forward to continuing to work with Council Member Peterson to get the word out and help to make that process easier.

And then we will also work with the ARPA funds to identify ways to support our utilities internally.

The second amendment, Councilmember Peterson, just want to note, thank you for bringing forward this amendment.

Happy to support it and bring it forward on your behalf to make sure that as the community-based organizations, one of the pillars who was able to receive a rental assistance dollars to support community and families directly.

They will also have the opportunity under this amendment to look at the cost of internet.

If a family is telling the community based organizations, I really cannot keep my house if I can't keep my job and my job relies on me keeping my internet in this moment of staying from home.

those community organizations will have the opportunity to have some flexibility there to allow for folks to have that.

So Council Member Peterson, happy to flag that for folks and be supportive of that.

And then we will finally have the API legislation that I mentioned at the beginning that Council President Gonzalez and I are bringing forward and have that in our committee with a handful of folks from the executive's office.

And the jumpstart legislation, which I mentioned, packed agenda tomorrow, but looking forward to working with all of you.

We have extended these meetings, we plan to wrap them up before 1 p.m.

and my desire is to make sure that that happens well before 1. So thanks again to my committee colleagues for your extended time there.

In last week's events, we did have the opportunity to meet with a number of housing and service providers, folks from the immigrant and refugee community to learn more about what the needs are for the ARPA funds.

We are holding a series of roundtable discussions to I'm excited to be able to hear directly about ways in which folks would like us to use our city ARPA allocation so that we can have a really informed discussion on draft bill for council colleagues on April 20th.

And we'll be reporting out on some of those conversations.

I know many of you have had very similar discussions, so we'll be able to compare notes during tomorrow's meeting.

And this week, I look forward to visiting Lumen Center.

I know many of you have been there and congratulate all the folks who've been volunteering and working in this center and so many across our cities as we stand up our response to the COVID crisis by making sure that we have a targeted equity focused vaccine rollout and this Lumen Center getting ready for mass vaccination sites has been underway for a very long time, so as the doors open even wider in the upcoming weeks, it's really exciting to be able to take a look at this and look forward to volunteering one day.

I'm signed up for four weeks in advance, I know that a lot of people are too, so sign up to volunteer if you have not yet and are able to.

In Office of Labor Standards update, just a reminder that the minimum wage and wage theft ordinance are celebrating anniversaries on April 1st.

Thanks so much to all of the work that Office of Labor Standards have done.

in partnership with the Office of Civil Rights, as we have ruled out incredible legislation over the last few years, wanted to make sure to thank them for their ongoing work.

This is coupled with the TNC's minimum compensation ordinance and making sure that folks know that there will be public comment accepted on the ordinance through April 23rd, 2021 at 5 p.m.

The proposed rules and more information about the law can be found at the Office of Labor Standards websites.

The TNC Driver Resolution Center request for proposal is also available now.

There's an estimated $5 million to fund organizations to provide TNC drivers with the first ever Driver Resolution Center.

This organization will provide representation to drivers.

in arbitration hearings and outreach and education to drivers on their rights under the law.

I want to note that folks will have the ability to submit applications until Monday, April 26 at 5 p.m.

and again more information can be found on the Office of Labor Standards websites.

Um, and again, just want to thank the incredible folks from the, uh, FAS for all of the work that they've done again in rulemaking on jumpstart.

But again, their ongoing work is just such a huge portfolio.

Um, thank them for the 2021 property inventory report, which they sent to us last week.

Um, and we, uh, are excited about their ongoing work to, uh, to stand up the high volume vaccination planning and implementation.

provide constant support to the various departments who are supporting the Lumen field.

and all of the work that they have been doing across our city, including helping those who are at the laundry use as, I'm sorry, an extension of the FAS and Office of Housing Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Washington laundry use as a PPE warehouse.

This is really exciting opportunity that FAS helped to draft a six-month extension, included a month-to-month renewal and made sure that each of the parties had an executive agreement for through the rest of the year to make sure that there was available services at that site.

With that, thank you very much, Council President.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I don't think so.

I think we got it all.

Thank you.

All right, I will round out this portion of the committee by giving both my report and the report of Councilmember Strauss really quickly.

As I mentioned at the top of today's meeting, Councilmember Strauss has been selected for jury duty, and he will be out for a number of City Council meetings held between this week and possibly through the week of April 12th.

So he has asked that I provide a very brief report on his behalf this morning.

There are no items for final action on the City Council agenda for the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, but there are nine appointments to the Seattle Youth Commission on today's introduction and referral calendar sponsored by Councilmember Strauss.

Okay, that is the end of his report.

Very short report of the Governance and Education Committee.

The next Governance and Education Committee will be Tuesday, April 13th at 2 o'clock p.m.

The agenda will be published later this week.

On the agenda for our next meeting, we will include a briefing and presentation from the Department of Education and Early Learning on Seattle Promise.

We'll also hear a presentation on King County's Best Starts for Kids levy proposal in advance of King County Council making a determination as to what the ballot measure will look like for King County voters later this year.

and we will also consider two appointments to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

As mentioned by Council Member Mosqueda, this afternoon's introduction referral calendar includes Council Bill 120009, which I am proud to co-sponsor with Council Member Mosqueda.

This special legislation is being done in partnership with Mayor Durkin, and I want to thank the mayor and Council Member Musqueda for their important partnership on this effort to provide direct resources and make investments to advance public safety programs for the Asian American and Pacific Islander American community right here in Seattle.

I don't need to describe the details of the bill, since Council Member Musqueda did a very good job of describing those details already, and needless to say, I'm excited for these conversations in tomorrow's Finance and Housing Committee meeting and look forward to the conversation.

Of course, here in Seattle, we've witnessed a dangerous rise in acts of hate against AAPI communities, and I continue to believe it's incumbent upon city leaders to work with community leaders to combat this hate and help ensure community safety.

This bill that we will discuss tomorrow is a first and clear, tangible step towards investing in community safety for the AAPI community, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to continue to work on this issue and look forward to working with each of you on this important effort.

Other than this item on the introduction referral calendar, there is nothing on this afternoon's full council agenda from the Governance and Education Committee for final action today.

As I mentioned at the top of today's meeting, I do intend to bring forward during other business an opportunity for each of you to add your signature to a letter to the governor that would advocate for a statewide effort to appropriate $400 million to the acquisition of underutilized property to meet local communities' needs to address housing affordability and homelessness.

OIR Deputy Director Robin Kosky did describe this effort earlier this morning, and at 1027 a.m.

this morning, she circulated a draft letter to each of you and your offices.

While we're talking about full council, it will be a very short full council meeting.

The only items of business on the agenda are approval of the introduction and referral calendar.

So I expect that it will not last very long this afternoon.

Next, this Thursday, April 8th at 930 a.m., I do plan to attend the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board meeting.

At that meeting, the board will make a recommendation on supplemental Federal Highway Administration funding for projects on PSRC's adopted contingency list.

A briefing will also be provided on the delivery status of 2021 projects.

The board will also have an opportunity for small group discussions on how to address safety in the regional transportation plan.

Next up on Saturday afternoon, my daughter Nalia and I had the pleasure of touring the mass vaccination site at Lumen Field.

And during that tour, I saw firsthand the major undertaking happening there to inoculate our community from the ongoing threat of COVID-19.

I want to thank the mayor, hundreds of community volunteers, our partners from Swedish and the hardworking folks from FAS and several other city agencies that have put in the hours of planning and execution to make Lumenfield the largest vaccination site in the country.

As a city, we should be really proud of this massive effort that includes hundreds of volunteers who are administering vaccines helping people find their way, and providing on-demand, on-site translation and interpretation for those who communicate in a language other than English.

I also take this opportunity to remind folks, vaccinated or not, to remember to keep your mask on, wash your hands, and maintain social distancing.

COVID rates are showing an uptick in King County, which I know we continue to talk about.

It's important for us to continue to practice the CDC guidelines again, regardless of whether you have been vaccinated or not.

This is an important component of getting through this period of time.

So let's make sure that we are continuing to look out for each other by following these recommendations.

And also, I would be remiss if I didn't say that I wanted to wish a happy belated birthday to FAS Director Calvin Goings, who on his birthday was working at the vaccination site and hosting us on the tour of Lumen Field.

So happy belated birthday to Director Goings.

I hope he did get to celebrate after all that hard work.

Lastly, I want to welcome a new member to my team this week.

We are pleased to welcome Maria Beltran to our office as my scheduler and office manager.

Maria began her career as a community organizer in Yakima, Washington, where she was born and raised.

Before joining my team, she served as Congresswoman Kim Schreier's outreach director, and she served as a legislative assistant and campaign manager to State Representative Deborah Ensign.

Maria currently serves on the Board of Directors of One America and on State Treasurer Mike Pellicciari's transition team.

She is the proud daughter of immigrants and agricultural workers, received her Bachelor's of Arts degree from Gonzaga University, and we are so excited and humbled to have the opportunity to work with Maria here in the office and to benefit from her state and federal work experience while she is with us at the City of Seattle.

So I hope you'll join me and my team in welcoming Maria to the City family.

Hopefully, we'll be able to give her a more proper welcome in the next couple of weeks.

So that is it from me.

Any comments or questions, colleagues?

All right.

Hearing none, colleagues, as a reminder, our meeting this afternoon, I do anticipate, will be rather short, barring a significant amount of folks who sign up for public testimony, but do want to thank you for all of your work today, and I look forward to seeing you this afternoon.

We are adjourned.