Seattle City Council Briefing 2262024

Well, good afternoon, everybody.

Today is February 26, 2024. The council briefing will come to order.

The time is 2.01.

Will the clerk please read the roll?

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Present.

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of February 12th, 2024 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Okay, on to the President's report.

Today we'll have our weekly report from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations State Legislative Team, hello, on the developments in Olympia, as well as our usual preview of city council actions and regional committees.

Tomorrow at full council, there will be 12 items on the introduction and referral calendar, including the weekly payroll bill, the revised external committee resolution that's also on the agenda, and then three preservation ordinances going to the library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, and seven appointments to the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, also in that committee.

So just so you know, going forward, I may not list all of the items on the IRC at council briefings because as more and more legislation gets transmitted, I might not list them all.

But if members of the public and my colleagues are interested, you can go to the seattle.legistar.com.

That's seattle.legistar.com.

Click the legislation tab and select introduction and referral calendar for a link to the calendar.

The IRC to be adopted at a council meeting is generally posted about 24 hours in advance of the meeting.

So just in case you want to take a look at that yourselves, that's where to find it.

All right, the consent calendar tomorrow will include the minutes and the payroll bill.

And then also going forward, this is where we'll be voting on a lot of appointments, which is also likely to get to be a full list.

Tomorrow, also on the agenda, there are two pieces of legislation, Resolution 32126, designating a portion of 43rd Avenue as Senator George Fleming Way.

and Resolution 32127, an updated version of the Resolution on External Committee Membership, which corrects a couple scheduling conflicts that have come to light.

And I think it was last Wednesday that Ali sent an email listing those precise changes.

And if you have any questions, please check with her before the meeting.

And then finally, we'll have an administrative appeal of a 28-day exclusion issued to Alex Zimmerman on February 13th.

All right.

That's what I've got to do in my—that's what's coming up tomorrow, and I will just move on to the state legislative session update.

OIR distributed a bulletin of bills they will cover today and their presentation this morning, and both will be available to the public on the agenda after this meeting, as is our usual practice.

Those materials get made kind of in the last minute because things are moving so fast there.

And again, just so everybody knows what this briefing is for, this is an opportunity for council members to ask questions about or weigh in on live bills.

Director Tarleton, thank you very much for coming.

Go ahead and take it away.

Thank you, Council President Nelson, members of the City Council.

I'm Gail Tarleton, Director of the Intergovernmental Relations Office for the City of Seattle.

And our two state legislative team members, Samir Janejo and Anna Johnson, are in Olympia.

It is 10 days until sine die, end game.

And so this will be the second to the last Monday council briefing.

Next Monday will be the last council briefing before the end of session.

So today, Ana Johnson, I think Samir actually will kick it off this morning, this afternoon.

I actually am starting it off today for us.

Hey, everyone.

My name is Anna.

I'm the state legislative liaison in OIR.

Before we get into an update on all the legislation that's still under consideration, we're actually going to highlight the draft budget proposals from both the House and the Senate.

so for a reminder the three budgets that the state creates is a capital budget operating budget and a transportation budget and since we're in the second year of the biennium they are creating a supplemental versions of the versions they created last year which means they're amending last year's budgets or they're at and they're adding on to it so i'm going to go through just some of the highlights really high level of what each chamber included in their capital budgets to start off and then we'll go into bills later in the presentation So for the house, they had a $1.3 billion supplemental capital budget.

They included 160 million for affordable housing in the homelessness crisis, 50 million for new early learning centers, $84 million for new treatment facilities and $670 million in Climate Commitment Act revenue spending for a number of things, including clean energy development, grants to building owners for energy efficiency upgrades, salmon recovery, carbon sequestration, and grants for clean air in public schools.

The Senate also had a $1.3 billion supplemental capital budget.

Some of the highlights for their budget was that 121.5 million were for K through 12 school construction and maintenance and improving funding for school districts.

60 million for new funding that supports um skills center facilities for career and technical education 45.5 million for the purchase and modernization of the olympic heritage behavioral health hospital in takula 44.8 million for behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment facilities that are run by tribal government and 119 million in total housing funding and 111 of that million of that is for the housing trust fund For the operating budget, the House had a $71 billion supplemental operating budget.

Some of the highlights are $150 million for low and moderate income clean energy assistance.

So this will be a rebate on their utility bill.

And $63 million in just general CCA spending across the board, clean energy and climate programs.

$35 million to support immigrants, refugees, asylees, and people who are undocumented.

$28 million for healthcare for uninsured adults, $26 million for housing for vulnerable populations, tenant rights, and home ownership support, $26 million for provider rates and reimbursements for both foster care and ECAP, $13 million for childcare slots and expanding eligibility and technical assistance, $35 million for special education, 40 million for local homelessness services, 31 million to backfill the document recording fee to help with local housing programs, 73 million for food assistance for seniors, summer EBT program for children, and food banks.

151 million for increasing access to opioid use treatment programs and supplies, 210 million for inpatient behavioral health capacity, and 47 million for long-term civil commitment within the community.

And then the Senate also had a $71 billion operating budget.

Some of their highlights, again, were 135 million for the Olympic Heritage Behavioral Health Facility in Tukwila.

That's about 72 beds.

20 million for the University of Washington Behavioral Health Teaching Hospital.

about $50 million for paraeducators, $13 million for special education, $19 million to establish a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Lake Burien for youth aged 12 to 18 with complex needs, $36 million of the opioid settlement agreements to help with substance use disorder treatment, and $242 million in new spending for K-12 schools, including student meals, special education, staffing needs like paraeducators.

and so I'll go over the transportation budget.

So the House and Senate had supplemental transportation benefits this year.

Some similarities, some differences.

The House had $150 million for fish passage barrier corrections, $58 million for five hybrid electric ferries, and then $24 million for ferry preservation and maintenance.

They also used CCA revenues, $340 million of revenue.

Some of it will be used for safe routes to schools, bicycle-pedestrian projects, electric school buses, and 2026 World Cup planning.

166 million for traffic management law enforcement and built environments to keep streets and roadways safe and then also due to escalated project costs they're prioritizing construction of the north bridge portion of the 520 portish bay project and construction of the south bridge and the roanoke lid will be pushed to future years uh in the senate um the put in $150 million for preservation of roads and bridges, $31 million in traffic safety measures, which includes $13 million for Washington State Patrol and $5.5 million to combat impaired driving, and also about $1 million to help curtail speeding.

They also put in $150 million for fish barrier removal to help expand the salmon population, and also $260 million of CCA revenues for a lot of that money will go towards new ferries projects.

and also the existing ferry fleet.

They also funded, using federal dollars, $875 million for the I-5 Columbia River Bridge project.

And then one of the major differences between the House and Senate is the 520 project.

The Senate will pay for a $52 million cost increase in this current biennium for the West End project.

The total increase, including later biennium, is $770 million.

They're also using a $140 million sales tax deferral and also increased funds from the 520 segment tolling to accommodate the cost increase.

So as opposed to the House, they will not be doing a delay or a fading of the project.

Now, moving on to some bills that have had some activity in the last week, starting with budget and revenue.

House Bill 2044, which is a bill we've talked about before, which is a non-supply restriction, which applies to local government taxing districts located in a county, which is King County.

So that bill is a bill the city supports and is still moving.

House Bill 2276, also known as the REIT bill, which again increases the ceiling for the Tier 1 state REIT from $525,000 to $750,000, and also imposes a new tax of 1% on value of the selling price over $3 million.

And the study supports this bill.

And House Bill 2375 also moved out of committee last week.

This allows one ADU on properties that qualify for the senior citizen disabled person's property tax exemption.

In the climate and environment space, a few bills have moved through the process as of last week.

House Bill 1368 requires the Department of Ecology to administer a zero-emission school bus grant program, and the grant will prioritize routes that serve communities in in areas that are highly impacted by air pollution and with buses that were manufactured prior to 2007. The city is in support of this bill.

House Bill 1976 authorizes commerce to provide higher incentives under the early adoption incentive program for buildings that comply with the state energy performance standard or clean building standard.

The city supports this bill as well.

And then House Bill 1948 was requested by Seattle City Light.

This one directs that retail electric customer voluntary renewable energy purchases do not count towards the overall calculation of that utility's load for the purpose of determining the utility's renewable energy targets under the Clean Under the Energy Independence Act.

Some general government bills, House Bill 1510, which requires 30 percent of the sales tax revenue at facilities, namely T-Mobile Park and Lumen Field, to be deposited into the Community Preservation and Development Authority account.

The city supports that bill.

And then House Bill 1932, which is the even-numbered-year elections bill.

This bill actually seems like it will not move out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee today.

And then Senate Bill 6040, which relates to prompt pay requirements.

This is a bill that a prime contractor and each higher tier subcontractor must make payment within 10 days to a subcontractor until the subcontractor receives payment.

And this is for contractors that are recognized as women or minority owned business.

And the city supports that bill.

Some waiver help bills that have moved along in the past week, House Bill 2115, allows a health care provider who is prescribed an abortion medication to request that that label for the medication include the prescribing and dispensing health care facility name instead of the provider's name.

House Bill 1929 creates a post-impatient housing program for young adults to provide supportive transitional housing with behavioral health supports for people age 18 to 24 who are exiting an inpatient facility.

And the city supports that bill.

And Senate Bill 5853 is a follow-up bill from a bill that established 23-hour crisis relief centers last year.

This bill now allows those facilities to also serve youth.

City supports that bill and the Senate bill 1695 authorizes the Department of health to issue a prescription or standing order for a for a drug to control and prevent the spread of and mitigate or treat any disease or threat to public health.

And the city supports that bill.

On housing and homelessness front House Bill 254, which prohibits a association, a common interest community, like an HLA from regulating or limiting the number of unrelated.

Persons that may occupy a unit.

House Bill 1998 is the co-living bill requires cities to allow co-living housing as a permanent use on any lot located that allows at least six multifamily residential units, and this bill passed off the Senate floor already 44 to 4, so it is now moving back to the House.

House Bill 2012 expands the property tax exemption for nonprofit organizations providing rental housing to qualify households by allowing nonprofits to receive funding from additional sources, which includes local sources, and the city supports this bill.

House Bill 2114 is the rent stabilization bill, which does things like limiting rent and fee increases, requiring notice of rent and fee increases, limiting fees, deposits, and other items for tenants.

And this bill had a hearing in Ways and Means and is scheduled to be exact at Ways and Means today, but also seems like it will not be moving at Ways and Means today.

And then House Bill 2160, which is known as the Transit-Oriented Development Bill, establishes required densities around transit.

And this is a bill that is scheduled to be voted out of committee ways and means today.

And the city supports that bill.

A couple of labor and commerce bills that we've been watching.

House Bill 1893, which allows individuals who are unemployed due to labor strike to receive up to four weeks of unemployment insurance.

And then House Bill 2260 authorizes the LCB to impose civil penalties as opposed to criminal penalties on individuals for selling or supplying liquor to anyone under the age of 21 and from a business license by the LCB.

Before you move on, can you just tell me what you're what are those going to succeed or fail or what's going on with those two?

What do you foresee?

Those two seem to be moving along.

I think the unemployment Insurance, one for striking workers, is certainly a hot topic.

But at this point, it's still alive and still moving.

Thanks.

All right, moving to public safety and criminal justice.

House Bill 2088, this bill extends liability protections for responders that are dispatched from mobile rapid response crisis teams and community-based crisis teams.

So like HealthONE or Care Department here in the city, the city supports this bill.

Senate Bill 5424 is a bill that allows law enforcement agencies to adopt flexible work policies or have officers that work part-time.

The city supports this bill.

Senate Bill 5427 requires the Attorney General's Office to oversee a hotline to assist people who have been targeted or affected by hate crimes and bias incidences and to publish annual reports regarding hate crimes and bias incidences.

And we support that bill as well.

And under social programs and education, House Bill 2368 designates the Department of Social and Human Services as the lead state agency responsible for the development review and administration of the Washington state plan for refugee resettlement.

The city supports that bill.

House Bill 1945 streamlines and enhances program access for people who are eligible for food assistance.

We support that bill.

And then House Bill 1929, actually Samir mentioned earlier in the presentation under health care, this bill creates the post-inpatient housing program and we support it as well.

Transportation, a few bills we're watching.

First, House Bill 1989. which creates a graffiti abatement and reduction pilot program within the Department of Transportation.

The city supports that bill.

House Bill 1963 requires that license plates must be uncovered.

It just relates to traffic safety cameras.

And then House Bill 2384, this is the automated traffic safety camera bill, which we've mentioned multiple times.

Um, uh, in these briefings in the city is very supportive of that bill, which includes is does many things, but it includes the piece about allowing civilians to issue and review traffic safety cameras.

So, looking forward to the week, so today is the.

Fiscal committee cut off and so we'll see some bills and not make it out of.

the respective committees today and the rest of this week will be the opposite chamber floor cut off.

So bills have until this Friday to move out of the opposite chambers.

And then what happens after that is then they go to the if the bills have not been changed, they go to the governor's office.

But those bills have been changed to go back to the originating chamber for a concurrence vote.

Also, we'll be watching this week are hearings on three ballot initiatives that were filed to the legislature.

The three initiatives that they'll be holding hearings on are one on banning taxes on personal income, one voting to police vehicle pursuits, and also one related to parents' rights.

Those three initiatives will be heard, and then we'll see if the legislature takes action on them.

If the legislature takes no action on them, they will go to the ballot in November.

And then March 7th is the last day of session.

Can I ask a question, Council President?

Go ahead.

Okay, thank you.

There were those gun safety legislation.

Do you know where all that stands?

Yeah, there are four gun safety or gun violence prevention bills still alive and moving, and they're all in rules already, so Senate rules and House rules.

They're in your council bulletin, but I recall the one that is in House Rules is Senate Bill 5444 related to restricting firearms in sensitive locations.

And then the three House Bills that are in Senate Rules relate to reporting of lost and stolen firearms, requiring accountability for firearm dealers.

And then the third one in Senate Rules is related to destroying firearms that are confiscated by local law enforcement or Washington State Patrol.

So do you think these will move forward?

I mean, in the end?

I hope so.

There's certainly they have this all of this week to come up on the on the floor.

And so I'm hopeful that that they will.

And they've made it made it pretty far along in the process.

It's just going to come down to time management by each chamber and just making sure there's no final issues at the very end here.

Is there anything that we can do to show support for this?

I know the city supports it in general, but Is there anything we can do to provide further support?

Ms.

Yeah.

Ana, is there any organized stakeholder effort to send letters to the respective leadership?

I am not sure at this time, but I certainly can check in with the other advocates working on these bills.

Samir and I are reminding legislators frequently that these are priorities for us, that they should take them up before the deadlines.

But I'll check and see if there's any other organized efforts that our help would be helpful in.

What are the votes on those?

We can't necessarily predict.

So basically, if a bill is in rules, they have to first take the step to what they call pull the bill from rules in order for it to get on the floor calendar.

And that could happen at any time basically from now until Friday.

It could happen in the middle of the day and in the evening.

It's really up to kind of the scheduling of the party in charge of each chamber.

So the Democratic Party will have to decide when they want to take it up for a vote and kind of manage the floor debate accordingly alongside all the other bills they're working to pass this week.

Thanks.

Council President, may I ask a question?

Hold on.

Before we go to more questions, did you want to provide any, Director Talton, any closing remarks or anything after their presentation?

What I really want to emphasize is that a lot can happen between now and March 7th.

The leadership teams in both the House and the Senate are really focused on getting a budget reconciled, and so, as Ana and Samir have mentioned, There's a difference between the House and the Senate operating capital and transportation budgets.

They are in negotiations right after the cutoff today of trying to reconcile the differences between their respective budgets, and that process will continue until March 7th.

So the policy bills that have to get off of the respective chamber floors will start being pulled out of rules consistently 24 hours a day.

around the clock and uh and so something could change really fast there's no more testimony on bills however okay everything is now floor action amendments on the floor will happen and so letters of support urging bills to be pulled to the floor can have um some impact but no more testimony from this point it's just like get it done thank you council president

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you for the update.

Obviously, I follow the public safety ones as well, and I've got multiple sources of information, include our representative and the 36th, Representative Berry.

She makes sure I'm well-informed on those as well.

My question, actually, it's a separate question from the briefing, and it relates to the fact that tomorrow's Public Safety Committee meeting is on accountability, and we're going to have the three-legged stool, as they say, the Community Police Commission, the Office of Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability meeting with us.

And as I was reviewing the 2017 Accountability Ordinance, they mentioned that OIR shall consult with OPA, OIG, and CPC during the development of the state legislative agenda I was just curious, maybe not for this current session, but if you have anything in terms of your experience over the last two years related to accountability and working with the CPC, OIG, or OPA.

So I am gonna let Ana respond to whether or not there were meetings between the OIR team and any of those commissions and organizations.

I'll also say that we have had interactions from our tribal relations director in his previous roles.

He has served on community policing commissions and at the state as well as locally.

But I'd like Ana to let you know whether we had any meetings with the Community Police Commission, the Office of Police Accountability, or the Inspector General prior to going into session.

Yeah, thanks for that question.

Heading into every legislative session, we basically consult with all the city departments.

So that would include OIG, OPA, and CPC to solicit their legislative priorities, their concerns, their supports, things that they're interested in tracking the next session, problems they're encountering that require state law change.

And so we kind of start those conversations pretty quickly.

about like summer or fall as we head into the next legislative session.

And that helps us inform what we should track when bills start to get introduced and what bills we might need to be requesting legislators to to file or it also helps us have conversations with the mayor's office and the city council members to prepare our statewide legislative agenda so certainly we had checked in with all of those departments uh last last year and ahead of this session and then used their expertise as well for bill review during session and um and helped us kind of monitor and things that would impact the city's police accountability structures okay thank you are there any other questions

Go ahead, Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Director Tarleton and Ana and Samir, for another insightful kind of overview and update on what's happening in Olympia.

I have a couple questions.

The first one is really a two-part question, and it relates to the transportation budget slide.

Under the current house proposed transportation related budget, it's 14.3 billion total, and there's 340 million that have been made available, including to support a number of things, including the quote unquote 2026 World Cup planning.

And the 2026 World Cup is gonna be happening in my district, District 1. And we're gonna welcome people from all over the world, not only to this district, but the entire city and our region.

So I think it makes sense that the state is interested in funding the support of that.

But I would just be curious, to better understand, and I know there's gonna be a variety of funding sources, not just state, to help make sure that event is successful, but I would just be curious to learn more about what does that line item for World Cup planning mean under this proposed budget?

Like, what kind of things is that intended to cover?

And then secondly, and that is with respect to transportation, and then secondly, across the broader budget, What kind of non-transportation-related, World Cup-related funding sources is the stake in a fund, I guess?

So, Samir, go ahead.

You've been tracking this a little bit.

On the transportation side, as I recall, they put in, I believe, $1 million for transportation planning that would go directly to the World Cup Organizing Committee.

And I don't have the details as to how they plan on using that money, but that's something that we can kind of talk with them to figure out how exactly they want to plan to utilize that.

And then broadly, there was money I think it was $10 million each, I think, I believe, in the House and Senate budgets to the public stadium authority.

And from what I understand, just based on conversation, it seems like a lot of that money is meant to help improvements, for improvements at Lumen Field and their event center, to make operational improvements to ensure that they can fully host the World Cup games.

So that's and I think there's we're hearing is there certainly will be more more to come next session.

But this is kind of the this is the start of some of that money.

I think next session there will be a lot of discussion about specific ways in which both the federal government, the state government, and of course the city of Seattle, as well as private partners, will be investing in infrastructure as well as support to travelers, visitors, tourism, public safety, making sure that we can handle the 300,000 plus people who are expected to be coming for the six matches.

Oh, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

And a separate question.

So it doesn't necessarily touch on anything you covered today, but it is a state initiative.

So there are six or maybe seven ballot initiatives that are likely going to appear before voters across the state.

and later this year.

And one of them would repeal the Washington Climate Commitment Act, amongst other things.

And in so doing, potentially eliminate billions in funding for clean energy and transportation projects.

And so...

among other impacts of the broader things before voters.

So just be curious to kind of better understand our initial thinking on the impacts of that for the city of Seattle.

If that pass, what would that mean?

So Anna, perhaps you could address how the legislature is looking at those pieces of policy that would be affected if the ballot initiative were to pass.

Yeah, so there is a citizen initiative that was filed to the legislature to repeal the CCA.

It is not one of the initiatives that the legislature has scheduled for a hearing on, so likely it will go to the ballot in its current form.

So I'm asking the voters if they would want to repeal the CCA.

The type of impacts that that would have if it was to repeal does really affect the amount of funding that is available at the state level.

Currently, the city is eligible for and anticipating millions in grant programs that would impact the city or its partners in helping reduce climate emissions in our community, help decarbonize the transportation sector, help building owners decarbonize.

So certainly that's one of the big impacts, as well as the Seattle City Light does have a compliance role.

They participate in the auction.

And that would impact them as well.

The city is also considering linking, or the legislature is considering linking our cap and trade program with Quebec and California.

And that bill is subject to the initiative.

So if the initiative passes, then we will not continue the process of obviously linking our cap and trade program.

But that is a policy that the state is considering this session.

And then within the budgets, we saw a lot of the funding contingent on whether or not the initiative passes.

So it's essentially what they call null and void.

If the initiative passes, then that funding would not be available to the city, other government entities, public, nonprofit, tribes, et cetera.

So there's certainly a lot at stake.

And so if that failed, so under this proposed transportation budget under the House, there's a $340 million of additional revenue made possible by revenues from the carbon emissions allowance auctions.

Would that be part of?

So that would be, I guess, on a going forward basis, whatever the effective date is, like that type of money would be at stake.

Correct.

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council President.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Director Tarleton, with session ending so soon, is this the last briefing you will be at before session's over?

I think next Monday.

Okay, next Monday.

March 4th.

Is that correct?

Next Monday is March 4th.

Yes.

Wonderful.

I only asked...

We'll have one more briefing right before end of session.

And then in previous years, Council President, the Council has received a post-session briefing where Ana and Samir can do a full wrap of what passed, what didn't, what it looks like going into the ballot measures, and what potential policy could in fact be at risk should certain policy measures fail.

be adopted by the state of Washington voters.

Thank you.

I ask that because before your final report, it is important for us as a body to convey our gratitude for all of the work you've stewarded over the last two and a half years, two plus years.

This came to mind when Councilmember Kettle mentioned Representative Liz Berry.

who filled that House representative seat that you vacated after over a decade of service to the legislature on behalf of Seattleites.

You've done more for us than any of us will actually ever know, for our nation, for our state, for our port and now our city.

I've watched within OIR as our federal delegation, that federal relations component improved.

I've seen more departments seeking grant funding and that becoming more aggressive.

And you have set up this iteration of OIR with incredibly smart and effective staff at each respective level of government.

So I know I'll have more opportunities to run into you at the grocery store, and I'm sure there'll be more official opportunities up here.

I just wanted to make sure to take a moment to recognize your accomplishments and express my personal and professional gratitude for your service, again, to the state, the port, the nation, and now our city.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

And to the craft beer industry of Washington State.

Absolutely, Council President.

Thank you.

Finally, I do have one last question, and you can answer this offline, but I'm noticing the item on page four in the Senate's operating budget, $36 million from the opioid settlement agreements will boost treatment for substance use disorder.

At some point, I'd like to know if you know which settlement are they talking about, and is there a pot of money that just the state got, and then there was additional money given to counties and then cities?

I just want to make sure that our money isn't being touched, or I don't think that they can.

But anyway, just some more information about that, please.

I think Samir has that information.

Okay.

You can just send it, or whatever.

You can say it.

What I can say is that this is the state portion, and the local governments will get their own portion of the opiate settlement.

But in terms of which settlement, because I know there have been multiple settlements that have happened, so they may be using a combination option.

It's kind of catch-all term for all the opiate settlement money.

But yeah, I can send you over a list of kind of more detailed list of how they're spending that money.

Well, I thank the Senate for that because I don't see any line item that addresses the, that uses any opioid settlement dollars in the House operating budget proposal.

So I'm for it.

I just wanted to know more.

Thank you very much.

And if you could share that information with the other council members, including myself, Council Member Moore, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Okay.

If there's nobody else, I also want to note that I believe that your federal team will be coming to brief us as well next week in addition.

Yes, and next Tuesday, next Monday I think is both, right?

The federal team as well as the state team.

Yes.

Our federal contract lobbyist, Leslie Pollner, will be in town, and so Michelle Nance, the federal affairs director at OIR, and Leslie will be in front of you to give you an update of the things not happening in Washington, D.C., compared with Washington State.

All right.

Thank you very, very much for the briefing today.

Thank you, Council President.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Samir and Ana.

All right, moving right along, we can now get into the, there are no letters or proclamations before us today for signature.

So we'll begin our next discussion of the preview of council actions coming up and what happened last week.

And the order of discussion is established by our normal roll call procedure.

And this week's roll call begins with Council Member Hollingsworth.

So go ahead, Council Member Hollingsworth, and pass it along.

awesome thank you council president nelson good afternoon fellow colleagues uh so this wednesday we'll be having our second uh putt meeting parks utilities and technology on the 28th um what we'll be discussing is council bill 120725 which is the thinning ordinance this authorizes spu to conduct force management in our watershed last Couple last meeting we talked about it.

We had an introduction to it and I am hoping with our fellow council members support I hope to move this bill out of committee on Wednesday So we can be able to maintain our water supply and prevent forest fires.

So that's coming down the pipeline the second thing in that meeting will also be having a briefing with SPU and information technology a briefing about their 2024 priorities.

A lot of us call IT when we have a problem, but they also do a ton of other stuff in our city to make sure 99.9% of the things go seamlessly, go right in our city.

And it's a great time to learn and all the hard work that goes into that and the technology pieces that are coming down the pipeline and how we're trying to improve our technology and then also our experience for our city and the people that we serve.

The second thing is the same thing as the tap water.

We turn it on and that's all we know, but SPU is going to go down a great introduction about kind of what they do and all of the pieces that they're experiencing and then some infrastructure and some 2024 pieces that they're going to need from our council and some requests.

And last but not least, I guess, cool district update, public safety meetings.

I've been doing those.

I think I announced those a couple of weeks ago that we were doing those consistently for the last couple of weeks.

We had one last week and went phenomenal.

We had the mayor's office, SPD, and some people from the East Precinct, and we'll be hosting one again on March 5th in our district as well, and that will be in the Central District, and then we're going to host another one on Capitol Hill in the next couple weeks.

So those are really important.

It gets people engaged and connected to different community safety pieces, and we hear from folks what they want to see in their community because every district, every community is different.

And next, I would like to pass it off to Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes, for this coming week, we have a Public Safety Committee meeting, as I was alluding to with Director Tarleton.

And this week, it's our second meeting, and our second meeting's gonna be focused on accountability, specifically the public safety element of accountability, as opposed to governance, accountability, and economic development.

The combination of the, as they call it, the three-legged stool of the Community Police Commission, the Office of Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability.

And as I like to say, the committee and the council overall provide a room of accountability for that three-legged stool, and then we'll be doing that.

So each of those three organizations will be briefing, and it'll be teed up with a briefing from central staff as well to start it off.

Separately, over the past week, I just wanted to note that I attended two meetings.

One, the first one last week was the Puget Sound Regional Council with my colleague, Council Member Saka.

A lot of discussion, a lot of it transportation related.

And then secondly, I attended the Domestic Violence Prevention Council with City Attorney Davison, Chief Diaz, and Director Kim.

And it was a great session.

And we're trying to set up moving forward.

And one of the focus areas is going to be children, particularly within the domestic violence context.

And it's very important about breaking the cycle.

And I'll be working close with my colleague who chairs the Housing and Human Services Committee on that to ensure that all bases are covered.

Also last week, I just wanted to note, had a great meeting at the Pike Place Market with their constituency meeting, highlighting the issues related to Pike Place Market, and also had a tour and a meeting with the director, Will Dougherty, of the Pacific Science Center.

Very important asset that we have here in the city.

both of them, Pike Place Market and the Pacific Science Center.

So a great opportunity to learn what are the issues facing both and, you know, moving forward, you know, plans and thoughts they're having and, you know, how can we support, how can we work with the executive, you know, whether it's Seattle Center with Director Foster, Pacific Science Center, but also the issues related to the Pike Place Market.

So a great opportunity last week, so thank you.

And I'll turn it over to Council Member Moore.

I have a question.

Who are the members or what are the other members of the Domestic Violence Prevention Council, please?

The Domestic Violence Prevention Council is representing the council as myself.

The other main council members include City Attorney Davison, Chief Diaz, and Director Kim.

Okay.

So those are the four.

And then they have a support team as well, directors and so forth.

Not directors, but, you know, staff to support the effort.

I was just wondering if there was anybody from the county.

Okay, thank you.

No, no, this is a specific city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So this week will be the second meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee on Wednesday, and we will have only one item on the agenda this week, which is for briefing and discussion.

We will be hearing an introductory presentation from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections with respect to an overview of the rental programs.

So SCDI reports mostly to the Land Use Committee, but with the exception of anything related to the rental program, and they report to the Housing and Human Services Committee.

So we'll be hearing more about that on Wednesday.

And if there are no further questions, I'll turn it over to Council Member Morales.

Okay, thank you very much.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

I'll start with committee.

Last week, the Land Use Committee had a second briefing and a public hearing on the connected communities legislation.

At the committee, we heard from community practitioners about how the development partnerships work, and how the incentive program and the legislation can support development of commercial space in our neighborhoods.

The next Land Use Committee meeting is Wednesday, March 6th.

Moving on, I want to thank Council Member Saka for inviting me to present Resolution 32126 that I'm sponsoring to create the Senator George Fleming Way in Southeast Seattle.

The resolution passed unanimously in the Transportation Committee.

Thank you, committee members.

And we'll be voting on it in full council tomorrow.

Last week, I met with Director Spotts to discuss the status of some safety investments in Southeast Seattle.

There's three important projects that are underway.

We also discussed sound transit issues.

Just for benefit of my new colleagues, I have been meeting with Sound Transit on a quarterly basis for the last three years to talk particularly about MLK and some of the safety challenges that we have.

If you don't know, District 2 has the most traffic fatalities in the city, and many of them happen along Rainier and MLK.

So we've been talking about what Sound Transit is committed to in terms of safety improvements.

So those conversations continue and I will be meeting with them in the next few weeks in district to hear more from Sound Transit directly.

Last week I met with the Betsuin Buddhist Temple to discuss an arson event that devastated their temple and destroyed some cherished documents.

The arson happened in December.

I want to thank the Department of Neighborhoods for providing assistance to the temple in understanding the very challenging task of rebuilding.

It is a building that's listed as a historic building and so that brings its own challenges already.

It's also on the list for unreinforced masonry.

retrofitting.

And so they will be dealing with a lot of challenges as they try to address the rebuilding as well as the insurance and capital campaign that they're going to need to really be able to do this.

So my office did recommend that they reach out to the insurance commissioner to get some of their questions answered there as well.

And speaking of DON, I wanna thank the Black Caucus at the Department of Neighborhoods for hosting the Black History event last week.

I did not get to attend, but my staff was there, and it sounds like it was a really fantastic event, so congratulations to them.

This week I'll be participating on a panel with King County Councilmember Zahilai at the Southeast Peace Coalition event.

And I, oh, then that's it.

And then there are my notes from the state legislative update.

So unless there are any questions, yes.

Is there an investigation that's still ongoing into that arson event?

There is, and there is also, they're dealing a lot with the insurance companies right now from my understanding.

So that's why they will be speaking to the commissioner.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Thank you for that update about your work with Sound Transit.

A board member and county council council member, Zahalai, is also going to be hosting a town hall speaking about this.

And are you participating?

We're organizing it together.

Oh, fantastic.

All right.

Apologies for not knowing that it was a co-event previously.

That's quite all right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'll pass it to Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Since you mentioned the Don event for Black History Month, I was honored to have participated at the event, and I really thank Don for putting that together.

It was really a great event.

I will say that I didn't get to report last week because Monday was a holiday, but I started the in-district hours on the 15th.

It was well attended.

I had a lot of folks in community, which was really great.

We had some really great conversations.

Did it at Magnuson Park this time.

Next time we'll be in Wallingford at Good Shepherd Center.

We want to make sure that we're providing opportunities to community Our district spans both sides of I-5, so I want to make sure we have opportunity for folks on both sides of I-5 to be able to participate and meet with us in the district.

And toward that end, I also met with some small business owners regarding break-ins.

I actually met this morning with a small business owner at Sandpoint that has been broken into, unfortunately, eight times.

SPD sent their community coordinator out to talk to the business owner about how to mitigate for Break-ins what things they could do at the business and I thought that was a really great resource The business owner was very appreciative and it's really great to know that SPD has this resource I've also talked to us small businesses about other needs in the district and toward that end we're going to be organizing some neighborhood community walks and to include SPD, as well as hopefully some of the other city departments like City Light and SPU, to walk through some of the business corridors of the neighborhood and see if there's some things that we can do.

We know we have the lowest police staffing numbers, levels, but perhaps there's other things that we can do, like ensure we have good lighting, And things of that nature make sure trash pickup is happening all things that can mitigate for crime in those in the neighborhoods and in those corridors So working on that more to come on that also joining tomorrow roll call in the North Precinct Councilmember more.

I believe you're joining me for for that.

We're doing this together North Precinct services both of our districts Our next committee meeting, the last one was last week.

We had OIR presenting about their great work, particularly, not exclusively, but in the language access space that they're doing across the city.

Really appreciate all their hard work and their efforts.

Our next committee meeting is March 14th.

We're gonna have a briefing from Seattle Public Libraries about their work.

And that is it for now for me, Council Member Saka.

All right.

Well, thank you, Council Member Rivera.

And a good chunk of what I wanted to report out was actually covered by Council Member Morales.

So thank you again for, one, showing up to that meeting and providing an overview and kind of teeing up that important conversation.

And then your leadership as well.

Secondly, your leadership in making sure that resolution to rename that specific street as Senator George Fleming Way, making sure that it ultimately received unanimous support in the committee.

And colleagues, I look forward to us considering and voting on that tomorrow.

So transportation committee last week, we had our meeting last Tuesday.

That was a huge, important item of business.

Another thing that we covered was the Seattle move levy.

We have the renewal levy coming up this year.

And so wanted to get our colleagues, well, with a few exceptions, council member Strauss, of course, you know, knows very much what the move levy is, but wanted to give our colleagues a good initial orientation of that.

And so we had a great presentation last Tuesday on the move levy.

We'll have more conversations about the new move levy, including performance.

Again, I've invited, I sit on the oversight levy board as a de facto member.

We have our meeting, our next meeting, I think next week or maybe it's the following week.

But regardless, I've invited them to come talk about the performance of the levy.

So more conversations to come.

And the other thing we took up was our first kind of meat and potatoes, street vacation petition, and we had an initial briefing on that.

And then we're planning right now, finalizing our agenda for next week's, next Tuesday's agenda, so more to come.

And then...

Yeah, I intend to use most of these.

Well, let me say, I'm proud that my office shipped last Friday our eighth newsletter update.

And hat tip, shout out to my team and our central staff colleagues for helping to enable that.

And, you know, so check.

check the newsletters for details.

So I intend to use most of my time here talking about committee-related things.

And if you're not on my newsletter sign-up list, you can very easily sign up.

Just go to www.seattle.gov backslash council backslash Saka, S-A-K-A.

and click on the newsletter sign up button under my name and you can get added to my list and learn more about what we're doing in district one.

And then finally, I'll emphasize that last Friday I also participated in my first ever sort of official office hours in district, which was terrific and it was really empowering and insightful for me to hear directly Well, I hear from people all the time, but in this way, in the district, in a formal formalized way was terrific.

So first of many and yeah, that is it.

Before I pass it on to my esteemed colleague, I will take any comments or questions from any of you all.

Well, I just have to grumble a little bit about eight newsletters so far this year.

I mean, my staff and I'm sure my constituents are thinking I should take a page from your book, but thank you very much.

That's really important, though, and you're modeling good behavior.

Well, yeah.

By the way, don't expect weekly.

To my constituents, don't expect a weekly thing permanently.

But for me, right now, where I'm at, it is important for me to try and be as transparent and responsive and engaging as possible and collaborative as possible in one way, not the only way that I've found to do that is by shipping these regular newsletters.

Again, don't expect it on a weekly basis, you know, permanently, but I learned a lot by reading all your newsletters.

I'll hat tip to Council Member Moore, who shipped her own terrific newsletter on Friday herself.

So, in any event, enough of the newsletter nitty-gritty.

And I can tell you, as I'm signing up right now, in the box that I say, check to make sure I'm not a robot, it has me picking which of these pictures have bicycles.

And so as transportation chair, this is very appropriate.

Click and verify I am signed up for your newsletter, because as always, more information is better than less.

um colleagues thank you all for coming to last week's finance native communities and tribal governance committee as you all heard i will be calling it fnc as short i did as i've said too many times used to work for councilmember bagshaw when it was finance and neighborhoods so if you hear me start slipping that there is why the briefings from central staff deputy director ali panucci and Central Budget Office Director Julie Dingley were informative, and the questions each of you colleagues asked were incredibly helpful.

As I said during the presentation, many of the slides which presented issue areas at a high level will be their own standalone presentation in future meetings.

Our next milestone will be almost next month.

It already feels like March, even though February is the shortest month of the year.

So our next milestone will be when the April revenue forecast comes out on April 8th.

And so we'll be working to have that information presented to you.

I do appreciate all the time everyone's dedicating to getting into the weeds of the in the city budget's current context.

And so that allows us to level set for the challenges and opportunities ahead of us.

As always, all council members are invited to attend any and all of the FNC meetings.

And council president, I'm endeavoring to get you the requested dates for select budget committees for the spring and fall as soon as possible.

I just need to review with my vice chair before we ship it over to you.

So I'll be requesting time with you this week as well, Vice Chair Rivera, sorry.

Short term.

Our next committee meeting is next Wednesday, March 6th.

And while last meeting we focused on budgetary issues, this committee meeting will be focusing on the work that we will be completing within the Native communities and tribal governments subject area within my committee's purview.

So I'm grateful to be joined by Tribal Relations Director Tim Raynon and Indigenous Advisory Council liaison Francesca Murnon, and we're working to get you the information that was presented last year, just about their strategic plan, their current state of affairs.

And so that we're able to share with you the story arc of, you know, more than four years ago, none of this infrastructure within our government was set up.

And so this is really, while it might feel like this is how things have always been done here regarding native communities and tribal governance, This is new, and so I really wanna share, impress upon the newness and the importance of us keeping this work going.

In regional committees, this Thursday, I will be attending an all day Sound Transit board retreat in Everett, looking at our financial plans, strategic growth plans, all of the rest, all of the voter approved initiatives that we need to build.

We do have some exciting updates.

East Link will be open next month.

I believe, and this is off the top of my head, my staff will send around a note.

I believe it's April 27th.

So that's very exciting.

And then this year we have also Linwood Station opening up as well.

Tomorrow, colleagues, as I said in a council meeting a couple weeks ago, I have a community meeting which may run long, which is why I asked to be excused.

And since then, Association of Washington Cities has scheduled a meeting that overlaps with our city council meeting.

So either way, I will remain excused tomorrow.

and council member Hollingsworth, I'm excited for your committee on Wednesday.

If it runs long, I'll need to participate from my district office because I've got a 4.30 in district.

If you think it'll end right at four, I'm excited to be here on the dais with you.

I can't, I think you should do it from the office.

I can't promise anything, but maybe it might go.

If you ask a lot of questions, it might go longer.

I've heard that one before.

Well, colleagues, any other questions?

If not, I'll pass it over to Councilmember Wu.

Thank you.

So this Friday, March 1st, 9.30 a.m., is the Sustainability, Seattle City Light, and Arts and Culture Committee meeting.

We're going to do a briefing on the Bonneville Power Administration in preparation for legislation we might be seeing coming this summer.

Otherwise, it should be a good short meeting.

This past week, I went to about nine events.

It's the tail end of the Lunar New Year, and so some of the highlights was I got to conduct a tour for middle schoolers on Green Book locations and got to chat with young people regarding redlining, surrogation, in terms of jazz clubs in the...

I also attended a film screening for Big Fightin' Little Chinatown, which talked about the preservations of Chinatowns in the nation.

Three of them are on the endangered list, including Chinatown in Seattle, and so there was a lot of ideas about gentrification displacement.

And that's all I have.

I'm gonna pass it over to Council President Nelson.

Well, thank you, everybody.

Last week we canceled the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee because as I was planning, as I was trying to line up people from the departments to speak, it was spring break for a lot of schools.

So in any case, the next meeting will be March 14th, and there are currently three items on the agenda, but it's subject to change.

A departmental briefing from the Seattle Department of Human Resources, a departmental briefing from the City Auditor's Office, and a presentation on an ordinance accepting funds from the Department of Commerce to reimburse the repairs at Wing Luke Museum.

So that's coming up in a couple weeks, and regarding, I will skip a lot of the the meetings that I went to this past week, but I do want to note that on Wednesday night, I attended the Greater Seattle Business Association's Annual Impact Awards.

The GSBA was founded in 1981 and has over 1,400 members across the state, and it's headquartered on Capitol Hill, which is why Councilmember Hollingsworth was treated like such a rock star at the event.

And allow me to blow your horn because you did not, but...

You were recognized on stage for, first of all, just your overall commitment to being responsive to your district and also the small businesses within it, but also because they're excited you are a small business owner yourself, and so I imagine that this will be a great partnership going forward for you, and that was fun to see you there.

What did you say?

And she's just a rock star in general.

All right.

The GSBA's mission is to represent small business, corporate, and nonprofit members who share the values of promoting equality and diversity in the workplace.

The Impact Awards honor businesses, nonprofits, and community leaders who exemplify the highest standards of their profession, promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, demonstrate leadership, and invest time and resources in their community.

Let's see.

So I wanted to congratulate...

I think that there were six awards categories, so I want to congratulate all the nominees and winners of the six categories, and in particular, Mose Otto for receiving the Small Business of the Year Award.

So congratulations.

I encourage people to go to their website and check them out.

And also, if you ever get an email from somebody from the GSBA wanting a meeting or wanting to weigh in on some policy, answer them, because they really do have...

That is, they...

They do have a strong policy shop that advises or tracks what the city is doing regarding small businesses in general.

Okay, that is pretty much all I care to mention this week.

And I'm wondering if there are any questions or comments before we adjourn?

All right, if there's no further business, this meeting is now adjourned.

It is 3.07.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Bye.