SPEAKER_04
Again, I say to everyone, good afternoon.
The September 10th, 2024 meeting of the Seattle City Council will reconvene.
It is 2.49.
I'm Sarah Nelson, Council President.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Kettle?
SPEAKER_04
Here.
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Moore?
Present.
Council Member Morales?
Here.
Council Member Rivera?
Present.
Council Member Saka?
Council Member Strauss.
Present.
Council Member Wu.
Present.
Council Member Hollingsworth.
SPEAKER_04
Here.
SPEAKER_05
Council President Nelson.
Present.
Eight present.
SPEAKER_04
Okay, thank you very much.
Colleagues, at this time we will open the hybrid public comment period.
Public comment is limited to items on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar, and the council work program.
Madam Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?
SPEAKER_05
We have eight remote and eight in person.
SPEAKER_04
Okay, we will start with the in-person and everybody can have one minute.
SPEAKER_05
We will alternate between in-person first and remote speakers.
Each speaker will have one minute.
Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.
And speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments on time.
Thank you.
Our first in-person speaker will be Alex Zimmerman.
SPEAKER_04
Can you please pause?
SPEAKER_05
I just started.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, I would like to pause, Mr. Zimmerman.
I would like to provide two minutes to speak for each person.
So go ahead.
I'm sorry for that change.
SPEAKER_05
That's all right.
Two minutes.
Two minutes.
Two minutes.
SPEAKER_01
My God, what's going on?
See how my dirty, damn Nazi, fascist, hunter, bandito, and killer.
My name Alex Zimmerman.
Guys, I see today you have a big problem.
Sorry.
I can speak about agenda, but right now we have a hot situation.
Interruption for one half hour, absolutely idiotic.
And I talk about this for 10 years.
We have two kinds of idiot.
One idiot here who interrupt, another idiot in this chamber.
For 10 years, in every meeting for last couple of years, I talk and open better room one day per week.
from 9 to 9 for free conversation for three minutes.
Fix it all problem.
Give people, angry people, steam out so they can go and speak without interruption about everything what is you want.
Can you answer me why you don't want doing this?
You have a problem with interruption right now most in every meeting.
Why?
How is this possible?
SPEAKER_04
You must address something in our work plan or on the agenda, please.
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
It's agenda number one right now.
Make situation inside good.
It's a win-win situation.
Win for people who interrupt.
Win for people who don't want interruption.
Where is the problem?
It's free.
Agenda, better room inside, one day per week.
Everybody come, three minutes speaking, everybody happy.
Why you don't want doing this for 10 years?
I speak in all, no one council, no one mayor, no one fracking idiot from 750,000 in Seattle support this.
Why?
Why it's going on?
Are you all idiot?
We don't have American culture right now.
What is you doing is a typical Nazi Gestapo culture.
It's go for last 20 year.
20 year and you cannot fix this.
Very simple decision.
Open better room one day per week.
People can come and talk for three minute and everybody will be happy and not will be this nightmare what is have this.
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_05
Our next speaker is Eric.
SPEAKER_00
Hello, Council.
My name is Eric.
I'm a D3 voter, and I would like to comment on the possible alternatives to I-137.
I want to make one thing clear.
We use the Citizens Initiative process when our electeds have failed to act and is one of the few ways we can collectively legislate.
Council is in a position of privilege and power and are not bound by such constraints.
If Council believed in the promise of social housing, it had the time and ability to fund it via resolution.
Instead, counsel is preoccupied undermining working people by enshrining a two-tier minimum wage, funding private prison contractors, and passing ineffective and harmful soap and soda legislation.
Considering this, it is clear that any alternative isn't the original initiative.
Fuse voters, placate the demands of your corporate donors, and in the case of a property tax, pass the costs on to working people.
We want housing justice through the decommodification of housing.
We want economic justice through taxing rich corporations that exploit the labor of our community members, and we want I-137.
Pass it or put it on the ballot with no alternative.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Rachel Snell, and Rachel will be followed by Kathleen Brose.
SPEAKER_11
Hello, City Council.
My name is Rachel Snell.
Ever since 2020, crime has increased and tragically killed many people and devastated small businesses.
As someone who works downtown, I have had coworkers who have been physically assaulted during their shifts, and my very own customers have been accosted outside dining.
Seattle faces an estimated $240 million budget cut starting in 2025. This budget cut will affect so many people's access to critical mental health programs that could solve the root cause of homelessness, crime, and drug addiction.
There is discussion of school closures as a result of this budget cut that will have a negative impact on the education of countless students here in Seattle.
As citizens of Seattle, we demand that you prioritize our tech dollars effectively in order to heal Seattle and enable the city to become a robust city for everyone to thrive and live a fulfilling life.
Thank you so much.
Peace and solidarity.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you, our next speaker is Kathleen Brose, and following Kathleen will be Rachel Kay.
SPEAKER_02
Good afternoon, Council.
My name is Kathleen Brose, and I live in District 6. I want to talk to you today about I-137.
First of all, I want everybody to know I am not a landlord.
We all want to afford affordable housing.
I-137 is not the answer.
There is not enough transparency and accountability in this tax grab.
The money will be wasted.
A better way to create more immediate already built housing is to relook at the current landlord tenant laws and make it financially conducive to rent out private property.
Many small landlords are keeping their rental properties empty rather than lose money on non-paying or destructive renters that are almost impossible to evict.
Please do not approve I-137 today.
Frankly, I don't even want to see it on the ballot in February.
Too many people are not aware of the devil in the details.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Rachel Kay, and following Rachel will be David Haynes.
SPEAKER_13
Hello, my name is Rachel Kay.
I am protest.
I'm here to urge the city council to honor the will of over 35,000 people who signed an initiative to fund social housing.
Social housing would take money away from the corporate landlords and realtors who back your campaign.
And by campaign, I know that Bob Kettle, Sarah Nelson, and Kathy Moore have received tons of money from the landlord lobby and the realtor lobby through independent expenditure committees.
And they don't want housing decommodified.
They'd rather have 400 people die on the streets of King County annually than to put a dent in the landlord lobby's profits.
And, you know, my friend was killed in an interaction with a landlord, and her death has not been sufficiently investigated.
And instead of spending money evicting people and spending money sweeping people, invest those funds into...
supporting social housing and housing for low-income folks.
Please put I-137 on the November 2025 ballot.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our next speaker is David Haynes, and following David will be Bennett Hasselton.
SPEAKER_14
Hi, David Haynes.
First of all, it'd be great if the social housing had like a noble civil engineer and an advanced architect and a carpenter's union qualified honest worker and an honest general contractor as the oversight.
But I know we need legislation to prioritize the banks financing 21st century homes, but there's a lot of capacity you could build on all these condemnable buildings that are going to be vacated.
and all along the slums of the motels on Aurora that have been already bringing down their property values and the human values.
And you could probably pay for it if you could look into a congestion price of the Warren Buffett coal train that drives through it.
They're overloaded and uncovered coal cars, like over 120, 140 of them.
And they come rumbling through the waterfront of Seattle.
They do damage to the train tracks and always blame and make Amtrak cover it all.
I don't see why you can't congestion price them a little bit for some of the needs for money.
We need the for-profit affordable housing developers to compete with the nonprofits who get a monopoly on all the MHA fee money.
Now, that all that said, right, we need a real crime-fighting police chief who understands the difference between organic, proper-grown marijuana and people trying to equate crack meth and heroin as the same, and sabotaging the integrity of police reform and safety effectiveness, running interference for evil, repeat offending, customs violators in business communities and elsewhere, to keep destroying their fellow man and getting listed non-violent, low-level misdemeanor, low-level only because of the 3.5 grams or less that they're allowed to get away with, that the cops are constantly coming up with an excuse why they're not going to do anything about evil that's being prioritized by lead and co-lead and just care that are stealing a whole bunch of innocent homeless money.
...around profit services that are connected to the re-election apparatus of the progressives who are running interference to Lisa Dugard and Amy Smith...
SPEAKER_05
Thank you, David.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Bennett Hasselton, and Bennett will be followed by Aiden Carroll.
Thank you, David.
SPEAKER_15
Good afternoon.
I wanted to go on record regarding the situation this morning.
Council Member Saka had said at the end of the meeting, you know, we lost an hour and a half of solid meeting time because certain individuals intended to display behavior that was designed to harass and intimidate.
I do not think that was accurate.
Nobody who spoke this morning came with the intention of disrupting or doing anything except speaking for their allotted time.
People did not get upset and disruptive until Council Member Kettle, as the chair, announced with no notice that public comment was being cut off.
And people, the amount of time that the council ended up spending in recess or otherwise stopping the meeting was about an hour, not an hour and a half.
But by my math, about half of the people had spoken by that time.
And if you could just let people continue to speak for that remaining hour, the amount of time, the amount of delay would have been about the same.
Now, I think we all said at the beginning there are 50 people signed up to speak in person, 57 remote.
It's 100 people.
I understand that's a lot of people.
If Chair Kettle had said at the beginning, we're very sorry, but this is not the last meeting of the day, so we have to cut it off after 90 minutes or something like that, we wouldn't have been happy about that.
But that would have, I mean, I think would have understood.
And anybody who didn't make the cutoff, they say, well, they have the first 25 from each category.
Everybody else, we're very sorry, but you have to go home.
I think people would have understood that.
but and at least those people could have gone home then instead of waiting around and then being told that they had to go home but you can't truthfully say that if you then take a one hour break when that one hour break would have been enough time to just let everybody go ahead and talk and the end result would have been the same uh finally council member saka said something in about you know somebody graffitied a bench out there and you know they would never let this happen in bellevue or redmond it's only because of seattle look the reason that person was because the police didn't see who did it.
If the police had seen who did it, they would have arrested him, whether it's Bellevue or Seattle.
They just didn't happen to be looking when they did it.
You can't use that as an example of...
Thank you, Bennett.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you, Bennett.
Our next speaker is Aiden Carroll.
Aiden?
So, I-137...
SPEAKER_06
and trying to find all these, like, what do we do about the tourists?
What do we do about safety?
What do we do about ?
The zoning caused the middle class to be in competition with the poor for the number of rental homes there are.
And there is an argument about whether it's the housing support should go to middle class people who are partially struggling when there are lots of people who are homeless, who need houses.
I can kind of agree with that, but it's not seeming to be politically possible to do that because if we've been funding public housing over the last decade, about a fifth or a 10th of what we should have been, it's clearly never gonna be a political priority.
The fact is, if there's also the middle class who are also experiencing the same housing troubles are included in the program, that is going to make people care in the same way that social security is not stigmatized the way welfare was and food stamps.
I guess I'm talking more to the public than the council right now.
You need to put this on the ballot because we A lot of people showed how much they care about this because it's a real evidence-based solution to the problems that we're all facing without harming people in the process the way every single other thing you seem to be frantically reaching for.
It's not that complicated.
Just get it there.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
We'll now move into remote speakers.
Our first remote speaker who's present is Ellie Robertshaw and you'll have two minutes and please remember to press star six when you hear that your line has been unmuted.
Go ahead, Ellie.
SPEAKER_10
Hi, my name is Ellie and I work in Seattle and live in Renton.
I'm a homeowner and a mother of young children.
South King County where I live is home to many people that have been displaced from Seattle in the last two decades due to housing costs.
Renton has one of the highest per capita populations of children in King County.
That's where I live.
Seattle, on the other hand, is becoming a place where middle and working class families often can't afford to live.
It's becoming a place that children go to visit their grandparents.
It's becoming a place where public schools are closing due to a lack of enrollment.
You have an obligation to take the housing crisis seriously.
You have an obligation to treat Seattle as a real functioning city where people can live.
With or without initiative 137, you have this obligation and you are failing and you're pushing families out of Seattle.
Please put initiative 137 on the ballot without delay.
Please do not put an initiative on there that was not grassroots and created by a coalition.
If you have no solutions, please do get out of the way of those that do have a solution.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our next speaker.
That's present is Alberto Alvarez.
Go ahead, Alberto.
SPEAKER_17
Alberto, that's 137. Now, do not drag your feet since it seems you're worried it is legally dubious.
You speak of public safety along with mantras of think of the children.
Families need safe, affordable housing to meet the needs of keeping kids safe.
Corporations have strangled our housing supply, all in favor of profits over people.
Pass 137 now.
Working people drive the Seattle economy.
We demand fair wages, not rollbacks.
We demand affordable housing, not more condos.
Our spending drives the tax revenue.
We will build a better city.
We pay the rents and mortgages to these billion dollar banks and corporations.
Wealthy companies have no care for the place where we live, love, and thrive.
We demand more.
We demand better.
We are working.
We are watching.
We are taking the city back.
Thank you and have a good day.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Ariana Riley.
Go ahead, Ariana Riley.
SPEAKER_09
Hello, my name is Arianna Riley.
I would just like to say that the problems that Seattle is facing are not unique to Seattle or even the West Coast.
Public drug use and homelessness exists across the U.S. in small towns, large cities, rural areas, and urban centers.
When you drive along I-90 in other states, there are many billboards advising against doing meth and fentanyl because, again, drugs.
are not a problem that's unique to Seattle.
These are not issues caused by the so-called permissiveness of the previous council.
They exist in other states too, which are places not subject to the jurisdiction of the Seattle City Council, whether previous or current.
Again, I will remind you that you all are elected to represent the people.
The way that we see you guys treating your own constituents as abhorrent, the very least you could do is be nice.
We've seen the exact opposite of civility from you all since the start of the year.
Your job is to listen to and represent the public.
I understand you don't like doing that, but it is your job.
People disagreeing with you, even loudly, is not bullying.
People are trying to do the right thing by participating in the democratic process through legal channels.
And your response is A, to do that, and B, to then repeatedly call for arrests?
Seriously?
It's an embarrassment to Seattle and it's undemocratic and rude.
Given this, I would also like to lend credence to the demand of Alex Zimmerman to open the birth room once a week and let people speak without interruption.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our next, our last remote speaker is Jay Sandler.
I'm sorry, it's not our last remote speaker.
It'll be Jay Sandler followed by Gabriel Newman.
Go ahead, Jay.
SPEAKER_07
Hello, my name is Jay, and I'm addressing the posting of signs on public utility poles.
I'm a new resident.
I moved here from California four months ago, but after only four months here, I already feel unwelcome.
What I want to share today is why.
Specifically, I've been walking down some streets in downtown near the Space Needle, such as Fifth Avenue, and down the length of the streets, maybe a half mile or so, on nearly every utility pole is a homemade sign that says something derogatory and inflammatory about the state of Israel.
I'm not here to discuss the nuances of current events, just the effect these signs have on me and I think on the general public.
These signs repeat in bold letters in public spaces, slogans and disinformation, which are propagandistic in nature, accusing Israel of genocide and other atrocities.
One poster even accused Israel of the death of George Floyd.
You don't need to be Jewish to find this type of disinformation or propaganda offensive.
21% of Israeli citizens are Arabs.
But beyond just being offensive, I think the charged propagandistic messages posted in public create a hostile and divisive environment for everyone in the city, including for tourists who probably don't visit Seattle to read this kind of political messaging on the streets.
Despite the First Amendment speech protections, the city council needs to be aware that an overly permissive attitude toward public postings can create unnecessary divisions among people and I think can incite people in this instance insidiously toward anti-Semitic beliefs and thoughts about their American brethren.
In summary, after just four months of living here, largely because of these types of public messages, I am finding Seattle to be a hostile, divisive, and unwelcoming environment.
History has shown this kind of language of unchecked insinuates anti-Semitism toward Jews in the long run, and there are other venues to have debates and discussion other than on utility poles.
I ask the city to consider banning the posting of divisive, borderline hateful political speech on public utility poles because I don't think it belongs there.
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_05
Thank you.
Our last speaker will be Gabriel Newman.
Go ahead, Gabriel.
SPEAKER_08
Good afternoon, Seattle City Council.
I'm Gabriel Newman, Policy Counsel and Government Relations Manager at GSBA.
My name is Gabriel Newman.
I'm calling in today to ask if it's a different alternative for initiative 137 based on February's ballot.
The current proposal by I-137, frankly, does not provide as much bang for the buck as we'd like to see.
It costs either $350,000 for player housing units or $600,000
SPEAKER_05
I think he might have dropped off.
And that was our last speaker.
SPEAKER_03
Could you call him one more time?
How much more time does he have?
OK.
SPEAKER_05
Well, he's not on the call list anymore.
That's it.
SPEAKER_04
Given that we've reached the end of our list of speakers, the public comment period is now closed and we will proceed to item D, consideration of initiative 137. Initiative 137 is before the council for consideration.
The council will continue to consider the options provided by the charter and within the allotted 45 days provided.
We're joined by Jen Labreck to answer questions.
In anticipation of questions, we will suspend the rules.
And if there is no objection, the rules will be suspended to allow council central staff to address the council.
Seeing, hearing none, the rules are suspended and we'll proceed with discussion of initiative 137. Are there any comments or questions?
Council Member Kettle.
SPEAKER_12
Thank you, Council President.
As my colleagues here on the council know, I've been very much public safety focused between the Public Safety Committee, also working public safety within the Government Accountability and Economic Development Committee, and as you know, Labor Committee as well.
On housing and 137, many have great background in housing, but I wanted to focus today on good governance.
And regarding good governance and I-137, You know, the first point is legal issues.
I-137, as we saw, and I won't go into details from our council briefing executive session, has legal issues that highlight good governance problems with the initiative, legal issues that will no doubt lead and arguably to well-founded legal suits against the initiative, issues that in effect also give us standing as well.
And obviously that's a very different case, but it goes to show the issues that exist from a legal perspective related to I-137.
And these are something that cannot be just wished away.
Secondly, Funding silos.
You know, as we look at housing and good governance, you know, we have MHA, the Mandatory Housing Affordability Program.
We have MFTE, the Multifamily Tax Exemption Program.
We have PET, the Payroll Expense Tax, or as it's better known in a lot of ways, or Jumpstart, or even Amazon Tax.
But Amazon Tax is a misnomer.
In its impact, it would be more accurate to call it the Amazon Kraken Sonics, yes, sports fans, and others tax.
And we need to rationalize and look at these various funding avenues to housing.
Then there's the social housing PDA that was stood up on the initiative 135. The standup of the social housing PDA must avoid the problems that have plagued the King County Regional Homeless Authority since its standup.
These are the areas of good governance and operations.
You know, parallels do exist today between the KCRHA, and particularly early on, and the PDA, the Social Housing PDA.
And this needs to be thought of and reviewed because it's clear that the King County Regional Homeless Authority would not exist on December 19th of this year, but for the reforms that are coming through right now.
Those reforms are crucial for the King County Regional Homeless Authority, but it's also crucial for us to learn the lessons of the KCRHA.
And as we look at the social housing PDA to ensure that it has the good governance pieces, it has the good operations embedded in it.
And here's the difference.
The KCRHA had a five-year deadline.
There's no five-year deadline with a PDA.
And so these are the things that we need to consider as we look at 137 in our allotted time as allowed by law.
You know, regarding social housing and the idea of a social housing plan, During the Kosovo War, I served the executive officer to General Clark's director of intelligence and Air Force one-star general.
And during the war, actually just after, the intel director said to me, you know, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions.
And looking at where we are with social housing and affordable housing, one of the things that I think about and look at is, like, how can we...
Take the lessons learned.
How can we get the good practices that we have done in Seattle government as a one Seattle team?
And, you know, I look at our recently passed Seattle Transportation Plan.
That is a benchmark in terms of engagement and all the different pieces of bringing in the various communities that are impacted to take various plans, the various pieces of transportation, whether it's pedestrian and all the different pieces, the bikes and the bridges and brought it together in a rational, good governance way.
Why don't we do something like that regarding housing, the various parts of housing, social housing.
SPEAKER_04
There will be no...
Social housing.
SPEAKER_12
You are engaging...
Affordable housing.
and those elements.
Because Director Spatz and the SDOT should be very proud of the work that they've done in order to bring that plan together and to bring those various elements together.
And why not an effort to review the funding sources for effectiveness and how they complement each other?
Right now, we have funding sources that come out of initiative.
Some come from the council, come from various places.
Why not have an effort that brings asset management plan?
We have asset management plans for bridges.
We have that in-depth detail.
Why not one like that related to housing?
And some of this may be done in OOH, but the Seattle Transportation Plan did it in a way that was transparent.
This goes to some of the comments that were made.
If you saw that, if we brought this together and had the vetting and the work that the SDOT did with the Seattle Transportation Plan, I think that would go a long way to bringing people together as it relates to housing.
Also, how about an effort that has a comprehensive document that brings in all the various pieces, just like the Seattle Transportation Plan on race and equity?
Bottom line is we need to bring good governance into housing.
We need to look at what we're doing and look to the lessons learned that we've had in city government.
And again, I bring up the Seattle Transportation Plan because it's one that SDOT should be very proud of and direct response.
But it also sounds, it's a template that we could use to moving forward.
And again, a lot of the pieces are there.
but it could be something that we can build on.
And I bring this up in the idea that, you know, don't highlight the problems, don't just talk about the problems, but hey, how about a path ahead?
And there may be other paths ahead, but I wanted to highlight this.
And the reason why is I-137 does have real legal issues.
We can say whatever about it, but the fact remains, and it will be taken up in court, and it will likely lose.
And again, the council even there has standing.
We should be better in terms of integrating the funding sources and being smart in how we do it.
We need to be understanding the asset that we have in housing.
So many times I've talked to developers or and nonprofit developers, all the talking about the state of the various housing buildings that we have.
We need to understand that and do it much better and do it in a way that brings it out the way the Seattle Transportation Plan was worked.
And I bring this up as a way to reflect on I-137 and do so within the idea of a good governance.
So, Council President, I just wanted to highlight those pieces of, as I see, I-137.
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_04
Thank you very much.
I share some of those concerns.
Council Member, I think that Council Member Rivera, you had your hand up first.
SPEAKER_20
Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Council Member Kettle, for your comments.
I don't disagree about the good governance part.
And certainly, I've been grappling with this housing and how to best move forward.
It is clear from, and thank you, Jen, for being here, from our central staff and for the work that you do, and thank you for clarifying last week that we have until the 20th to move this forward.
It's not going to impact the ability to bring this in February.
I think the question now is does this come by itself or does it come with an alternative?
And so given that we continue to have questions about this, Council President, I would move to postpone consideration of this since we do have the time to do so in order to give colleagues the continued opportunity to delve further into exploring some of these issues.
SPEAKER_04
It's been moved in.
It has been so moved to postpone.
Is there a second?
Second.
It's been moved and seconded to postpone consideration of resolution.
Let me find the number.
It's been moved and seconded to postpone consideration of 32142. Thank you very much.
And Jody, do we need to have a vote?
SPEAKER_05
Yes, we should have a vote.
SPEAKER_04
Okay.
Could you please call the roll?
Excuse me.
SPEAKER_19
Go ahead.
Can we have a chance to comment?
yes well yeah we can absolutely yeah yep now is the time for that okay thank you um i understand that my colleagues do not support this um that there are questions legal questions that have been posed this isn't the place for us to answer them and any further delay in just passing this on to king county elections doesn't won't resolve the legal questions for us.
We still have to move it forward.
As Jen made clear last week, not moving it forward is not an option.
So using legal questions as an excuse not to just vote this now, especially given that there does not seem to be an alternative that is ready to go, makes no sense to me.
The voters have asked for this to be put forward so that we can vote on it.
25,000 signatures were collected.
And, you know, if there are legal questions, the courts will resolve that.
And as I said five weeks ago when we first brought that up, this issue up, if people don't like it, don't vote for it.
That's really our only task right now.
This is an administrative task for us to move it forward, barring an alternative, which I asked last week and nobody indicated that they were creating one.
So I really don't understand why we continue to delay something that we will have to do next week anyway, if there is nothing else for us to consider.
SPEAKER_04
Thank you for those comments.
Council Member Wu.
SPEAKER_16
I just had some questions for Jen.
So I've been hearing a lot of things out in the media.
I wanted to clarify, make sure that I have my facts straight.
And just for people who are listening in today, what is social housing exactly?
I heard it's 80% to 120% AMI, average median income.
Is that the case?
Or what is the official definition of social housing?
SPEAKER_18
In this case, I would refer to the initiative that passed in February of 2023 for the definition of social housing, because that's really what's at play here.
So I-135 does provide a specific definition of social housing to be created by the Social Housing PDA, which I-135 created.
And that does include housing that will serve an income range.
I want to say it's up to 120% AMI, but honestly, I would have to confirm after this meeting.
But it is a range of incomes which is broader than what we typically think of with affordable housing, where we're usually thinking 60% AMI and below, or maybe 80% in AMI and below.
And then as defined under I-135, social housing has other components as well, for example, sort of requirements around the process by which someone would be evicted, rules around sort of cooperative management of the building, and some requirements too around green building standards, for example.
But really, in this case, I would think of the definition as being specific to what's in I-135.
SPEAKER_16
Could I get the specific AMI numbers, if possible?
Yes.
Okay.
And then I'm also curious, we never heard of, not we never, but we have not yet heard from the Social Housing Developer Board.
And so I know they just formed recently, earlier this year, but I was just curious about their thoughts, and maybe this is something I need to do in my own time where I need to reach out to them.
and hear what their thoughts are and what their plans are with this.
But have you...
Have you heard from them or has there been interaction with this initiative and this group?
SPEAKER_18
No, and I would remind you that it is House Our Neighbors that is essentially the proponent for I-137.
And while certainly the social housing PDA would receive the funds through I-137, they are not the organization that is advocating for it.
They really aren't allowed to do that as a PDA.
SPEAKER_16
I also heard that with I-137, what's different from this initiative and from the Jumpstart, which kind of will tax the same group of people, was that I-137 also includes grocery stores and hospitals.
Is that correct?
And are there any other groups that are missing or part of this?
SPEAKER_18
I will get back to you with detail, but you are correct that the Venn diagram is not 100% in terms of...
who's exempt under Jump Start and who's covered and who's exempt under the proposed tax under I-137.
So I will follow up with details on that.
SPEAKER_16
And then I'm also like, I don't know why I don't know.
So I was wondering, I would love more time to delve into the specifics of this and also do the stakeholdering with immigrant refugee community members to see what their thoughts are.
So I would love more time to be able to do that outreach.
And that's why I second the motion to postpone.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_04
Okay, are there any other questions or comments?
Council Member Rivera?
SPEAKER_20
Yes, I want to reiterate that as long as we vote by the 20th, there is no detriment to continuing to get these questions answered.
in time to get this on the February ballot.
So I want to be clear about that because we keep hearing somehow that we are delaying, but there is no actual delay to get this on the ballot for February, which is what we're talking about.
And we know we have to vote.
Thank you for the bells.
We know we have to vote by the 20th.
That will be done.
But we clearly have more questions and it does not have a detrimental impact to getting this on the ballot in in a timely fashion, which is we need to vote by that.
20th deadline.
So I just want to dispel any, I just feel like there's this rhetoric around somehow this is a delay, but the soonest this can come before the voters is February, no matter whether we vote today or any time before the 20th.
Thank you, Council President.
SPEAKER_04
Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands up here, so could you please call for a vote?
on the motion.
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Kettle.
SPEAKER_04
Aye.
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Moore.
No.
Council Member Morales.
No.
Council Member Rivera.
Aye.
Council Member Saka.
SPEAKER_01
Aye.
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Wu.
Yes.
Council Member Hollingsworth.
SPEAKER_13
No.
SPEAKER_05
Council President Nelson.
Aye.
Six in favor, three opposed.
SPEAKER_04
Thank you very much.
The motion The motion to postpone carries and we'll continue with this discussion at future meetings.
All right, did I get that correct?
Yes.
Okay, got it.
Okay, we do not have a presentation today, so if there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.
If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
And we'll now consider the proposed consent calendar.
Items on the consent calendar include the minutes of the August 13th and September 3rd meetings, 2024, Council Bill 120861, payment of bills, 19 get engaged appointments to various boards and commissions, and 14 appointments from the Transportation Committee.
Are there any items that council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?
All right, hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you very much.
It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Kettle.
SPEAKER_12
Aye.
SPEAKER_05
Council Member Moore.
Aye.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Rivera.
Aye.
Council Member Saka.
Aye.
Council Member Strauss.
Yes.
Council Member Wu.
Yes.
Council Member Hollingsworth.
Yes.
Council President Nelson.
Aye.
Nine in favor, none opposed.
SPEAKER_04
Okay, the consent and calendar items are adopted.
Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.
All right, will the clerk please read item one into the record?
SPEAKER_05
Agenda item one, Council Bill 120847, an ordinance relating to city employment adopting a 2024 citywide position list.
SPEAKER_04
I move to pass Council Bill 120847. Is there a second?
Second.
Second.
Thank you very much.
It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill and as sponsor, I will provide the remarks and then open it up for comments.
The legislation establishes a 2024 position list, identifying authorized officer and employee positions in each department or office.
Our consideration of this list is an administrative exercise anticipated by prior legislation, which was resolution 28885 and ordinance 12672. Central staff previously circulated a memo about this, which is less than one page.
Passing this legislation would not have a substantive impact to city operations, employees, funds, or present other implications to the city.
This is routine legislation that we do every year.
And again, it's literally just legislation that identifies all the current employment positions within the city.
Are there any questions or comments on this bill?
Okay, seeing none.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Bill 120847.
SPEAKER_05
Councilmember Kettle?
Aye.
Councilmember Moore?
Aye.
Councilmember Morales?
Aye.
Councilmember Rivera?
Aye.
Councilmember Saca?
SPEAKER_15
Aye.
SPEAKER_05
Councilmember Strauss?
SPEAKER_15
Yes.
SPEAKER_05
Councilmember Wu?
Yes.
Councilmember Hollingsworth?
Yes.
Council President Nelson?
Aye.
Nine in favor, none opposed.
SPEAKER_04
The bill passes and the chair will sign it.
Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?
All right, there were no items removed from the consent calendar.
There's no resolution for introduction and adoption today.
So is there any further business to come before this council?
All right, seeing none, we've reached the end of today's agenda and our next regularly scheduled council meeting will be held on September 17th at 2 p.m.
And hearing no further business, we are adjourned.
Thank you very much, everyone.