Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 102219

Good morning.

I'm Sally Bagshaw and welcome to our October 22nd Budget Committee.

Thank you all for being here and special thanks to Council Central staff for not only putting up with us but trying to deal with all of the Form A's that came your way knowing that Form B's are right on the heels But I really appreciate the great analysis that you have done.

Thank you to our audience members.

Glad you're here.

Thank you for your PPATCH op-ed last week.

I thought it was excellent.

You know, public comment is going to come at the end of all of this.

So happy that you're here.

Just wanted you to know that it may be a little bit of time.

So today we are focusing on the miscellaneous items.

And as Councilmember Gonzalez pointed out on Monday, we have 20 different department and offices that are going to be bringing forward miscellaneous items.

So I expect that this will probably go past noon today.

Thank you all for coming.

and for participating and hanging in here with us.

So yesterday, you know that we heard from our Council Central staff on items that affected criminal justice.

I want to say thanks to our elected Judge Shadeed from Municipal Court who was here with us yesterday and took the time to make a short presentation.

Also, we heard about the police department issues.

Thank you, Greg Doss, for your excellent memo.

I appreciated that very much.

So, today we're diving into the things that didn't fall neatly into a single department, and I'm excited and happy to get forward with that.

I think, Asha, you're going to kick it off, is that right?

Do you want to tell us anything about that brown cow thing you were talking about, or should we just skip that and keep on going?

Great.

And also to remind folks that tonight is our second public hearing.

It starts at 530. Sign-ups begin at 430 here in City Hall.

And we look forward to hearing everybody's comments and suggestions on our budget to date.

Buckle up.

Yeah.

It's going to be a long night.

Yeah.

Oh, but we're looking forward to hearing from everyone on these issues.

Okay, so let's just dive in.

Asha, I think that you, Lisa, thank you for being here at the table throughout the last couple of weeks, but also being here today.

So if you want to just dive in, we are ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was just going to note you did mention that we will have brief presentations from 20 departments and offices or on budgets for 20 departments and offices.

I would say this might be similar to the NPR Tiny Desk Concerts except without the music.

Somebody in the back.

You've got a chorus behind you, so we're expecting...

Yes, yes.

I expect some humming to be taking place.

Central staff leads for each budget will describe any issues that they've flagged for your consideration, and they'll also highlight any issues that have been identified by council members.

Great.

Asha Wheedle, you're way to the front of the line, and we'll start with presentations on the arts, the city attorney's office, and Seattle IT.

Good.

Thank you.

Okay.

So I will dive into the Office of Arts and Culture here to kick us off.

The Office of Arts and Culture has about a $15 million proposed budget this year.

It is an increase of about $828,000 over the 2020 endorsed budget.

It accounts for about $280,000 of annual wage increase in this tentative agreement between the city and the Coalition of Unions.

It would add three FTEs, one community impact and assessment manager, a community outreach and engagement position, and also an executive assistant at a cost of about $432,000.

And lastly, the budget increase accounts for $90,000 in ongoing funding for security services at King Street Station.

I just note that arts is funded by admissions tax funds as well as 1% for arts contributions, specifically for capital projects.

If there are, there are no issues identified for arts.

So if there are no questions, I can move into the actions proposed by council members.

Thank you.

I was thinking, I hope you didn't skip that one, especially the first one.

The first is to add $25,000 to support a history link.

And this is council member Bagshaw.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And colleagues, I am asking that we add $25,000 to support history link.

This action would add an admission tax funds to the city's annual contract.

with HistoryLink.

HistoryLink, as you know, provides free online access to historic Seattle resources.

It's a one-of-a-kind organization, as far as I know.

And they helped us with this beautiful book, The Seattle at 150. And I want to say thanks to Monica Martinez-Simmons again and to her staff for making this happen.

So for $25,000, we will help Marie McCaffrey sustain this organization and continue to help us note the wonderful historic things that have happened in our city and make sure that people remember them.

The second item is to add $25,000 to support racial equity and arts alignment.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Harrell.

This action is intended to fund an organization that serves artists of colors, excuse me, artists of color, immigrants, and other communities that are experiencing structural oppression to help explore strategies for racial justice and equity in the arts community.

And this is intended to be one-time funding.

Good.

And is this going to be part of a competitive process?

Do you know, Asha?

I don't believe that- Or is it going to one single organization?

I believe that this would be going to an organization that does this work.

I don't believe it is intended to be split amongst different organizations.

Thank you.

We can ask Council President Harrell when he arrives.

Okay.

If there are no other questions about arts, I can move into the City Attorney's Office.

I'm not seeing any other questions.

Thank you.

So the city attorney's office, which I might refer to as law, is counsel to the city, prosecutor in Seattle Municipal Court, and provides legal advice to elected officials.

Their budget this year is about $34 million, an increase of 13.9% over the endorsed budget.

The change is of an increase of about $4.1 million and that accounts for a cut that was maintained in the 2020 endorsed budget that is being added back into the law department's, excuse me, the law department's budget.

It accounts for an additional $100,000 that is going to go to the pre, is proposed to go to the prefiling diversion program to expand the number of workshops from 6 to 12 that that program contracts with CHOOSE 184. And it also adds funding for already approved reclassifications and paralegal positions, as well as $1.7 million to account for the annual wage increase.

The budget itself adds seven and a half FTEs.

It adds three assistant city attorneys to the civil division to increase reliance in-house and decrease our reliance on outside counsel, and that's anticipated to save the department about a million dollars annually.

It adds an assistant city prosecutor position in the criminal division to address case backlogs and backfill gaps that are created by the new leave policies that are now in place in the city.

It includes a personnel specialist to handle increased human resources workload.

And then it accounts for memorandums of understanding that law has been partnering with other departments to provide legal assistance over the past couple years.

And now they are moving these otherwise off book sort of positions and funding agreements into the new budgeting system.

And maybe you're about to get to this, but are they actually moving the lawyers into the department?

So like you say, an assistant city attorney to help with the office of housing, will that attorney be located in OH?

So they're actually located in the city attorney's office.

It's just work that the funding comes from interdepartmental agreements for the departments to fund those positions.

Okay, but they're staying with the city attorney's office physically, but they'll be focused on that particular work.

That's correct.

Okay.

Can I ask you a question going back to the three new assistant city attorneys in the civil division to decrease reliance on outside counsel?

One of the arguments that I've heard from our city attorney is the reason for outside counsel is that we find ourselves in situations that require specialization.

And you can't predict what specialty is necessarily going to crop up.

How are we going to be assured if we spend money on three new assistant city attorneys that we are truly going to reduce the outside legal counsel?

So I believe the idea is that this would be not necessarily for those issues that require, always require expertise outside of the city attorney's office.

That's definitely a factor, but it's essentially to staff up the civil division so that when there are issues that come up that are a matter of staffing capacity, which is the reason we sometimes go to outside counsel, that that level of reliance on outside counsel is no longer the case.

That's my current understanding.

I'm happy to follow up with the department to get a little more information.

Good.

Thank you.

I wish you would.

Thank you.

I hadn't heard from the city attorney about this, so I just would love to have a little more information.

Absolutely.

If there are no, so there are no identified issues for the city attorney's office.

So we can move into actions proposed by council members, if there are no other questions.

Council member Gonzalez, do you want to just dive in on your add the 500,000 to create police accountability agency legal fund?

Sure.

I'm happy to do that.

I wasn't sure if we wanted to give Asha an opportunity to describe them first or if I just want to dig in, whatever, whatever we want to.

I'm happy to do a short description if that's helpful.

Okay.

Do you want me just to?

Jeff, why don't you just dive in?

I think this woman on my right has it handled.

Asha does too.

She's very capable.

OK, so this request would propose creating a police accountability agency legal fund in the amount of a total of $500,000.

This is an identified ongoing need to fund legal services for the police accountability partners.

And it has been made very apparent in this particular year that the city and the Seattle Police Department are going to remain under the federal consent decree as it relates to issues of police accountability for at least the next two years in light of the court's recent orders related to being only partially in compliance, specifically as it relates to the accountability ordinance.

So we expect that the Community Police Commission, the Office of Police Accountability, and that the Office of Inspector General will continue to have legal needs related to the consent decree.

and will need to be able to readily and easily access appropriate legal services to be able to have their independent perspectives represented in those proceedings.

So I expect that this will continue to be a need over the next couple of years and there's been some struggles from their perspective in terms of how they are currently able to or not able to access legal services directly through the city attorney's office.

So of course our accountability ordinance which we passed in May of 2017 contemplated a situation in which the police accountability agencies might need to seek their own legal counsel and that it was laid out specifically in the accountability ordinance under section 3.29.480 which provided that when, due to a conflict of interest, lack of technical expertise, or capacity reasons, the city attorney's office declines to provide legal representation to an oversight entity in any legal matter, enforcement action, or court proceeding, the city attorney shall so indicate to the oversight entity in writing with the reason for the declined representation, and that oversight entity shall be entitled to representation by private legal counsel.

So, the ordinance goes on to sort of lay out who the private legal counsel can be.

It also provides in here that the city shall provide sufficient funding for the legal services separate from the oversight entity's operational budget, which shall be reviewed and approved in advance by the city budget office.

So, we are, in my view, In a position as a city council to really take seriously those provisions of the police accountability ordinance.

And I think it's time for us to create a separate fund for these agencies to be able to be adequately legally represented.

So, since the submission of this for me, we've determined that.

The most appropriate way to execute this vision is to allocate these funds directly to each accountability agency for them to utilize only when necessary.

So I will be submitting a form B, which will propose allocating approximately $166,000 in provisor-restricted funds to each of the three accountability agencies for them to retain outside independent legal counsel as needed.

If they end up not utilizing a portion or all of those funds in any given year, then the remaining balance would return to the finance general fund.

Very good.

Next item.

Add two positions.

That's also me.

Okay, so this is with regard to the Regional Domestic Violence Firearms Enforcement Unit.

It would add $230,000.

The Regional DV Firearms Enforcement Unit is a multi-jurisdictional unit.

which includes positions in the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, the Seattle City Attorney's Office, the Seattle Police Department, and the King County Sheriff's Office.

In addition to the attorneys and law enforcement officers, the unit contains city and county-funded trauma-informed advocates that work directly with community members and are critical to the unit's success.

The mission of the unit is to reduce gun violence and increase victim and community safety through regional collaboration and proactive enforcement of firearm laws, including the newly created or relatively newly created extreme risk protection orders, which was a law which was approved by Washington state voters.

through a citizens initiative in 2016. And I actually wanted to just quickly hand out a copy of an article that we actually recently all saw in the paper that talked about the impact of the work.

of this particular unit in collaboration across the region, and really shows the unit's value.

So this is the article that was published by Chris Ingalls on October 17th, 2019, where our police department, our city attorney's office, and through our ERPO Unit was able to seize a significant amount of guns from an avowed neo-nazi in Snohomish County So this is the kind of work that this particular unit does day in day out diligently and and they need additional resources to be able to continue to provide this kind of public safety service throughout our region.

We know when we're dealing with gun violence and firearms and how firearms move through our community, oftentimes a lot of the firearms that make their way to Seattle are actually coming from other parts of the county or beyond the county.

So a regional model and a regional effort to implement the extreme risk protection order law is absolutely critical to the success of that citizens initiative.

So I've been developing this proposal for $230,000 in conjunction with the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.

And it has evolved a little bit since I submitted the form A and would like to be able to get support to have a form B that would hire in a sworn officer at SPD who would be dedicated to the ERPO division and would also increase capacity over at the city attorney's office by providing them with an additional FTE to do the advocacy position type of work.

So all of that collectively together I think really sends a strong signal to our regional partners that the City of Seattle is committed and serious about continuing to support the successful implementation of this regional effort.

Great, thank you for that.

I will certainly work with you to see what we can do in that arena.

Can I ask you just one question?

Sure.

So when we worked with Chris Anderson from the City Attorney's Office a couple of years ago and got the money established, is the work that the City Attorney's Office is doing coordinated in your opinion with the police department now in a way that is achieving the results that we were all anticipating?

It's a hard question for me to answer because I think there is some coordination.

The question is could it be more coordinated?

Could it be a higher level of priority in terms of resources at the police department?

And I think what we're hearing from folks over at the Alliance for Gun Responsibility and others is that there are additional resources needed within the Seattle Police Department to allow for a greater degree of coordination and being able to complete that work.

I think everybody's doing the best that they can within the system that currently exists, and we're seeing positive results.

which leads us all to believe that adding these two additional FTEs would really go a long way to continuing to build on the success we're already seeing.

Great.

And I think as we're in the city attorney's office, and I do want to support you in this good effort that you're bringing forward, I would like to just signal to the city attorney, I'd like to hear from him and his team about how this is working.

Because when we got this started a couple of years ago and our former colleague, Tim Burgess, was then the budget chair, we managed to get it started with a supplemental.

And we got some money and we got some work coordinated with the prosecuting attorney.

I know that they told me that the first week that they were working with our municipal court judges, that they got 12 of the scariest looking guns I've ever seen.

from people that were convicted of domestic violence offenses and the guns were taken in a way that it could be returned after petitioning the court.

That said, just what you're talking about with the regional effort is so important.

I just want to make sure that it's coordinated.

It's the same drum I've been beating since we first started talking about the system change.

So I'd love if you could get any more information and just give me a highlighted It sounds like these two positions are very much needed in the police department.

But how is the city attorney working with the prosecuting attorney working with the police?

to make sure that the information is getting to the municipal court judges on time so decisions can be made appropriately.

Great.

Thank you, Asha.

I didn't mean my answer to imply that I didn't know if they were coordinating or not.

They are very highly coordinated.

And when you read the article that I just passed out, it's a really good example of exactly how coordinated they are.

They are in lockstep.

and talking to each other frequently and often.

And some of these gun laws actually don't go to the Seattle Municipal Court, they're King County cases.

But nonetheless, we need the Seattle Police Department to be, as the lead investigating law enforcement agency, we need them to have the resources available to be able to prioritize this level of work.

So there's a lot of demands within the police department in terms of patrol work versus detective work versus special unit work.

And we have just, in conversation with Rene Hopkins from the Alliance for Gun Responsibility believe that this additional resource, and they've been advocating for an additional dedicated person at SPD to do this kind of work for quite some time now.

But I think there's a belief that having somebody who can be dedicated at SPD will actually help to solidify the level of coordination that is needed.

So I didn't mean to imply that there wasn't any coordination.

I was meaning to make clear that the additional resources will actually improve upon and make that coordination even more solid and stronger so that we can continue to see the regional outcomes that I've highlighted with that article I circulated.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

Do you want to, this is the next one is Council Member Pacheco.

Why don't you just frame this one up, Asha?

Sure.

It is a budget action to add $114,000 to support the addition of one FTE for domestic violence technology experts.

Okay.

Council Member Pacheco.

Good morning.

Domestic violence has been a personal priority for me.

I just know firsthand the fear and anxieties that domestic violence can cause.

And on a personal level, I used to wonder as a kid wanting to help my mom.

So this has been much of a personal priority for me.

I want to extend my appreciation to Councilmember Gonzalez for co-hosting a Lunch and Learn with me and some of the agencies and partners that do the work to help so many victims who, quite frankly, are in need of so much help.

As well as, I think we want to recognize just the good work that was done in the proposed budget, getting $1 million for the domestic violence hotline, which will help us be a leader in this effort.

That said, I also want to extend my appreciation to New Beginnings, the Coalition Against Gender-Based Violence, SPD's Victim Support Team, Seattle's CAO's DV unit.

And one thing that we had heard through those lunch and learn discussions, as well as private meetings, was that There has been a prevalence of technology-based abuse such as cyber-stalking and harassment.

A 2019 study prompted by the Technology-Enabled Coercive Control Working Group in Seattle highlighted how the accessibility of technology makes it a weapon of choice for abusers.

Their ability to use that technology outpaces current laws and expertise, making it difficult to use digital evidence to positively identify and address offenders.

Adding an additional position to the CAO DV unit focused on providing technical assistance and training on addressing technology-based abuse and harassment Will increase the number of cases the unit can take on The new position would also provide safety planning assistance to victims in addition to financial support hoping this request will open the door to continued improvement suggested by the 2019 report and TECC work group which such as supporting a clinic that provides victims with one-on-one support to detangle the technology from an abuser.

I want to thank again the community-based organizations, the City Department for bringing this issue forward and for the continued work and support for victims of domestic violence.

Thank you.

Any other comments on that one?

I just wanted to signal support for this particular ad.

There is a really interesting innovative effort that was undertaken by the Mayor's Office of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault that would be complemented by this body of work.

So I think it's sort of building on some of the work that is really incredibly innovative work that is being done in this space around how DV is unfortunately evolving in a way where technology is being weaponized to continue the process of subjecting people to domestic violence.

So before technology, it was more of a traditional structure of DV.

And people are really starting to, again, weaponize things like social media, Netflix accounts.

you name it, anything that is commingled in terms of a platform that is rooted on the internet to really continue the abusive process of folks who are trying to get out of a a violent relationship, whether it's intimate or not.

And so I've learned a lot through my role on the Domestic Violence Prevention Council that has really opened my eyes to how abusers can really capitalize on technology to continue to abuse people.

Everything from horrific stories of putting bugs in people's cell phones to be able to track them, for example, And we have a long way to go as a legal system and as policymakers to catch up with the realities of how abusers weaponize these technological devices, whether they're cloud-based or hardware, in a way that makes it really, really difficult for victims to become survivors and transition.

away from a violent relationship.

So when you have a situation where you have a mom who might be fleeing with her small children from a really violent situation, but dad or the partner always knows exactly where she is and where the kids are, that's really scary.

And when you, as the person who's being targeted, can't quite figure out why this person always knows where you're at, it'll start making you feel like you're going crazy.

We've heard a lot of really powerful stories in the Domestic Violence Prevention Council about how we're really behind in this area and how it's really important for us to take seriously the need to support interventions that will help victims transform into survivors.

Well, thank you both for working on that.

I think this is an important thing to bring forward.

Can I just ask one more question and then we'll move on to the next section?

So last week, and I know Councilmember Gonzalez, you were there, Councilmember Pacheco, and Councilmember Herbold.

We all were able to hear from Minneapolis and the work that they're doing in a project that's similar to LEAD.

They call it something different.

But one thing that I came away with there was that they had a single point of an attorney in their city attorney's office that were following or at least tasked with the responsibility to follow the clients that were in their program for whether it was, I'm just going to call it LEAD because it was similar.

But they were also able to identify if there were mental health issues and to get them the programs that they need that if it was a repeat offender to figure out what program that could serve them best.

But what I, also it was the, with the diversion programs, you know, just across the spectrum.

And then also looking at if it's a domestic violence situation, that probably isn't right for the kind of diversion that we're talking about, that there's something very serious in that particular case.

I also came away hearing that they were coordinating their drug addiction services so that the individuals that were part of the program got the help they needed, that they actually got the service.

And if they needed a roof over their head, that that was provided for them.

and that their version of drug court had treatment resources that were available to them, a little bit like what we heard yesterday from Judge Shadeed.

So my question is to the four of us who were there, is there something that we should be including in this year's budget in the city attorney's office that builds on what the city attorney is already doing?

I would just like your thoughts on this.

We do have a lead prosecuting attorney in the city attorney's office.

Right, Heather was here.

But is it enough?

Well, it's never enough.

I have a note on my materials here.

and I can't quite decipher the note entirely, but I think there is, and maybe Asha, you can help us clarify, in the city attorney's budget that is proposed for 2020, I see that there's a lot of additions of new assistant city attorneys, including new assistant city prosecutors.

Are any one of those positions in the criminal division dedicated to lead in order to assist with the backlog?

I don't believe that they are, but I'm happy to circle back.

That could be one really important addition as we're looking at, for example, the three Assistant City Attorneys to Civil Division to Decrease Reliance on Outside Counsel.

Maybe there's an opportunity for us to consider taking one of those.

if it's not too burdensome to assign them to the criminal division to specifically work on lead, for example.

Good for thought.

Right.

That was sort of the fly I was trying to cast into the pond to see if there's anybody that was already swimming in this area.

So I would have- I think I've just dipped my toe in it.

Yeah, thanks.

I like that.

I'm not a strong swimmer.

I can't swim at all actually.

But this is I think this is pretty important for us to consider and especially when we've been seeing the public outcry about wanting us to do more.

Of course there's always do more with less.

But how about if we do more with more that is effective.

And so when the city attorney is asking for a number of positions and what we believe is that LEAD is going to assist us but it has to be a coordinated effort then I would just like to know more about this.

Aja, if you're taking the lead on lead on this element, I appreciate it.

Okay, thanks so much, all of you, for your thinking and for the participation in the Minneapolis effort last week.

Okay.

If no other questions?

No.

If there's nothing else, we can move into Seattle IT.

OK.

Great.

All right.

So the Seattle Information Technology Department manages all of the city's IT resources.

It also maintains and supports the services that back those resources.

In 2016, Seattle IT, or at that time it was the Department of Information Technology, consolidated staff throughout the city to form Seattle IT.

And earlier this year, with the appointment of a new Chief Technology Officer, Seattle IT did a reorganization.

And so it's been a couple months into that, and they've changed their division structure slightly from seven divisions to 11 divisions.

At the moment, There are no identified issues associated with that reorganization given that they're only about four months in.

There aren't any specific budget issues that come up as related to that.

The 2020 proposed budget adds about $14.2 million and almost 26 new positions to Seattle IT.

It includes positions to support the new Acela permitting program that Seattle IT is supporting enterprise-wide.

It also includes about $6 million for department-specific projects, so the Department of Transportation, construction inspection, Education and Early Learning, Finance and Administrative Services, and the Department of Human Resources, as well as SPD.

All of those departments have projects that are very specifically being supported by Seattle IT.

It also includes about $4.2 million in the annual wage increase that we discussed earlier.

Major changes in the programs and services that are supported by the cable television franchise funds are clear in this budget.

There's about $1.1 million worth of positions or programming that were previously supported by cable franchise funds that have been transferred into CLIT to be supported by other source of funds.

There have been positions and programming eliminated at an amount of about $646,000.

And in terms of the issue that we're going to talk about is the declining revenue in the Cable Franchise Fund and the, there's an associated backfill of general fund of about $750,000 to be able to continue to support the programs that the Franchise Fund currently does support.

Can I ask a quick question on that?

Thank you for this short two-page memo on this section.

This is really helpful in recognizing that cable services are being cut, that people are finding that streaming works oftentimes faster and better and gives the people more choices.

But you say at the bottom of page eight that the city will need to determine at what level, if at all, it will continue to fund these services and what source of funds it will use as franchise fee revenues decrease.

Have we gotten any?

thoughts from Ben about what we're going to do to close that gap?

Is it general fund money exclusively or is there some other source that can be tapped?

So as of right now they are trying to fill the gaps for 2020 itself.

CLIT is developing a plan about what to do about the fact that these revenues are declining and will continue to decline over the next several years.

And so they're putting together a plan for what it's going to look like if these services are going to continue to be provided, if they're going to have to cut them, if there are other sources of revenues that could be added to support the existing level of programming.

Right now, for this proposed budget, it is the $750,000 of general funds that is closing that gap.

That in conjunction with the transfer of the programs and services as well as the cuts make the fund just about solvent at this point.

The other piece of that is that there is now an inter-fund loan that's been approved for the Cable Franchise Fund to borrow about $660,000 from the IT fund, and that is the way in which this fund is being kept solvent.

And so I anticipate that they'll have a plan for what it's going to look like over the next couple years, but at the specific issue I think for this council is whether this $750,000 is the appropriate amount to support the existing level of funds, or if that, if council decides to increase or decrease that, what the associated level of service will be for the things that are supported by cable franchise funds.

Great, thank you.

Okay, any questions on that?

All right, please continue.

Okay.

So at the, I wasn't going to get into issue ID, but we appear to have been discussing it already.

So at the top of page nine, you'll see there are several options for what to do at this point.

We, the council could restore some or all of the eliminated or reduced programs and positions using non-capable franchise fee revenue.

Again, not sure that if that would be general fund or, what other source of revenue there is.

I just note that because the city is prohibited by federal and state law from imposing any sorts of fees on internet service providers, there's no real way to transfer the revenue that was coming in from the franchise fee setup in the same way to streaming services.

And so that creates another obstacle to being able to find revenue to support the programming.

Option B would be to further eliminate or reduce programming that's currently supported by the $750,000 of general fund.

The council would likely have to identify which pieces of programming and positions that we'd want to cut for that $750,000 to be used otherwise.

And then C is to change the amount of the Interfund loan to continue to provide services.

At the moment, the Debt Management Policy Advisory Committee has approved the loan only to be paid back until the end of 2020. And so if there were going to be a change in what that amount was, it would require approval by DMPAC.

The last option action, excuse me, option D would be to take no action and to move forward with the proposed budget as aligned by Seattle IT.

Great, thank you.

Any comments?

All right.

The last associated piece to this is just that there's budget legislation that authorizes the interfund loan.

So it authorizes the loan for an amount up to $2 million to be paid back by the end of 2020. And so the options there are either pass that council bill or do not pass it.

Very good.

Any reason not to pass it?

If the council wants to change the amount of the Interfund loan and then get that approved by DMPAC, that would mean an amended bill.

But otherwise, this is the bill that would allow the Cable Fund to stay solvent.

Thank you.

And there are no proposed budget actions from council members on Seattle IT.

Thank you.

So Lisa, you're up on the next one.

Oops, sorry.

Sorry, I didn't identify an issue here, but it's more of a question, Asha.

Seattle IT has a pretty significant role to play in terms of ongoing implementation of the surveillance technology ordinance.

And I'm not sure if there were any issues that you identified or perhaps could focus on a little bit over the next couple of weeks through this budget process to see if we've got the resources that we need within the Seattle Information Technology Department to be able to keep up with the overwhelming amount of volume and work associated with their role within the surveillance technology.

So I don't know if you have thoughts now or if you would need an opportunity to look a little bit more closely at that question.

Yeah, I would love to be able to follow up with Seattle IT and dig into that a little bit and get back to you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay, if no other questions, then let's move on, Lisa, to City Auditor.

Thank you, Chair Bagshaw.

I'm Lisa Cake, Central Staff.

I'll be covering the proposed budgets for the Office of the City Auditor, the City Budget Office, and the Legislative Department.

Then Lish Woodson from Council Staff will present the Department of Neighborhoods, Finance and Administrative Services, and the Office of Planning and Community Development.

My write-up for the Office of the City Auditor's budget is on page 10 of your memo.

I'll review the difference between the 2020 endorsed budget and the proposed 2020 budget and then introduce one Councilmember identified issue.

As you can see on the slide before you, the proposed total budget for the Auditor's office is about $2.5 million.

It's very close to what was in the endorsed budget, just about 4% or $100,000 less.

The proposed budget maintains the same number of FTEs.

I didn't identify any issues with this budget.

There is one council member identified issue.

Chair Bagshaw has submitted a form A proposing a 5% salary increase for the director and the auditors in the office.

All but one of the auditors are funded through the general fund.

Funding for the increase for the utilities auditor in the office would come from City Light and Seattle Public Utilities.

Great, thank you.

This request for a 5% salary increase comes from our auditor, And David Jones has done a significant amount of work for us.

We've had major actions that he has been reviewing, and he's been with us since 2009. And I understand he hasn't had a salary increase since that time.

So he requested that I support a request for an additional 5% salary, and that's what this is.

Please, go ahead.

I'm just looking for confirmation that that's the case, that there has not been a salary increase for the city auditor since 2009.

Not a general salary increase, no.

Not above the annual wage increases.

Okay, so there were the annual wage increases.

They had COLA, right?

And what percentage was that?

I think it varies from year to year.

It's varied by year.

I can get back to you if you like.

That would be helpful.

The base salary hasn't changed.

Correct.

So, can I ask one more question?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, with this proposal, Council Member Bagshaw, how much would that take the City Auditor's base salary to?

Base salary right now is $160,169, so a 5% increase is roughly $8,000 more.

Good.

Thanks.

Okay, moving on to the next item that I'm presenting would be the budget for the city budget office.

This office is on page 12 of your memo There are no staff identified issues with this budget.

So I'll review the budget chart and then introduce the council member identified issue 2020 budget for the city budget office would increase the budget to about 7.3 million dollars Which is about an 8% increase over the 2020 endorsed budget this increase is due to the annual wage increase in the tentative agreement between the city and coalition of unions and state paid family medical leave and internal services costs.

The proposed 2020 budget does maintain the same number of FTEs as the 2019 adopted and 2020 endorsed budgets.

Councilmember Mosqueda submitted a Form A of requesting a statement of legislative intent for the city budget office in partnership with the Department of Neighborhoods and the Office of Civil Rights to develop a proposal to provide compensation for volunteers on the city's boards and commissions whose employers don't pay them for such service to make these engagement opportunities more inclusive and accessible.

Very good.

And I've got some notes from Councilmember Mosqueda asking that CBO work with our Department of Neighborhoods, as you mentioned, Office of Civil Rights, to develop a proposal.

And the concept here is that there are people who would like to be serving on boards but just find that uncompensated time makes it impossible for them to participate.

So this is not a money ask at this point, but it is a sly that will ask for a review to see if there's some grants or some stipends that might be available.

Because we do have 70 boards and commissions, and we want to reach out to people and be as inclusive as possible.

Moving on to my final item is the budget for the legislative department.

My write-up for this office is on page 13 of your memo.

The budget comparison between the endorsed 2020 and the proposed 2020 budget sorry about that, show that for the legislative department, totals would be about $17.5 million general fund, which is an increase of about 8% over the endorsed 2020 budget, reflecting costs such as the annual wage increase in the tentative agreement between the city and the coalition, state paid family medical leave, and internal services costs.

The proposed 2020 budget maintains the same number of FTEs as in the 2020 endorsed budget.

Staff have not identified any issues with this budget, There is one councilmember identified issue relating to mayor and councilmember salaries.

Councilmember Sawant's proposal would reduce the salaries of the mayor and city councilmembers to 100% of the area median family income for a one-person family, which would be about $76,000.

The new salary would take effect in 2020 for seven of the nine councilmembers.

The salaries are staggered depending on your term and in 2020 for the remaining two council members and the mayor.

The change would provide about $430,000 in general fund in 2020 for other council priorities, such as services for renters facing eviction.

Thank you.

Any comments?

Let's move on, please.

Okay, I will turn this over now to Liz Schwitzen from Central South.

Good morning.

The next item is Department of Neighborhoods, which is on page 14 of your memo.

The Department of Neighborhoods runs community grant programs, supports outreach and engagement across the city, and manages programs to support community building like Historic Preservation and the Pea Patch Program.

The Mayor's proposed budget for the Department of Neighborhoods would be increased by almost $7 million over the endorsed 2020 budget.

Key changes include $5.5 million of sweetened beverage tax revenue, $3 million of which would go to pea patches to preserve and enhance existing pea patches, and $2.5 million for a new healthy food fund, a community grant program.

Staff would be added to support that healthy food fund.

There's $65,000 in the mayor's proposed budget for the AIDS Memorial Pathway, which council members helped to fund in the second quarter supplemental, so this is additional funding.

And then there is an addition of five staff and over $7,500, or $7,500, $750,000 to support outreach and engagement, mostly related to SDOT projects, Seattle Department of Transportation.

There are three council member proposed budget ads, all proposed by Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to lead all three of us, all of us through all three of them?

Sure, I'll follow Lish though, if that's okay.

The first is to add funding to continue, is to add $75,000 to continue funding for a South Park safety coordinator.

Fantastic, thank you.

So this was the top priority recommendation in the 2017 South Park Public Safety Task Force report.

The South Park Public Safety Task Force was an effort that came after a tragic death of a young person in South Park.

It was an effort that was supported by this council, and we supported many of the recommendations of the task force, both as it relates to traditional public safety interventions like funding the Public Safety Coordinator, but also in a number of capital projects related to lighting and transportation safety.

This individual is a bilingual public safety coordinator.

They have continued to meet and help coordinate the work necessary to the community in South Park.

And I just want to share with folks some materials associated with that work.

This document is the 2018 report that lists numerous community partners that the South Park Public Safety Coordinator works with in letters in support of this position from each the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition and Concord Elementary or Concord International Elementary School.

Good.

So do you want to go on?

And just as far as highlights for work that was done last year, the coordinator was involved in seven crime prevention through environmental design assessments and coordinated 15 community cleanups and also coordinated several safety partnerships and neighborhood coordination meetings, as well as community safety and outreach events.

If I just want to add just one quick comment, and thank you for the yellow pages that you are passing out here.

I really respect the work that you've been doing in South Park, Council Member Herbold, especially that just being deeply engaged and helping them increase the number of partners that they've been working with.

I think in the 10 years that Council Member O'Brien and I have been here that we've seen a real uptick in engagement in South Park, and thanks for your work on it.

Yeah, and I really believe that people feel that it's making a difference.

So I want to thank my colleagues for supporting my efforts there.

Great.

Good.

Next item?

We'll go next to a new Westwood and South Delridge Youth Safety Program.

Which letter did I give you?

Council Member Herbold, you're back on.

The South Park Partnership.

That's from the...

Okay, got it.

So this project would actually add a yet-to-be-determined funding amount for community-driven improvements in the Westwood and South Delridge neighborhoods, following a model that has been very successful in Rainier Beach called Rainier Beach, A Beautiful, Safe Place for Youth.

This model is one that was actually designed by the city auditor's office.

in collaboration with the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, Seattle Police Department, and the Seattle Neighborhood Group.

And this model in Rainier Beach has been funded through a federal grant received by George Mason University Center for Evidence-Based Policing.

It is another sort of SEPTED approach.

to addressing public safety issues.

It ties in with a proposal that we've all seen from the Human Services Coalition budget priority letter where they recommend funding for youth development services and they encourage investment.

for specifically ages 5 to 18. The community safety RFP released in 2019 focused on young adults 18 to 24. And so what's really important about this approach is it recognizes that much like Rainier Beach, there are issues associated with having a middle school and a high school on the same campus.

And we worked with the police department to identify what the public safety risks are associated with at-risk youth as well as the community.

And the idea behind this funding is to design a program similar to what they have in Rainier Beach, as an intervention to ensure that at-risk youth are not getting caught up in our schools-to-prisons pipeline and into the criminal justice system, coming up with SEPTED-oriented interventions.

Okay, next item.

Going on, we have funding for Seattle Repertory Theater's Public Works Seattle program.

Thank you.

So this funding would fill, it would be one-time funding, it would fill the gap caused by the decrease in the award amount available from the Community Partnerships Program in the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

Before this year, organizations were eligible to receive $100,000 from the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

Before 2019, the cap on, starting in 2019, the cap on awards changed to $25,000.

The amount of funding to support the Public Works Program is still under consideration.

Department of Neighborhoods changed application criteria earlier this year for the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

in order to eliminate the $100,000 award level because many projects weren't able to meet that threshold.

This is one program that was able to, similarly to the AIDS Memorial Pathway program that we looked at using the supplemental budget process to address the same problem created by the changing in funding, but only for that particular project.

I had suggested during the supplemental budget process that we also address the Seattle Reps shortfall created through this change in the Neighborhood Matching Fund, but we agreed that we would only work on the AIDS Memorial Pathways funding request and hold this for the budget process, so here I am bringing it forward again.

And so just a little bit about Seattle Reps Public Works.

It was launched in 2016. It's modeled after New York City's Public Theater.

It works deeply with community-based organizations to invite people from all walks of life to take theater classes, not just theater classes, but set building classes, attend performance and events, and join in the creation of works of participatory theater.

85% of participants are low-income, 48% are people of color, 39% are young people, and 32% are seniors.

Again, these...

efforts are not just about bringing people to watch theater, it's about having them participate in the creation of theater through all stages of the creation of a piece of artwork for the public.

So it is really transformational experience for the folks who participate in it, and I hope that we can find some funding to make it possible for it to continue.

So you may have said this and I apologize if I missed it, but the reps received $25,000 through the neighborhood matching grants, but because we went from $100,000 to $25,000, the people could apply.

But every quarter, and we've heard from some that says that's not enough for us to plan.

It's the exact same situation that we helped with the AIDS Memorial Pathway.

They were exactly in the same situation.

We used the supplemental budget process to address their issue.

I propose that we also help the rep out during the supplemental, but we thought it would be better to bring it back during the budget process.

Very good.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

Any other questions on this?

All right, we'll move on to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, which is on- Hey, Enlish, I just want to, for those, thank you, council, colleagues for being here.

We're now on item eight on page 16, and we have 20, through 20 to go.

And we're going to, I hope, hang in here until we get through all 20.

FAS provides support for the city's vehicular fleets, facilities, business regulation and oversight, financial services, city customer services, and runs the Seattle Animal Shelter.

The mayor's proposed budget is increased by almost $17 million.

Key changes include $2.2 million for the Green Fleet Action Plan to buy new alternative fuel vehicles, $2.2 million for waterfront lid payments for city facilities.

$881,000 to support the Waterfront Local Improvement District Administration, $365,000 for the RV remediation program, $605,000 to implement the heating oil tax, $683,000 for positions for citywide accounting, permanent integration, human capital management IT programs, $5 million are added to the Judgment and Claims Fund, and $179,000 in a position are added for I-1000 implementation.

On the capital side, there is additional funding for the Fire Station 31. There was an announcement just last week, and I've heard from CBO that that amount will need to be The city of Seattle has proposed an increase to implement the plan that was proposed by $800,000 in 2020 for a temporary facility, and they're estimating the total cost for the fire station replacement will be approximately $43,000 based on previous fire station projects.

The capital program also includes space in the Seattle Municipal Tower for the Office of Labor There is a reduction in FAS's budget due to a delay in the Seattle Municipal Tower Elevator Rehabilitation Project.

And funding is transferred to Seattle Center and Parks for energy efficiency projects.

There are two pieces of legislation related to FAS that you'll see.

They both align the city's business and occupation tax regulations with changes to state law.

We have three council member proposed budget ads.

The first is to create a parent infant room, Council Member Bagshaw.

Great, thank you very much.

I think we talked about this in the last couple of weeks and I was alerted that the executive and the budget office were not keen on pursuing the child care behind the coffee cart, and that was something that Councilmember Mosqueda and I had advanced last year, and I think others supported it, and we asked to get a real review on whether or not we could put child care in the city hall.

And it came back with a high price tag, and also what I heard from the executives, that they would rather put that money into other child care services around the city to enhance what may already be there or to help low-income areas.

So with that, we know that there are families, moms, and dads that would like to be able to bring their infants to work.

And whereas I support that entirely, we know that infants get a little fussy sometimes.

And we suggested that having a room dedicated in City Hall and a room dedicated in SMT and wherever we have we have families and we have workers, that we have space for them.

And it doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be particularly fancy, but a place where parents could go if the infant is getting a little bit fussy.

And it can be a room for breastfeeding, for pumping, for having even places where people can work.

My vision of this is some reasonable comfy couches, I'll donate the one that's in my office when I leave.

And just making it a kindly place and a quiet place for the child to calm down.

So I think that even though I'm going to want to pursue the child care facility, I also can see the writing on the wall this year and I would like to be able to say we want a place in our own legislative branch.

We're going to have a few babies and having places for them to go I think would be a wonderful option.

And I'm going to ask for my colleague's support on this.

Any questions?

No?

Okay.

The next item was hinted at.

Council Member Mosqueda has a proposal to create a child care facility in City Hall.

Great.

Well, I will speak to this in general, and I've already mentioned it, that we last year urged an opportunity to look at what it would cost to do this in City Hall.

And I want to say thanks to people in DEEL.

They did that analysis for us.

We also went and looked at what the county has done right next door to us in the Chinook building, where they have a fabulous daycare.

that is operated by the Northwest Center.

And that center includes, and I believe it's 20%, children with special needs.

And they are incorporated into each of the child care rooms.

And it's pretty impressive how well all the kids are merging, learning, and supporting each other.

That would be our vision, to be able to do something like that.

Northwest Center is interested in working with us to have a child care center here in City Hall.

And that said, we're hearing that it's $4 million to build out behind the coffee cart.

I don't have any way to dispute that, but it certainly is a large amount of money.

I think we should carry this forward.

We can bring it up having four classrooms with a minimum of 58 children.

Operational costs are significant.

We know that.

But nonetheless, I think that we ought to be the leaders in this, that child care should be available in every employer's building.

so that it's available for families.

So that's what Council Member Mosqueda has brought forward.

The idea is a four point, I think she's asking for $4.36 million for this.

And anybody else have any comments?

I welcome them.

Long overdue.

Pardon the pun.

What's that?

Long overdue, get it, get it.

Okay, thank you.

We're gonna keep moving.

Thank you.

The next item, Council Member Herbold has a proposal to reduce the threshold for the priority hire contracting program from $5 million to projects with a $2.5 million cost.

Great.

Council Member Herbold.

So, as folks know, Priority Hire promotes access to construction careers for women, people of color, and others with social and economic disadvantages.

By using city-funded and public-private partnership projects, the Priority Hire program prioritizes the hiring of residents that live in economically distressed areas, particularly in Seattle and King County.

The current program applies to public works construction projects of 5 million or more.

Reducing the threshold to 2.5 million would result in roughly doubling the number of projects per year.

Three new FTEs would administer the expanded program, providing technical assistance, monitoring, and reporting.

on implementation of the priority hire program.

So this FAS estimates that 6 to 12 new projects a year would be added if the threshold were reduced to 2.5 million.

There are currently 10 projects per year.

And we know that from the 2018 priority hire report that workers in economically distressed zip codes earned an additional $10 million more in wages than before priority hire.

Apprenticeships of color nearly doubled their share of apprenticeship hours on CWA projects compared to non-CWA projects.

And 416 pre-apprenticeship graduates and individuals receiving career navigation services were placed into the construction industry through Seattle Investments.

So again, as it relates specifically to not just getting people jobs, but getting people career wage jobs, is really important.

This program is phenomenal in doing that work.

And by lowering the threshold to include more city public works projects, we can help more people.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Any comments?

Council Member Herbold, thank you for bringing this forward.

I think it's the appropriate time to do it.

And it's building on a really successful program.

So thanks for bringing it forward.

OK.

Great.

Let's move on to Office of Planning and Community Development.

Good.

We're up.

and that is on page 19 of your memo.

OPCD leads citywide and neighborhood planning efforts and runs the Equitable Development Initiative.

The budget is increased by $18.5 million in the mayor's proposed budget.

Most of that is a $15 million one-time revolving loan fund for Equitable Development Initiative property acquisition.

funded through the Mercer Mega Block Sale.

$500,000 in a position would support the revolving loan fund and a strategic acquisition fund that is currently placed in finance general.

In 2023, the city will need to update its comprehensive plan and there are two ads related to that major body of work.

$500,000 for an environmental impact statement, and $150,000 for outreach and engagement.

Finally, there's a $134,000 add for Sound Transit 3 planning transfer from Seattle Department of Transportation.

There's also legislation, there's legislation to extend the Equitable Development Interfund Loan for one year, pending the sale of the public safety building block across the street.

We're getting close to seeing permits issued for that development, and once those are issued, then we can close that transaction.

You are grinning and I appreciate this.

I don't know how long that pit has been there, but I have told people before when I was in the prosecuting attorney's office over there in that corner of the building.

So I've been looking at 90 degrees about that pit for at least 15 years now.

And it used to have just mallard ducks swimming down there.

Before I was here, I asked Fred Podesta, could we just make it a tiny home village until you're ready to build?

And of course, they told me no.

But we're so close, and there's actually a real sign on the wall, I noticed, that hadn't been graffitied yet.

And what do we think the timeline is, Lish?

When do you think I'm going to see...

When am I going to see a building coming up?

Best case for permit issuance would be December, but probably first quarter next year, they will be able to pull their permits.

Council Member O'Brien.

I'm considering putting legislation forward that would require the council member to not leave until the permits are issued.

That'll be another term, guys.

Okay, thank you for all of this.

Let's keep moving.

That was a bad suggestion, Council Member O'Brien, but thank you.

There are three council member proposals related to Office of Planning and Community Development.

The first is from Council Member Mosqueda and this would be a proviso on the outreach and engagement funds for the comprehensive plan update until council can be briefed on the plan for those funds.

Councilmember O'Brien, are you speaking to this for Councilmember Muscata?

I would love to speak to it.

Thank you.

And so I have some notes from Councilmember Muscata.

This is something that I support and I will do my best to channel Councilmember Muscata, but she and her team can fill in any blanks that I missed.

But the intent, so we're all aware that the comprehensive plan is a, goes through a major update.

I think it's every eight years.

Is that right?

And so we're beginning that cycle.

We've obviously seen a lot of growth in the city in the last decade.

And there's a desire, I think, from a lot of us to be very intentional about what that growth looks like going forward.

Last year, in last year's budget, we, the council had a slide that requested that they do, the departments do use a racial equity toolkit in some of the pre-planning work.

We've had a preliminary response to that, but the final response isn't due for about a month and a half, I believe.

But this would go further and ask that they provide us some funds to ensure that in OPCD's outreach process as they plan for the new comprehensive plan that they're doing the full racial equity toolkit including the outreach program to communities most impacted.

I want to just highlight a couple of the points that Councilmember Muscata's team has made to me.

Doing a racial equity toolkit around the urban villages is intended to not be a business as usual.

Recognizing that the growth that's happened throughout our city has, by definition, not been equitable.

It's been very concentrated in our urban villages because that's our strategy, which means that 75% of the land of the residential land has received almost no growth.

And it's really important that as we do this comprehensive plan that they bring back and answer questions directly related to where the growth needs to happen and tie that closely to the displacement we've seen in our cities and make sure we're incorporating people who've been most impacted by that displacement into the proposals that we're looking at.

It's anticipated that the return recommendation is to create more housing access in 75% of the city that's currently out of reach for all but the highest earners, while simultaneously addressing historic inequities and present-day displacement pressures caused by discriminatory public policy.

So colleagues, this is something that I am excited to see the city doing next year and I'm thrilled to support and hope to have your support for it.

Thank you.

Next item is the EDI funding for central area community development.

Yes.

And that's from Council Member Sawant.

It provides funding for a group to work with black churches in the central area in developing parking lots and mixed-use projects.

Okay.

Any comments?

Quick comment.

I'm sensitive to certainly encouraging that group.

I want to be careful that we do have an EDI funding process that's very community driven, and I've been very impressed with it.

There are way more projects that come through that process than there is currently funding for.

But having the community collaborate and work together and identifying the priorities for community and figuring out how to sequence them I think is very valuable to the city.

And I want to just be cautious that we don't inadvertently short circuit a process that I believe has been working very well.

And so to the extent that this is a project that went through that process and didn't score highly and is unlikely to score highly for certain reasons, I'm open to looking at questions there, but I want to be careful that we don't change this process to one where the council's all of a sudden picking the projects we want to be funding through EDI and rather support the community process.

And to the extent that there are really good projects that aren't getting funding, I'd rather focus our efforts on increasing the funding for it so more projects can qualify.

Great.

Thank you for that.

And the next item is from Council President Harrell that he wants to support a community-driven innovative development project And if you would like to give us a few sentences on this list and maybe Councilmember O'Brien can speak to it as well.

The funding would be for a consultant, a real estate consultant, to help community-driven projects, Weedle and Deedle.

And it would be a group with deep experience in the Central Area's African-American community.

I don't have anything to add to that.

All right.

Thank you.

Anybody else have anything to add to it?

All right.

Thank you.

Let's move on to page 22.

Thank you.

Council Member Baggio, as you mentioned, this is on page 22 of the memo, and we'll be talking about the Office of Hearing Examiner.

The Office of Hearing Examiner is an independent office of the city responsible for conducting fair and impartial administrative hearings as authorized by the Seattle Municipal Code.

The office holds hearings and decides appeals in cases where citizens disagree with the decision made by a city of Seattle agency.

I should say citizens or residents.

The Office of Hearing Examiners 2020 proposed budget is just over $1 million.

This represents an increase of about $73,000, which includes taking one part-time FTE to a full-time FTE.

This is in anticipation of an increased workload to hear appeals of fire code violations following the passage of Council Bill 119-650, which council passed in September and gives Seattle Fire Department citation authority.

At this time, there is one proposal for the office from Council Member Pacheco.

I'll just go.

Sorry.

I'm so used to Councilmember.

Councilmember Pacheco, jump right in.

This ask comes directly from the Office of the Hearing Examiner.

It stems from conversations I had with Hearing Examiner Vancell around implementation of the CEPA reform bill we passed two weeks ago, colleagues.

Hearing Examiner Vancell has identified two low-cost investments that we can make to address lengthy hearing times and improve efficiencies within the office.

The first is a one-time funding of just $8,000 to pay for portable hearing equipment.

Currently, the hearing examiner has access to two hearing rooms, only one of which can accommodate large multi-party hearings.

So when a large hearing such as the MHA appeal is being heard, other hearings that could otherwise be handled quickly are sidelined for months because there's no physical room to hear them.

Portable hearing equipment would allow the hearing examiner to handle other hearings concurrently with a large appeal.

It would also give the hearing examiner the option to hold hearings in the communities that are impacted by the decision to open the process to more people.

The second piece of this budget add would be $15,000 of ongoing funding to support the participation of a city planner in mediation processes for hearing examiner appeals.

Currently, mediation is seen as too costly of an option for many appellants because they must bear the cost of a planner participating themselves.

This funding would enable more appeals to avoid lengthy hearings by making mediation a more affordable, accessible option.

And finally, I just wanted to, I've shared a copy of the letter that hearing examiner Vansel sent to all of us on October 8th requesting these budget ads.

Thank you, Council Member Chayko.

Anyone else have any comments on that?

I'll just add that I really appreciate your work on this, Council Member Chayko, and appreciate the engagement of hearing examiner Vansel.

We passed the SEPA reform, was that just a couple weeks ago?

Just a couple weeks ago.

And I know that the hearing examiner had expressed some concerns in advance of that.

I do believe that we have shared goals to keep his office robust and do things as timely as possible.

And so I really appreciate his ongoing engagement.

in helping give us clarity on what the types of investments can be.

I particularly appreciate that he's identified some low-cost investments that hopefully can ease up some pain points so that we will see a recognition of what we hope to achieve with the legislation we passed two weeks ago.

Next one.

If there aren't any questions about that, next I'll move to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and this discussion is found on page 23 of the memo.

The 2020 proposed budget for this office is $3.9 million.

As we discussed during the September 27th briefing, appropriations to the office decreased 22% from the 2020 endorsed budget.

This is primarily due to two changes.

First a change in the accounting of some grants that usually come in later in the year Which we are still expecting but don't want to put on the books until we actually receive them Second because King County will be doing contracting for the expanded legal defense network rather than giving those funds to the city to distribute There are three councilmember proposals identified at this point in the process and the first is from councilmember Gonzalez councilmember Gonzalez

Thank you so much.

The first item would add an additional $750,000 to the budget for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

As we know the Trump administration's ongoing threats and policy and rule changes that impact immigrants from refugees is is becoming intense and increasing every single day.

Some of that administration's actions are forcing families to choose, literally choose to go hungry or forego health care and other public services that keep their families housed and healthy, and all because of their reasonable fear of deportation and becoming entangled in the immigration, for-profit immigration jail system.

Our community expects to know sometime next year on how the U.S.

Supreme Court will weigh in on issues like DACA or TPS, but the proposed rule changes around public charge are already having a negative impact in immigrant communities and ultimately, unfortunately, achieving Trump's goal of scaring families into the shadow.

So even though there was a positive results on the public charge rule for now.

The effect of fear and intimidation is unfortunately a bell that can no longer be unrung as it relates to actions by this administration.

So our partner community-based organizations have said there is a growing need for a rapid response fund in light of these ongoing attacks from the federal administration.

This would be similar to the one that was created in 2017 to respond to emerging threats through specialized legal clinics and deeper community education around things like policy changes related to the public charge rule to not further, to hopefully be able to mitigate the disruption on the lives of immigrants and refugees in our communities.

So this, these $750,000 I imagine would be subject to the ordinary request for proposal process and would be fleshed into into community to be able to meet the ongoing and immediate needs of the immigrant refugee community in the face of these federal administrative rule changes that all of us I think appreciated the depth and the complexity of those issues when we had OIRA's Director Kuvu at the table walking us through the presentation of the work that they do every day.

Councilmember Pacheco?

I just want to express my support for both one and two, but I'll give my reasons why on number three.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

All right, shall we go on to the next item?

And the second item is to add one FTE, and that is also from Council Member Gonzalez.

So this would, thank you, this would be complementary to what I just described.

So again, we heard from OIRA that they are continuing to address and deal with the vast amount and volume of policy changes that seem to be coming out of the Trump administration every day, all intended to attack and create a hostile environment for immigrants and refugees in our city.

Frankly, whether they're here with documentation or without, matters little to this administration.

They just really want to create an environment that's hostile to discourage immigrants and refugees from fully integrating into our communities.

And this is an opportunity for us to provide OIRA a single full-time employee equivalent to be able to really just focus in on those federal policy changes that are having a devastating impact on the local immigrant and refugee community and really be able to support some of the work that the community-based organizations would be doing in the Resilience Fund should that be funded.

Great.

Thank you for that.

Next item is, and I think this is Council Member Pacheco, you were going to dive in.

Sure.

So this summer, when I first was appointed, I opened up a district office at the University Heights Center.

And over the summer, as I was having district office hours, I would hear from constituents as they were seeing the images over the summer about what was happening in our southern border and what was happening.

the he who should not be named administration was doing at the southern border.

And a number of constituents wanted the city to do more.

So that's why I'm very strongly supportive of one and two, like the two amendments that Council Member Gonzalez has offered.

Additionally, when I worked at the Office of Minority Affairs at the University of Washington, I would hear from other staff members the anxieties that so many undocumented students would have about both the renewal or immigration status and so forth.

So my office had inquired to OIRA what we were doing.

And in 2018, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs was able to use $20,000 in one-time funding to work with Nonprofit 21 Progress to provide grants to help DACA recipients afford the $495 DACA renewal application fee.

With the Supreme Court decision on DACA's fate looming and with the possibility that the program could sunset at some future date, I believe that we should provide OIRA with another round of one-time funding to help DREAMers renew their status before the program ends.

I plan to put forward a form B to add $50,000 in one-time funds to support this work and have been discussing this with OIRA and 21Progress.

I am also aware that there may be interest from private donors in matching whatever funding the city puts forward for DACA renewals.

On a personal level, Growing up as a Growing up my two older sisters were undocumented and my mother used to always say to us You know, no matter what that we always had to protect Elaine Mariella And so I am pursuit of this not just because of my experiences at the Office of Minority Affairs Not just because of what I heard from from constituents, but because I think this is what we should be doing as a city.

And when we ask ourselves in these reports, what can we do?

This I think is something that is a small step, but it would be a big change and big difference maker for so many of those young people, not just in my district, but through the 7,300 people that are undocumented and dreamers across our Seattle metropolitan area.

Great, thank you for that.

Okay, any other comments on these three items?

All right, thank you, Amy, very much.

Next is Cranable.

Cranable Central Staff, and I will begin with discussion of the Seattle Department of Human Resources.

This is the department that's responsible for recruiting, hiring, and supporting the city's workforce, as well as administering compensation and benefits program.

The 2020 proposed budget is for $323 million, and that is comprised of $25 million for the operations budget and $298 million for the personnel compensation trust fund.

For the operation budget, there is an addition of $6 million from the 2020 endorsed budget.

Some notable additions that comprise that $6 million include a comprehensive wage study for $2 million.

For this project, the Seattle Department of Human Resources would conduct a comprehensive wage study of city-represented job titles with current market rates consistent with the terms of a memorandum of agreement between the city and the Coalition of City Unions.

The study would evaluate approximately 650 titles citywide with an estimated completion date of December 31st.

Another notable addition is approximately $336,000 for a scoping study on replacing the HRIS EV5 application.

And that is the system that the city uses for employee timekeeping, payroll, basic HR management functions.

It has been reported that that system has reached the end of its useful life, and so SDHR is scoping out a replacement.

2020, they are proposing the $336,000 and estimating that there would be an expenditure of approximately $2.2 million for the following year's budget.

Next is a proposed addition of 11.5 staff.

Members, 7.5 of them would be ongoing, funded primarily through central cost allocations, so different departments would be adding money to fund those positions, and then four employees that would be in term limited temporary positions.

For budget legislation, there is a proposed council bill that would establish a new employee giving program for charitable contributions.

This legislation would be comprised of amendments to the employee giving ordinance that has been in effect since 1988. And this proposal would eliminate the requirement to have the charitable giving program happen through payroll deductions, and there would be a designated campaign administrator to actually run the program rather than the city, or there could be the option of it happening with this designated campaign administrator or the city.

The designated campaign administrator would be a qualified nonprofit third-party administrator that would lead the campaign, provide full campaign support, and also distribute the employee donations.

As background for this change, SDHR states that since initial implementation in 1988, the program expanded significantly.

Staffing could not keep up to meet the intensified program demands.

There was an audit and an investigation several years ago that showed a strong need for more program management and more internal controls.

So in the 2018 proposed budget, the SDHR actually recommended abrogating one of the positions that was handling this charitable giving campaign and actually moving towards third party administration, which is one of the recommendations that came out of the audit.

and the investigation.

So since the adopted budget did abrogate that position, since then, the department has been taking steps to discontinue payroll deductions, and that will actually happen on January 7th of next year.

They plan to inform participating nonprofit organizations of this change this week.

And then there will be a two-week charitable giving campaign that will be run by United Way of King County in November, November 8th through November 22nd.

So an item for council to consider is the impact of removing payroll deductions from the employee giving campaigns.

In 2018, 10% of city employees donated about $644,000 to almost 700 nonprofit organizations.

An example of the size of such donations, Northwest Harvest received $34,000, so about $8,000 per quarter.

And another example are 15 employees collectively donating about $5,000 to New Beginnings for survivors of domestic violence.

So given this history of giving that has been a consistent source of funding for these nonprofits, the council could consider amending the bill to require an enhanced charitable giving campaign during the first year of implementation, perhaps two campaigns or an extended campaign.

I would like to speak in support of moving forward with Bobby Hume's recommendation.

In 1988 there was no such thing as donate buttons on the internet and we didn't have the kind of fundraisers that we see all fall and all spring from some of our favorite charitable donations.

And one of my concerns about the payroll deduction is it took quite a whack out, and I believe it was like 7 or 8 percent, so that it wasn't free to the individuals that were donating the money.

And then there were administrative costs by the organization that was receiving the money.

So I think there were people that were feeling like upward of 15 to 20 percent of administrative costs were taken before their money actually went to the services to which they thought they were donating.

So if we can reduce those costs, make it still simple for people, and encourage the kind of charitable giving we've seen, I think that is terrific, but I will also note that, as you point out here, that 34,000 went to Northwest Harvest.

Through this program, there was a lot more of city employees that gave directly to Northwest Harvest, and I want to encourage that.

Any other comments?

Okay, great.

In the absence of comments, we'll move on to the Office of Labor Standards.

Office of Labor Standards strives to improve workers' lives through implementation of labor standards and also administering two very large outreach and education funds that comprise about a third of the budget and also support an advisory commission and the Domestic Worker Standards Boards, and they also are creating innovative policies as well.

The 2020 proposed budget for the Office of Labor Standards includes $6.8 million, an increase of about $207,000 from the endorsed budget.

OLS is not proposing any changes to employees, staffing, or operations.

These increases are due to standard cost changes, annual wage increase in the tentative agreement between the city and coalition of unions, and contributions to the state paid family medical leave.

Something that the council may want to consider in relation to Office of Labor Standards is the cost of translation and interpretation that the office provides.

The office truly does have a robust language access program.

They translate their materials into 19 or more languages.

It goes through a two-step process where it is translated by a professional services company, and then it receives a layer of review from a fluent speaker in the community to make sure that the translation is meaningful.

to the folks who were reading it.

They have forecasted up to about 20 translation projects for the upcoming year.

Their budget has a line item for about $25,000 for language access.

They estimate that it'll cost almost $42,000 to complete this work.

They indicate that increasing funds for language access is not necessary because they predict underspending in other accounts such as operating supplies, employee recognition, and software purchases.

The council may want to consider adding resources to cover the full cost without the underspending in the other accounts.

I don't see any questions.

I do have comments, however.

Sorry, I didn't see you grab the microphone.

Oh, no, that's OK.

On the language access costs, I do think it's important for us to, and I spoke to this during the OLS presentation, I do think it's important for us to take seriously the need to cover language access costs for the department.

I think we heard from Director Garfinkel at the time that it is absolutely a need and that the department does the best that it can with what it has and I think that Karina's presentation is that is during this process is a testament to that I think it's pretty obvious that they they are committed to language access and continue to do what they can at the highest quality possible and I would be supportive of adding an additional $17,000 to cover the additional language access costs in order to recognize the need for implementation of the five new labor laws that we passed that will go into effect in 2020. Great.

Thank you.

There is one proposed council budget action for Office of Labor Standards.

I'll reach over and get the slide so we can have our visual for that.

Council Member Mosqueda proposes adding $1 million to the Community Outreach and Education Fund and the Business Outreach and Education Fund.

This would be an ongoing addition for the Office of Labor Standards to partner with community and business organizations to conduct and facilitate outreach, education, technical assistance to low-wage workers and small businesses on Seattle's labor standards.

As background, in 2015, the council created the Community Outreach and Education Fund as a two-year contract cycle for $1 million.

In 2016, the council created the Business Outreach and Education Fund for $475,000 as a one-year contract cycle.

In 2017, these funds were perceived as ongoing.

The Community Outreach and Education Fund was increased to $1.5 million per year, and the Business Outreach Fund to $800,000 per year.

Since then, the funding has not changed.

In the intervening time, Seattle has passed five additional labor standards.

The state has passed additional worker protection laws.

Census data shows stark racial disparities in Seattle median household income.

So this budget action would add additional money to increase outreach on ways to empower workers and empower businesses to put these laws into place.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So by my quick math it looks like it's about 2.3 million in outreach and education that the Office of Labor Standards has.

Correct.

I just want to flag again the fact that the Seattle's Office of Civil Rights has no dedicated funding for outreach and education.

Their investigators are the ones who are charged with doing outreach and education to the community when implementing new laws.

And I feel that it's a very inequitable situation that we do not have any dedicated funding for outreach and education for the, Seattle Office of Civil Rights when that office is fulfilling a similar function as to the Office of Labor Standards in enforcing regulations that the city has passed that have profound impacts to people related to race and our social justice values of the city.

So I am continually bringing this up to signal my desire to figure out a way to have both some parity between those two offices, both as it relates to the numbers of investigators and the investments that we put into outreach and education.

I think the folks that it benefits in doing so are the folks that, with the passage of the laws that we've passed on this council over the last several years, will reap benefits for the constituencies that we hope to represent.

Thank you for that.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Oh, thank you.

So I have notes from Council Member Mosqueda's office on this particular budget request, which is hers.

Before I read those, I just wanted to acknowledge the point that Council Member Herbold continues to make.

as it relates to issues related to community outreach for the Office for Civil Rights.

I certainly agree that there needs to be some attention placed in that category as well to make sure that we are providing the resources necessary to the Office for Civil Rights to enforce our civil rights laws.

and would be interested in hearing more about sort of the breadth of that work and the scope of the needs in terms of additional outreach, of course, in the Office of Labor Standards category, we have been very deliberate about requiring evaluations of most of these labor laws that have really focused on two things.

One is, how deep is the knowledge amongst the workers that are impacted by the laws or protected by the laws?

And similarly, what is the knowledge amongst the employer base about those laws that has really sort of laid the framework and the foundation for identifying dedicated revenue streams to be able to support some of these outreach funds and perhaps that's a good place for us to start in terms of being able to identify what the scope of the needs are.

But that being said, before us is this request to add $1 million to the Community Outreach and Education Fund and Business Outreach and Engagement Fund to the Office of Labor Standards Budget, I think Karina did a good job of going over some of the talking points that I have in front of me from Councilmember Mosqueda's office.

Really just wanted to emphasize that since its creation on April 1st of 2015, we have acknowledged and moved OLS forward with the understanding that its mission is to advance labor standards through thoughtful community and business engagement.

strategic enforcement, and innovative policy development with a commitment to race and social justice.

OLS implements many of the labor standards that the city council has passed, paid sick and safely, fair chance employment, minimum wage, wage theft, hotel employees, health and safety, secure scheduling, and the domestic workers ordinance as well.

OLS has had great success in terms of enforcement of these laws and in achieving recovery for workers, including some examples here.

October 15th of 2019, there was a $182,000 settlement with two Hyatt hotels for alleged violations of the minimum wage and wage theft ordinances that impacted 234 employees.

September 16th, 2019, there was a $172,000 settlement with Jack in the Box franchise for alleged violations of the secure scheduling ordinance impacting 569 employees.

On August 15, 2019, there was a $686,000 settlement with an Arizona staffing company for alleged violations of the minimum wage law that impacted 358. employees, and that's just sort of the most recent examples of this, I think, all this year of some of the work that has been done by OLS on the enforcement side.

In terms of community-based outreach and enforcement, we know that our community-based nonprofit organizations play a really critical and important role in the co-enforcement model that is used by OLS to create a culture of compliance.

with Seattle's minimum labor standards among employers throughout the city.

Low-wage workers are most likely to be victims of workplace violations like wage theft, including people of color, immigrants and refugees, LGBTQ communities, and other marginalized workers are also the least likely to come forward with a complaint to the Office of Labor Standards.

So I think it's important for us to make sure that we acknowledge that this work is centered on those efforts as it relates to all of our labor standards and that the need for additional funding is present and really important.

We've added one labor standard, the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights, and passed four hotel worker bills since the last substantial increase to This particular fund and I think it's really important for us to to increase the fund to make sure that we are being able to engage in the extensive outreach needed to to the additional workers that'll be covered by the variety of these new labor standards.

So we also know that OLS is intending to shift its enforcement priorities to directed investigations.

So this will inherently put our community-based organizations and business organizations in a position to need additional outreach to be able to understand what the rights and responsibilities are, even in the context of directed investigations.

That is it.

Any further comments?

Just in response to Council Member Gonzalez's point earlier, ASHA from central staff did a really good analysis in last year's budget discussions around the shortfalls both on the investigation side as well as the outreach and education side.

for the Office of Civil Rights.

I'll be sure to send that on to folks for their review.

Also, as it relates specifically to Councilmember Gonzalez's point about the knowledge that people have about our civil rights laws, one of the points that has come out of a recent race and equity toolkit analysis that this council last year asked the Office of Civil Rights to do.

One of the results of that, Rhett, was a recognition through work that was done in the community with focus group works and town halls is that the knowledge of our civil rights laws is insufficient in the city.

And a lot of people don't even know that there is a Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

And so that really creates a chicken or egg situation.

If you don't know that the office exists, and you don't know that the office exists to enforce the laws related to civil rights, it also has an impact on the public sentiment around enhancing funding for those services.

So we have a really robust engagement with the stakeholders associated with the Office of Labor Standards, partially because we've done so much work funding outreach and education about our labor standards laws.

And so that has resulted in the very good recommendation to increase funding for outreach and education.

We don't have, we haven't developed a constituency like that for the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, any further comments on those?

Please continue.

All right, Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff, and at this point we have seven more presentations, so getting close.

So we will be talking about the Office of Sustainability and Environment and which works to provides citywide coordination of environmental initiatives, conducts research, and develops programs and policies focusing on environmental equity, building energy, food policy, and transportation electrification, and also coordinates implementation of the Seattle Climate Action Plan.

I'll be going over some differences between the proposed 2020 and endorsed 2020 budgets, and then we will discuss Councilmember proposals.

So the total proposed 2020 appropriations for the Office of Sustainability and Environment, also known as OSCE, is $11.6 million.

The difference is about $3.8 million between the proposed and endorsed, which is close to a 50% increase to OSCE's total budget.

The 27% drop in general fund support you see at the table represents action by the Council earlier this year to establish the Sweetened Beverage Tax Fund.

So those revenues can be tracked separately from general fund.

So the $3.9 million of sweetened beverage tax revenues in the endorsed 2020 budget were shifted from general fund to the sweetened beverage tax fund.

And also the proposed budget would add $2 million to expand the number of fresh bucks vouchers that the office can offer to residents who are in the food security gap, which So those are residents who experience food insecurity but do not necessarily qualify for some food assistance programs.

And so the proposal would be to increase from 2,000 vouchers to 6,000 vouchers because there was great demand earlier this year when people were signing up.

And these vouchers fund purchases of eligible fruits and vegetables at participating retailers.

The general fund increase shows increase for salary and other benefit increases, including the annual wage increase and ongoing funding for the climate director position, which was added in last year's budget.

It also includes $595,000 from the heating oil tax, which the council passed in September.

To Council Member Pacheco's question last Wednesday regarding the heating oil tax revenues, Based on the impacts of council amendments to delay implementation from the 1st of July to September of 2020 and exempting the biodiesel portion of the heating oil, this is estimated to decrease the 2020 revenues by about $27,000.

So the total revenues would be about $568,000.

And I will note that because of the delayed implementation, there may be some efforts by customers to kind of wheedle their way out of paying the tax so they, you know, so they might purchase their oil earlier.

And so we're not really sure what the revenues will look like next year, but it's possible that they may be lower.

And so also the proposed 2020 budget would add two new positions to support the Municipal Energy Efficiency Project for a total of three staff.

These two new staff are a Resource Conservation Advisor funded by the Real Estate Excise Tax I and an Administrative Assistant who would be funded by utility rebates earned through conservation efforts.

And these two ads reflect priorities in the mayor's climate action strategy, which included a near-term action to double the existing budget in 2021 to 2025 for energy efficiency in municipal buildings in order to achieve a 40% decrease in carbon emissions reductions by 2025. So, on to budget actions proposed by council members.

First, by Council Member O'Brien to add staff support and funding to support the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

Great, thank you.

Council Member O'Brien.

Colleagues, we've discussed this a few times, but just quickly, when we passed the Green New Deal resolution and then again the ordinance establishing the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

It has always been anticipated that there would need to be a staff person to both oversee the Oversight Board and also work with the interpartmental team that is set up.

In addition, we established that the positions of the Green New Deal Oversight Board would be eligible for stipends if the participants wanted to access stipends and so this would also include funding for stipends for the year.

Thank you.

Any thoughts?

Please, let's go to the $35,000 for natural capital valuation analysis, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So I have another letter to distribute.

I have so many.

So let's put them up there.

I get so many more than I need, but I guess they're for the public.

So this request derives from a previous year's Statement of Legislative Intent response from FAS from a previous budget cycle.

The letter of circulated is a letter of support signed by a number of local organizations ranging from Seattle Audubon, to PCC, to REI, and like I said, a number of other organizations, Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association.

The letter notes that treating our green infrastructure as an asset aligns with the city's many environmental intentions and commitments, including carbon reduction and increasing tree canopy.

And the idea is that through discussing with central staff, this could entail one of two approaches, either having the organization that does the natural capital evaluation work with outside citywide, which is a program in the Office of Planning and Community Development that seeks to leverage city-owned open space across departments for open space purposes.

Their focus is primarily on outdoor activity, but there's also a recognition on the environmental benefits of open space in preparing for resilient future.

The other option is having them work with the Office of Planning and Community Development's comprehensive plan team to build in these concepts.

After getting the natural capital valuation, getting a sense of what the value is of our natural infrastructure, they could then work in the concepts of ecosystem services into the scoping of the environmental impact study for the next big update to the comprehensive plan.

This idea exists in the comp plan, but it could be better enunciated and more deeply incorporated into the comp plan if we had a valuation like this that would begin to capture what the value is of our natural assets.

An approach like this was used previously by Seattle Public Utilities.

Many, many years ago, an organization called Earth Economics did a natural capital valuation for the Cedar River watershed as part of the decision-making around the city moving towards taking that very important asset that we've reaped many benefits from since that decision making at the time.

So I think this approach has a good track record, both nationally, but also here in the city of Seattle.

I think they also did a natural capital study for Discovery Park as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, I appreciate you bringing this forward and I'd be interested to see if there's an opportunity to either combine or align efforts with something I intend to do.

Yesterday, we had a great presentation at Council briefing from folks with the Green Seattle Partnership, and that work is related to this, and I'm not quite sure if there's an overlap, but I'm considering putting forward a slide to ask the Parks Department to come back to Council early next year on how they're planning to meet the original timeline of restoring all the parks acreage and open space acreage by the year 2025, which was their original commitment, and what kind of funding would be needed in the upcoming municipal parks adjustment that might happen in next year's budget.

But obviously those lands, when they're restored to their full health, provide significant value.

So a consultant study that would do the valuation of these lands could potentially help provide a very good argument for why it is that we need to speed up the work of the green partnership.

That's great.

And I'd like to just underscore that Portland's been doing this for a number of years.

It's always Portland.

And I'd like to know more about what we can do to move this on both of your ideas and consolidate and see if we can bring that interface together.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right.

That's it, Yolanda?

Well, thank you.

Thank you for that.

We will move on to page 32 of 42, and this is the Office of Inspector General for Public Safety.

And, Greg, back to the table.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Greg Doss, Council Central staff, here to talk to you about the Inspector General for Public Safety.

As the Chair mentioned, it's page 32 of your packet.

The Inspector General for Public Safety was established in 2017 via Ordinance 1, 25315, which is the accountability ordinance.

This ordinance provided that the OIG would provide oversight of management practices and policies for the Seattle Police Department.

and the Office of Police Accountability.

They would monitor ongoing fidelity to organizational reforms implemented pursuant to the goals of the 2012 Federal Consent Degree and audit and review criminal justice system policies and practices related to policing and other criminal justice matters.

As you can see in the materials before you, there is a $2.5 million appropriation in the 2020 proposed.

The main difference between the 2020 proposed and the 2020 endorsed is that one senior auditor was added and one auditor, regular auditor, was added.

The senior auditor is going to ensure that there is compliance with auditing standards and the auditor would expand the capacity of the office to perform its duties.

The council member proposal is to add one unfunded FTE to serve as the OIG office manager.

Right now the department has indicated that it's office management functions, human resources, public disclosure, budget and finance are split between an executive assistant and the deputy director and that those two functions have to concentrate in other areas and that this would allow them to to go back to being a deputy director and executive assistant and have dedicated support functions.

It is a strange agency in the sense that it is part of the legislative branch, although it does not receive budget and finance or human resource support from the legislative staff.

So there is a need here for them to staff these functions themselves.

And with that, I would turn it over to Councilmember Gonzalez to talk any more about the proposal.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I think Greg did a very good job of laying out the need and the particulars here.

This would be, the only thing I would say, would be a effectively, at least for the 2020 budget cycle, a revenue neutral addition to the budget.

So the Office of Inspector General has indicated that they have enough dollars in their existing budget to cover the salary of this new position in 2020 due to salary savings.

So this is a fantastic news for the budget chair situation.

This is requiring no more new money so we do not have to do, what was the word we were using yesterday, calisthenics, to identify additional dollars for this.

This would just be providing the Office of Inspector General position authority to be able to hire an office manager to fulfill the functions that were laid out by Mr. Doss.

It will put us in a situation as a city council in the future to identify ongoing funding in the biennium budget, but that is a problem for future Lorena and future city council members.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any other comments on that?

I do love things that don't require additional funding.

All right, please go on.

All right, now we're going to talk about the Seattle Fire Department.

Unfortunately, there the proposal will cost some money, but we'll get into that.

The Seattle Fire Department provides a worthy cause, a worthy cause.

Always a worthy cause.

The Seattle Fire Department provides fire protection and prevention, technical rescue, and emergency medical services for the city of Seattle.

There is $223 million proposed to be appropriated in the mayor's 2020 budget, and largely the difference between the endorsed and the proposed is a series of technical changes that have to do with wages and central service rates.

The main policy change that the department has is an addition of $400,000 to enhance the HealthONE truck, which of course is the mobile integrated health services with two firefighters and one social worker.

The proposal before you is to add $1.17 million to the Seattle Fire Department to fund an additional firefighter recruit class.

SFD personnel have indicated that there are a number of firefighter position vacancies that could be filled if there was an extra recruit class created.

They have indicated that they have quite a few vacancies now that are being created by an aging workforce that folks are separating from the department.

And of course, because they are a mandatory staffing minimum hours department, any time they have vacancies, they have to fill that with overtime.

And so, adding additional staff would allow them to staff at their minimums and not use overtime.

And this ad, this 1.17 million, is about half of what the class would cost.

I have been working, trying to wheedle the information out of CBO on what the scalability of the ad might be so that this ad might cover part of a class.

And we'll have more information on that for the council very soon, I hope.

Great.

Thank you for that presentation and I just want to give a big thumbs up and thanks to everybody for our HealthONE effort that grew on work we did last year and Chief Scoggins has been fabulous along with John Ehrenfeld that we are moved as far as we have in this one year.

Council Member Herbold, do you want to talk about this class?

It sounds like a great idea.

I really would.

You know, this is an issue I think that is just as important as our efforts around increasing police staffing.

We've pledged to increase the size of the police department by 200 officers, but we're having challenges.

We're making progress, but we're having challenges with staffing.

Seattle Fire Department does not have that problem.

They do not have the same challenges with recruitment and retention that the Seattle Police Department is having.

And given that, and given in particular that there was an underspend in the police department's budget associated with the inability to fully fund the positions or fully higher for the positions that the council has funded, I think it's important that we see whether or not we can use some of those funds associated with the underspend at the police department to address this other, what I feel is an impending public safety crisis.

25% of the Seattle Fire Department is 53 years of age and eligible for retirement.

And 38% of the department at 50 years of age is eligible for retirement.

When I asked whether or not the department could use a third class, the chief here at the table during the fire department's budget presentation said he'd absolutely be able to take the new recruits.

Again, they have full recruit classes every time that they have a new class.

We know that 215 firefighters need to be on duty every day and right now a lot of them, a lot of those spaces are being filled with overtime.

So I guess that's the extent of my points.

As Greg said, we are looking to see whether or not the classes are scalable and whether or not 30 recruits per class is a hard cap.

Thank you very much for that.

I'm going to support you in it.

I really appreciate the work the Seattle Fire Department has done and their openness to try these new things.

So if we can support them too, let's go.

All right.

Anything else?

It looks like we're up to Seattle City Light.

Thank you, Greg.

Yeah, thanks.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Eric McConaghy.

I'm the Council of Central Staff.

and I'll take a few minutes to talk through Seattle City Light's budget.

By just a quick overview, Seattle City Light is the city's municipal power utility.

It serves more than 460,000 customers in Seattle in parts of seven neighboring jurisdictions and parts of unincorporated King County.

Seattle City Light sells retail power to those customers in the residential, business, and industrial sectors, and also power on the wholesale market.

And then those revenues are deposited in the light fund.

So when you look at page 34 of the central staff memorandum at the top, that table is constituted entirely of dollars in the light fund.

There's no general fund dollars in that table.

And moving right along, the breakdown for the proposed 2020 includes a total of about $1.4 billion for the entire City Light budget capital.

It comes in at about $378 million.

and operating at $1.05 billion.

This budget relies on the rates that were approved previously.

That rate ordinance was approved last year, and it was for the 2019 and 2020 rates.

It is consistent with those rates that Council approved in 2018. The increase of about 0.8% in the proposed budget compared to the endorsed budget has mostly to do with increases on the capital side for utility crews and engineers that prepare utility poles for the attachment of communication equipment.

This work is fully reimbursable through revenues that are gathered through fees for those costs.

Consistent with that, since 2017, City Light has had seven temporary positions that are approaching the three-year limit for the city's policy and temporary positions.

The proposed budget would make those positions permanent for the work I just described, and it would also add one budget for data analytics and accountability.

During 2019, Seattle City Light went through a reorganization.

There were no changes to funding or staffing overall.

However, the proposed budget would incorporate some changes to that organizational structure into the budget summary levels.

As you recall, those are the big sort of fundamental blocks that built the budget.

And those changes would be renaming some of those BSLs, refocusing the purpose of some of those BSLs, and also the proposal would include a new BSL, leadership and administration facilities and oversight.

Finally, along with this budget comes a 2020 Seattle City Light bonds ordinance.

This was transmitted to council to authorize the issuance and sale of municipal light and power bonds.

Passing this legislation would allow a City Light bond sale of up to $250 million that is anticipated to occur in October 2020. and the proposed budget relies on the passage of this bonds bill.

The options would be to pass the bill, amend the bill, and pass as amended, or do not pass that bonds bill.

Thank you.

I have nothing more to add here other than thanks for this good work.

I also want to say thanks to Deborah Smith who is heading up our Seattle City Light.

She's an impressive new director and she did something I thought it was marvelous.

Anytime a director will help me get to yes it makes me happy and you know we're working on the Thomas Street connection from Westlake to Seattle Center and then west of Seattle Center across the John Coney Bridge to the park.

And she was so helpful around the Broad Street substation.

They were doing some work there.

They had done a plan to do some art, but as soon as she heard about the Pedestrian Bicycle Corridor priority, she agreed to help us lighten it up, brighten it up, expand the sidewalk.

And I just really appreciated the fact that she was willing to do that.

art, the 1% for art money available to her.

So this is not an additional money ask, but she just jumped right on top of it and I really appreciate it.

Thanks for your help.

Okay, Eric, any other questions for Seattle City Light?

Seeing none, let's move on to Seattle Parks and Recreation.

I think Council Member Juarez, you have the only budget action, but we'll go ahead and let Tracy lead us into the background.

So we are on number 18, yay.

Council members, Tracy Ratzlaff, Council Central staff.

So we have, you had a previous presentation by the executive on the department, so I am going to go very briefly through my memo and the contents of my memo.

I'd be happy to give more detail.

I could be wheedled into providing you more information, but unless you have questions, I'm gonna go pretty quickly through this.

and then can move on to council recommended actions.

So as the table you have in front of you shows, the Parks and Rec Department budget did increase by 13 million overall, or a 5.3% increase compared to the 2020 endorsed.

There is, again, in my memo, you see kind of the major drivers on both the operating side and the capital side in terms of those changes.

Again, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have about those.

I think the department presentation went through those pretty well.

I'm not seeing any questions.

I was just wanting to acknowledge the fact that parks has been again another very responsive department this year and appreciate the work that you've done Tracy and City Hall Park and Yesler Crescent.

That was something that had zero momentum a year and a half ago and now we've moved really quite far in making it feel like a safe and inclusive space.

Thank you for that, because I really appreciate your good work on it.

Also want to acknowledge that the Metropolitan Park District, it will be going forward for the next round of what the priorities were and the community outreach.

I believe it's already getting started, but thank you if you'd like more information on that.

And Councilor O'Brien was correct.

We will have a new six-year spending plan for council adoption next fall, hopefully actually a little bit earlier than the fall budget time.

Very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez, you've got the $150,000 feasibility study?

Yes, but before I go there, are you done, Tracy?

No, actually, I was going to just go quickly through the budget legislation.

There's two points I want to make, but I wanted Tracy to finish.

Okay, so we do have a Parks Fee Ordinance that is in front of the Council this fall.

It would make changes to the 2020 Parks Fee Ordinance that we actually adopted in last year's budget.

This year's proposal makes a couple of changes.

One, some technical changes that just address some issues with the class and course registration system that is unable to process certain partial fee amounts.

And I won't get into the gory details, they just needed to make some changes to the fees to let the system work properly for customers.

The second is the legislation would eliminate the low income recreation swim fees.

If passed, the legislation would allow low income individuals to swim free at all city pools.

This change would result in a revenue reduction of $45,000 annually.

To backfill this revenue reduction, the 2020 proposed budget would reallocate $80,000 of $150,000 in funding that the council provided in the 2020 endorsed budget to expand the daily operation of an unspecified number of wading pools.

Again, I think this issue was discussed by the executive during the department presentation.

The mayor's proposal would maintain the operation of wading pools at 22 pools at 709 operating days at a total cost of about $70,000 and would use that remaining funding of $80,000 to both eliminate the low-income swim fee and also to expand the lifeguard training program, particularly focused on recruiting diverse low-income youth.

So your options as it relates to the legislation are to pass as transmitted or to do not pass.

Great, thank you.

Any questions on that?

Council Member Pacheco.

I just wanted to quickly highlight that I was really happy to see that there was an investment in District 4 in the Mayor's proposed budget.

A lot of work has been done in the Magnuson Park community in recent years, and I know my predecessor, Councilmember Johnson, has done a lot of work to get resources for the Magnuson Park community.

And this is just another great improvement that I think that we make as a city.

Outdoors for All does amazing work not just for District 4, but for our entire region, helping individuals with disabilities and their families enjoy activities like skiing, biking, kayaking, hiking, and more.

Each year, Outdoors for All serves nearly 3,000 people, and this one-time investment will allow them to renovate Building 18 for office space to continue providing these services.

Councilman?

Chair?

Yes.

Thank you Councilmember Pacheco for taking my thunder there, buddy.

There's two comments I want to make before I actually get to the second comment regarding ALOVE.

Outdoors for All, as you know, we've been working with them since 2015 in this $1 million One-time funding to renovate the future office space is just I cannot tell you what this does for the community Outdoors for all has attended every live in d5 event for four years in a row and have brought all of their biking gear their staff for people to use the experience including myself They are a wonderful and much needed resource to help better the life of those that are physically challenged, sight impaired.

The vehicles or the bikes allow for parents and their partners and their friends that can ride with them and participate.

I am just really proud of working with Ed Bronson and their team.

and also the money that they have raised in the private sector.

This is just a drop in the bucket of the millions that they've raised to expand this, so I'm very proud to support this, and I'm thanking the mayor's office for making sure that this was in there.

So, my second item, of course, as you know, is regarding Aurora-Licton Springs, North Seattle, and I'll be submitting a Form B as well.

Aurora or Licton Springs is a up-and-coming residential neighborhood located between the east and west side of Aurora and North Seattle College, which includes constituents of both Districts 5 and 6, but of course would be open to everybody in the north end or for the whole city for that matter.

It spans roughly between 80th and Aurora North to Bitter Lake at 130th.

We're anticipating growth and increased density in this neighborhood, particularly with the opening of light rail at Northgate and the Northgate Pedestrian Bridge.

I'm really proud of this organization and this community group because when I first got elected, we started meeting with them and helped organize them well over two years ago.

So for me, it was wonderful watching a community grow and we grew with them and to help organize them.

The Aurora-Licton Springs Urban Village, ALOVE, with members from both District 5 and 6, is promoting a plan for a more walkable community which includes safe pedestrian access to retail, a grocery store, which they don't have one, and a community gathering place.

The feasibility study would assess the recreation and community and gathering meeting space needs of the neighborhood that is north of 80th.

Well, all of that.

This type of facility that would best serve those needs and the cost of securing such a facility.

Currently, there is no senior center facility in District 5 and both Green Lake and Bitter Lake community centers are at capacity.

So this feasibility study is timely considering the population growth and the density coming to this area.

I want to remind my colleagues that when we were working on the budget and some other matters last year, we also passed a moratorium on storage units so these neighborhoods could be better organized and actually talk about walkability in their neighborhoods.

These neighborhoods also use the rapid, what is that called?

The bus, the rapid line.

wrap it right thank you very much and also this council voted to up zone many of the neighborhoods in from 80th up to 145th so this is a growing community where we're looking at hopefully we are going to have affordable and low-income housing and we also want to emphasize that We want to replicate what we did on the other side of I-5 with the Lake City Community Center.

Licton Springs doesn't currently have a community gathering space and ALOVE has energized residents to work together to find a way to build a neighborhood that is more sustainable while facing challenges posed by its juxtaposition to Aurora, that is Highway 99. ALOVE has identified a community gathering place as a helpful tool in building a stronger community for residents north of the Ship Canal, but more in particular Districts 5 and 6. Now, this is more of on a personal note.

So, I think what we're seeing here, at least what I'm seeing here, is that we're actually being deliberate in building new and reinvigorating former communities that were somewhat disrupted by Aurora.

And Aurora has changed a lot in the last 20 or 30 years.

And so I'm proud that this group got together, worked with our office, because they are encouraging density and growth in their neighborhood that is still affordable.

So what we're hoping is that we can replicate what we did in the Lake City Way Community Center.

where we are planning to build a new community center and also building 50 units or possibly 75 of low-income and affordable housing.

And those are the opportunities that we want to explore for this particular neighborhood.

And so I would hope that I would have my colleagues' support on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any comments?

Council Member O'Brien.

Council Member Juarez, thank you for your leadership on this, and I'm excited for potential opportunities to make investments in that neighborhood too.

I really appreciate your framing about how Aurora has divided the community as a major vehicle throughput.

And I really appreciate the community members in that neighborhood working hard to figure out how to create that kind of sense of space that any community needs, despite having a major road going through it.

And I think it's a great investment.

Absolutely, I think when I I think some people think that when I taught that all I want to talk about is d5 But I don't it is it's citywide as you know I chair parks and community centers, so I now have a front row seat about how community centers work and libraries work, and they are not our libraries and community centers of 10 or 15 years ago.

We are providing enhanced services.

We're providing housing, homelessness prevention.

We're signing people up for Medicaid.

We're handing out food.

We have social workers.

We're trying to get our community centers to work with, to have showers for people who are unsheltered.

And so when this community group came together, and again, what I found most striking about ALOVE is that these were community activists that were much older and new neighborhoods and new families that were much younger.

It was interesting that before, through Department of Neighborhoods, they couldn't get into the community councils.

So this was a group that could never get into that council to get their needs addressed.

So for me, they're one of the first community groups that got passed.

to be more inclusive, for people to recognize that people who live on Aurora, both sides, particularly with Bob Eagle Staff School opening up with 1,600 kids and a light rail coming, that these neighborhoods are welcoming density, but they're also young families.

And it's still a part where we have up-zoned those areas and that it is still affordable.

in Seattle, and it's on a rich transportation spine.

So for me, I really want to support those neighborhoods that have done the hard work.

So thank you.

Council Member Morris, you have been a stalwart for D5, and even though we tease you about that, we know that you are, your heart is in with parks and all that good work as you're looking citywide.

I appreciate that.

And I also want to acknowledge and say thank you that you're including all ages and abilities in this.

So, recently I was talking with some of the elected leaders in Shoreline, and it kills me because at 145th, suddenly Shoreline is looking pretty good.

You know, they've got trees and they've got, you know, overpasses and things, and it's like, what's that?

And so, no, I think this is what ALOVE is doing.

What you are looking at is really helping us recognize that we can do so much better and make it a place that is pedestrian friendly and that we're including on top of potentially a new community center, low income units.

And that's something that you have been a real champion for.

is making sure that as we're renovating or adding community centers to parks, that we're putting housing up above.

It's an opportunity for us to do it.

And I thank you for your leadership.

Okay.

That is the end of parks.

So now we're moving on to Seattle Public Utilities.

And I think, Brian, you're going to be handling that.

Tracy, thank you, as always, for helping us with parks.

Great, thank you.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

So just to orient you to the memo, we're going to be on page 38 of the memo right now.

Seattle Public Utilities, or SPU, is one of the largest city departments and is responsible for operating three distinct utilities, the drainage and wastewater, solid waste, and water.

Each of the utilities has separate revenue sources and capital projects, but they do share many of the same operational and administrative functions.

SPU revenue consists primarily of customer charges that are known as rates, and they may only be used for utility purposes, and those get deposited into one of the utility's three enterprise funds.

The 2020 proposed budget for SPU is consistent with the strategic business plan that was approved for the department in 2017, and a 3.2% reduction in the proposed budget relative to the endorsed budget is largely the result of deferring capital expenditures to align with revised project schedules and also for lower debt service payments.

The proposed budget would also add six FTE to provide accounting and data management support, and three FTE to replace temporary staffing at solid waste transfer stations.

And if there's no questions, I'll move on to the budget legislation for SPU.

Great, and I think we've got, yes, please go on with the rates, and then I just want to alert Council Member Herbold, it's going to be the Herbold show again in just about three minutes.

Great, thank you.

So there is just one piece of legislation for SPU, and that would establish solid waste rates for residential and commercial customers for the period from April 1st of 2020 through March 31st of 2023. If approved, the solid waste rates would, on average, increase by 3% in 2020 and 2.9% in 2021 and 2022. Now, for a typical single family residential customer, this equates to about a $1.50 increase in 2020 and 2021, and about a $1.60 increase in 2022. Is that a monthly increase?

That's a monthly increase, that's right.

And these proposed rates are lower than the rates that were included in the 2017 strategic business plan.

So in terms of options, council, of course, could approve the legislation as it was proposed or could choose to either not adopt the rates or to amend the rates.

If either of the latter options were chosen, it would require amendments to the 2020 proposed budget.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, would you like to just take these on, or do you want Brian to frame them for you?

I'll follow up to Brian.

Okay.

Great, thanks.

So the first proposal does come from Councilmember Herbold, and the action would add $30,000 of ongoing funding to improve the notification process for residents of multifamily buildings when the building is facing an imminent water shutoff.

Thank you.

So I've been working with Seattle Public Utilities to get their shutoff policies updated since last November after a constituent brought this issue to my attention.

Specifically, this relates to the water shutoff process for multifamily buildings.

They currently only notify the owners of an impending shutoff rather than the individual tenants.

And so the intent of this funding is to allow for Seattle Public Utilities to contact residents directly about imminent water shutoffs.

So I mentioned that this was brought to my attention last November after a constituent brought the issue to my attention.

You may have seen just a couple weeks ago, this happened again, a 59 unit building had its water shut off and we saw firsthand how tenants bear the cost when a building owner doesn't pay their bill.

If a shutoff is impending, SP's previous practice was to, again, notify the property owner and then to tape a 30-day notice to the front and the back door, nothing more.

And that's just for the 30-day notice.

For the impending shutoff notices that come after the 30-day notice, they did not have a policy of even posting the building.

So, SPU will now, in addition to the 30-day notice, mail tenants directly seven days prior to the shutoff and post an additional 24-hour notice on the main entrances and exits.

If the building is accessible and has less than 15 units, SPU will place door hangers on each unit.

And then finally, SPU will notify the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, their tenant resources unit, 24 hours before the shutoff.

And it's important for...

to have that information because they can work with the tenants to utilize self-help remedies in the Landlord-Tenant Act to avoid a shutoff in the instances that a property owner is refusing to pay.

Then finally, Seattle Public Utilities will alter the language that they currently use to make it user-friendly and provide information to tenants about their rights to this self-help remedy I mentioned, repair and deduct.

Good.

Thank you.

Any questions?

All right.

Utilizing water infrastructure for municipal broadband.

Again, Brian, would you frame it for us?

Yes, thank you.

So this action would request through a statement of legislative intent that SPU explore the feasibility of utilizing the city's water pipe infrastructure for developing a municipal broadband network.

And that's similar to what is being pursued in the city of Anacortes.

Great.

And I believe this is a statement of legislative intent that Council Member Herbold would like

Correct.

It builds on the work that Seattle City Light has done in the past on the issue of municipal broadband.

Using the existing water lines drastically can reduce the cost of installation, and it's also less disruptive to install.

Thank you, and we'll go to the last item here, every other week garbage collection.

Okay, thank you.

So this action would request also through a statement of legislative intent that SPU work with the city's solid waste contractors to negotiate a provision of every other week garbage collection into the existing contracts.

Is that, Council Member Herbold, is that a mandatory or an optional?

This is optional.

This is a statement of legislative intent, and by its nature, it's like a resolution from the council.

It's an expression of our hopes and our intents.

There's no budget proviso associated with this, but there's great promise, I think, in moving our city to every other garbage pickup.

The current solid waste contracts took effect in 2019 and are effective until 2029. They do include a provision for conducting pilot tests of alternative collection methods or schedules.

They do not specifically contain an option for permanent change in the collection schedule.

I have had conversations with those contractors.

They are open to discussing this, despite the fact that it's not specifically called out in the contract.

And the intent in this proposal is to pursue an action that may reduce collection truck emissions consistent with the council's recent adoption of Resolution 31895, supporting a great green new deal for Seattle.

Oh, and that reminds me, I have a letter to distribute.

from 350 Seattle.

SPU study found that a 35% reduction in vehicle emissions associated with picking up trash every other week as opposed to every week.

Seattle's recycling plan calls for 70% of Seattle's solid waste by 22. It's likely that the Seattle greenhouse gas inventory will need to be updated to account for emissions associated with the life cycle of the consumer products we all use, and it's certain that we use less.

Reduction in garbage pickup should be accompanied by publicity about our recycling goals and, most importantly, the climate benefits of reducing consumer waste.

Other jurisdictions that have a rather weak garbage collection include Renton, Tacoma, Olympia, and Portland.

I recently had the solid waste manager from Renton come and do a presentation in my committee about Renton's program, which I believe is more than 10 years old of every other week garbage.

So we are way behind the vanguard in this issue.

Recycling now is already every other week.

Is this garbage and compost or just garbage?

This proposal is for garbage only.

It would not affect the current every other week recycling pickup.

What about the yard waste component?

That's every week now.

That is also every week now.

That is not called out in this as being part of that discussion.

But perhaps it should be.

Because it's important to get the trucks that are out every week out only every other week.

The compost yard waste, I was wondering always how seasonal that is.

Because I think it's all year, every week.

But I always thought there would fluctuations in the seasons on yard waste pickup and whether we should have a variable schedule based on that.

And I don't know if that's just my personal use of my yard waste or everyone else's, but it seemed to me that it should be seasonal, but I'm not sure, and I'm sure they would have that data.

So we may want to consider them at least looking at the yard waste component as well to see if it's variable.

But I like where you're heading with this.

It looks like, I'm sorry, reading the body language.

I think this discussion would be great to tee up some of these questions for the slide, Council Member Herbold, because I think the original theory was to go to every week yard waste and food compost, they're combined, with the idea to get the things that can turn smelly if they're kept for more than a week out of the garbage so that garbage could be A lot of the things would be eliminated.

Councilmember Bakeshaw mentioned diapers, which is something that gets brought up a lot.

And in the examples in other cities, I think Renton was at the table, its committee.

You know, those problems didn't seem to materialize with some of the technology and bags and what they heard from people.

They heard a lot of concerns in advance, but after they went into it, it wasn't a problem.

I would also be, Council President Harrell, I think your question about the seasonality of yard waste is a good one.

It'd be interesting to explore.

I was similarly putting out my what is now a food waste bin, which is massive for the summer amounts I need to compost.

And there's just, you know, a few things of eggshells and vegetables left over and it's kind of, I'm wondering, does it even need to go out because there's so little in the bottom of it.

But it does start to smell if you leave it in there too long.

So it would be interesting if there's a, if they have different strategies with different technologies or what they would propose, knowing what to do.

So I think it's, I really appreciate Councilmember Herbold, your persistence in looking at this because I think it's time for us to come up with some revised strategies on how we want to reduce our overall amount of waste that goes into the landfill and divert as much as possible.

Yeah, I mean this is really with knowledge that we are, we're not meeting our recycling goals.

We're noticing a plateauing and there is conversation not just in Seattle but in the state about maybe focusing our goals on waste reduction.

rather than only recycling, but overall reduction in personal consumption and use of products that lead to waste.

And so this approach, I think, in other jurisdictions has made consumers think about that more, knowing that the garbage is being picked up less frequently.

And so it has actually had waste reduction outcomes.

And so as far as, you know, what's on the table, I'm open to structuring this slide in such a way that we can consider a wide range of options with both waste reduction as a goal as well as reducing the number of trucks on the road as a goal as well.

Very good.

I'll add I think one of the conversations that came up at your committee was also about how we measure our targets and our current goals I believe are largely about percentage of diversion.

And so what percentage of our waste is being diverted from the landfill.

What that means is that as we add a lot more cardboard and packaging, for instance, that can be recycled, That looks good on our metrics because it shows a higher percentage is being diverted.

But of course, that packaging is all...

I mean, it's better to be recycled than thrown away.

But if we didn't need to use it in the first place, that's the best thing.

And when we see the amount of packaging decrease, That shows up in a reduction of percentage going to recycling, which shows our numbers being less.

And so they had talked about converting our, I believe they talked about converting our goals to a tonnage target as opposed to percentage.

And I think it's really great to figure out how we can make some pivots here.

All right, thank you.

I think that's it for Seattle Public Utilities.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember O'Brien for weighing in on that.

So the next is budget legislation with Ms. Panucci.

Thank you for all your leadership.

We've really appreciated your help in the last few weeks, in particular.

Good morning, council members, or good afternoon, perhaps now.

I'm Allie Panucci with your council central staff, and so hold on to your seat.

I know this is the presentation you all have been waiting for to wrap up these conversations about budget legislation.

There are 29 pieces of legislation identified to date to implement the proposed budget.

Each of the council bills, resolutions, and clerk files listed on pages 40 to 42 of the memo will require committee action to recommend that the legislation pass, not pass, or pass with amendments.

The majority of the proposed legislation has been discussed in individual budget deliberation papers that have occurred over the last several days and last week and or in specific departments or topics that have been discussed today as part of the miscellaneous paper.

So I won't go into great detail and walk through each piece of legislation and instead will describe the broad groupings of the legislation.

First, there is a set of approximately five or six pieces of legislation to amend, adopt, or endorse the budget.

There is legislation, the second category is legislation levying the 2019 property taxes.

or excuse me, 2020 property taxes.

The third category is legislation modifying fees and charges for city services.

The fourth category would adopt legislation that is either proposing new or amending existing policies and regulations for taxes and use of funds.

There is a fifth category of legislation authorizing issuance of bonds.

And a sixth category of legislation authorizing inter-fund loans or repealing inter-fund loans that are no longer needed.

And then finally there's sort of an other category of legislation that has a nexus to the budget or has been part of these budget discussions.

That includes some of the TNC legislation.

So through review of the proposed budget, the council may identify amendments to this legislation or new legislation that may wheedle its way onto the list if it is needed to carry out the council's budget actions.

And so with that, I will leave it at that unless there are questions from the committee and this would close out our discussion of issue identifications and we'll look forward to coming back next week to begin our discussions of the specific council budget actions as we prepare for the chairs.

package.

Great.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions?

I know Council Member Gonzalez that you'd love to go through line by line here.

But if not, and we have no more questions.

Ali, thank you for bringing this forward.

And we will conclude this part of our conversation this morning and turn to public comment.

So thanks to all of you for being with us for the last two and a half hours.

And again, Council Central staff, thank you, Dan, your leadership.

I appreciate it very much.

Okay.

We have John Keegan, Leah, Martin Westerman, and those will be the first three, and then we'll move on to Joyce Modi, Mary Jean Gilman, Donald, as it looks like, Cassell, and Mulserat.

So, John?

Keegan, Leah, and Martin, if you will please come up to the microphones.

Thank you.

Is this the one that's best to you?

Yeah, it's good because you can stand up straight.

I'm John Keegan.

I'm a trustee for Seattle Rep, and I'm going to speak to something that relates to the rep. I should say, also, I'm a resident of Seattle since 1970. I've been a voter since 1970, a rate payer since 1970. And a rider.

Don't forget that.

And a bike rider.

But I appreciate, and also Councilman Herbold, which I understand this is your part of the agenda.

I appreciate all of you.

The deep and careful scrutiny that I see just this morning and throughout is admirable.

We have a good city council and a good government.

Thank you, we don't hear that all the time.

Put some time back on that clock.

Give that man two minutes.

I wish more people could see that and watch this.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about the city's support for the Rep's Public Works Program.

You generously helped us launch this new idea two years ago with a $100,000 grant that came from the Department of Neighborhoods.

I want to, with this a little bit, tell you kind of what's happened and why this is important.

But Public Works is a radical departure from what the Seattle Reps Theater's normal program would be.

Instead of building a play, we do eight plays a year with equity actors and present, you know, the traditional kind of stories.

A very diverse set of stories, but nevertheless, with the equity actors.

This public works program is a departure in this way.

Instead of that, we bring on 80 to 100 community folks, old, young, disabled, of any condition.

And we have made partnerships over this past couple of years with these nonprofit organizations The Boys and Girls Clubs of King County, Bird Bar Place, and all of these contribute to this program and send us the people that are going to show up on the stage and say, hey, why not these people?

But also the Jubilee Women's Center, Path with Art, the Ballard Northwest Senior Center, Seattle Central College, Compass Housing Alliance, and our newest partnership with Refugee Women's Alliance.

So what this ask is really on behalf the rep but as well as our partners in this.

I'm going to have to ask you to get to the last sentence.

To the last sentence?

Yes please.

You're at the ready to end this.

Well only that you've got two minutes.

Oh I do okay you're right I'm not watching that carefully.

Anyway we obviously are asking you for an ask $100,000 before I don't know what it is but I just wanted you to know that the impact of the program is a change.

It's a thing that that the rep has been trying to do to create a more social justice, equity, a program that works beyond that.

To end this, I'm asking that you listen.

Leah's also going to speak as well.

But I hope that you can return again generously and keep this program going.

We make no profit from that.

Tickets are free, and they go like crazy when it's announced that you have free access.

And the diversity of the audience for these kinds of shows is amazing, and the bouquets that get brought up to all of these young kids, older women, and men to do it.

helped us continue this program.

Thank you.

Thanks, and good to see you.

Leah, then Martin, then Joyce Moti, and Mary Jean will get queued up.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Leah Fajore, and I am part of the Public Works team at Seattle Rep. I wanted to thank you for considering our budget request under the Department of Neighborhoods and for taking the time to hear me today.

And thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for supporting our budget.

I'd like to share with you some of the community and individual impacts I have seen firsthand from this program.

Seattle Rep's Public Works partners with community-based organizations to invite folks from all walks of life to take weekly classes, attend performances and events at Seattle Rep, and join in a creative, ambitious work of participatory theater.

Through this process, strangers become neighbors, and we create a city and region that is welcoming to all.

We are rooted in the values of equity, imagination, and joy, and public works is theater of, by, and for the people.

It is important for us to define these core values as they are integral to every decision that we make.

Equity is listening fully and doing our best to make sure everyone has what they need to show up.

imagination, exercising creativity, not only in what we are making, but in how we are making it, and joy, enjoying each other's work and each other and plant, cultivate, and grow our collective joy.

We are grateful to collaborate with eight local community-based organizations across five city council districts.

These include the North Seattle Boys and Girls Club at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Bird Bar Place, Jubilee Women's Center, Path with Art, Ballard Northwest Senior Center, Seattle Central College, Compass Housing Alliance, Ed Renton Veterans Center, and our newest partner, Refugee Women's Alliance.

Our participants are thriving humans who bring their extensive talents to the project.

It is important to know that we are not trying to gift or serve these communities with theater.

We are constantly reflecting with our community organizations about if our relationship is still mutually beneficial.

And Seattle Rep also experiences great benefit from these connections and endeavors.

At the same time, we hear from participants about how this has affected their lives.

Just a quote to share with you, Michael Dare, one of our participants from Path with Art said, I'm really grateful and I'm going to take with me the relationships I have built through this process.

And lastly, a quote from Dani Beth Turk, who is our our partner at Jubilee Women's Center.

Public Works helps participants build confidence, communications, and interpersonal skills, and have a vital impact on their personal development.

As you consider our budget proposal, please know how essential city support is in maintaining a full scope of this thriving program, and I hope you keep us in mind.

Thank you, Leah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Martin, Joyce, then Mary Jean.

I don't think Martin's here.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

I'm Joyce Modi, Vice President of GROW, the nonprofit advocate for pea patches.

We ask that City Council support the $3 million of sweetened beverage tax allocation in the Department of Neighborhoods budget to preserve and enhance pea patch community gardens.

We have a crisis, so GROW is asking that Council members earmark from the SBT $250,000 for Ballard Pea Patch toward their acquisition.

$50,000 to Immaculate Pea Patch in the Central District for moving the garden that's going to be for sale next year.

And I just found out Last week, $75,000 to the UpGarden, the rooftop garden at Seattle Center parking garage, for moving that garden that houses 90 pea patch plots.

Displacement is due to the need for additional parking for the new arena at Seattle Center.

All three gardens are threatened with immediate displacement in 2020. Allocating funds to Ballard in early 2020 would help them demonstrate their commitment to raising funds to purchase the land and to use it as match for other grants and funding sources.

This expenditure is bold and visionary, but it's a gesture to preserve a community garden that has been highly successful and productive for 43 years.

But it would also save more than just a place where 90 gardeners work the land.

It would also preserve precious open space that functions as a community gathering place and a neighborhood park for future generations as the city grows.

GROW also requests that the time frame for the use of the balance of the funds in this package be extended for three years because one year is too short for real community engagement, especially in communities that may require assistance to identify projects, submit a proposal, and organize to implement their projects.

Thank you.

And I'm going to give you this.

Thank you, Joyce.

Mary Jean, Donald, and then Monserrat,

Good morning, Council, and thanks for your time today.

My name is Mary Jean Gilman, and I'm here on behalf of Ballard Peapatch and in support of the one-time $3 million Peapatch funding proposal from the Sweetened Beverage Tax.

Ballard Peapatch's half acre has provided food security for thousands of people over the past 43 years.

We want to increase our impact by continuing to mentor and advocate for this in our community, expanding our outreach, teaching, and partnerships.

We request, as before, that you specifically earmark $250,000 for our pea patch threatened with imminent sale and $50,000 for Immaculate pea patch for relocation.

Ballard pea patch will be sold in 2020 for $1.8 million.

We need a down payment at the beginning of 2020 to show good faith to the seller and to leverage grants and private funding.

Both Ballard and Immaculate provide food access and meet the funding criteria for the SBT.

Ballard Pea Patch delivered 2,500 pounds of organic produce this year to Ballard Food Bank, and Ballard Food Bank has endorsed our campaign.

We begin partnering with Finney Neighborhood Center's mill programs next year.

Our request represents a very small portion of the one-time funding windfall and even less of the total ongoing funding.

As for appropriateness, I would like to call your attention to the recommendation that the Citizens Advisory Board made to the council in June of 2019. Support for one-time investments in infrastructure that would increase the capacity of schools and community-based meal programs to offer fresher, minimally processed foods.

And I think that describes what we provide.

Please support and approve our request for earmarked funds.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you for coming.

Donald Moserot.

Good morning.

I'm a father.

I'm a grandfather.

I worked 35 years in your construction trade.

I have so many concerns.

Your titles, I don't care about.

Who you are as a person and the city that we built has me totally appalled.

I don't have anything to do the rest of my life, but sit and hold each and every one of you accountable.

I don't have your PhD, nor have I the BA or the AA, but I do have a keen sense of common sense.

Common sense.

I listened at the things that went transpired over the today.

And when I hear there's $750,000 going somewhere, And I hear that, Lisa, you're asking for $19,000?

There's something wrong with that picture.

Because I say this because none of our kids are any better than the next.

There's no color in here.

This is all about being people.

We are people first.

If we were less our skin, we all bleed and look the same.

And I have 48 seconds, and I'll be back tomorrow.

I'm retired.

But I will address those issues you won't talk about.

I hear you tell them that, good job, good job.

Well, we don't want to talk about what we're doing good.

We want to find out what we're doing bad.

Find out what we need to fix.

And if it's fixed, we need to break it.

Those people out here in these tents, they didn't get there by wanting to go there.

They were well-to-do people.

They were doctors.

They were lawyers.

They were everything that this city can produce.

And with me having five kids, and this city being as beautiful as it is, I am appalled at the way they may treat a type of person.

I say that because I've played by the rules.

I'm 60 years old, and I have all the spunk in the world.

And I tell you, I'll be back.

I don't want you to be afraid of me.

I want you to see me.

Don's here.

I mean to work with you.

But I tell you, bringing the police to West Seattle, won't be a good idea.

You know why I say that?

I say that because you put people like me out there.

You give the community back to those kids.

They may not talk to Bruce because Bruce can talk football.

Donald, thank you.

But they may talk to me.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Montserrat?

All right, so good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Montserrat Padilla.

I am the coordinator for the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network.

We're a powerful statewide network with over 200 organizations who are working to build a defense line for immigrant and refugee communities whenever ICE comes knocking at the door.

We have been able to build teams in 22 counties, 52 cities, and over the last couple of years, we've identified how immigration and custom enforcement, along with Custom Water Patrol, have been targeting and terrorizing our communities.

Today, our communities continue to live in fear with ICE dollars that this administration has funded in Congress, as well as the rhetoric that this president expels into our communities, creating violence and fear.

I'm here to really recognize and appreciate the leadership of Councilmember Gonzalez for addressing the current needs that our communities are facing.

As we've all have seen, immigration has been a heated debate through policy, through executive order, through congressional action.

And so I'm here to remind us all of the national leader that we all can be in this moment.

I really want to thank the city of Seattle, the city who has seen me grow since I was seven years old.

I used to live three blocks away from here when rent was $650.

It's been a minute.

And I want to urge you all to support a $750,000 budget allocation towards a rapid response fund.

This rapid response fund will be used quickly to deploy immigration consultation clinics and resources around large-scale changes in immigration laws, rules and policy, including but not limited to deferred action for childhood arrival, temporary protective status for citizens of certain countries, the Social Security Administration no-match letters, workplace rates, and changes to public charge rules through the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice.

Just to give you a quick recap, there's over 18,000 DACA recipients residing here in Washington State, half of them living here in Seattle or the King County-wide area.

Last year, Immigration Customs Enforcement released an operation with over 5,200 workplace audits, and now over 250 Seattle workers, immigrant workers, have been let go from their employment.

Today, businesses and employers continue to feel threatened and continue to release everyday immigrant workers, and families are being pushed into economic crisis and at the edge of homelessness.

And so I ask that you all support this budget allocation to ensure that we as a community are prepared for the next couple of months that will come, where immigration operation will only drastically increase until Election Day.

So thank you so much.

Thank you so much for coming.

So that ends public comment for today.

Thank you all for being with us.

Colleagues, thank you.

We do not have any other items this afternoon until 5.30 when our public hearing begins.

We'll look forward to seeing you then.

Thanks everybody for attending.

And this part of the meeting is adjourned.