I never talk about sports.
Good morning.
Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled council briefing.
And we have a few excused absences given the holidays last week.
And so the four of us to sort of plow through it.
I did want to say, for example, that there's nothing for a vote this afternoon from the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee on a full council today.
However, I did want to describe next week Monday we have a special meeting from the select committee on civic arenas and that will occur on 1030 715 after our council briefing.
There's three items on that agenda and these were all mentioned at the last civic arenas meeting.
The first issue will be a To establish a sign overlay district and sign regulations for the shadow Center and basically we're trying to improve all of the way finding There's a lot of activity there And we want to sort of improve our way finding efforts there.
So that's the first there'll be a public hearing associated with that the second issue will be a to amend the facility use agreement force tan hoops otherwise known as the storm and There was a very successful negotiation between the storm and the center, or the developers, and so that agreement will be ratified hopefully through legislation.
And the third issue is relative to the public skate plazas, just basically a technical transfer of property from one department to the other, in this case from SDOT to the Seattle Center.
And we want to make sure we have that public skate plaza in good form.
So we'll talk about that and hopefully vote those out of committee next Monday at 10 30. Okay, Council Member Baxhaw.
We have a small but mighty group this morning, good to see you.
No items today from the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee, but we are having a meeting this Wednesday, this is July 10th, and those of you who have been paying attention to Mike O'Brien's work around the short-term rental tax ordinance and the sweetened beverage tax ordinance, both of those are going to be in my committee this Wednesday, 2 o'clock, for a possible vote.
And we also will be reviewing the annual action plan for the 2019-2022 consolidated plan for housing and development.
This is accepting grant funding from HUD.
So we'll have a presentation.
I don't expect there to be anything unusual.
Also, there's going to be a slight adjustment to what we announced last week.
We're going to have our first briefing on five budget ordinances for the second quarter, and that's going to be on July 24th.
So it's two weeks from this Wednesday, but it includes our 2018 exceptions ordinance, the 2019 carry forward, the 2019 second quarter supplemental, the 2019 second quarter grants acceptance, and the 2019 capital abandonment.
Again, I know all that sounds exciting, but we are going to be doing that on July 24th, two weeks from this Wednesday.
And also, we are going to be voting on these items on August 9th at a special Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.
If you've got any questions, Allison in my office is leading the charge on that.
And also, last week I mentioned that with Bobby Humes, we have or intend to be voting on his final appointment for the Director of SDHR, Human Resources, and we will have that expectations letter.
It's been circulated to you.
If you have any other additions, be sure to let me know and just we'll add it into the expectations letter this week.
Also, I have been asked to remind you that one of the things that my office has been leading, and thanks to Brian Chu, we have been having public realm studies down in what we call Yesler Crescent.
We did one data gathering a couple of months ago, and it was the first time that SDOT has done that, and we're going to do it a second time this Wednesday and Thursday.
I'm planning to attend, and you don't have to attend for a long time.
But if you want to, just get out.
Hopefully, the weather's going to improve.
But we identify how many people are coming by, what they're doing, if they're sitting, if they're standing, if they're loitering, if they're dealing, whatever, but just to be able to get those numbers.
So it's this Wednesday and Thursday, and I'm intending to spend at least an hour both days doing that.
So if there's anybody on the legislative floor that wants to join us, Brian Chu is looking for volunteers.
Thank you for that.
And then lastly, this Friday, we are working with various constituents from Belltown, South Lake Union.
We're doing a design charrette for Thomas Street and Mike O'Brien's office.
I want to make sure that Mike is aware that we're moving forward with this.
And we have hired three different design firms to help us with nodes along the way.
So that's both east and west of Seattle Center to help people move pedestrian bikes, cars, freight, to get to the Seattle Center.
So if you're interested in joining, let me know.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
President Juarez, before you proceed, let me, I was testing to see if you guys picked up on this.
I did want to say that I'm joined by council members Bagshaw, Juarez, and Gonzalez.
We're here, and if there's no objection, the minutes of the July 1st, 2019 meeting will be approved.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are approved.
Very good.
We were checking.
And we know that on your list, Council President Harreld was to congratulate the U.S.
Women's Team for their World Cup victory.
We know that.
You'd also skipped over that.
I did, but that was phenomenal, so.
Council Member Morris.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning.
Okay, so our next Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities meeting will be Wednesday, July 17th at 2 p.m.
To accommodate schedules before August Council recesses, our last SIPNA meeting, originally scheduled for August 7th, has been moved up.
This meeting is now a special meeting for Wednesday, July 31st from 12 to 1.30.
Second, on July 9th, a Lunch and Learn, the AIDS Memorial Pathway.
I'll be co-hosting a Lunch and Learn with Councilmember Herbold and the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, Arts to enshrine the historical and current efforts of advocates fighting to end HIV-AIDS discrimination.
This is otherwise known as the AIDS Memorial Pathway, which will be tomorrow, Tuesday, 7-9, from noon to 1-13, Council Chambers.
Community members and members of the interdepartmental team will be presenting It would be important to have as many council members present to participate.
If you have any questions, please direct them to Dimitri in Council Member Herbold's office.
Thank you.
I'm also going to be reading the notes for Council Member Pacheco as well.
There are no PLEZ related items on introduction and referral today or on the calendar.
Full council, there are no PLEZ related items on the full council agenda today, and the next PLEZ committee will be Wednesday, July 17th.
Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.
Councilmember O'Brien.
Councilmember Gonzalez.
We don't reward...
I volunteered to go before Councilmember O'Brien, so I'm happy to do that.
I volunteer as tribute.
Okay, so The gender equity safe communities new Americans in education committee is scheduled to meet at its regular time this Wednesday July 10th at 930 a.m.
Here in council chambers.
We will have three items on our committee agenda.
The first is consideration of an appointment to the family's education preschool and Promise Center The second will be hearing a presentation from the Seattle office of immigrant and refugee affairs on challenges to citizenship.
This presentation will focus particularly on increasing difficulties of people who are qualified to become U.S. citizens to do so as a result of some pretty intentional undermining by the federal government in terms of backlogs and fees and other barriers associated with just filing a citizenship application.
Of course, the City of Seattle invests a significant amount of money in Know Your Rights workshops, including providing pro bono legal assistance to those individuals who are seeking to become U.S. citizens, so it'll be a particularly relevant conversation to identifying how there may be some just administrative bureaucratic barriers to the complete and full success of that program.
Lastly, we'll hear an update on the emphasis patrols program from various city departments, including the mayor's office, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Department of Transportation, Department of Neighborhoods, the Seattle Office of Economic Development, and Seattle Parks and Recreation.
Also just wanted to make a quick note that on Wednesday we're excited to have some guests in chambers with us.
We are expecting a visit from 10 journalists, editors, content creators from Belarus as part of a professional program through the World Affairs Council.
They are going to be joining us during committee just in the audience observing to see how media can be used as a tool to drive civic activism and engagement as well as to develop an understanding of social issues from a variety of perspectives.
So they are really curious about how local government works in the U.S. and they're excited to sit in on my committee hearing to learn a little bit more.
I think we're giving them a little bit of everything on Wednesday, so really hoping that they enjoy the committee meeting.
For any of you who want to come out and say hi after committee, you're welcome to do so.
There will be translators available for us.
Okay, and then third, just wanted to conclude by acknowledging that we all saw that there was two massive earthquakes.
in Southern California.
Luckily, there were no significant injuries or deaths as a result of that earthquake.
So I just wanted to take a quick opportunity to remind folks that the city of Seattle is, of course, at risk of experiencing earthquakes.
It is one of the most significant events that could face our city.
And just wanted to reassure folks and remind folks that there are ways to prepare yourself in the event that those emergencies do happen.
So if you go to our Seattle Office of Emergency Management at www.seattle.gov slash emergency hyphen management, you can take a look at all of the different tools available in multiple different languages.
And for folks with low vision, blind, needs, or deaf and hard of hearing, you can look at a variety of different tools that you can use to get prepared.
Our Office of Emergency Management recommends that you plan to be on your own for at least 7 to 10 days.
And there is a handy little infographic online that, again, reminds you what kind of items you should be pulling together for a total of 7 to 10 days in the event.
that an earthquake or other catastrophic geological event occurs.
There's also a quick little handy form that you can fill out that allows you to gather all of your emergency information in one place.
And, of course, we are led in this work by Director Barb Graff of the Office of Emergency Management.
I think if she was here, she'd remind us that there are an infinite number of plans, or what seems like an infinite number of plans, that the City of Seattle works on under her leadership to plan for these types of incidents.
Again, all of those plans are publicly available and are considered and approved by the city council on a regular basis in order to make sure that those plans are fresh, and that includes plans at the federal level, state level, regional, county, and also here.
Also, just lastly, wanted to remind folks that we have made some investments in not just toolkits to prepare individual people and their families on how to prepare for emergencies like the one that we just saw in Southern California.
But also we make investments at the neighborhood level and at the community-based level.
And so there are organizations, for example, called SNAP, Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare.
that regularly meet at the neighborhood level to help neighborhoods get organized around how to respond in the event of a catastrophic event.
So that's one organization.
The second is the community emergency hubs.
Those are investments we've made over the last several years through the Department of Neighborhoods.
Community emergency hubs are places where people can gather after a disaster to help each other.
They've really focused on using P patches within neighborhoods as those gathering places that are centralized within neighborhoods.
And there are currently 135 of those community hubs that are designated throughout the city.
There's a super handy widget online at the Seattle Office of Emergency Management's website.
that helps you identify where the hub is in your neighborhood, and if there isn't a hub in your neighborhood, you can ask to designate a hub in your neighborhood.
So, just wanted to make sure folks have that information, both here at the table and for the viewing public, and looking forward to making sure that in our next newsletter, we share some of these resources as well.
Thank you very much, Councilwoman Gonzalez, for that information.
Outstanding presentation.
And we wish everyone down in California well, but I'm really pleased to see the work that we've been doing that you've described.
Council Member O'Brien.
Thank you.
And I also appreciate the highlighting of those hubs.
It's amazing to have so many community members that really just come forward on their own to set up the structure to help their neighbors.
And I'm gonna try to figure out how to get the word widget into my presentation today.
I just appreciate that too.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee has, I believe, all four items on this afternoon's agenda.
We're gonna consider two grant acceptance ordinances.
The first is a grant for a few thousand dollars for work in the Delridge neighborhood.
It's charitable fundraising that's been done by, I believe it's DNDA, Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, and they're gonna pass those dollars on to the city to do some work for some modest street improvements.
And then the other grant acceptance ordinance is related to PSRC work.
Similar to something we did a few months ago, this is federal funding that gets passed through, I believe, the state first, and then Puget Sound Regional Council.
and the spending cycle for this round of grants is coming to an end in the next few months and Puget Sound Regional Council awards grants to transportation projects throughout the four-county region.
And what often happens is as we get towards the end of the cycle, if it becomes apparent that a project is not going to be able to go forward in a certain amount of time, if we don't spend it as a region, that money reverts back to the federal government.
So we try not to do that.
And there's a couple projects that were being delayed.
And so Seattle had a project that was in the queue and was able to be accelerated.
So they're going to shift some money from other projects to a City of Seattle project.
It's a seismic retrofitting of the, it's the bridge that goes through Ravenna Park.
I believe it's the Ravenna Park Bridge or something like that.
And so great opportunity for us to do some more work.
We're also helping out the region by moving a project up in time so we don't lose that money, and then the other projects will get their money in the future.
We also have two appointments that we'll consider, one for the Sweden Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board, and one for the Urban Forestry Commission.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee doesn't have any meetings this week.
We would normally have our meeting next week, which would be the third Tuesday of the month, but that meeting's been canceled.
We're scheduling a special meeting towards the end of the month, but I'll speak more to that in a couple weeks.
Thank you, Council Member Bryant.
Okay, that will conclude our...
Oh, Council Member Bryant?
I'm going to do a shout-out to the Women's World Cup team.
They rocked it.
Cade commensurate with that talent.
So we're also wishing them equal pay in that regard.
It should be equal pay.
They should get superior pay for actually winning tournaments.
So that would be outstanding.
Four stars on that jersey.
The men's has zero.
Not even close.
So Council Member O'Brien, we had a very short discussion before you arrived about sweetened beverage tax and the EDI being in my committee this Wednesday.
So we have a proposal that we'll move forward with a vote and understand that you are not going to be here the following week.
So for a final vote on those things, we can put it off for another week.
I appreciate that.
So that would be the 22nd?
Something like that.
Okay, we're good to go.
Thank you very much colleagues.
So we're gonna move in an executive session.
We have actually two executive sessions scheduled and as presiding officer I'm announcing that the Council will officially convene an executive session.
The purpose of our executive session is to discuss potential pending or actual litigation and this gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our legal with our law department as authorized by law, but a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to make sure we reserve questions of policy for our public open sessions.
And I expect this session to last for one hour, 60 minutes.
And so I'll say at 1053, it will end.
And if it goes beyond that extension, I will announce its extension and the expected duration.
So with that, let's move into executive session.