Is my mic on?
There it is.
Now it is.
Thanks, Cody.
Good morning.
Today is Wednesday, November 28th, and it is 9.30 a.m.
I'm Council Member Lorena Gonzalez, Chair of the City Council's Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans in Education Committee.
And I am very pleased to be here this morning.
So there are 10 items on today's agenda.
All of them are appointments and reappointments to the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission.
And as usual, before we start our business, we always offer an opportunity for people to give public comment.
My understanding from our clerk today is that we do not have anybody signed up for public comment.
Is that correct?
You have to say it into the record, Cody.
That's correct.
Excellent.
Okay, so we will close out public comment since there is nobody here to provide us with public comment.
And we'll go ahead and begin with our items of business.
And Cody, I will have you read agenda items one through 10, short titles.
And then if you are here for an appointment or reappointment to the Immigrant Refugee Commission, I'd invite you to join us at the table.
Come on up, guys.
Agenda Items 1 through 10. Appointments 1175 through 1184. Medhanit Abebe and Maya Baba Appiah for a term to January 31st, 2019. Vani Asinkum, sorry, Shalani Vani Asinkum, term to July 31st, 2019. Nahid Aftab, Maria Flores, Vanessa Gutierrez, Eric Holzapfel, Anika Patel, all for a term to January 31st, 2020. and the reappointment of Farhid Mohamed for a term to January 31st, 2020, and the reappointment of Riddhi Mukhopadhyay for a term to July 31st, 2019, all as members of the Immigrant and Refugee Commission.
That's it?
For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
Excellent.
That's the hardest thing Cody will do today.
Not bad.
Okay, so welcome everybody to the committee table.
I really appreciate you all taking the time to be with us, and sorry that it's taken us so long to get this on the docket, but with the budget season, it gets a little tricky.
We aren't able to schedule committee hearings, and so This is our first opportunity to consider your appointments and reappointments, and we're really excited to have you with us.
So should we go around the table and have each person say their name first, and then, Maha, you want to do an introduction?
Sure, so good morning, my name is Maja Shan.
I'm with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and I'm the staff liaison.
I introduced myself this time.
And do you want me to share about the appointments first, or should we have everybody go around?
Yeah, let's do a quick go round of the table and have every single person say their name.
And then with the microphones, you've got to make sure that there's the green light is on.
And then you have to have it awkwardly close to your face for it to actually pick up on your voice.
Hi, my name is Ankita Patel.
My name is Madhani Tatum.
My name is Maria Zepeda Flores.
My name is Naheed Aftab.
My name is Maya Babla Pia.
My name is Shalani Vaniasinghe.
My name is Eric Holtafel.
My name is Vanessa Gutierrez.
Well, thank you all so much for being with us.
Maha, you want to kick us off?
Sure.
So I'm going to read really quickly the bios for Farhiya Mohamed and Riti Mokopadhyay, who are reappointed.
Farhiya has been working actively in community organizations for immigrants and refugees for over 10 years in Seattle and works at the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle, where she works to provide environmental health education to the Somali community.
She's also worked with Riwa and Southwest Youth and Family Services.
Her experience is invaluable to the Commission and her expertise on women's victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, along with general knowledge of community, is a strong asset to the Commission.
Riti Mokopadhyay, she's one of the current co-chairs and has dedicated countless hours to supporting the other commissioners in their work plans and has strong institutional knowledge.
She has organized and advocated with different immigrant communities, including domestic workers, detained individuals, and immigrants with developmental disabilities, and is passionate about making public services accessible for all immigrants and refugees.
Riti is an attorney and longtime activist.
Born in Kolkata, India, she has previously lived in North Carolina, Texas, and now calls Seattle, Washington, home.
Since 2001, she has volunteered as an advocate for immigrant domestic and sexual violence survivors and is a former Berkeley Law Foundation legal fellow and attorney at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
Currently, she's at the Sexual Violence Law Center.
Reedy specializes in representing and assisting survivors and victims of sexual violence facing challenges in accessing justice.
She provides bilingual legal services in Spanish and also speaks Bengali and Hindi.
Great, so these are our two reappointments.
So maybe what we can do is have Ridhi and it's Fariha.
Okay, tell us a little bit more about why you were seeking reappointment.
They're actually not here today.
Oh.
They're the only two that were not able.
Okay, we don't, okay, so are they, I guess, I know you already gave their biographies, but I was wondering if maybe you could tell us a little bit more about the type of work that they've been doing on the commission.
Right.
So, Reedy, as I mentioned, was one of the co-chairs and she's been integral in taking the new commissioners, giving them an orientation and making sure that they're up to date on the work plans and helping kind of transfer the knowledge from the previous commission work to now.
Farhiya has been really active with the Somali community, making sure that we are up to date and knowing what's happening in regards to whether it's hate crimes or what the East African communities need in South Seattle.
She's been integral in that.
And do you have a sense of what they would like to continue to do on the commission?
Yeah.
So the commissioners now have three subcommittees, and Reedy is going to be on the economic workforce development.
Development and women.
Yeah, and women.
And Ferhi is also going to be on the women's committee, and she would like to work more with East African women for the next few years.
OK.
So I think we can go ahead and consider the reappointments and then I'll just quickly pause to say that we've been joined by Councilmember Johnson.
Sorry to be late.
Thank you for being here.
Hi, good morning.
We've got a lot of people at the table, so I'm doing the paper shuffle and like trying to remember every single person's name at the table also.
So let's go ahead and I will move for the reappointments of for Ria Mohammed and Rithi Mukbediah.
Appointments 1183 and 1184. Second.
Okay, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
No opposition.
Motion passes, so we will consider that on Monday.
Great.
I'm gonna set these to the side now.
So that I don't get confused.
Okay, so why don't we go ahead and get going with the rest of the folks.
Maha, you want to walk us through that as well?
Sure, so we'll start with the two mayoral appointees.
So the first person is Medanet Ababe.
Medanet Ababe is an attorney from Ethiopia and is currently a doctoral student at the University of Washington School of Law.
She has been named the 2018 Mac Mayor Field Fellow by the Center for Human Rights at the UW.
Medanit has over 10 years of experience in various sectors and brings in a unique social justice lens that intersects women, language access, and human rights issues.
She's also a social justice activist and a blogger.
Her most notable achievement was instituting Ethiopian National Women's Land Rights Task Force, a task force that was composed of legislators, judges, politicians, activists, business owners, and attorneys to lobby for gender equity and women's equal rights when legislations are enacted and amended.
Medanit has two children, Amarti, age eight, and Nebana, age eight months.
She holds a Master's of Laws in Sustainable International Development Law, Master of Arts in Gender and Women's Studies, and Bachelor of Law.
Great.
And then Medanit also is a resident of District 4. So why don't we go ahead and take a quick little pause and then have each person tell us a little bit more about themselves and why they want to serve on the commission.
Should I go ahead?
So I'm from Ethiopia.
Currently, I'm an asylee here and a PhD student.
Seattle is a new home.
And I believe that working and serving on the Immigrant Refugee Commission would give me the opportunity not only to reflect and work with my community, Ethiopian community and East African, but also having gone through the whole immigration process, asylum process, and then having that legal background, I believe that there is a lot that I could bring on.
And then we need to advocate.
We need to speak up.
And then I believe this is an opportunity for me to bring to light.
the priorities and concerns of many women.
And then there is also, as a mom, there is a lot about immigrant children and immigrants with disabilities who don't really often get the attention.
And then those are the areas I really want to focus on.
That's great.
One of the things that falls to this committee are issues related to education.
And one of the things that we're very grateful for is the fact that the voters just approved our Families Education Preschool and Promise levy again.
And so we're really excited about that.
And we're actively working in collaboration now with our Department of Education and Early Learning around the implementation plan.
And one of the things that I prioritized in making sure that was included in the enabling ordinance for the levy was making sure that we prioritized issues around particular needs for immigrant students and whether that's language competency, cultural competency, but also addressing sort of the unspoken needs that sometimes occur in our communities as it relates to disabilities, learning disabilities and otherwise.
And so I hope that the commission will work with my office to engage on making sure that that implementation plan is gonna serve this population the best that we can serve it.
I appreciate the fact that you have a perspective as both a mom and a resident of the city of Seattle to bring to that conversation.
Great.
Okay, so let's go to the next.
So the next mayoral appointee is Eric Hulsufo.
Eric holds two roles at Entre Hermanos, a nonprofit that provides social, educational, and health support services to the LGBTQ Latino Latinas community.
He is a program manager for the immigration program, and he serves as a direct support to the executive director, Luis Fernando.
He originates from Ecuador and has worked in politics, health, interpretation, and immigrant rights in both Ecuador and the U.S.
He has been the co-chair for the Evans People of Color, at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, as well as the president of the Latin America Student Organization at the University of Kentucky.
Kentucky.
I'm interested in all of your work, Eric, but I'm particularly interested in your time at the University of Kentucky.
So I'm from Ecuador, and my mom, her first job in the US was in Kentucky.
And so that's how we ended up in Kentucky.
And I went to the university because they offered a lot of incentives to stay in the state.
Unfortunately, the state doesn't offer a lot of incentives to stay.
But there's a lot of immigrants in Lexington, a lot of resettled refugees, and a fast, fast growing Latino population that's doubled in the last 10 years.
Wow, that's amazing.
So tell us more about why you want to serve on the commission and how your current role at Entre Hermanos and otherwise can be brought to bear on the work.
Yeah, so I'm the immigration manager at Entre Hermanos.
I've had the role for about 16 months now.
I was brought on to Entre Hermanos to start an immigration program from the ground up.
We have primarily focused on HIV and AIDS support and prevention.
And due to advancements in medications and prevention work, it's become less and less of an issue, especially with our younger clients.
And so we kind of did a client survey two years ago and found that the top two needs among our clients were immigration services and mental health.
And so we're working on the mental health piece.
My job is to create a full program for our clients that can seek in-house services.
We know there's a lot of great organizations out there providing immigration services, but a lot of our clients feel comfortable seeking services in-house.
I'm currently hiring a staff attorney.
We have some contracts with the city for citizenship.
And we run legal clinics and legal referral programs.
And so that sort of experience and kind of having my ear to the ground of what the needs are, what the anxieties are, is what I hope to bring to the commission.
That's great.
Councilmember Johnson, any questions?
Okay.
Anything else you want to add?
I think that's it.
Okay, great.
Let's move on to the next nominee.
All right, the next slew of amazing folks are council appointments.
The first person is Ankita Patel.
The best ones.
I like all of them.
Ankita Patel is an Indian Zambian immigrant.
She navigated the US immigration system in order to study and work in the United States.
Ankita moved to California in 1999 to attend college, and then to Seattle in 2004 to attend Seattle University School of Law.
She then pursued a career with the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence on a work visa, and has since dedicated her career to advancing immigrant rights and women's rights.
She has over 10 years of experience influencing policies, addressing systematic gaps, and optimizing and scaling programs for immigrant communities.
She brings strong leadership, team building, and relationship skills that have helped her successfully build collaborative cross-sector partnerships and engage closely with communities to improve systems and create safe, thriving environments.
All right.
Ankita, you want to walk us through anything else you want to add?
So I think the question you're asking everyone is, why do you want to be on the commission?
Why do you want to be on the commission?
And what do you hope to accomplish through your appointment?
Great, so one of the things that I was deeply inspired by was when the Welcoming Cities Resolution was being passed and just the power of local government to make such a powerful impact on immigrant communities.
So since then, I've just been thinking about expanding my horizons.
Most of my work has been centered in the nonprofit sector and doing coalition building.
This was an opportunity for me to A, on a personal level, just expand, and then on another level is just like how can I contribute all my skills in this forum and help move things forward in a way that is accessible and, you know, welcoming, like truly welcoming for immigrants.
So that's why I'm here.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
All right, any questions for Ankita?
OK, let's move on to the next nominee.
Maya Babla-Apai currently works as a program manager within Microsoft Global Talent Acquisition Team, strategizing creative ways to bring amazing, often undiscovered talent to Microsoft from all over the world.
She previously worked at LinkedIn in San Francisco, where she consulted with Fortune 500 companies on their hiring strategies in her core role and supported LinkedIn's Fiji program.
a welcome talent as a volunteer.
While in the Bay Area, Maya joined the Leadership Council of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit supporting refugees and immigrants in landing professional jobs aligned to their skills.
When she moved to Seattle in January, Maya began growing Upwardly Global's presence in the Pacific Northwest.
Previously, Maya worked at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that partnered with women leaders in the developing world.
This work inspired an ongoing commitment to find creative ways to have a positive social impact, and in particular, to use technology and cross-sector partnerships in order to do so at a global scale.
I'm a second generation immigrant.
My family is from East
many communities really for us.
I'm particularly passionate about economic development because I think that in today's political climate that is one way to start shifting the narrative and ensure that the promise of America is truly what in my opinion it's meant to be, which is welcoming to immigrants and people from all over the world.
So I see economic development as being one way to move the needle there.
And in particular, I think Seattle has all of the right players to make a real difference if we can connect those dots in the right way.
So my aim is to really be focused on cross-sector partnerships and overall working to change the public perception around immigrants in Seattle.
And does the Commission have a subcommittee that addresses this particular issue?
Yes, we have a subcommittee focused on economic development.
Okay, awesome.
That sounds awesome.
I think one of the things that we continue to hear in And the city is, you know, when we're dealing with affordability issues, we spend a lot of time talking about housing affordability, which is a real issue that we have a great sense of urgency around.
But the other sort of flip side that we hear a lot about is sort of the lack of commercial affordability and a lot of our small ethnic-owned businesses being pushed out of the city because they just can't afford the footprints that are being offered.
I know that we have struggled to figure out exactly how to solve for that issue, so really look forward to having ongoing engagement on that particular issue.
Anything you'd like to add, Councilman Johnson?
He's being very quiet today.
I'm being respectful of your time.
I mean, you know me, I could pontificate all day about all of these topics, but generally I think that we've got such a wonderful group of people here that they should be the ones that are the stars of the show.
Oh, okay.
I like it when somebody steps back.
Okay, stepping forward.
Let's go to the next.
All right, with the next star.
Next star, that's what we're gonna call all of you now.
Maria Zepeda Flores spent years working directly with the immigrant populations in California and Connecticut prior to coming to Seattle.
In her short time here, she's had the privilege of volunteering with the City of Seattle's Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs at the Seattle United Mega Workshop.
This experience, reminded her that even though there's a lot of needs and work that needs to be done, we can make meaningful impacts through concerned effort.
Maria is also a graduate student at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, where she explores the consequences for immigrant communities in adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
She's also a development organizer with the Washington Bus.
As a child of immigrants and someone who has worked with immigrants for several years, she holds dear the opportunity to make a bigger impact for these communities who face additional needs and barriers to success.
All right.
Maria, there you go.
Hi.
Hi.
Let us know a little bit about why you want to be on the commission and what you hope to accomplish.
And I will note that you are still in college, right?
Yes, I am.
You're slated to graduate in June of 2019. June 2019 is your graduation date?
Awesome.
All right.
Please.
So I'm interested in being on the commission because I have a lot of lived experiences growing up as part of immigrant communities, working directly with immigrant communities, and especially as I've been reflecting on how I want to contribute to the commission and thinking about the role of education and that I know that a lot of the reason that why I'm here today and it's as being the child of two immigrant parents from a really small rural town in Mexico that was able to make it to here is because a lot of the educational opportunities have been afforded.
And so thinking of the really wonderful educational opportunities that exist in Seattle and still how they could be more inclusive to take into account the very aspects and challenges that immigrant and refugee families face.
So wanting to bring those perspectives here to the commission.
Great.
So and hoping to work directly with your office.
Awesome.
Well, we are here and available.
All right.
So thank you so much for being with us and thank you for being willing to dedicate some time when you're still actually working on your last year of studies at the University of Washington.
Go Cougs.
Because I'm a Cougar.
And so really appreciate it when we're able to get folks on the commission who have You know, we're in a different phase of their life.
Usually folks who are on the commission are, you know, well into their careers or, you know, sort of past the point of college.
So it's, I always think it's a really valuable experience to bring to these commissions and to the, into the city when we have folks who are still in that early part of, earlier part of their life and their career trajectory.
So welcome.
All right.
Our next star, Vanessa Gutierrez, was born in Medellin, Colombia, and came to the US as an asylee.
She has a diverse work background from being an English as a second language instructor and TV presenter to working with international nonprofits, community-based organization, and local government.
She interned at NGO CSW New York, a nonprofit that supports the work of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and UN Women.
At a local level, Vanessa has worked for the City of Seattle's Mayor's Office and Department of Neighborhoods, where she supported multiple programs, including the Community Liaisons Program.
She has also worked for the King County's Executive Office.
Currently, she works as a Community Relations Manager at the Snohomish County's Executive Office.
Vanessa is fluent in Spanish and French and is currently studying Italian and Russian.
She will soon get her law degree from Universidad Pontificia Boliviana in her hometown.
She hopes to one day receive her Master's in Human Rights and Genocide Studies and is hoping to use her experience on the commission to work on immigrant issues in North Seattle where she resides.
That's impressive.
Okay, Vanessa, tell us what you would like to, I see that you're an underachiever from your resume, so I just was wondering what you hope to accomplish on the commission and would be just sort of interested in hearing why you want to serve.
Yeah, so I feel that one of my main goals is to bring all those experiences together and the commission is the perfect place to do so.
Thanks to my previous jobs like with the city and with King County and now Snohomish County, I feel that we have like a great network of people that we could work with in order to help our immigrant and refugee folks.
And my focus, just like Amaya, it's focused more on economic development.
Small businesses are a big part of what strengthens our communities and there is still a lot of work that we can put into it.
So I recently joined the executive committee of the Seattle Latino Chamber of Commerce because we're looking like, and this is perfectly compatible with what's currently happening and what's being done here in the commission because we're trying to empower those communities and we're trying to help them and by saying, hey, we are here and we're here to help and we're gonna connect you to all these resources that I have had the access and the privilege to get to know and learn from and then share them with our communities.
I think that's the main reason why I'm here.
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Great.
Thank you so much.
And we have a lot.
I've been failing to talk about what district people are from, but you're also from District 5. And then Maria was also from District 5. And then Maya's from District 6. Ankita, District 2. Eric, it just says Northeast Seattle.
I'm assuming that's District 4, 5. usually it's yours.
All right, District 5. I'd just like to note that because it's an important part of our representation here.
Okay.
We have, I think, two folks left, right?
Yes.
Our next star is Shalani Vaniasinkum.
I'm sorry, I always slaughter your last name.
Shalani immigrated from Sri Lanka with her family at the age of 14 and settled in Chandler, Arizona.
Shalani went on to receive a BS in political science from Northern...
Arizona University and a Master in Global Studies from Brandeis University.
Her master's degree focused on gender violence in Kashmir.
Shalani has worked in various social services roles throughout the years at Sound Generations, formerly Senior Services.
She served as a staff representative for the Refugee Forum of King County and was a member of the Staff Committee for Equity and Inclusion.
In addition, during her tenure at Boeing, Shalani was a diversity focal and secretary of the Diversity Inclusion Council.
Currently, she enjoys volunteering at ACRS as an ESL teaching assistant and doing pro bono work with KIND, Kids in Need of Defense, as part of her position with Amazon's legal organization.
Great.
All right.
So, Shalani, you want to walk us through why you want to be on the commission and what you hope to do?
So, previously, as Maha mentioned, I used to work in different nonprofit roles.
And after transitioning to the corporate world, I was trying to still stay connected, do important work.
And I found a lot of like, you know, volunteer opportunities, but was looking for something bigger, something, you know, that I could feel like was actually making a difference in a local bigger scale.
Found this opportunity, was super excited about it, and throughout the months, you know, meeting everyone and working with everybody, feel like we have a wonderful group of people who are all committed to making sure that immigrant and refugee communities are heard and that we're all committed to bringing that to the forefront and working together to reach our goals that we've come up with.
So really excited about being here and being on this commission and I think Great, thank you so much, Shalini.
All right, last but not least.
Last but not least, our star, Nahid Aftab.
Nahid is the Assistant Director of the University of Washington's Center of Communications Difference and Equity.
Prior to her work at the University of Washington, she completed a PhD in anthropology at the University of Minnesota and a BA and MA at University of Washington.
Her family immigrated from Afghanistan to the U.S. in 1989. Throughout her education, she has been interested in politics, geography, and community activism in order to understand the complexities of immigration both locally and internationally.
While her coursework provided knowledge about history, policies, and institutions, her family and social life gave her a deep understanding of acculturation, belonging, and supporting communities in transition.
Her goals are to advocate for and support communities that are at the margin through education, research, and outreach.
Nahid?
Hi, welcome.
Thank you.
So like many people at this table, for me, it's also personal as well as political to be doing something to support immigrant communities.
Seattle's home, so I feel strongly about the communities that are here.
and finding a ways to build stronger communities.
So I'm interested in education, early childhood education especially as a way to get kids to feel like they can succeed moving forward.
And then, and housing is another issue that I'm interested in.
Great, thank you.
So one of the things that, or I'll just sort of like lay out some of the stuff that I hope that we're able to work with the commission on moving forward.
And the first thing that I'd say is that I'd love for the commission to be able to come back to committee and present to the committee members what their work plan is going to be for the next year.
I think that's always really helpful framing to make sure that we have areas of alignment.
and to ensure that we're engaging at the right points of when the work is developing at the city council level.
And just to highlight a couple of things substantively on the second point is that we are working on our education implementation plan.
I heard that as a theme at the table today of interest and I think it'll be really important for folks to be able to engage on what that implementation plan is and we can get you the timeline so that you have a clear understanding of when some of the decision points will be and how you can provide us some feedback on making sure that the implementation plan is reflective of our values to serve the immigrant refugee population in the space of education.
And it is going to be like early education to K through 12 to first two years of college for free.
So it's an important investment that we're committing to make and I want to make sure that we're actually reaching deep into communities who need the greatest amount of assistance.
So that is going to be a big part of our quarter one work in 2019 and would love to engage you all in making sure that we have your eyes on it in addition to the eyes of folks who are also part of the immigrant refugee community who serve on the levy oversight committee.
And I don't know if you want to add anything else about education in particular.
Just briefly, I mean, I think the lived experience of so many folks around this table is going to be critically important for us to inform that work, not just those of us who are parents of little kids who are in school or soon to be in school.
Eight months, maybe not as soon as you'd want them to be, but close.
But in particular, for those folks who have experienced, you know, both microaggressions and discriminations throughout our education system, To your point, how do we find ways to make sure that kids feel like they can be supported and successful?
The levy work that we do is oftentimes an addendum to the basic education support that our kids get in public schools.
So the investments that the city makes both in reading and math interventionists, in mental health and nursing, and additional counseling support, I think is really important to be informed by the lived experience by not just so many of you folks around the table, but so many members of the community.
So I think that that connective tissue is often lost because everybody just assumes that this is part of the sort of education system writ large, and it's not.
And it means that we can be targeted with our investments and making sure that we're really achieving the best possible outcomes.
And there's a lot of areas of intersectionality there, right?
So there's the cultural aspect, there's the linguistic aspects, there's the aspects of learning disabilities or disabilities that make it difficult for you to learn.
And then there's also a lot of gender identity and LGBTQ needs that exist during the education process.
And so Eric, I think your perspective in that regard would be really, really valued in terms of helping us understand how to make sure that we are, again, structuring the implementation plan in a way that we're getting deeply into community and really sort of empowering the people who are impacted negatively by the education system, but could be, you know, a success story, are really empowered to be able to engage in the community.
in the successes that we want to see them have.
So that's one point.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that the city of Seattle every year commits to a state and federal lobbying agenda.
And I would love an opportunity to make sure that you all sort of understand what our lobbying agenda is going to be, both at the state and the federal level, and really have an opportunity make sure that you have an outlet through us or in collaboration with us to be able to identify bills that are working their way through either the federal government or through our state legislature to be able to flag those things with us and to figure out how we can strategize together on leveraging our respective networks to advocate either for or against particular bills depending on what they are and would be happy to sort of make sure that you all are connected with the folks over at the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to make sure that there's some synergy there and that we're able to get And I think that's going to be a loop feedback, because I think there's going to be a lot of policy areas that are going to be super important for our communities over the next year, and that touch literally on just about everything that we've talked about, to education, to transportation, to affordable housing.
And so those things are going to be critically important to make sure that we have a full voice of what the actual needs of our community are here in the city of Seattle.
Those are all the things I can think of now.
Great.
Well, the commission is always here if you think of more things.
And I just want to say on behalf of our office, we're really excited to have all these amazing folks join us.
And we feel that their new energy and ideas is going to change the way the commission interacts with not just council, but with the city departments as a whole.
So that's wonderful.
Great.
Anything to add, Council Member Johnson?
I would just say it goes without saying, but you've got a tremendous advocate in the chair of the committee here.
I would encourage you to use that opportunity as issues come up that you think that aren't getting enough traction here at City Hall or need additional attention, that you not be afraid to share that with her, her staff, or other members of the committee in our offices.
I think too often I watch the work of our boards and commissions be very focused on the meetings that you're having and the outcomes associated with those meetings.
Making sure that those outcomes are connected to objectives that you want to see the city achieve, whether that's about education or economic development or about LGBTQ issues or other socioeconomic issues like housing, health, and human services.
Making sure that your outcomes are known by us so that we can translate that into either budgetary actions or laws that we need to adopt I think is a missing link for a lot of our boards and commissions.
I take that opportunity to remind you all of not forgetting that the work that you're doing is important, but make sure to connect that work to us so we can really put it into action.
Completely agree.
OK, so unless there's anything anyone else wants to add, is there anything anyone else wants to add before we move?
No?
All right.
You got a mic.
It's a hot mic.
Now's your chance.
You can go back and watch it later and record it, put it on social media.
It's amazing.
You can send it to your parents.
Anybody want to say, hi, mom, hi, dad?
This is your opportunity to do that.
OK, so I will move that the committee recommend the city council confirm appointments 1175 to 1184. Second.
All right.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
And there's no nays, no abstentions.
The committee recommends the City Council confirm appointments 1175 through 1184 with a vote of 2 to 0. So these appointments are going to be considered by the City Council this Monday, December 3rd, 2018 at 2 p.m.
here in Council Chambers.
You all are not required to attend the meeting.
You're welcome to attend the meeting if you'd like, but you are not required to.
You can just watch it on the Seattle channel if you'd like.
I will unfortunately not be in full council on Monday the 3rd, but Council Member Mosqueda has agreed to present the appointments as recommended by the committee.
She sends her regrets of not being able to be here today, but she's been under the weather this whole week.
She will be shepherding these through the full council process on Monday unless she's still sick.
And then in that case, it will be Councilmember Johnson.
We have lots of backups here.
And with that being said, thank you so much for your service.
Thank you so much for what I hope will be a really productive 2019 year.
We have a lot of work ahead of us and I really look forward to staying connected with all of you.
coming up with a collective agenda to do better by our immigrant and refugee communities and thereby improving and making our city an even better, greater place.
So thank you so much for being here with us today and we are adjourned.