Transcript of seattle-city-council - Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 11/13/24 Session II

SPEAKER_20

Welcome back to November 13th Select Budget Committee.

We'll come back to order.

It is 1.31 p.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the Select Committee.

Everyone was here at 1.30.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_14

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

SPEAKER_05

Council Member Saka.

Here.

SPEAKER_14

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_13

Here.

SPEAKER_14

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

And Chair Strauss.

SPEAKER_20

Present.

SPEAKER_14

Eight.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_14

Seven present.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

We are going to roll right into item group A.

We're going to do it by department.

We're gonna go through each department and then we will take questions or comments on anything within that department.

Council Member Saga had good advice for me before recess, which is I noted that if you are a co-sponsor, I will recognize you ahead of other members, but he gave me the friendly reminder that if all of the co-sponsors talk, that we will be here until 6 p.m.

and not be done.

So thank you, Council Member Saga, wise advice.

With that, I'm going to turn it back over to Director Noble and Deputy Director Ho, and we're going to rock and roll.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Just one second here while we get power back up and rolling.

The first group we're going to take on is the balancing package.

Again, we spent the better part of six hours going through this a couple weeks ago, so the goal here is to move quickly.

We will specifically note ones that have changed in any way.

To the extent they have, most of the changes were just technical amendments, but there are potentially a couple other more significant ones, and we'll call those out as we go.

SPEAKER_08

I also would just note, because it is an absence, so difficult to note, there were 119 items in that original package presented to you on October 30th.

There are currently 118 in this package because SPR 6A1 was, that would have restored funding and position authority for...

A couple of positions in Seattle Parks and Rec were removed at the request of the sponsor, Council Member Hollingsworth, to help fund another one of her priorities that is included in Group C. So that is why that is not included.

It was intended to free up funding for another purpose.

With that, I will turn it over to my colleague, Asha.

SPEAKER_23

Asha Venkatraman, Council Central staff.

The first item is Arts 1A1, transfer $224,000 of Arts and Culture Fund in 2025, $224,000 of Arts and Culture Fund in 2026 from parks to arts and increase appropriations and revenue by $224,000 in 2025 Park and Recreation Fund and $224,000 park and recreation fund in 2026 to SPR for downtown buskers.

And it is sponsored by the budget committee.

Arts 2A1 would transfer $224,000 of arts and culture fund 2025 and $232,000 of arts and culture fund in 2026 from parks to arts and increase appropriations and revenue by $224,000 park and recreation fund in 2025 and $232,000 park and recreation fund in 2026 to parks for teen performing arts sponsored by the budget committee.

Arts 3A1 would transfer $436,000 of arts and culture fund in 2025 and $444,000 arts and culture fund in 2026 from SPR to arts and increase appropriations and revenue by $157,000 park and recreation fund in 2025 and $165,000 of park and recreation fund in 2026 to SPR for arts and parks sponsored by the budget committee.

Arts 4A1 would transfer $382,000 of arts and culture fund in 2025, $401,000 arts and culture fund in 2026 from Seattle Center to arts and increase appropriations and revenue by $382,000 Seattle Center fund in 2025 and $401,000 Seattle Center Fund in 2026 to Seattle Center for Folklife, sponsored by the Budget Committee.

Arts 6A1 would transfer $210,000 of Arts and Culture Fund in 2025, $222,000 of Arts and Culture Fund in 2026 from Seattle Center to Arts, increase Seattle Center by $30,000 of General Fund in 2025, and $30,000 of General Fund in 2026, and increase appropriations and revenue to Seattle Center by $210,000 Seattle Center Fund in 2025 and $222,000 Seattle Center Fund in 2026 for Winterfest, sponsored by the Budget Committee.

Arts 7A2 would increase arts by $100,000 of Jumpstart Fund in 2025 for Hope Corps for the Ballard Brewery District, sponsored by Council Members Strauss and Wu.

Arts 9A2 would increase arts by $250,000 jumpstart fund in 2025 for Hope Court in Capitol Hill, sponsored by Council Member Strauss and Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Just some technical corrections.

I believe item seven ahead, Council Member Hollingsworth is prime, but...

SPEAKER_08

Oh, yes, that is correct.

That is incorrect information on the slide.

SPEAKER_20

And these are all within the chair's package.

The sponsors reflect how council members had their priorities included in the package.

So, colleagues, any other questions?

Let's keep moving.

SPEAKER_99

Okay.

SPEAKER_23

CARE 1A2 would increase CARE by $413,000 general fund in 2025 and $549,000 general fund in 2026 and for FTE 911 emergency communications dispatcher one to improve non-emergency call answering times sponsored by council members Rivera, Kettle and Moore.

CARE 1SA2 would request reporting from CARE on call center staffing and operations sponsored by council members Rivera, Kettle and Moore.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, let's keep moving.

Thank you.

And for central staff analysts, we are going to tick at a quick rate.

So please, if you see you're coming up next, just come on up to the table.

SPEAKER_00

Good afternoon, council members and assistants, council central staff.

So CBO A1, errata corrections to the proposed budget and the capital improvement program.

CBO 002 A2, increases Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections by $1.24 million, constructions and inspections fund in 2025 and 11 FTE.

Increases Seattle IT by 1 million, jumpstart fund 2025 and 12 FTE.

INCREASES FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES BY $891,000, FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES FUND AND 12.5 FTE AND INCREASES DEPARTMENT OF NEIGHBORHOODS, FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES AND SEATTLE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES BY $706,000 GENERAL FUND IN 2025 AND 8 FTE FOR A SIX-MONTH RESTORATION OF POSITIONS SUBJECT TO LAYOFF AND IMPOSE.

imposes provisos.

This new version reduces appropriations by $545,000 to reflect removal of five FTEs, seven total positions that are now vacant.

And this money has been freed up for amendments in Group C. This is sponsored by the Budget Committee.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

CBO002SA1, a related slide, requests that CBO collaborate with Seattle Department of Human Resources to report on developing or enhancing programs for city employees subject to layoff.

sponsored by Council Member Strauss.

This was changed in the original package.

$150,000 was provided in 2025 and 2026. As amended, this would provide all funding upfront in 2025. OPCD 2A1 would increase OPCD's budget by $384,000 general fund in 2025 and $403,000 general fund in 2026. and add 2.5 FTE to restore positions, sponsored by Councilmember Morales.

OPCD 3SA2 would request that OPCD report on strategies to attract food retailers to food deserts, sponsored by Councilmember Saka.

This was enhanced to add a little bit more information about particular food deserts in Council District 1 in the Duwamish Valley and Delridge.

and to ask for analysis of zoning impacts on food deserts.

And finally for OPCD, OPCD 901A1 would replace the source of funding for equitable development initiative in OPCD to reflect the October revenue forecast update sponsored by the budget committee.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

And clerk, looking at the radar, we're going to be in sun for a little bit, so why don't we drop these shades, and if we could open the east shades, that would be great.

Thank you.

Let's move on to OSE.

SPEAKER_06

OSE 1A2 would increase OSE by $400,000, jumpstart fund in 2025 and 2026 for Duwamish Valley Workforce and Small Business Support, sponsored by Council Member Wu, with Council Members Saka and Morales.

SPEAKER_20

Seeing no questions, we'll just keep moving.

SPEAKER_06

SDCI 1A1 would increase SDCI's budget by $50,000 in 2025 to convene a tenant workgroup on strategies to protect the health and well-being of Seattle renters.

SDCI 2A1 would increase SDCI's budget by $355,000 jumpstart fund in 2025 and 2026 to partially restore reductions in tenant services contracts sponsored by Councilmember Morales.

SDC3SA1 would request the SDCI in consultation with the Human Services Department report on utilization of rental registration and inspection ordinance program for proactive eviction prevention, sponsored by Councilmember Moore.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

And I see Councilmember Moore has her hand.

SPEAKER_27

Yes, thank you, Chair.

I just, if it may, ask a few questions about SDCI001A, which is the tenant work group.

So I know this was passed last year and did not come to fruition, and I'm curious whether this work group would also include landlords, small, large, and non-profit?

SPEAKER_06

My understanding is that the sponsor's intent would be a broad range of stakeholders, both tenants and landlords.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Morales has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized, and we can pass back to Lish as well.

SPEAKER_26

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Yes, the intent is to make sure that we're convening not just tenants, but also landlords and landlords.

Across the spectrum so that we can really start to dive so that this group can really start to dive into what some of the challenges are between tenants and landlords and really start to understand how to move forward in all of the other tenant services work that's happening around de-escalation and understanding obligations for both sides.

SPEAKER_27

Okay.

I'd like to talk to you offline.

I'm just wondering if maybe we could work on a friendly amendment to kind of make that clear, because the way it reads to me now is it is very tenant-focused, you know, creating an office to enforce current laws, which SOCR is doing.

establishing new laws, requirements, and standards related to renters.

So I very much share the desire to bring all the stakeholders together and really engage in conversation and look at how we can make a healthy, thriving market.

And I think there are issues around habitability that need to be dealt with too.

So maybe we can have some discussion about that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Lish, back to you.

More to add.

Thank you.

You've stunned us all into silence.

That's great.

All right.

Over to Cal.

S. Dot.

Welcome, Calvin.

Did we have one more?

SDHR.

Yes.

SPEAKER_08

Sorry.

Thank you, Deputy.

SPEAKER_20

Would increase SDHR by $371,000 general fund in 2025 and $389,000 general fund in 2026 and add 1.5 FTE to restore the workforce equity division.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Vice Chair Rivera.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

Lish, I just have a question or Council Member Morales about what this workforce equity division does or did.

I know that SDHR and all of the city has a work, has a focus always on equity, including in the workforce.

So I'm wondering what this division does that the department SDHR doesn't already and having engaged with SDHR on many hires.

I know that they do this robust on the equity piece.

So can you talk a little bit about this?

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Morales has sponsored the amendment, you recognize, and I'm happy to share additional context after you.

SPEAKER_26

Sure.

So yes, the department does the work in part because there is this workforce equity division and across the city, we know that we have departments that are working to ensure that the hiring processes, the promotion processes, the management processes that our different departments have are meeting our very high standards for ensuring that we are engaging in practices that keep our workers safe and in environments that are not hostile.

And there's...

work for us to continue to do to support all of our city departments.

This is work that across the city, staffers who have the responsibility of ensuring that we are abiding by our race and social justice initiative, for example, have that work added on top of their regular work.

And so our centralized human resources department is key to making sure that throughout the city our workers are protected.

I think we all know that several of our departments have had lawsuits filed against them for discriminatory practices, and that's a key part of what this division of folks will do.

SPEAKER_20

to prevent the behavior.

SPEAKER_03

Which I know the Office of Civil Rights does as well.

So I can get more information later so we can keep going.

Thank you, Chief.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And Lish, did you have something to add?

SPEAKER_06

Just briefly, this division created a workforce equity plan this year.

It was published with the intent that SDHR would sort of manage at a citywide level efforts on workforce equity.

And under the mayor's proposed budget, the division would be removed and that work would be devolved on to each city department.

SPEAKER_11

That last point is, I think, a critical one.

This is a restoration of a cut rather than a net addition to SDHR.

So that SDHR was going to dissolve this unit with the theory and the intent, to give it fair shake, that the individual departments would take up these responsibilities.

Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Chair.

Ben Elish, am I hearing you right that the Workforce Equity Division had been put in place to do this plan, and now that the plan has been, no?

SPEAKER_06

To do the plan and to manage workforce equity issues across the city.

SPEAKER_11

It was not conceived as being sort of a sunset function.

It was intended to, at its creation, it was intended to continue.

In an effort to spend less money, the executives had thought to develop the plan to reorganize the function and essentially to spread it among the departments.

SPEAKER_03

To make sure that the departments implemented it rather than just have SDHR be this policing feature.

to make sure the departments were actually implementing this.

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, and then I think continuing to advance the issues generally with the notion that the plan wouldn't inherently be static.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you for the clarity.

Thank you, Lish.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council President.

My question has been answered.

Thank you, and the point I was going to make was made, so if we want to continue moving on.

Green lights go.

SPEAKER_19

Calvin Chow with Council Central Staff.

The next 10 items are related to SDOT, and they are substantively the same as were presented to the Select Budget Committee before.

SDOT 1A1 would increase SDOT by $177 million transportation levy fund in 2025 and $192 million in 2026 for implementation of the transportation levy, create 28 CIP projects, decrease SDOT by $7 million transportation fund in 2025 and $7 million in 2026, add 72 FTE, and acknowledge the anticipated transportation levy revenue.

S-DOT 2A1 would proviso 89 million of the transportation levy fund in S-DOT until authorized by future council action.

This is approximately half of the transportation levy appropriations in 2025. S-DOT 3A1 would increase S-DOT by 5 million in 25 and 26 of transportation levy fund and by 2 million of 25 and 26 of transportation levy fund for a new council district fund, create a new council district fund CIP project and replace $2 million of transportation levy fund with transportation fund in SDOT's ADA program in the CIP.

And it would impose a proviso related to this council district fund.

SDOT 4A1 would proviso 2 million in SDOT for transit and roadway improvements on Delridge Avenue Southwest.

SDOT 5A1 would proviso $175,000 in SDOT to implement parallel-only parking changes in Duwamish Head.

SDOT 6A1 would increase SDOT by $1.18 million general fund and decrease school safety, traffic, and pedestrian improvement funds by $1.18 million for speed enforcement cameras and impose a proviso.

SDOT 7A1 would provide $175,000 in SDOT for urban design and pedestrian improvements to Ballard Avenue and the Ballard Brewery District.

SDOT 8A1 would provide $1 million of Seattle Transit Measure Funds in SDOT for transit ambassadors.

SDOT 9A1 would provide $500,000 in Seattle Transit Measure Funds in SDOT for the Waterfront Shuttle Transit Service.

And SDOT 9A1 would decrease SDOT revenues by $248,025 and 752,026 to recognize the October forecast update.

And I recognize that I did not name the sponsors, but they are listed on the screen.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, we can move on to the police department.

Thank you, Calvin.

SPEAKER_18

Hello, Mr. Chair and Committee, Greg Doss, Central Staff.

Actually, before we get to the Police Department, we have one for the Fire Department, and that is FFD 101A1, which increases SFD by 61,000 in 2025 and 2026 for a Southlake Union Public Awareness Safety Program, and that's sponsored by Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

I'll just make the comment, don't boat in the runway.

SPEAKER_18

Okay, so the next eight or so are in SPD.

They start out with SPD 101A1, which would increase SPD sworn, I'm sorry, would proviso SPD sworn salary benefits in overtime and is sponsored by Council Member Kettle.

SPD 102A2 would increase SPD by 1.0 FTE strategic advisor three to oversee its participation in the 30 by 30 initiative sponsored by council member Saka and council member Moore.

SPD 103A2 would increase SPD by two FTE parking enforcement officers supervisor positions for PEO training and that's sponsored by the budget committee.

SPD 103 S A2 would request that SPD provide a report on its parking enforcement officer hiring process sponsored by the budget committee.

SPD 105 A2 would increase SPD by 10 million general fund in 2026 for overtime sponsored by council member Kettle.

SPD 106A1 would increase SPD by $200,000 in 2025 and 16,000 in 2026 to expand the closed-circuit television pilot on Aurora, and that's sponsored by Councilmember Moore.

SPD 108 SA2 would request that SPD provide quarterly reports on staffing, overtime, and performance metrics sponsored by the Budget Committee.

And finally, SPD 904 A2 would decrease SPD by $6.5 million in 2025 and 2026 to adjust sworn salary funding to actual expectations.

And that's brought by the Budget Committee.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Das.

Colleagues, questions, comments, SPD?

Let's move.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_13

Chair Strauss, I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Mr. Doss and the central staff team, particularly those working in public safety.

You know, items 104, 106, 107, you know, it's part of that great work, attention to detail that I really appreciate and the advice they're with.

So I just wanted to, you know, take the opportunity to highlight that and thank the team there at central staff, particularly Mr. Doss, really appreciate his support.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Let's move over to Parks and Recreation.

I see Tracy in the audience.

I know Karina's doing it because there's bad news on the horizon, but luckily it's not related to the economic forecast, I'm hoping.

Back to you, Karina.

SPEAKER_22

Good afternoon, council members.

Karina Bull from Council Central staff.

Not entirely able to fill the seat of Tracy, but giving it a go.

I am here to share the proposed budget amendments for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

The first one is SPR 2A1, and it would increase SPR by 1.5 million real estate excise tax one capital fund in 2025. for a synthetic turf conversion of a ball field infield at Garfield Playfield.

And that is sponsored by Council Member Hollingsworth.

The next budget amendment is SPR 3A1.

It would increase SPR by 775,000 Metropolitan Park District Fund in 2025 for capital cost and community staffing cost for the Garfield Superblock Park Project, also sponsored by Council Member Hollingsworth.

The next budget action, SPR 4A1, would increase SPR by 1.5 million REIT 1 Capital Projects Fund in 2025 for a turf conversion of the softball field at Fairmont Park.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Saka.

SPR 5A1 would increase SPR by $150,000 unrestricted cumulative reserve fund in 2025 to fund studies and analysis necessary to develop a future portal park sponsored by Councilmember Kettle.

SPR7A1 would increase SPR by 700,000 park and recreation fund in 2026 for graffiti abatement services performed by a community-based organization that is sponsored by Council President Nelson.

SPR8A1 would proviso $25,000 in SPR's public restroom renovations capital project to paint a mural on the bathroom at Cal Anderson Park that is sponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

SPR 9A1 would proviso $20,000 in SPR's major maintenance and asset management capital improvement project to support improvements at First Hill Park that is sponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

SPR 10A2 would increase SPR by 100,000 Metropolitan Park District Fund in 2025 and 100,000 Metropolitan Park District Fund in 2026 to support enhanced programming at existing late-night programming for teens.

That is sponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

SPR 11A1 would increase SPR by 500,000 REIT 1 in 2025 for planning and design of accessibility improvements at the Museum of History and Industry sponsored by Councilmember Kettle.

SPR 12A1 would proviso $75,000 in SPR's major maintenance and asset management capital improvement project to fund improvements at Marvin's Garden Park and Bergen Place.

And that is all for the SPR amendments in Group A. Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Colleagues, any questions, comments on Parks and Recreation?

That has brought us to the end of group A.

There's one more, sorry.

SPEAKER_08

There's one, SPU.

SPEAKER_20

The one letter off.

SPEAKER_08

I can do this one.

SPU 5A1 would increase SPU by $150,000 solid waste fund in 2025 and $150,000 solid waste fund in 2026 for textile waste prevention by organizations supporting refugee and immigrant women sponsored by Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_20

Wonderful.

I think we are now done with section A and we did it in an hour instead of two.

Good job team.

Let's keep on track.

We're gonna go into B, which is one item.

Then we're gonna do C and then we'll do D.

This is where we're gonna start changing because everything up till now was presented in the chair's package in some form.

We are now moving into the section where things are being spoken about for the first time.

This is not the time in our budget calendar to have exponential conversation.

Rather, it is similar to when we presented the chair's package when I would say about one line about everything, or council members would say one line about their items.

So we're trying to keep it to...

Again, if central staff presents for a minute and council members speak for a minute, that's going to be an hour and a half of conversation, which would bring us right to 4 p.m., which is our technical adjournment, but we have until 6 p.m.

reserved.

It's our lives, I guess.

So with that, let's move on to Section B. Jennifer, great to see you again.

SPEAKER_12

All right.

So I'm here for HSD002B.

This is an alternative or another option for...

for something that was in the balancing package.

So this is another option to HSD001B.

And these are mutually exclusive options.

So this particular option provides funding for non-congregate shelter.

Similar to HSD 002A, it increases HSD by 3.2 million general fund in 2025 and 2.7 million general fund in 2026 to support the startup and operations of HSD.

non-congregate shelter.

But under this CBA, there is a proviso that says that funding must be used to support the startup and operations of two new tiny house villages.

And it limits use of funding exclusively to shelter that utilizes tiny houses such as those produced by Sound Foundations Northwest.

It precludes any other type of shelter being funded through the funding in the CBA, such as tiny house villages that utilize pallet shelters or shelter offered at other types of buildings and facilities.

Additionally, it continues, it has the same language as HSD002A around high-impact areas, but it goes on to define what a high-impact area is.

And in that case, it says that a high-impact area is one that is consistently, that consistently has substantial encampments as substantiated by the unified care team data, such as downtown, Little Saigon, Lake City, or Crown Hill at Carkeek.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Morris sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Oh, thank you, Chair.

So, yes, my amendment does.

Thank you, Jen, very much for that.

And thank you for all your work on this as well.

So, sorry.

It does set aside the same dollar amount for non-congregate shelter.

But as stated, it would proviso these specifically for tiny home villages and I do believe that this language better represents what my ask was in the balancing package.

And I understand that some council members may prefer these dollars to be open to any possible non-congregate shelters, such as hotels and pallet shelters, master leasing.

But in my capacity as a representative on KCRA governing board, I'm most confident about the results that we are seeing from the tiny house village model.

I do consider it to be transitional housing in a way that pallet shelters and hotels are not.

They also tend to have wraparound services that those other places do not.

And I think it's important to proviso the money because historically KCRHA has not been supportive of tiny house villages, and so I want to call that out in particular so that the money isn't going elsewhere.

And I think when we've heard public comment, we've heard loud and clear that people are requesting tiny house villages.

And I know in my weekly meetings with the Unified Care Team that they have the most success with people agreeing to leave encampments if they have a place at a tiny house village.

So I certainly am supportive of looking at trying to have more money for hotels, pallet shelters, master leasing.

I know we have a sly on master leasing.

I'm very much supportive of that.

But I think what we need right now is more money directed particularly to tiny house villages, and that's why I'm bringing this.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Moore, Council Member Kettle, and Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I recognized this originally, the non-congregate item in the group said budget committee, but I and my team worked this extensively.

We worked with a whole host of organizations, from Catholic Community Services to KCRHA, Dr. Kinison, CARE, Chief Barden, Mayor's Office, Deputy Mayor Washington, spoke to private developers and nonprofits like NHTSA Sagan, Pallet, in addition to Lehigh, Sound Foundations Northwest, an incredible amount of coordination and outreach to all these groups.

And I have to actually thank Ms. Lebrecht, too, for all the support that you provided my staff and myself on this.

Thank you very much.

And the idea is to increase the non-congregate housing Supply and I think that this has been well thought out and it does not need a to be substituted by this group B number one one nine And I asked for my colleagues support on that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you council president and councilman Rivera.

SPEAKER_02

I Just thank you Councilman more.

I wanted clarification of something you just said.

Did you say that tiny home, but you mentioned pallet homes and that tiny homes are better That's what I think you said And can you just explain?

Did you say that?

Did I misunderstand you?

SPEAKER_27

My understanding of the pallet shelters is that they were highly flammable.

And we have had a number of fires.

They also don't necessarily have the same amount of services that come with them that Lehigh provides with the tiny house villages and other providers.

I'm not arguing against pallet shelters.

I'm arguing in favor of tiny house villages.

And I appreciate that.

Oh, sorry.

I don't need to go on.

You were asking a question.

SPEAKER_20

And just quick point order.

I'm going to bring us back to Robert's rules.

I haven't shared this part before.

I'm reading off my quick question.

Sheet of Robert's rules technically under Robert's rules.

We're not supposed to directly speak to another member You are to speak through the chair to another member.

I know this is weird and technical Flagging that council president.

Do you have additional questions?

SPEAKER_02

Chair, could you please convey my question to Councilmember Moore that I was just wondering if when you said that something about wraparound services, do pallet shelters require different kinds of operators for the operating service providers?

SPEAKER_20

Good question, and I see actually Jennifer Labreck has a good answer for you.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, I will just give you one example, and I think I'm gonna have to respectfully maybe disagree with you, Councilmember Moore.

Catholic Community Services, for example, operates the Bridge Shelter, which does utilize Pallet Shelter.

So it is also a tiny house village, it just sort of, it uses a different modular unit to provide the shelter.

In bridge housing, it is an example of a shelter that does provide actually intensive wraparound services, similar, but even more so than some of the other tiny house villages to serve some of the highest acuity, highest need individuals in the city.

So I think that the form in terms of the type of shelter is one question, and then the level of services is a separate question.

But the form does not necessarily dictate what the level of services will be that are offered.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Well said.

Council President, additional questions?

Nope.

I always had a fun one at the Elks Lodge where we would say, chair, through you to fill in the blank, and then you'd make your statement.

Over to you, Vice Chair.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Chair.

Jennifer, thank you for being here and answering our questions.

This piece on unsheltered people in high impact areas, et cetera, and then it calls out such as downtown Little Saigon, Lake City and Crown Hill at Carkeek.

It's not, this is not an exhaustive list, correct?

It's where, because I'm thinking it, for instance, in the D4 in the University District, there are a number of people, as you know, that are in need of this type of housing, or housing in general, so I wouldn't say this type, but it could be, this could provide a need for them, sorry.

So I just want to clarify.

Great.

SPEAKER_12

Jim?

And I will, the sponsor should speak to this too.

It is first, you know, the intent is to set aside not all of the units, but a percentage of the units.

And as written, the intention was not to be an exhaustive list, but really to have that list informed by unified care team data.

And I think the such as is illustrative, but certainly want to, if the sponsor may have more to add.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Moore, would you like to share more or?

No.

Okay.

Vice chair, anything else?

SPEAKER_03

Just to thank council member Moore for that ad or the piece about the UCT data, because as you know, I'm very data driven, super appreciate that being in here.

So thank you for including it.

SPEAKER_20

I don't see any other hands.

I've got just maybe two questions one question one statement the statement being we removed the neighborhood specificity in the underlying amendment just for the Issues that vice chair Rivera raised if we started naming names the the list would be longer than this budget and Jennifer, my question here is the goals that Councilmember Moore has described, are they able to be achieved within the underlying amendment that is broader or is there a change that I'm not reading?

SPEAKER_12

I think that the goals that I've heard described, which are to be able to offer services to people and ultimately transition them to permanent housing are possible under both amendment options.

The operating budget was crafted to be able to provide what we thought was a necessary level of services.

So I do believe it would be possible under both options.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

My final statement and I'll pass it over to Council Member Moore for last word is that what is most important to me is that we are funding non-congregate shelter that has wraparound services that is four walls and a door that the person can lock.

That's what's most important to me.

Over to you, Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_27

Okay, thank you.

I think it's unfortunate that we are basically disagreeing with one another when we're trying to accomplish the ultimate same goal.

But what I can tell you is that the way the original, and I appreciate the outreach that was done, but the way that the original bill is written is it's up to two new non-congregate shelters or net new beds at existing non-congregate shelters.

That leaves the room open for pallet shelters, which can be fine.

Catholic Community Services does a wonderful job.

It also leaves the room open to hotels.

And I think we have seen that hotels have not worked very well.

We've had a woman who basically...

because of her drug addiction, her baby died through neglect, and she was in a hotel.

We know that tiny house villages work, and we know that the services there work, and we also know that this money is being proviso to KCRHA.

We also know the history of KCRHA, which is they have been hostile to tiny house villages.

So the reason that I wish that I had been able to bring an amendment to say, and additional shelter, because certainly not trying to prevent Catholic community services, but we're trying to make sure that when this money gets sent to KCRHA, they actually use it for tiny house villages, whether they're built by Catholic community services or run by Lehigh or built by Sound Foundations.

I don't care, but they need to be tiny house villages, not hotels.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

I see Council Member Kettle's hand.

That last statement that you made was very helpful for me to understand what is not desired because I agree with you about hoteling.

It was a good stopgap during the pandemic when hotels weren't being rented by tourists and we had people on the street.

The question here is...

You know, I also look at like lakefront shelter that's also in D5, which is non-congregate, but it's neither pallet nor tiny home.

And I've had many requests for people to get in there.

Is that something that is acceptable within what you're thinking or?

Yes.

It sounds like we're all circling around the same thing.

I'm gonna pass it over to Council Member Kettle and then Jennifer, I might ask that we all work together to do our best to come to consensus somewhere around here.

I'm gonna really try to derive the Quaker values into this one.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

The first point I wanted to make is that I have been a champion of the tiny house villages concept for a number of reasons, usually coming from a public safety perspective.

As Chair Strauss knows, I've been very supportive of the Salmon Bay Village project because of the challenges that we face with RVs on our streets and the public safety challenges that can come about from that as well.

But I should also note, I did meet with Dr. Kinison in my office from our new KCRHA chief, and I do believe, starting now, we have a very different KCRHA.

I understand the need to keep our oversight and to ensure that those changes are in place.

But I also remember the Homelessness Coalition and so forth, when I was talking to all these groups that I meet with, And we were talking like the comprehensive plan.

And one of the points I've been making is that we have to have varied types of housing.

And then the response I got from the coalition, for example, was, oh, and by the way, we need varied types at this end too.

And so that's part of the thing that we're looking at with this, that as much as I'm a big supporter of tiny homes, villages, tiny house villages, I'm also keeping the back of my mind all those advocates from the housing community who speak to that and the idea that we should have varied types of housing too because due to the varying requirements that we have.

But I just wanted to close on that and to note again that support of the tiny home villages again initially there's like a carve out for like third avenue and the like and these are very important due to the unique circumstances of you know the idea that you can have a pet you can have a partner and all those things that hang up so many things tiny home villages do you know provide a path forward for us and very helpful both on the human services part, as I talked about earlier, but also huge on the public safety side.

So thank you, Chair Saenz.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Moore, any last words?

I'm just going to say that in past budget years, Group B has been very extensive, and the number of amendments that were in conflict with one another were much more What I'm appreciating about this is the space between Councilmember Moore and the original amendment is almost nothing.

And usually during this section, there's extensive fighting.

And so I'm calling out my appreciation for colleagues.

Seeing no other questions on Group B, we will move to Group C.

at this time.

Am I reading this correctly, central staff?

Yes, okay, great.

Thank you, Jennifer.

We'll follow up, and Tommaso, over to you.

SPEAKER_15

Tommaso Johnson, Council Central staff.

The first item on Group C is CARE 101 SA1.

This is a statement of legislative intent that would request the CARE department create a community crisis response public data dashboard and request reporting from the CARE department on the Seattle restoration program.

Both the dashboard and the data request would be due no later than June 30th, 2025. This is sponsored by Council Member Rivera, co-sponsored by Council Members Kettle and Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Rivera to sponsor the amendment.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Chair, colleagues.

This is a good governance piece and an accountability piece for me.

It is a friendly amendment in that I've talked to the mayor's office, and they've been supportive of gathering the information from the care department.

I think this is really important, given the challenges with...

answering the non-emergency line at the 911 call center.

And so just having a dashboard where we see what the number of calls coming in, how they're getting responded to is the point here, and I think that's important.

And then also on the Seattle Restoration Program Directorate is a new position and just really asking for information about what that director will do and what its work plan is, is the intent here.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, we'll move on to CEN 4A1.

SPEAKER_07

Hello, Council.

Good afternoon.

I'm Eric McConaughey on the Council Central staff.

This item is sponsored by Council Member Kettle.

It would increase the Seattle Center by two FTE gardener positions for Waterfront Park.

The ask here is to have these positions available to go along with the completion and opening of more areas of Waterfront Park.

Waterfront Park, as you know, is managed by the Seattle Center.

Currently, there are two gardeners that are employed in the maintenance of these areas.

No new appropriations would be required would correspond with these two new positions.

Instead, the center would reallocate funds that they have in the proposed budget.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Essentially, in a way, this is a technical fix.

The Central Waterfront Oversight Committee noted this and then they brought it to my attention.

And so I thank them for that, you know, And for them to do their job was coordinated with Seattle Center.

Of course, Mr. Foster was supportive.

Bottom line for this is that we have done so much investment on Waterfront Park with Overlook Walk and everything else, the aquarium, and with the friends of Waterfront Park to ensure moving forward that it is maintained to the level that it needs to be.

And Seattle Center is best positioned to do that, and we're working with them.

And again, I'd like to thank the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee that supported this.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to the next one.

SPEAKER_08

Okay, the next item is HSD 32A1.

This would increase HSD by $319,000 of general fund in 2025 and $330,000 of general fund in 2026 and add to FTE for the mobile integrated health team expansion.

This is sponsored by Council Member Strauss and co-sponsored by Council Members Kettle and Saka.

Just a little context here is that this is intended to support the post overdose team of Health 99 to conduct patient follow up and recovery system navigation.

So this is just adding capacity to that and that this These positions were intended to be included in the transmitted budget from the mayor, but they were inadvertently left out.

So there was funding in the budget for this, and this is just creating the positions and appropriating the funding accordingly.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

This is just continuing our city's work in responding to the fentanyl epidemic that is at our front doorstep.

Health 99 is an important program, and these two positions support that.

Colleagues, any questions, comments?

Seeing none, let's keep moving.

SPEAKER_25

Okay.

Again, this is Jasmine Marwaha on Council Central staff.

I'm presenting HSD 38 SA1, a request that HSD report on a landscape analysis and an implementation plan for addressing gun violence in Seattle schools.

This is sponsored by Council President Nelson, Council Member Rivera, and Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_20

Council President has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_02

I would like to—this could be called the Gorman Amendment because this was presented—this came up during her presentation of the new investment, the $4.25 million investment into school-based interventions to prevent and reduce gun violence.

She acknowledged that her issue paper and presentation acknowledged that there is not very much information as yet about what the work would be, how it would interact with our existing investments in the community safety initiative, and also it addressed some of the questions around the resources for family support.

I think there were three options.

One of them was request a report asking how the two bodies of work interact with each other.

And so that's what I'm trying to do because I would like to know specific things like what schools are going to be identified, what organizations will be performing the work, and then also Since that presentation, the Seattle Public School District has hired a safety officer and interested to know how that will work out and what will be the interplay of our investment with potentially new bodies of work from the school district.

So basically it's asking, tell us more about what the $4.2 million will fund.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to the next.

SPEAKER_09

Hello again, council members.

Brian, good night.

Council, central staff.

So the next item is Statement of Legislative Intent ITD 2SA1, and it would request that the executive collaborate with the council to establish an advisory work group to explore alternative financing and operating models for the Seattle Channel.

Excuse me.

The work group is intended to be composed of seven members, including the Seattle IT Chief Technology Officer and six appointed members with professional or research experience in the media, arts, finance, or news industries.

Three members would be appointed by the mayor.

Three would be appointed by the chair of the finance committee.

And the work group would be advised by Seattle Channel staff.

The slide envisions that the workgroup would generate recommendations addressing financing, governance, and operations by June 30th.

And this slide is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and is the workgroup referenced earlier when we discussed Council President Nelson's bill on the funding plan for Seattle Channel.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Goodnight.

As stated, this is simply setting up the workgroup to identify how we can ensure that Seattle Channel remains independently funded in concert with Council President's bill clearly noting the different revenue streams for the bridge funding that keeps them independent and funded.

There it is, questions, comments?

Seeing none, we're gonna move on.

SPEAKER_12

All right.

I am here to talk now about M03SA.

This is a statement of legislative intent requesting that the mayor's office take the lead on developing a report that provides a comprehensive recreational vehicle or RV strategy.

And it requests that the report provide the following information.

A current approach, the city's current approach to addressing lived in RVs, recommendations that would address recommendations on programmatic approaches, policy changes or legislative changes that can make a measurable and more visible impact in the reduction of lived in RVs on the city right of way and better connect RV residents with housing and services.

It also asked for recommendations and explanation of cost, so a cost estimate for implementing recommendations provided in the report, including a low, medium, and high cost option and associated outcomes.

And it also asked for recommendations that are implementable within known constraints, for example, Seattle Police Department capacity.

The report is due on September 1st, and Councilmember Saka is the sponsor.

SPEAKER_20

Councilmember Saka is the sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And so, colleagues, as you know, my district, District 1, has under the last report by our great UCT team, three times the number of RV encampments in my district.

Oh, and by the way, we are, depending on the date of the report, we're number two or three in non-RV tent encampments as well.

And so...

As we continue to support and uplift the work of the unified care team and better connect our unhoused neighbors and unsheltered neighbors with proper shelter and services and sanitation, in the RV context in particular, this report just calls on more ideas to help us, again, make more measurable impacts in reducing the the incidence of RV encampments and better allow us to connect RV encampment inhabitants with proper shelter and services.

And so I initially thought about provisoing some money here and there, but also for clarity, this is a friendly amendment and I'm working closely with the Unified Care Team and the mayor's office.

And I initially thought about provisoing certain funds and, you know, This amount can be spent on RV remediations, but that work is very, very complicated, complex.

And at this early stage, it would be more along the lines of just kind of shooting from the hip.

And so I wanted to make sure our city is best positioned to that we can do to make more measurable progress in this area.

thank you.

thank you questions or comments?

let's move on to the next one.

SPEAKER_25

Oh, that's me.

This is OED007A1.

This council budget amendment would impose a proviso of $200,000 jumpstart fund in the Office of Economic Development for purposes of small business support to historically under-resourced equity business districts that do not anticipate establishing a business improvement area, or BIA, in the next two years.

For context, the 2025 proposed budget includes $2 million for neighborhood business districts, not including staff, with a focus on supporting existing and potential business improvement areas.

The intent of the proviso would be to repurpose $200,000 at OED that would not already be appropriated in the proposed budget for neighborhood business districts.

and to channel that funding to historically under-resourced business districts that need a bit more resourcing and time, more than a couple years at least, to explore establishing a BIA.

This CBA is sponsored by Council Members Saka, Morales, and Moore.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Jasmine.

Council Member Saka, as a sponsor, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

And so I'll just say that constituents in my district, District 1, have consistently voiced a desire for exploring business improvement areas and certain historically underserved areas, namely South Park, Georgetown, and Highland Park.

But this could potentially include other areas.

And so we call out a few other great candidate neighborhoods as well.

But bottom line, there are communities in need from black and brown communities and historically marginalized that could benefit from this additional level of technical assistance and support.

And so with these repurposed funds, It would use existing OED funds and ultimately go through a competitive process to help enable and bring this to life.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

Council Member Saka, colleagues, any questions, comments?

Yes.

Seeing none, I'll just say that I appreciate this amendment and that I want to call out in our district the Wedgwood businesses.

It's not a BIA, but there are a lot of BIPOC businesses and they are really suffering like many other of our neighborhoods from public safety issues.

And so I appreciate this being brought forward.

All right, next.

SPEAKER_25

OED 8SA1 was a statement of legislative intent that would request that the Office of Economic Development report on a mid-year status update of the programs offered under OED's Generating Wealth in Communities of Color strategic pillar.

This would include but not be limited to programs such as the Business Community Ownership Fund, Capital Access Program, and the Tenant Improvement Fund.

Such information would be intended to inform future decision-making and investments in programs that fall under this Generating Wealth in Communities of Color pillar and would help better understand where further investments would be most impactful.

This slide is sponsored by Council President Nelson, Council Member Hollingsworth, and Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Nelson has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_02

So this is sort of the consolation prize for myself.

It's not really a prize.

But I had requested to restore the $2.3 million in funding that was cut from OED's budget, which is about 50% of three programs, all of which are specifically designed to help entrepreneurs of color.

either access loans or capital for tenant improvements or enter into partnerships to own their commercial space, etc.

That was not included in the balancing package, so this request that we take a look at the pipeline of would-be projects that could take advantage of this funding in time for the mid-year supplemental.

In the course of my research on this, I sort of learned that there are different perspectives on the universe of potential projects that could take advantage of the cut $2.3 million.

On the one side, OED works in many ways.

staff from OED get word of small businesses that are seeking to do X, Y, or Z, and over the course of conversations end up talking about existing resources, and then sometimes that's ways that projects come into the portfolio of OED.

Other times they have a set amount of funding for a program and provide more blanket outreach.

But the point is that they're is demand.

This is my point.

There is more demand than there is funding for the kinds of support that the cut funding would provide.

And so this would just say that let's have OED report back to us about the interest in these programs and if there could be money found in time for the mid-year supplemental that we could consider restoring some of that funding.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions?

Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_23

Okay.

Asha Venkatraman, Council Central staff.

This item is SDCI4SA1, and it would request that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections provide a report on tree-related data enforcement and the payment in lieu program.

This slide would ask SGCI for information such as how many trees have been removed in lots under development, the reason for tree removal, and the tiers of those removed trees.

It would ask for information regarding the presence and condition of replacement trees, looking at the number of tree removal complaints that have been submitted, and for the payment in lieu program, the number of permit applicants using that option, payment amounts, total payment amounts collected, and city costs related to tree planting and establishment.

The report would ask for this information back by April 1st of 2025. It's sponsored by Council Members Moore, co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Wu.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Asha, for putting this together.

I don't really have much more to add.

It's pretty self-explanatory.

SPEAKER_20

Amen.

Helps us see the forest through the trees.

Let's go on to the next one.

SPEAKER_19

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Just to say that I very much appreciate this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Moore, for bringing it forward.

I would have supported it if there were more sponsors.

I would have co-sponsored, I mean, if we would have been able to provide more sponsorships to it.

And it is a conversation in full transparency that I keep having with SDCI.

So thank you for bringing this one forward.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Moving on.

SPEAKER_19

The next item is SDOT 105 SA1.

It is a statement of legislative intent requesting that SDOT provide a report on the pothole repair program and the performance indicators for potholes and roadway conditions.

It would focus on notable trends and industry best practices.

It's offered by Councilmember Saka with co-sponsorship from Councilmember Rivera and Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Councilmember Saka, sponsor the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues, this is at its core a...

transparency amendment.

This is a proposed amendment to improve transparency, build public trust and confidence in an essential government service, and ultimately drive accountability.

And so another way of saying that, it's a good governance item.

And I suppose it's no secret at this point that I care deeply about potholes or pothole repair.

Pothole repair.

I've literally worked alongside frontline crews repairing potholes.

But this is an essential core government service and honored to help drive transparency around this and, you know, build in some KPIs and OKRs, key performance indicators, objective key results, et cetera, to drive transparency here.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, we'll go on to the next one.

Thanks, Calvin.

SPEAKER_19

Next item is SDOT 106 SA1.

It is also a sly requesting that SDOT provide recommendations on honorary street naming policies.

It requests draft legislation to adopt a street naming policy, including criteria to guide the mayor and the council's consideration of honoring street naming requests.

It's offered by Council Member Saka, co-sponsored by Council Member Hollingsworth and Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Saka has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Very friendly amendment.

Brainchild of our conversations with Estat earlier this year.

And they have the information at the ready.

It's just a matter of organizing it and packaging it all together and neatly for us.

But would be greatly appreciated, you know, this deliverable.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Let's move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_18

So the next two items are the Seattle Police Department, and item number 131 is SPD-110-SA1, and this would request that SPD report on officer recruitment and retention.

It's sponsored by Councilmember Saka.

Councilmember Hollingworth and Councilmember Kettle.

It is a slide that would request that the Seattle Police Department create a report on the strategic plan that would ensure that the department meets the goals of its hiring and retention initiative.

The slide would request that SPD submit a report to the Public Safety Committee by September 1st of 2025.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

And Councilmember Saka is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So this one is Basically calling for a comprehensive strategy, overarching strategy, comprehensive plan to better position our city, to better achieve our ambitious officer hiring goals, to hire 300 to 500 more officers, restore officer staffing levels to pre-COVID levels of 1,400 plus, have a fully staffed force.

We've been doing a lot of great things this year.

In particular...

in terms of enabling that from various incentive legislation, streamlining the officer hiring and recruitment process, which is great, and we'll continue to do that, but we do need...

We are in dire need of an overarching strategy and proposed implementation plan with clear metrics and specific goals that are reasonable, achievable, attainable, time-bound, all the smart type of goals and benchmarks and a plan for getting there.

So that way, any future legislation that we take up to address this, it can either be intentionally inconsistent with this proposed strategy or Intentionally consistent regardless.

We need we need additional planning and guidance and this helps us get us there.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you Thank you colleagues questions comments counts president Thank you for bringing this forward.

SPEAKER_02

I would I would note that maybe a whole year is too long but I wanted to recognize that in, let's see, 2022, the mayor implemented or set forth a recruitment and retention plan for officers, and that accompanied the hires of recruiters that were first in the Department of HR and then recently moved to SPD through our legislation that came through our committee.

And so my question for central staff is, Is this asking for some of the same information that the retention and recruitment council bill that was passed earlier this year already asked for, and can they be combined at all?

Do you know?

SPEAKER_18

I think the way that the sponsor envisions it, it would take the data that's being provided under three council ordinances.

REQUESTED UNDER THREE COUNCIL ORDINANCES AND WOULD TAKE THAT DATA AND PUT IT TOGETHER ALONG WITH THE STAFFING PLAN TO CREATE MORE OF A STRATEGIC DOCUMENT TO GUIDE THE DEPARTMENT.

YOU'RE CORRECT, IN 2019 THERE WAS A RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION PLAN THAT THE EXECUTIVE PUT TOGETHER ACTUALLY WITH THE HELP OF THE COUNCIL.

THAT WAS OBVIOUSLY A WHILE AGO.

AND IT DIDN'T COME UP WITH STRATEGIC BENCHMARKS OR that could be used to make sure that it was being achieved, that the goals were being achieved.

So I'd say those are kind of the differences.

Got it.

Well, then that explains.

SPEAKER_02

So it's the grand plan.

Thank you.

It's the comprehensive plan for how are we going to get to a certain number by a certain year, et cetera.

Thank you for answering that question.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Salk.

SPEAKER_04

Mr. Chair, that's exactly it.

And, you know, the basic notion there is for those folks key strategic policy areas and items, whether it's a downtown activation plan, the comprehensive plan, the Seattle transportation plan, we should have a formal documented, and Council Member Kettle called earlier for a housing plan.

We should have a formal documented for accountability and transparency purposes.

And so we're all on the same sheet of page or whatever, and that's exactly what this calls for.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Let's move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_18

Okay, so the next item is SPD 112 SA, and this item would request that SPD report on LEAD, which is Let Everyone Advance with Dignity, and the SPD and LEAD database integration efforts.

So, again, this is a sly.

It would request that SPD report on the use of a data-sharing platform that would allow SPD's computer-aided dispatch system and data analytics platform systems TO EXCHANGE INFORMATION WHERE LEGALLY POSSIBLE WITH THE DATABASE MAINTAINED BY LEAD AND PRESENT A PLAN AND TIMELINE TO INTEGRATE THESE SYSTEMS TO ALLOW FOR SHARING OF INFORMATION BETWEEN LEAD PARTICIPANTS AND PROGRAM OPERATIONS WITH SPD OFFICERS.

THE SLIDE WOULD BE DUE TO THE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE ON MARCH 3rd.

IT IS SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER MOORE WITH CO-SPONSORS COUNCILMEMBER SACA AND COUNCILMEMBER RIVERA.

COUNCILMEMBER MOORE IS SPONSOR OF THE AMENDMENT.

SPEAKER_20

YOU ARE RECOGNIZED.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you very much.

Greg can speak to this.

I think this is just, there was a slide before, and this is really, and the work has been being done, but it seems to have lagged, and there's some additional things that need to be incorporated.

So this is really just to bring the issue back front and center and kind of push it over the finish line.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Council President?

SPEAKER_02

Could you please remind me, did we fund this integration during budget deliberations last year, the year before?

SPEAKER_18

It was, I think, a few years back that the Seattle IT and LEAD were funded to work together to identify a database that would allow for communication between the two entities.

And then subsequent sessions, the database received some money from the city.

What hasn't happened yet is the actual integration itself, the building of the...

buses or such that would allow the two to communicate.

Part of that is due to data restrictions under federal law, so just data restrictions.

So I know that in the past, the department and LEAD have talked about workarounds that would allow the data to reach SPD, so SPD would know what LEAD clients they might be working with, but LEAD would not be receiving data that's protected under CEGIS.

And those conversations have been going on, and I think that this is basically just asking for a status on that and a timeline for when that integration might actually happen.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council President.

Do you have further questions?

SPEAKER_02

Just one.

Council Member Moore, I appreciate this question.

There's an understanding that LEAD is an evidence-based methodology that really does It's an alternative to, it allows for alternatives to incarceration for at least low-level crimes.

And I think it's important that we understand that, especially since we have a new policy area, which is commercial sexual exploitation.

So thank you very much for bringing this forward.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I just wanted to add that I appreciate Mr. Doss' discussion on this.

I brought this up with Chief Rohr and Mr. Maxey, and to his point, there's some technical pieces to this, but...

So we'll definitely work this through the Public Safety Committee.

And it's interesting going through this budget process in the sense of bringing up ideas.

A lot of these we will work through committee.

So the CBAs and SLIs are good, but at the same time, the Public Safety Committee will work through these pieces.

The lead piece is, you know, also part of the general criminal justice ecosystem, which is going to be a major theme of the committee through 2025. And so, and I've talked to Ms. Dugard about this, along with the relationship with the city attorney's office.

So I appreciate these items coming up as CBAs or slides.

They're good reminders and or to put them within the packages of what the committee is going to do.

But Again, this will not be the only way that we'll address this.

This will also come up through the committee.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Any further questions?

Seeing none, let's move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_07

Council members, I am still Eric McConaughey.

I still work for you on the Council Central staff.

It's good to see you again.

I'm here to talk about the next item, which is item number 133, SPL001A1.

This would increase the library by $30,000 in general fund for library materials.

It is sponsored by Council Member Wu, with co-sponsors Council Member Moore, Council Member Saka.

The proposed budget for the library would include some reductions in physical materials including $10,000 or about a 9% reduction in newspaper and magazine subscriptions and a $5,000 or about 14% annual reduction in reference book purchases.

While SPL does not track or have access to demographic information on patrons by use or type, they do know from experience that lower income groups and older adult populations on fixed income INCOMES DEPEND ON THE LIBRARY TO PROVIDE PHYSICAL ACCESS TO INFORMATIONAL AND RECREATIONAL MATERIALS.

REDUCTIONS TO PHYSICAL FORMATS SUCH AS MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTIONS WILL CREATE A DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT ON THESE FOLKS.

THIS CBA IS FUNDED BY GENERAL FUND DOLLARS THAT WERE ORIGINALLY INCLUDED IN CBO-002A1.

THAT CBA IS TO DELAY LAYOFFS TO CITY STAFF.

That CBO-002-A1 would have provided $8,000 from one-time general fund balance and position authority for a six-month restoration of a 1.0 FTE management and systems analysis in the Seattle Department of Human Resources.

That proposal has been removed from the balancing package because the position is currently vacant and the revised CPA is CBO-02-A2.

That is the fine grain detail to say that this CBA does not impact the projected ongoing operating general fund deficit in the 27 and 28 biennium.

And with that, I'll hand it over.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Wu is sponsoring the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

We know that there is a digital divide.

Our elders don't quite, some of them are not able to access materials online.

And so this would help also with not only providing them these materials in person to have and to see, but also in language as well, access to culturally appropriate materials.

and news is something many elders depend on in the library system.

And so I think this is a very important addition to be able to allow for the libraries to continue to provide these materials.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, council member Rivera.

SPEAKER_03

I very much as I said earlier we don't always do such a great job of addressing the needs of our older populations and our elders in the city so I appreciate you bringing this forward as I know those of us of a certain age that either didn't grow up with technology or didn't have access to it really rely on paper and getting their news through actual newspaper and so I appreciate you putting this in here councilmember Wu thank you

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, colleagues.

I will just say I'm the youngest member of the council, and I prefer paper newspapers, so it's not about old people.

Back to central staff, thank you.

SPEAKER_07

I don't have any other details, but I'm here to help to answer any questions or follow up.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

We're going to move on to SPR 13A1.

SPEAKER_22

Karina Bull, Council Central staff, presenting two amendments in Group C for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

SPR 13A1 would increase SPR by a total of 1.5 million, Metropolitan Park District Park and Recreation Fund and General Fund combined over 2025 and 2026 for the turf conversion of a softball field at Lower Woodland Park.

The CBA would also decrease SPR by 1.5 million over 2025 and 2026 by removing resources from the MPD fund for land acquisition, park and recreation fund for ongoing restoration of positions now vacant, and also the general fund for temporary restoration of positions now vacant.

For context, Lower Woodland Park has five baseball softball fields.

One is synthetic, and four are grass and dirt.

The CBA would fund the conversion of one softball infield to synthetic turf.

The CBA intentionally is limiting conversion to the infield to expedite the timeline of the project and incur a lower cost.

Converting the entire field would cost something closer to $3 to $3.2 million.

And the CBA relies on the following resources.

It would decrease appropriations in the park land and acquisition leverage fund by $434,000 in 2025 and $564,000 in 2026. These are both one-time reductions in those years.

The reduction would result in fewer resources to acquire land for parks and cover associated costs such as environmental reviews and appraisals.

The CBA would also make use of $186,000 available fund balance in 2025 and 2026 and the Park and Recreation Fund.

As you may recall, these funds were previously in a budget amendment that SPR 6A1 that would have restored funding for grounds maintenance positions that was in the original balancing package that was removed as these positions are now vacant.

And then last, the CBA would draw $130,000 of one-time general fund balance.

That would have funded the temporary six-month restoration of positions at SPR and administrative specialist and senior rec program specialist.

Both of those positions are now vacant, and so those funds are being proposed to be used for this turf conversion.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_21

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, let me address like where we are when we were thinking about funding.

I know that we, I think just coming from a perspective of understanding that we probably need to maintain our parks more than acquiring a lot of the new parks, pocket parks or other pieces.

And so very thoughtful about that.

And I also want to thank central staff for being able to find other places where those positions are not, are vacant and safe.

you know, we can move some money around to be able to do a really important project.

This six out of 14 softball fields, excuse me, six out of the 14 softball fields that high school girls play on are dirt compared to one out of the 15 in the city of Seattle.

If our budget passes, we will have done two of those for high school girls teams.

And then also one in West Seattle, LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL AND SOFTBALL FIELD AS WELL, SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER OSAKA IN THE BALANCING PACKAGE.

THE HIGH SCHOOLS THAT USE THIS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL ARE LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL AND D-4.

Roosevelt and D.

Ford and Ballard and D6.

These programs use lower woodland and I want to thank Rico Habino who brought this to our attention.

There was an article in the Seattle Times that talked about, that really talked about the disparity between girls and boys sports, particularly softball.

They've received over 1,500 signatures and also this kid is doing this project to help people younger than her.

Like, she will not be able to benefit from this field, but she thinks it's important that we have these conversations to be able to, you know, turf more fields, and for people to be able to not play in the mud, and for kids to enjoy.

Softball fields are also enjoyed by not just high school girls teams, but also little league teams, and also adult softball players as well.

I really hope that my colleagues can consider this amendment, and I wanna thank Councilmember Rivera for your sponsorship, and also Councilmember Tanya Wu, thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, and Councilmember Rivera, as co-sponsor, I'm gonna call on you ahead of Council President.

I just want the record to reflect, I didn't know about this until it was published, even though it's in my district, so I'll talk about that later.

Over to you, Vice Chair.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Chair.

I really want to thank Parks Chair Joy Hollingsworth for bringing this forward.

I could not more wholeheartedly support this.

And I will say that I know that Council Member Hollingsworth has had as many calls as I have had and others of us that serve on the Parks Committee about the need for more play fields for girls and particularly softball.

I had a number of parents and girls from Roosevelt and Lincoln Come here and support of this and so I am so pleased that this is in here I again want to thank councilmember Hollingsworth for her leadership on this and I could not be more proud to support this You know, it is so needed and the disparity is great.

And so this is a really feel-good one So, thank you Thank You council president

SPEAKER_02

First, I wanted to acknowledge that this is a welcome gesture of citywide collaboration to council members from south of the Ship Canal working on a project north of it.

I do have a question because I did read into this.

Some of the funding comes from the Fix It First.

And so is it known what kind of maintenance or just regular work will not be done?

What are the impacts to that?

SPEAKER_22

The funding is going, my understanding, the funding is going into that BSL, the Fix It First BSL.

The resources for the turf conversion are coming out of the Park Land and Acquisition Capital Improvement Project Fund.

So it is limiting the city's ability to purchase new land or to ready land.

for purchase.

It would not impact maintenance.

Got it.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, I will just say I didn't need to know about the amendment.

I'm actually kind of glad that I didn't because I don't want to be seen as self-serving.

Green Lake, Woodland Park, these are really the heart of the city and the region.

Woodland Park Zoo is a regional zoo.

Green Lake Community Center is one of the most central community centers.

That's why when we talk about redoing the Green Lake Community Center, it's D5, D4, D6.

These softball fields are the exact same.

And so this is a really smart decision.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Do you want last word?

SPEAKER_21

I would, Mr. Chair.

It just shows you anything north of Montlake.

I don't know where the district lines are.

I didn't realize this was your district.

SPEAKER_20

It's okay.

And they gerrymandered my district last year.

So I'm also south of the Ship Canal now.

SPEAKER_21

Understood.

So that is my bad.

I wouldn't have asked you to be a co-sponsor, but I apologize.

So anyways, thank you for not getting mad at me.

And also, yeah, would love everyone's support on this.

And I really appreciate the co-sponsors and the person that their district will go into.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Do you need?

Council Member Rivera, and I will just say we are at 3.30 and have a lot more to do.

Sorry, I've been talking though, so.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Chair, and you're right.

We support each other across the city, and all of these fields are being used also for kids and adults, for that matter, across the city.

I did want to address, Karina, you said when the Council President asked what's not going to get done and acquisition, these are the tough choices that we have to make, and I wanted to underscore that.

These decisions are not made lightly.

And we know we have this incredible need to redo play fields and particularly to address this disparity so that our girls have a place to, and this doesn't even meet the need that the girls have in terms of parity, but it starts to get us somewhere.

And so, yes, it's hard when we're foregoing one thing for the other, tough choices, but we're making the tough choices.

And I think this was an important one.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

I'm going to keep us moving forward.

I will ask us just to stick to the questions and answers.

I know I did not lead by example in the last five minutes.

SPEAKER_22

Just one more comment.

There would be $868,000 in 2025 and $778,000 in 2026 in that parkland and acquisition fund.

The next budget amendment is SPR 14 SA.

It is a statement of legislative intent requesting SPR to report on the timeline for redeveloping the Lake City Community Center.

Currently, SPR and Seattle Office of Housing are partnering to redevelop the site with the goal of locating a new community center with affordable housing.

And Office of Housing is conducting a request for proposals right now in partnership with SPR, inviting developers to submit proposals for constructing the building shell and the core of the new community center with anticipated designation of that development team.

by March 31st of 2025. This SLI is requesting SBR to provide a report on the complete timeline for redevelopment of the Lake City Community Center, including but not limited to milestone dates, identification of potential timeline impacts, and plans to mitigate delays.

This would be due next year, July 1st, and it is sponsored by Councilmember Moore, with co-sponsors Rivera and Wu.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Yes, thank you very much.

As you know, we are in desperate need of a community center in Lake City.

That last one burned down.

And so there is a plan, actually a novel plan to have a community center with affordable housing on top of it.

But given...

the fact that the development is going somewhat slowly and we've taken the debt service, pushing that back.

I'm just wanting to get, and the community wants to know what is the actual plan and it hasn't been entirely clear and there's been some back and forth that it would be helpful for transparency to just get a plan to tell us what to expect and what the timeline is.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Let's move on to the next one, SPU.

SPEAKER_12

Hello.

All right.

This CBA would increase SPU by $50,000 in general fund in 2025, one time, for deep cleaning at lived-in recreational vehicle sites.

So currently...

SPU offers two types of cleaning related to recreational vehicle sites.

First, they offer geo-cleans, which focus, are sort of a lighter clean that focus on removing visible trash from the right-of-way.

Deep cleaning goes further by involving unhoused individuals and organizing or approving the removal of bulky personal belongings, ensuring right-of-way and sidewalk accessibility.

The approach is more time consuming, intensive, and expensive than geo-cleans.

SBU estimates that they would spend about $125,000 on deep cleans in 2025, and the CBA would increase that budget to $175,000.

The result would be one additional deep cleaning shift of two to six hours per month, resulting in one to two additional sites per month receiving a deep cleaning.

The CBA is funded by general fund dollars originally included in CBO 2A to delay layoffs of city staff.

CBO 2A would have provided $87,000 from one time general fund balances and position authority for a six month restoration of two positions.

This proposal has been removed from the balancing package because that position is currently vacant.

The CBA does not impact the projected ongoing operating deficit.

And I'll stop there.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Jennifer, Council Member Saka has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to take a moment to tie all these together.

I spoke a moment ago about the future and what additional potential investments we can make to better address RV encampments, better address and remediate RV encampments.

And so I also want to acknowledge that we've made some great investments in the chair's balancing package to specifically address RVs.

So there's a great program already in there for that, so that we can spend and implement today.

And then, so this builds upon that.

This $50,000 builds upon that by, and this is another sort of friendly amendment working closely with UCT, They could use this extra funding to have workers go deep and embed in these RV site areas.

And it's not just for quote unquote deep cleaning, but it's also engaging with them.

on a human level.

So important package of investments and that build upon each other and set each up for success on a going forward basis.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_09

Okay, thank you.

The next item, which is also the last item in Group C, is SPU 8A1.

It would impose a proviso on $238,000 of general fund in Seattle Public Utilities for sanitation services in Little Saigon.

The intent of the proviso is to ensure the continuation of sanitation services in 2025 that are currently being provided by a contractor in Little Saigon.

The Chinatown International District Business Improvement Area intends to include Little Saigon, the neighborhood, in future iterations of the BIA, which would reduce the need for additional outside funding such as this in future years.

And this CBA is sponsored by the Budget Committee.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

I will speak to this item.

I see both Councilmember Wu and Morales have their hands raised.

Colleagues, this was something that was requested by both Councilmember Liu and Morales during the development of the chair's package.

When I asked questions, it was my understanding at that time that a proviso was not required for the work to be done.

It doesn't mean that it isn't helpful, but that was the information that I had received.

Both Councilmembers had made this request.

Through the amendment process, it's my understanding without speaking with each other that both amendments were submitted by both council members, each with two co-sponsors.

And...

That's six people, that's quorum.

And so I don't believe that OPMA was broken because I don't believe that any of these folks talked to each other about this.

And this was me in receipt of the information making the decision to be budget committee legislation.

Council Member Wu and then Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I'm looking something up really quickly, so I'll defer.

Gausma Morales.

Gausma Morales first.

SPEAKER_26

Thank you.

So this is a proviso.

In the past, I've actually added the money, had to add the money to the budget to make sure that these services got taken care of.

So I appreciate that we were able to do it with a proviso.

And as Brian mentioned, we hopefully will not have to do this anymore since the boundaries at the BIA are changing.

That will allow them...

hopefully, to generate the kind of revenue that they need to provide these services in an expanded area.

Right now, because Little Saigon is not included in the BIA, they don't generate the kind of revenue that they need.

So hopefully with those changes, we will not have to do this again next year.

Thank you.

Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_01

So I think this proviso, we were working with the mayor's office on this.

And from my understanding, there was already 400,000 in SPU for work in the Chinatown International District.

And this proviso dedicates this funding specifically for Little Saigon in terms of things like graffiti cleanup.

And so I'm excited that the entire committee saw that this was a priority and wanted to say thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, and I will also clarify that the information that I presented was the maximum amount of information that I had.

I don't actually know who the four co-sponsors were, so just putting that on the record.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Moving on.

We are moving into Group D. We have 27 items left.

So if two minutes were spent on each item, we will be here until 340 or 445. Time check.

SPEAKER_23

Arts 10B2 would provide $100,000 of admissions tax in 2025 in the Office of Arts and Culture for cultural planning work.

It's sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Members Hollingsworth and Saka.

This proviso would be on $100,000 for arts to conduct cultural planning work that would give them a comprehensive picture of the creative economy in Seattle.

It would include mapping of arts and cultural assets, including wages and strategies that would keep artists in Seattle.

The proviso itself is placed on $100,000 that is intended to come from the $2.5 million added in the mayor's proposed budget in admissions tax funds for the downtown activation plan.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, as sponsor of the amendment, you're recognized.

SPEAKER_26

Thank you.

I've talked about this before.

We know that the Office of Arts and Culture completed an internal facing strategic plan in the last year.

This is a plan that looks outward and really looks to do some mapping of what our cultural assets are.

Council Member Kettle has mentioned often the assets just in his district.

And this is an attempt for us to understand across the board what we have in the city and particularly how to understand the livelihood that artists in the city are able to make.

So the intent is to do an assessment of the kinds of jobs that are available, what kind of pay they are making, what kind of organizations hire or commission art.

And so the intent here is to really help us understand what our cultural sector looks like

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Wu, is that an old hand?

SPEAKER_23

Oh, sorry, it was old.

SPEAKER_20

No problem.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_23

The next item is Arts 11 SA1.

It would request that the Office of Arts and Culture create both citywide and municipal arts plans, sponsored by Councilmember Rivera and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Nelson and Wu.

So this slide asks for two different plans.

The first is a citywide art plan, and that would request that arts works with city departments that receive funding for purposes related to arts and culture to collaborate on a plan that would govern arts and cultural investments across the city.

The plan is intended to address any arts funding, whether it be admissions tax, general fund, or jumpstart funding, and create a framework by which arts serves as a central repository of information for all arts funding that is being spent citywide.

The second part of the slide is for a municipal arts plan that includes specific information including how new projects for public arts funding are supported, comparing the size and number of new projects to the size and number of projects funded since 2015, explain how arts conducts outreach and community engagement, particularly to communities of color who are underrepresented in the arts and cultural sector, and provide an annual balance of unprogrammed funds carried over since 2015. to the extent that Arts has the capacity to do this work, it would be due back to the Sustainability City Light Arts and Culture Committee on June 30th, 2025.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

Colleagues, this is work that the department, all departments are required to do work plans, so this is requesting that arts do their work plan, and as part of their work plan, there to be the repository of the information from all departments that receive arts and culture funding.

And you know Seattle Center receives arts and culture funding, as does Seattle Parks and Recreation.

The funding that goes to those two departments as per the CHAIR'S PACKAGE IS GOING THROUGH THE OFFICE OF ARTS AND CULTURE, SO IT MAKES THE MOST SENSE FOR THE OFFICE OF ARTS AND CULTURE TO BE THAT REPOSITORY OF INFORMATION AND WORK WITH THEIR SISTER DEPARTMENTS TO GET THE INFORMATION FROM THEM AND INCLUDE THAT IN THERE AS PART OF THEIR WORK PLAN AND THE INFORMATION THAT THEY'RE PRESENTING to us and the public for that matter for transparency sake.

And then on the municipal arts plan via a former ordinance that council had created, these four items that Asha listed, thank you, Asha, were in the ordinance and they were supposed to be reporting on these from 2018 to 2022 yearly.

And that plan did, not actually happen.

They submitted spreadsheets that they considered this municipal arts plan, but it wasn't an actual robust written municipal arts plan that contain this information so this slide is requesting that information that's why it dates back to 2015 and that last point so that we can collect all this information and it's really a and a good governance piece in terms of the municipal arts plan which is the one percent for public arts program and then also the city-wide art plan is also a good governance transparency piece so and like I said I actually this is friendly amendment because I talked to the mayor's office and they're instructing the department to do this work anyway like I said as part of work plans that departments are required to do every year.

So, thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions?

Seeing none, let's move on to CARE 102 SA1.

SPEAKER_15

Yes, the next item on the Section D is CARE 102 S2, sorry, 102 SA1.

This is a statement of legislative intent that would request that the CARE Department coordinate with the Human Services Department to provide a written report to the Public Safety Committee by no later than April 1st, 2025, describing a plan to transfer contract administration and oversight of the city's contract with LEAD, Let Everyone Advance with Dignity, also known as Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, to transfer that contract administration from HSD to CARE.

This report would include information on the feasibility, cost, and anticipated timeline of this contract shift.

and any other relevant information on considerations necessary to ensure continuity of lead services and case management coordination.

This slide is sponsored by Council Member Moore and co-sponsored by Council Members Kettle and Saka.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you very much.

So as we know, I think LEAD has been a great tool for connecting people in crisis to services, and this would allow CARE and HSD to look at whether LEAD would be better able to connect people with services by moving to be under the CARE department rather than where it is currently housed in HSD, given that LEAD has really...

worked in and operated as a public safety resource.

And crisis care responders interact with persons who may be participants in LEAD, so this could also be a more direct and efficient way of using the LEAD services in coordinating.

So this is just to begin that exploration and that conversation.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle has co-sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Also, thank you, Council Member Moore.

Yes, we have been in contact both with Ms. Dugard at LEAD and also with Chief Arden at CARE, and from a Public Safety Committee perspective, I am supportive, obviously, as co-sponsor of this item, this Amendment 140. Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to FG104SA101.

SPEAKER_17

FG 104 SA is a slide that would request central staff to develop legislation to impose a professional services excise tax.

So there would be a 1% tax that would cover professional services, including but not limited to services provided by realtors, architects, accountants, and consultants.

The deadline for having this legislation developed would be June 30th, and it would be June 30th of 2025, and it would be responsive to the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

Oh, I love that committee.

SPEAKER_20

Colleagues, Council Member Morales has sponsored the amendment.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_26

Yes, sorry.

SPEAKER_20

You're fine.

It's only, I think we've only been here since 9.30 and it's like four.

SPEAKER_26

I'm sorry, tell me what item number we're on.

SPEAKER_20

We are on professional services excise tax.

SPEAKER_26

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

Tom?

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, yes.

So this item four and five are two slides.

And going back to the conversation that we were having this morning, the request is to ask central staff to develop legislation for two different items.

um, additional sources of revenue.

One is for professional services.

One is for the digital ad tax.

Um, and the idea is to try to generate another, um, well, the professional services as we heard from, uh, law, I don't know.

Our estimates are that the professional services excise tax has the potential to raise about $70 million a year.

The digital ad tax has the potential to raise about $20 million a year.

And so I think it is worth us considering to do this next year and see if we can add that to the mix.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

We'll have more time for discussion tomorrow.

Councilmember Sacco.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, we discussed a little bit of these earlier this morning, but I just want to note, you know, I mentioned earlier this morning that, you know, there are a number of items that I co-sponsored to elevate the discussion and be a good colleague.

And I just want to call out, this is one of those other ones, even though I'm not, you know, inclined to be supportive this year.

Although, I guess good news about this one and the one following, the proposal following that is they call for studies to to further study the issue than proposed legislation.

So in any event, just wanted to clarify.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Council President Nelson.

Just a point of information for me.

I don't understand why this is directing central staff to do something.

Don't we just ask?

I would like to know a little bit about that, but which is the executive department?

Would that be FAS?

Which department would ultimately implement a tax like this, and would coordination with that department also be good?

SPEAKER_17

I can address the second question and then turn it over to Director Noble.

So the Department of Finance and Administrative Services would administer the tax and the work that I would perform, likely me, would be in consultation with them and with the law department.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

With respect to the form of this proposal, Council Member Morales approached me with an interest in advancing these policy proposals.

In the timeframe that we had within the consideration of budget, it simply wasn't going to be possible to actually draft up the bills.

But her intent was ideally to move forward and implement them.

So we saw this as an opportunity for the council as a whole to express its perspective on whether or not these revenue sources were something of interest and worth pursuing and developing into legislation.

So it was really an opportunity for the council to speak its collective voice on these issues, or not, if you will, in the sense that there's a vote to be had here.

But that was the intent and the structure, which is perhaps a little bit unusual, but again, in the circumstances we had, I thought that was a good, essentially clean way to, if you will, just being direct, call the question.

And that is the intent, but having said that, I will leave to Council Member Rouse to say anything more.

SPEAKER_26

That is accurate.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council President, anything further?

SPEAKER_26

Nope.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore and then Kettle.

And then I'll give it back to you, Council Member Morales, for the last word.

SPEAKER_27

Oh, thank you.

I just wanted to say thank you to Council Member Morales for bringing forth this additional potential revenue source.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Chair Strauss, thank you.

My question, this kind of goes to a point I made not too long ago regarding CBAs and slides really being committee work.

Did you say that this would go to finance committee?

Did I hear that right?

That's correct.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, last word.

SPEAKER_26

I'm done.

SPEAKER_20

Okay.

Back to you, central staff, for item 141.

SPEAKER_17

142 sorry 142 is FG 105 s a 1 which is a statement legislative intent that would request central staff to develop legislation to impose a digital advertising excise tax In more detail this would impose a 5% tax on digital advertising services or ads on a digital interface including banner advertising search and their search engine advertising interstitial advertising and other comparable advertising services Similar to the prior slide, this would be due to the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee by June 30th of 2025. Thank you, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_26

Please see my previous remarks.

I spoke to this in the previous slide, so I'm looking for opportunity to have a discussion about additional revenue in the city.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, question Council President.

SPEAKER_02

I have a question about, would it be okay, I had my hand up, I have a quick question about the previous one.

Is that all right?

Sure.

How were those professions chosen for the service tax?

SPEAKER_17

I defer to the sponsor on that.

SPEAKER_20

Okay, I'm going to rein this back in.

Council Member Morales, as sponsor of the amendment, spoke to both amendments.

We've had time with central staff.

Clearly, the intent of these amendments will be to have further discussion next year.

With time of the essence this evening, I'll ask you to hold your questions until tomorrow or a future date.

Is there something burning right now?

SPEAKER_02

If we are going to be voting or signaling our support or opposition tomorrow, I just was thinking that that could be an important consideration.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Morales, are you interested in having the conversation today?

SPEAKER_26

I can talk with you offline and I'll be prepared to speak to you tomorrow.

Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, as you can see, Group D is a little bit more conversational than Group C. On to the next item.

SPEAKER_12

All right.

I'm here to talk about HSD 024A.

This would proviso $350,000 in HSD for a seasonal winter weather shelter in District 5. Council's intent is that King County Regional Homelessness Authority underspend, or let me say that in a clearer way.

Council's intent is that underspend from King County Regional Homelessness Authority's master services agreement, 2024 master services agreement with HSD would be utilized to pay for the CBA so that it would not impact existing programs or services.

KCRHA would administer this funding and should seek proposals in a manner that allow for a timely opening of a winter shelter in 2025. Funding should be used for proposals that meet the following criteria.

A seasonal weather shelter open continuously during winter months at a facility with the capacity to also be used as an enhanced day shelter.

and with a provider that has demonstrated expertise with coordinated entry into permanent housing, such as Lake City Partners.

Just as a point of comparison, KCRHA does administer shelters during severe weather on behalf of the city of Seattle.

They operate...

at least two, one at City Hall and one at the Seattle Center.

There are no severe weather shelters anywhere in North Seattle, and those are really severe weather shelters that are open temporarily during a period of severe weather, like extremely cold weather or...

COLD OR SNOW, SO USUALLY ONLY OPEN FOR A FEW DAYS AT A TIME.

THIS IS A DIFFERENT CONCEPT.

IT WOULD FUND A SEASONAL WEATHER SHELTER THAT WOULD BE OPEN CONTINUOUSLY DURING THE WINTER MONTHS AND, AGAIN, BE LOCATED IN DISTRICT FIVE WHERE THERE ARE CURRENTLY NO SEASONAL OR SEVERE WEATHER SHELTERS AVAILABLE.

SPEAKER_20

THANK YOU.

COUNCILMEMBER MOORE SPONSORED THE AMENDMENT.

YOU ARE RECOGNIZED.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you very much.

And again, thank you, Jen, for all your work on this.

And also, thank you very much, Council Member Wu, for co-sponsoring this.

I don't really have a lot to add to what Jen has said.

Just that this, we do, North Seattle does have a large homeless population.

And unfortunately, even though the city has provided free transportation to residents, Seattle Center during extreme weather many people don't take advantage of it because they want to remain with their their friends their community And so we're really trying to make sure that people are able to access shelter Not just on the coldest absolute coldest days of the year, but throughout the cold weather and that's why we're talking about a seasonal shelter and And also, the other benefit of a seasonal shelter is that it provides more time for people to be coming to the same place, establishing relationships that can then hopefully lead to helping people get placed into permanent supportive housing or some other long-term housing, which the Oaks and the right on the borderline at shoreline it runs god's little acre the day center and d5 has been very successful at doing so that's what sort of the additional benefit to having a seasonal shelter thank you council member moore councilman rivera thank you chair janet says there are no seasonal weather shelters open continuously anywhere is that right

SPEAKER_12

That's correct.

As I mentioned, KCRHA does operate on behalf of the city.

These are sort of made-up terms that I made up.

Severe weather shelters that are just open up for this very temporary period of time.

But there is no shelter in Seattle that is seasonal, that is open continuously through the winter months.

SPEAKER_03

And so if we were to...

I mean, I guess I have a concern about, it seems like this is something that would be needed in every district just across the city if it were going to be something new that's continuously going to be open.

And what does seasonal, what's the definition of seasonal?

Because severe weather, everyone knows it's a snowstorm or if there were a...

Storm of some kind or you know, and I know we do operate those and councilmember Morris I know we we travel around and we pick people up and we bring them there because I Had experience I've been in the city when we've had to do this so what I'm trying to say so this would be something a new service that we don't provide and

SPEAKER_12

I think it's fair to say we would be offering a service that is not currently provided.

I have heard that these seasonal shelters were done pre-COVID, but I don't know a lot about that.

But there is no currently sort of seasonal weather shelter open in the city.

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And so it seems like there would be some kind of gathering of information before we could really say where this should be located.

What should it encompass?

Where should it be located?

I guess I just feel like I need more information because, again, this is a need across the city.

And so I'm not even sure.

SPEAKER_12

And I think that this proviso is trying to solve two problems.

One is that there is just no severe or seasonal weather shelter in District 5 or in North Seattle.

So if somebody is unsheltered and needs shelter during even a severe weather event, like extreme cold or snow, they have to travel south.

Probably the Seattle Center is their closest location.

Then also...

Council Member Moore has found that she has a preference for a seasonal weather shelter that would be open up for that entire winter period in order to have those relationships and provide more opportunity to access service.

So it's doing two things.

SPEAKER_03

And is there one on the south end?

Because my understanding is it's just Seattle Center and City Hall is the two places we've always used.

So we're actually bringing people from the south, the west, the north to those places.

SPEAKER_12

I would have to confirm.

I do think there might be one in the south end.

I can try to confirm that for you.

But I believe in the past that there has been an additional one operated in the south end.

SPEAKER_03

That would be great, great information.

Thank you, Jen.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Any other questions?

SPEAKER_03

Not at the moment, thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna ask some questions of Jen and then Council Member Moore.

You tell me if I got it right or wrong, which is that we do have shelters in North Seattle and District 5. They are year-round, 24-7, non-congregate shelters.

I believe, and I could be wrong, that during severe weather incidents, whether it's heat or cold, that there is a severe weather shelter in Shoreline, but not in Seattle and North Seattle.

And I'm just being candid.

It's too far for the Ballardites that we've had this problem before.

And what I'm hearing is this is, and so this is where I need correction if I'm wrong, that this would be 24-7 non-congregate shelter that is operated for a series of months, for example, between October and March.

SPEAKER_12

I think it is fair to say this would be shelter that would be open continuously from some period that's defined as winter to be determined, not necessarily non-congregate.

I think it would depend on the facility identified and the budget that's provided through this proviso.

And then, yes, open throughout that time.

Exact hours, what that would mean, I think that's all to be determined.

It doesn't go into that level of detail.

SPEAKER_20

I'll just state I am enhanced congregate shelter that is accessible 24 seven with the ability to have a pet leave your belongings come and go is the closest to congregate shelter that I'm comfortable supporting.

Council President, I see your hand and then Council Member Moore will have the last word.

SPEAKER_02

Just, we keep saying there, we say severe, seasonal, et cetera, but does this also include hot weather or is this just in the cooler months?

SPEAKER_12

This particular CBA is only talking about shelter, this sort of temporary, whether it's seasonal or severe during the winter months, not to say that there might not be a need for summer, but this is specific to winter months.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, I'm going to pass it over to you for the last word on this amendment for the moment.

SPEAKER_27

So, yeah, let me just say, we need these shelters all over, but we desperately need a seasonal winter shelter in D5, and this would be preferably a non-congregate.

If you look at the way it's written, the provider...

A seasonal weather shelter open continuously during winter months, ideally November through March at a facility with a capacity to also be used as an enhanced day shelter and with a provider that has demonstrated expertise with coordinated entry into permanent housing such as Lake City Partners.

So we don't, I mean, we have a tiny house village a few tiny house villages in D5, we don't have, and we have a hotel, but we don't have this model in D5, and the fire department drives around and they pick up some people, but when I went down to the Seattle Center to volunteer down there, There were no D5 people there.

They just don't want to go because they're leaving their community.

So the providers in District 5, the God's Little Acre, the Mennonite Church, Lake City Partners, they've all said to me repeatedly, we need shelter up here.

We need seasonal weather shelter.

it would be congregate only to the extent that it would be enhanced congregate, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

And again, I would love to see this, actually see this as a model that we could utilize across the city that we could start, we desperately need to start in D5.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

We're gonna move on to the next item, HSD 35A1.

SPEAKER_15

HST35A1 would increase HST by $315,000 jumpstart funding one time in 2025 for youth violence prevention activities.

It would fund this by decreasing SPR by the same amount jumpstart funds one time in 2025 from funding that was designated originally for the Youth Connector Project, which is a new project one-time proposal included in the mayor's proposed budget.

IT WOULD IMPOSE A PROVISO NAMING SPECIFIC YOUTH SERVING ORGANIZATIONS TO GET THIS ALLOTMENTS OF ONE-TIME MONEY.

THIS IS SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER HOLLINGSWORTH, CO-SPONSORED BY COUNCILMEMBER WU AND COUNCIL PRESIDENT NELSON.

I WILL NOTE AS I MENTIONED EARLIER DURING DISCUSSION OF THE PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS, THE CONTENT OF THE SERVICES TO BE FUNDED BY THIS ARE included in Amendment 1, Version 2 to the Participatory Budgeting Legislation.

So should that amendment pass tomorrow, this CBA would be rendered moot, essentially, and maybe I'll let the sponsor speak a little bit more to that.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Councilmember Hollingsworth, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_21

Yeah, Mr. Johnson, well, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Johnson is correct.

This is included in the participatory budget with different types of funding source.

That was the concern for this because the funding source that this is coming from is the app The youth app for mental health services for kids to be able to find different resources within the city So we definitely don't want to be taking from that and so our hope is that we can be able to you know move this to participatory budget and This will be pulled from the agenda.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

I'd like the record to reflect It's 4 11 p.m.

The streetlights are on moving on to the questions comments None moving on to the next item

SPEAKER_15

HSD 36A1 would increase HSD by $100,000 general fund 2025 for contracted services to We Deliver Care and reduce the city budget office by $100,000 general fund in 2025. originally intended for payroll expense tax evaluation.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Wu, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Kettle and Moore, and this would specify that FUNDS BE DIRECTED TO WE DELIVER CARE FOR SERVICES, PUBLIC SAFETY ENHANCEMENT SERVICES SPECIFIC TO THE LITTLE SAIGON AREA OF THE CHINATOWN INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT NEIGHBORHOOD IN 2025 ONLY.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much, and thank you for my co-sponsors, Councilmember Kettle and Councilmember Moore.

As you saw over this weekend, there was a mass casualty event in Little Saigon due to the effects of what's happening on 12th and Jackson.

I believe there's been a lot of inequality when it comes to our response to that area.

And watching what we're seeing on 3rd, Pike and Pine, and the response and the resources going to that area, I believe we need something similar at 12th and Jackson.

And we saw, like, this weekend especially, a very violent event.

And unfortunately, this is not...

surprising for many people who work and live in that area, and so I think if there is time to act and there is time to have an appropriate response, we need a constant presence at 12th and Jackson.

We cannot depend on our understaffed police department, and I believe the work that we it works and it's something that this area desperately needs.

And so this was, I know there is funding in other parts of the budget for We Live Recare and LEAD to have a presence there, but in order to really tackle this issue based on the issue this past weekend, we really have to have a very strong response.

And so this is more funding to be able to get these teams to be based in that area and be present and actually be able to do that work to help relieve some of the situations that the business owners and the residents are seeing and feeling every single day.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Colleagues, any questions, comments?

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Chair.

So I know that Council Member Wu Kettle has a amendment to increase the, we deliver care by the $500,000.

So I'm wondering why for expanded services.

So can't this work happen out of that?

I mean, existing or what we're adding, if the budget passes, I don't understand the additional 100 For this service given we're adding potentially the 500 as an amendment Councilman Rivera good question.

SPEAKER_20

I'm gonna refocus as I see comes Maru has her hand to maybe answer the question I'm gonna refocus us to this is part of the discussion that we will have at the next Yes, exactly.

That's the appropriate place for this type of discussion.

Thank you still councilmember Wu if you'd like to speak to it.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, so Councilmember Kettle's amendment is expansion of We Live Recare to Belltown, 3rd, Lower 3rd, and the CID, which is a large coverage area.

And so I'm hoping to have a dedicated team in the CID to be able to be present at all times because the coverage area is very large.

To deploy these teams would take time to get to certain areas if they're needed.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Wood.

Sounds like, colleagues, you'll have a discussion offline.

The outcome we are trying to achieve right now is making sure everyone is aware of everything that we're going to vote on in the next 48 hours.

With that, let's move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_16

Ketel Freeman, Council Central Staff.

The next item is HST-039A.

This would increase HSD by $527,000 in Jumpstart Fund in 2025 and 2026 for homelessness prevention services and decrease SDCI by the same amount, $527,000 in Jumpstart Fund in 2025 and 2026 for tenant services.

It's effectively a transfer of funding from an appropriation, a proposed appropriation from SDCI to the Human Services Department.

The proposed budget would appropriate about $1.8 million for tenant services at STCI, of which $527,000 would be used for renter ears through contracts for eviction legal defense.

So this action would transfer that renter ears appropriation to HSD.

The intent is that a dispersal would be made to qualifying households upon notification of an eviction settlement, whereby the household that could be the target of an eviction action would remain housed.

This is sponsored by Council Member Moore, Rivera, and Nelson.

Thank you.

Council Member Moore is the sponsor of the amendment.

SPEAKER_20

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you very much.

So the intent here is that all rental assistance be housed in one place.

So currently, Office of Housing Rental Assistance through the housing levy, they have an MOU with HSD, so the money is housed with HSD.

HOPEFULLY, MY BUDGET AMENDMENT TO INCREASE RENTAL ASSISTANCE WILL GO THROUGH, AND THAT MONEY WOULD ALSO BE HOUSED AT HSD.

SO THE THOUGHT BEING THAT THE RENTAL ASSISTANCE MONEY THAT'S CURRENTLY IN SDCI, WHICH IS BASICALLY HOUSED WITH HJP AND CATHOLIC COMMUNITY SERVICES AS PART OF THEIR EVICTION DEFENSE package that they would no longer hold on to the money that money would be given to HST for the purposes of rent arrears settlement So that all the rental assistance and rent arrears money is housed in one place.

So what's contemplated is if HGP were to come to settlement on behalf of somebody who's looking at being evicted and They would notify HSD a settlement had been reached.

The terms of that settlement would require that the tenant be allowed to remain housed because what's happening now sometimes is that agreement settlement is reached but the tenant know they lose their housing so we want to prevent that from happening so it basically just keeps the money still can be used for rent arrears it's just that HS excuse me HDP or Catholic Community Services would need to give notification to each HSD to release the money for rent arrears based on a settlement agreement

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments at this time?

More time for discussion tomorrow.

Let's move on to HSD 40 SA1.

SPEAKER_16

HSD 40 SA1 is a statement of legislative intent that requests that the Human Services Department report on how best to distribute rental assistance to ensure maximum distribution to households at risk of homelessness or eviction or currently homeless or in eviction proceedings.

This will be a report to the Housing and Human Services Committee by June 30th of next year.

The report would refine the current RFP process that HST uses for the homelessness prevention services.

Among the requirements of the report, one of the attributes of the report would be a description on research on best practices for identifying and targeting households most at risk of homelessness.

or for who may need prophylactic services to remain housed, an explanation of how the approach in the RFP incorporates those identified best practices, the results of a racial equity toolkit, a description of outcome data that would be collected by successful organizations that compete for the RFP, and a timeline for releasing the RFP.

This is sponsored by council members Moore, Morales, and Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Morris, sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

All right, thank you.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Again, rental assistance is far more cost effective at keeping people housed than trying to get people back into housing when they've lost their housing.

I've heard from many constituents how they are unsure of what rental assistance is available to them and how to know where those funds are available.

211 is a very difficult system to navigate and 211 often doesn't have updated information.

So the point of this is this request would allow us to increase transparency for people in need of rental assistance and also allow us to maximize the number of households that are receiving this support.

And that's why I'm bringing this forward.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Colleagues, any questions at this time?

Seeing none, let's move on to HSD 41A1.

SPEAKER_16

HST 41A1 would increase appropriations to HST by $3.3 million of jumpstart fund for rental assistance.

It would be a one-time 2025 add.

There's approximately $4.6 million in the base.

Additionally, HST 001A1 would appropriate about $1.9 million in 2025 for rental assistance.

The CBA would bring that total to about $10 million.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Moore, Saka, and Morales.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Councilmember Morris sponsored the amendment.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Yeah, thank you.

I have too many of them here.

Anyway, thank you.

So this, basically, this amendment takes 3.3 million from the proposed jumpstart reserves and commits them to rental assistance to ensure we have approximately 10 million available in 2025 for rental assistance.

I want to note that the rental assistance increase that's in the balancing package, that money It was basically a technical representation because the housing committee had approved that as additional rental assistance.

So that money isn't necessarily additive to what we've been providing in the budget.

So this would actually add an additional 3.3%.

I would note that in talking to United Way, which does distribute a lot of rental assistance, they've said they have 5,600 Seattle residents on a wait list currently for rental assistance.

And these are not people who are choosing not to pay their rent.

These are people who are struggling to stay.

And they've also said that they would need a staggering $10 million to clear the backlog that they have in rental assistance.

So this is really effectively a drop in the bucket in terms of what we need.

And again, this is a way of identifying, making sure we have money for people to be proactive.

part of the slide is what's the best way to distribute the money.

That's also what's the best way to identify households before they get an eviction notice and to include not only rent, rent arrears, but also utility assistance in the what's eligible for rental assistance.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions on this item?

Seeing none, we're going to move on to HSD 42.

SPEAKER_16

HSD 42A would increase appropriations to the Human Services Department by $250,000 jumpstart fund in 2025 for Housing Connector and make a corresponding decrease in finance general for $250,000 set aside for World Cup preparation.

Proposed appropriation would be used for expansion of a pilot to develop a centralized real-time system to identify affordable residential rental vacancies for persons who are at risk of homelessness.

The council has identified Housing Connector as a potential entity that could perform this function.

This is sponsored by council members Moore, Saka, and Wu.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Morris, sponsor of the amendment.

SPEAKER_27

Yeah, again, Housing Connector is a nonprofit.

They do a lot of really good work with working with landlords and tenants, landlords to, again, sort of early warning signs for when tenants are in trouble and need people to reach out to them.

for rental assistance this would be expanding a pilot program for them to get expand their database so they have more information on vacant potential vacancies and properties they oversee so they can make sure that they're being filled and if people are in getting into trouble they have help thank you colleagues questions comments on this just say that the housing connector is a great program

SPEAKER_20

We will move on to the next item, Council Member Moore.

We have to have it right into the record.

Jennifer, if you'd like to.

SPEAKER_27

Chair, if I may point of privilege.

So this one, 150, so HSD043A1 and OH007A1, which is 152. I am going to be pulling these, so don't want to waste committee's time, partly because one is duplicative, really, of Councilmember Kettle's sly.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Love that.

Nothing like love like another meeting, but that's even better.

We'll go on to Item 151, then.

SPEAKER_24

Council Members, Tracy Ratz of Council Central Staff, OH005SA is a statement of legislative intent that would request the Office of Housing to deftly provide the City Council with quarterly vacancy data reports on city-funded rental housing projects.

This reporting would begin as of April 1, 2025, For background, OH currently collects vacancy information for the over 350 city-funded rental housing buildings, which contain about 18,000 units.

As part of the annual reporting requirements for such buildings, this review is done as part of OH's asset management functions.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore is sponsor of the amendment.

You're recognized.

SPEAKER_24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_27

I don't really have anything to add.

SPEAKER_20

That is because Tracy Ratzlaff makes hard work look easy.

Tracy, thank you for being at the committee table.

The most institutional knowledge in central staff.

Sorry.

No offense to anyone else.

SPEAKER_99

Got it.

SPEAKER_20

Let's roll on.

We are removing item 152, so we will move on to item 153, OPCD 4A1.

SPEAKER_06

Yes.

OPCD 401 would proviso $350,000 in OPCD's budget.

This is money added in the 2025-2026 proposed budget for a supplemental environmental impact statement related to zoning changes in the city's regional growth centers and urban centers.

The proviso would require that the EIS if OPCD pursues it, study a number of different topics related to home ownership as part of zoning changes that are analyzed in that SEIS.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Morales is sponsor of the amendment.

You are recognized.

SPEAKER_26

Thank you.

Thanks so much for working with me on this, Lish.

We talked a little bit about this in a previous budget meeting, but the idea here is to make sure that we're also looking at strategies to support legacy homeowners in staying in their homes, to support homeowners in redeveloping their property if they desire.

We've talked a lot this year about how individual homeowners could really benefit from some technical assistance, so the idea here is to help support homeownership by understanding What strategies can do that?

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you colleagues questions Seeing then we're gonna go on to item 154 154 is OPCD o o 5s a it's a statement of legislative intent Requesting the OPCD develop a plan to support small business economic development through the economic development through the equitable development initiative sponsored by Council Members Moore and Rivera.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

Again, this is asking the OPCD and the Equitable Development Initiative Advisory Board to work with OED to look at how they can better actually actualize on the priorities and purposes of the EDI initiative.

And one of that is equitable development.

So looking at how they can expand the eligibility specifically for small business small businesses that are BIPOC refugee and immigrant communities, both so they can purchase their own space, maintain that space, improve that space, and support, ongoing support.

And then also, the second part of this is looking at better communication between OPCD and EDI, excuse me, OED, all these acronyms, when they are building ground floor space, doing a better job with OED of getting those community groups into those spaces.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions?

Seeing none, we're going to move on to item, Council President.

SPEAKER_02

I do want to take this opportunity to express my support for this and it gets at my point that I've made at some point that we do need to do more to support small businesses, especially those that are owned and operated by people of color at risk of displacement.

So thank you very much for bringing this forward.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Moving on to item 155.

SPEAKER_07

Hello, item 155 is Seattle City Light 001A1.

This would proviso $1 million in the City Light fund for the Pinehurst Underground Cable Replacement Project.

Specifically, the language of the proviso would say of the appropriations in the Seattle City Light's 2025 budget for the underground equipment replacements CIP project, 1 million is appropriated solely for the survey, condition assessment, and preliminary estimates.

for the replacement of failing underground power cables in the Pinehurst area and may be spent for no other purpose.

This $1 million proviso would be out of about $28 million in the 2025 budget for that CIP.

It is sponsored by a customer, Moore.

excuse me, and it is also co-sponsored by Council Member Sanka and Council Member Wu.

I want to offer up a clarification in the composition of this in my work with CBO last week.

There's a statement saying that this proviso would not delay or negatively affect other areas of this work.

Just today, as of around three o'clock, I had clarification of CBO saying that there would be some clarification, and Council Member Moore, you and I have not had a chance to talk about that, so my apologies.

communicating with with staff and trying to sort of like you clearly have been busy obviously right but because that is new information I wanted to flag that in and bring that to your attention I can offer up more details but I'll stop there and take questions and also let the sponsor talk about her amendment council member Moore you are recognized

SPEAKER_27

Hi.

Well, again, I'm speaking without the benefit of the most recent information, but Pinehurst has seen hundreds of power outages in the last few years, and this replacement is essential to ensure that community has reliable access to power.

Pinehurst does have a high number of...

you know, lower middle to lower income households.

This area also includes much of the 130th Street station area, which is about to open next year, the light rail.

And also we expect to see significant increase in density up there under the comprehensive plan with the new proposed Pinehurst-Holler Lake Urban Village.

So really just what this would do is proviso a million dollars to begin the preliminary investigation and study so that we're making sure that that's happening in a timely manner.

It's not bumping them ahead of the other groups that are currently given priority.

It's just to make sure this work begins sooner rather than later.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

If I might.

sure director i think i think i have a thought that may help um address some of the new new information that's been provided so i uh eric has while i've been sitting here including me on some exchange the the information from city lighting correct me if i had this wrong eric indicates that much of the work that you had intended for this million has potentially already been done um but So an approach here could be to leave the proviso to approve this action with less of intent that the money would get spent for that, but rather for City Light to confirm that that work had been done, at which point the proviso could be lifted and then the dollars redirected to their otherwise intended purposes for this year.

But again, that's sort of on the fly, given what we've learned in the last, for me, last 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_27

Great.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

This is a very important issue to me and to you, Chair Strauss, too, since we do share Magnolia, but particularly for lower Queen Anne and areas of Queen Anne that have been suffering major power outages on a regular basis with increasing frequency.

In this area, contrary to some of the stereotypes placed by others around the city, there's a lot of elder care facilities, a lot of Seattle housing authority locations, more than pretty much any other neighborhood.

And again, contrary to stereotypes, an area with many renters.

And I've been in contact with City Light CEO Don Lindell on this.

We've had discussions regarding the buried infrastructure problem, which is huge, by the way, which is a whole different topic that the city does not really appreciate and understand.

But we can't take away this crucial work for the Queen Anne and Magnolia community that is suffering from ever-increasing outages.

And as I understood from talking to my staff that, yes, this would be a potential negative impact on the work for the Queen Anne community.

So based on that, absent of anything that the central staff director can come up with, my recommendation is to vote no on this due to the impacts of another neighborhood here in the city, Queen Anne and Magnolia.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_27

Again, this may have changed, but when I put this forth, it was not going to bump Magnolia or Queen Anne out of its top priority.

It was simply to begin the preliminary work for Pinehurst.

SPEAKER_07

I just want to confirm that we carefully, Central staff, put the question to CBO in very plain language, let them review the CBA to say, are these statements true?

I really do believe that the My counterpart and CBO was acting in good faith at the time with the information that he had.

And so what you said is a true statement.

We have new information today that you didn't have the benefit of before just now.

So I just want to confirm that.

SPEAKER_20

Okay.

Thank you.

This is the reason that the outcome of today's meeting is to make sure that we all know what we're going to vote on on a different day once we've slept again.

Okay.

No further questions on this item.

We're going to move on to item 156 of 164 at 4.37 p.m.

SDCI 005A would increase appropriations to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections by $456,000 in 2025 and $456,000 in 2026.

SPEAKER_16

That comes from two sources, Jumpstart Funding and General Fund.

and make corresponding decreases to the Office of Economic Development in 2025 and 2026, so $456,000 in 2025, $456,000 in 2026 for downtown activation plan activities.

The 2024 adopted budget appropriated 2.5 million to SDCI for contracts and grants for tenant service organizations.

The 2025-2026 proposed budget would appropriate 1.8 million This CBA, together with STCI 002A, would restore funding for tenant services to 2024 baseline levels.

That 2024 baseline does not include the one-time appropriations made for rental assistance that was made in 2024. This would result in decreased appropriations to OED and would partially reduce funding for dap activities including westlake park activation south downtown intergovernmental coordination and support to the metropolitan improvement district thank you sponsored by council members morales hollingsworth and more

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_26

Thank you.

Colleagues, we've been hearing a lot, including last night, about the critical need for more tenant services, or at least to maintain our baseline tenant services so that people don't get evicted, don't get into disputes with their landlords.

And so this is an attempt to restore that.

the funds for tenant services and provide education for landlords and tenants on city regulations, on outreach, on eviction legal defense.

And I will say, I know Council Member Moore, I co-sponsored some of her amendments related to HSD.

I do think that there is an important role to play for SDCI in some of these tenant issues.

So I do want to ensure that we have funding there and I will say shortly we will be submitting a walk-on amendment.

I might as well just say that here so that everybody is getting information at the same time.

But I do think it's important that we make sure we are at least achieving baseline tenant services in the city and that's what this is intended to help do.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

You are bringing a walk-on amendment for which item?

SPEAKER_26

Not for this item, but to support increased tenant services.

SPEAKER_20

Okay.

SPEAKER_26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_20

Do you want to share more?

Sure.

Let's actually just do that at item 165 that doesn't exist yet.

So I'll come back to you at the very end if you want to talk about it.

Fine.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_16

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Awesome.

We're going to go on to 157 at the moment.

SPEAKER_16

All right.

157 is a proviso, STCI 006A.

That's a proviso on appropriations to STCI for tenant services, grants, and contracts.

It's actually two provisos.

The first proviso would limit spending from the compliance budget summary level at STCI for tenant services, grants, and contracts to appropriations for education of tenants and landlords on landlord-tenant law, staffing a live tenant hotline.

referrals for and assistance with securing rental assistance, mediation, interpretation services, and eviction legal defense.

So no other expenditures would be permitted under the proviso.

The second proviso relates specifically to eviction legal defense.

I'll just go ahead and read the proviso.

The appropriation for tenant services, grants, and contracts in the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections compliance budget summary level for eviction defense legal proceedings IS LIMITED TO CLIENTS WITH INCOMES AT OR BELOW 200% OF THE FEDERAL POVERTY LEVEL AND MAY BE USED FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE.

INCOME VERIFICATION CONFIRMATION MUST BE SUBMITTED QUARTERLY TO STCI.

SO THAT PROVISO WOULD BRING EVICTION LEGAL DEFENSE IN LINE WITH OR MAKE IT CONSISTENT WITH FEDERAL AND STATE INDIGENT DEFENSE STANDARDS.

THIS BUDGET ACTION IS SPONSORED BY COUNCIL MEMBERS MOORE, RIVERA AND SACA.

SPEAKER_20

THANK YOU.

COUNCIL MEMBER MOORE IS SPONSORING THE AMENDMENT.

YOU ARE RECOGNIZED.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

This is just to make clear that the tenant service dollars are to be used for tenant services hotline, landlord-tenant law education, connection to rental assistance, mediation and interpretation services.

as well as eviction defense.

And in terms of the eviction defense, so currently HJP, Catholic Community Services, their eligibility criteria is somebody says they can't afford a lawyer.

The funding comes from the State Office of Civil Legal Aid, and their standard is the federal and state indigency standard, which is 200% at or below the federal poverty level.

So this would simply make the city's eligibility law the same as what the state is requiring, as well as what the federal standard is for indigent defense.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions on this item at this point?

Mr. Freeman, did I hear you correctly?

There are two separate provisos within this one budget action, is that correct?

SPEAKER_16

That is correct.

SPEAKER_20

Okay, thank you.

Seeing none, let's move on.

SPEAKER_02

Did I miss the other one?

SPEAKER_20

You just, maybe, Mr. Freeman, if you could reiterate the two different, I heard you, but...

SPEAKER_16

Sure, I'll go ahead and read the first one.

I think that one may be the one that you're inquiring about, Council President Nelson.

So the first proviso would be as follows.

Of the appropriations for tenant services, grants, and contracts in the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections compliance budget summary level, all appropriations are solely for education of tenants and landlords on landlord-tenant law, staffing a live tenant hotline, referrals for and assistance with securing rental assistance, mediation, interpretation services, and eviction legal defense and may be spent for no other purpose.

So that was the first proviso.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Council President, did that answer your question?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_20

You're good to go?

Great.

Seeing no other questions, we're going to move on to the next item.

SPEAKER_19

The next item is SDOT 101A1.

It is a council budget action to eliminate unsecured funding in SDOT for the Culture Connector CIP project.

The Culture Connector, also known as the Center City Streetcar, is a project to connect the South Lake Union Streetcar with the First Hill Streetcar through downtown Seattle.

The project was halted in 2018 due to cost escalation and has been on pause ever since.

The project most recently had a cost estimate of $410 million identified last year, which included $74 million utility relocations and $90 million for structural upgrades to bridges, areaways, and roads to bear the weight of the streetcar.

And this $410 million was included in the CIP as a 2030 unsecured funding commitment.

This proposal would remove that reference.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle, the sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Colleagues, the story of the First Avenue streetcar is a long and troubled one to the point that this has become a zombie project.

The timeline started here in Council in July 2014. As Mr. Chau noted, in March of 18, the project was halted by then-Mayor Durkan.

There are too many questions about the true cost of this project and the risk to taxpayers, which is why we must put the brakes on this project, Mayor Durkin said in a press release.

As your new mayor, I will continue to scrub our budgets and act to protect taxpayers.

And this was quoted, I took from the Urbanist article by Mr. Trump back in March of 18. From the third month of the Mayor Durkin's administration, now we're at the end of Mayor Harrell's third year And in a very thorough additional urbanist article, this time by Ryan Packer, earlier this year on January of 24, he noted that the project was on hold.

And SDOT was quoted at this time, there is no change to the status of the project.

This came up as the report, as Mr. Child noted, that the costs have soared to $410 million and could take seven years to complete.

So back in 17, it was $177 million.

It was quickly over $200 million, with disputes over operational costs of $8 million.

By 18, it was $252 million.

By 19, it was $286 million.

By end of last year, it was $410 million, as noted in the article, which represented a $43 billion increase.

And by 2030, I will no doubt this one project would equal one-third of the recently passed transportation levy of $1.55 billion.

Over the course of the timeline, there's been so many issues that have hobbled this zombie project, as noted the longer and heavier streetcars, challenges with the maintenance facilities, challenges with roads and bridges, litigation that we've seen due to the fact that the rails have created unsafe conditions for bicyclists, and not mentioned are the geography and topography impacts of the fact of the slope down on the west side of First Avenue.

As you know, you can't take a left or right off Western or Alaskan Way up to First Avenue, and this creates unique and difficult logistical challenges.

So in summary, the First Avenue streetcar has never had a viable operating capital proposal.

Of course, it's lifetime with the past decade.

We have never had an operations plan with operating costs.

Initially was told it was gonna pay for itself.

Here's the thing, it was never discussed of the idea of opportunity costs.

If we didn't have the zombie project, could we have a unique bus service right now along first connecting the stadiums in Seattle Center with Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market in between?

Could we have had additional road work done in Pioneer Square matching the road work done recently to connect the stadiums, Pioneer Square and other road links from the waterfront project into downtown?

Back in 2014, we didn't have an ST3.

We have definite understanding now of ST3.

Also, we didn't have the rapid ride lines that we have now for those that have been constructed and are currently being constructed.

We need to leverage this opportunity to look at our new public transit posture, the levy, and look at how streetcars can contribute or not contribute.

We need rethinking on the core design assumptions.

We need a rethinking of the options, perhaps 3rd Avenue.

As you know, 3rd Avenue only has one way to go, and that's up.

And, you know, there's only been one central staff memo on this.

This is from August 2nd of 2019, authored by yours truly here, Mr. Chow at the table.

AND HAD A NUMBER OF COUNCIL CONSIDERATIONS.

IT CONCLUDED WITH THE COUNCIL MAY WANT TO REDIRECT A PROPOSED $9 MILLION OF THE MERCER MEGA BLOCK PROPERTY PROCEEDS TOWARD OTHER TRANSPORTATION PRIORITIES AND DISCONTINUE WORK ON THE CENTER CITY STREET CAR.

BOTTOM LINE, YOU KNOW, that this is a zombie project.

And sadly, to quote the quotable quote on this, is that the first avenue streetcar is really no way to run a railroad.

So colleagues, I ask for your support in this CBA.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Did you say August 2, 2019?

SPEAKER_13

Yes.

Or was it 18?

Sorry.

SPEAKER_20

I've wrote a few.

SPEAKER_13

He's been here so long, we forget.

SPEAKER_20

Colleagues, questions on this item?

Seeing none, we're going to keep moving along.

SPEAKER_19

Excuse me.

Item S.102SB1 is a CBA that requests that SDOT provide a plan for terminating, excuse me, it's a SLI, requesting that SDOT provide a plan for terminating Southlake Union streetcar service, decommissioning the Southlake Union streetcar assets, and identifying alternative Southlake Union transit options.

It's offered by Councilmember Saka, co-sponsored by Councilmember Moore and Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Saka, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I may, Cal, may I ask you to comment on your initial reactions on how you see this proposal and the immediate pass proposal tying together, if at all.

What is the relationship between those, if at all, from your perspective?

SPEAKER_19

Probably the strongest pitch for the Center City Streetcar has been to connect the South Lake Union Streetcar with the First Hill Streetcar to have one streetcar system.

That was the original proposal to try to make it a more efficient one system.

Removing, if there is no Center City Streetcar, it means that the South Lake Union Streetcar will always be operating on its own and have to kind of on the performance that it provides.

So the South Lake Union Streetcar was originally focused as primarily an economic development tool for the South Lake Union area.

It was originally proposed more as an expansion of the pedestrian experience, the walk shed of the area.

and later became more of a thought of a streetcar network.

And as we've moved into other streetcars with the First Hill Streetcar, we've done more to do additional sort of transit considerations in those types of projects.

The idea with the Center to See Streetcar was to do even more of that, but we are where we are in terms of the cost estimates for that project.

But I think that's about all I can really say about it.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Gail.

No, that's very helpful.

These are very separate and independent proposals, but as chair of our city's transportation committee, I need to look at things not only from the district perspective, but from a citywide transportation network perspective.

And as we heard, one of the most compelling justifications for building the First Avenue streetcar would be connecting the other two networks.

And, you know, if what we're going to do is effectively put the kibosh on the First Avenue streetcar and, you know, acknowledge its zombie and put it out of its zombie misery, which there are many valid reasons for, as Councilmember Kettle noted a moment ago, least of which include the fact that this is explosive costs.

It's gotten unwieldy and out of hand, let alone some of the design challenges and other things that were noted.

But from a citywide transportation network perspective, these are inextricably tied together.

And So on the proposal for the retirement of the streetcar, so If we completely eliminate the First Avenue line, it puts more pressure on the performance of the other two lines.

And we know, unfortunately, and we learned in my transportation committee meeting earlier this fall, September, I believe, that the ridership numbers for the South Lake Union streetcar line are fairly abysmal and anemic and have an all, unlike the well-performing, First Hill Streetcar line, it hasn't really picked up, unfortunately, since the pandemic.

And...

There's a number of reasons for this.

And kind of double-clicking on what we learned, one of the primary justifications for building the streetcar in 2007, as Cal noted, it was an important economic development tool for the South Lake Union area.

It was intended to drive foot traffic, spur development and innovation in the area.

And, you know, that is...

Amazonia that is that is a biotech hub of not just the Pacific Northwest, but I think the entire country and and you know, there's so Very very successful in achieving its original goal with respect to that so that's the first important factor that happened since it was originally constructed and developed in 2007. The second thing, unanticipated at the time, there's been a rapid growth and expansion by Metro of redundant lines of service in the South Lake Union area, from Route 40 to Rapid Ride C line and others.

There's been overlapping service and some overlap and redundancy when we're talking transit is generally a good thing.

There's been a lot in this specific area and unfortunately at the expense of the streetcar.

And what all that's amounted to is an underperforming streetcar.

People are actually excited about taking some of these other transit investments.

Our city is spending millions of dollars each year to operate the South Lake Union streetcar.

And so what this proposal calls for is a thoughtful plan to help us better transition and move away from the South Lake Union streetcar Two, transit options that people are, we know, are delighted to take.

And expanding, so it's a direct, it's intended to be a direct one for one transit for transit investment.

Swapping out the South Lake Union streetcar for expanded transit service, namely buses.

And increasing reliability and expanding the service of those other transit options in the area.

Again, this calls for a thoughtful approach and allows us to better plan to do this right.

And I also note that under Sound Transit's proposal, that South Lake Union streetcar, if we did nothing, it would effectively be mothballed for at least eight years, as I currently understand the current projections.

So this helps us thoughtfully plan and retire.

And I'm not agnostic about, should we cover streets?

Should we cover the tracks?

I think we need to keep it safe for cyclists, regardless of what we do.

But We need to have a plan, and this would enable that.

And I ask for your support.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Council Member Kettle, I see your hand, but I'm going to ask that we save discussion for tomorrow if that's all right, unless there's something really urgent.

Noting that we have five more items.

It is three minutes to five.

Council Member Moore and myself have in-district events that begin at five that we cannot miss and were not scheduled by us, nor did anyone ask us if we could attend.

But...

The outcome that we are trying to achieve right now is making sure that everyone knows what they will be voting on in the coming days.

We don't need to go beyond that.

Up next is 160. Cal, back to you.

SPEAKER_19

This item is SDOT 104SB1.

It is a slide requesting that SDOT provide a report on performance measures and evaluation criteria that SDOT uses for consideration of bus-only lanes.

It's offered by Councilmember Nelson, co-sponsored by Councilmember Saka, and Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Councilmember Nelson, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_02

All right.

So this slide asks SDOT to provide a report documenting the performance measures and evaluation criteria that SDOT uses when considering bus-only lanes on SDOT corridor projects outside of regional centers, such as the – and two examples of these bus-only lane projects are Route 40 – which goes along West Lake, over the Fremont Bridge, up Leary and points north, and also the Rapid Ride R line along Rainier Avenue to the south of us here.

So why this slide?

Because it's Council's job as the city's oversight body to understand and ideally support SDOT's rationale for installing bus-only lanes or any infrastructure that makes significant changes to the public right-of-way.

And that's particularly true when constituents reach out to us with concerns about existing or anticipated impacts of a bus-only lane.

Yesterday, council members received a letter signed by the National Nordic Museum, Ballard Alliance, Fremont Chamber of Commerce, Pellington Properties, and the North Seattle Industrial Association, in fact, expressing concern.

These organizations are concerned about SDOT's plan to turn one lane of the North End's most important freight corridor into a bustling lane 24-7.

And I'll just read the line from the letter.

It says, the baseline for new transit investments should be robust community conversation and localized data that demonstrates SDOT's desired outcomes will truly improve local connectivity and efficiency.

And so they have been asking for information about the rationale for this project.

And just in specific, the report would contain information such as existing transit ridership and projected transit ridership after the bus lanes are installed, expected travel time savings using non-aggregated local data, impact on general traffic capacity and congestion using local data, freight access and mobility considerations, and impacts to adjoining small businesses.

So it's always flattering to be included in the group that has the most controversial budget items, but I don't think that asking for this kind of information is controversial at all.

And I would urge your support.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Council President.

Nobody said that this was controversial, just that it has the most amount of discussion.

We noticed in Group C, everyone pretty much said yes.

Group D, there's a bit more discussion.

Council Member Saka, I am going to continue moving us along at this time.

Thank you.

We are going to move on to the next item, 161.

SPEAKER_19

Next item is SDOT 107B1.

It is a proviso on $1 million of transportation levy fund in SDOT for transit security services.

It is offered by Councilmember Saka with support from Councilmember Rivera and Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Councilmember Saka, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So this is an important transit security investment.

And recall, colleagues, that in the proposed balancing package, we authorized $1 million for transit ambassadors, basically a friendly face, uniform presence to help people with wayfinding, and connect people and just be a friendly presence on transit and at key transit stops, which is a terrific idea.

And that can often serve as a deterrent as well when we're talking transit security.

What this proposed amendment would allow and enable is to allow us as a city to unlock the full spectrum of security and safety response and interventions.

And so borrowing, I suppose, for a moment from The distinguished lady from the Central District, her PIE framework, prevention, intervention, and enforcement, I think, you know, one way to look at it would be ambassadors or generally, like, great prevention agents and personnel.

And so what this would allow would be additional funding, $1 million from the levy recall there was $9 million in the recently approved levy for transit security, and it would use $1 million of that specifically for some of the I and the E, if you will, some of the intervention and enforcement if needed.

So contracted security services, and in King County Metro Police if needed as well, so This is the full again.

This is this is a full spectrum to meet our many diverse needs of security response capabilities to meet the many diverse needs of Our citizens our residents the riders of transit and and proud that it's been supported and by it is supported by atu local 587 because who are, by the way, the bus drivers.

You know, this helps drive and improve a safe, secure experience for all.

So I ask for your support.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Let's read item 162, please.

SPEAKER_19

The next item is S.107-SA1.

It is a slide requesting that S.

provide a report on implementing transit security improvements, services, and policy.

It is offered by Councilmember Saka, co-sponsored by Councilmember Rivera and Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Saka, did I just call you Council Member Kettle again?

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

It is past 5 p.m.

Council Member Saka, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Remind me, which item are we on?

We are on, which item are we on?

Let's play that almost live game.

We are on 162 S.107SA1 Sly S. Transit Security Sponsored by Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, so this kind of goes hand in hand with the aforementioned financial investment.

So basically calling on a plan and, well, an assessment really, less of a plan at this stage and more of an assessment of the current state of things, understanding best practices with the ultimate end goal, ideally to align on a regional approach to transit security.

And so first critical step in helping achieve that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Moving on to item 163, please.

SPEAKER_18

Council members, Greg Doss, central staff, and I know you are very happy to see me today, and I'm happy to be here to close us out for the day.

SPD 109 SA would request, it's a slide that would request that SPD study childcare options for sworn employees.

It would request that SPD engage with a consultant to study such options as recommended by the chief and in accordance with the goals of the 30-30 initiative.

It is a slide that is more of a statement of legislative intent than it is a request.

It is the council's intent that SPD notify the members of the Public Safety Committee when the consultant is hired and when the study is complete, although there are no reports that will be due to the committee.

So as such, it has no due date.

It is offered by Council Member Moore with co-sponsors Council Member Saka and Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_27

Yeah, thank you very much.

I don't really have much to add.

Greg has laid it out.

SPD is already talking about scoping, entering a scoping agreement with a consultant.

I really just wanted to make that public and give them additional support for that effort.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

We're gonna move on to item 164, the last item on this.

And then council members, I'm reading my script for tomorrow and I see that we have five walk-on amendments that have been distributed before 5 p.m.

And so I'd like to take those up now.

Council Member Rivera, you've already addressed yours.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

So we will then turn over to Council Member Morales, Council Member Wu, and Council Member Moore to walk us through what they're thinking for tomorrow.

But we are now on item 164.

SPEAKER_18

All right, item 164, the last on the list today before the walk-ons is SPD111S-A, and that would request that SPD report on automated sound enforcement technology.

There's a couple things that this slide would look at, and that's first how this technology would work to combat illegal vehicle noise through the use of camera and microphone systems.

And then also the policy considerations of using the technology, including how SPD would determine which Seattle neighborhoods would benefit from the technology.

This particular slide would be due to the Public Safety Committee on July 15th.

is offered by Councilmember Sanka with co-sponsors of Councilmember Moore and Councilmember Kettle.

SPEAKER_20

Councilmember Sanka, you are recognized.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So this one, as was noted, thank you, Greg, would just call for an assessment to examine what...

perspective deployment of automated sound enforcement technology would look like in Seattle.

And it's a well-documented issue from impacting districts or in neighborhoods across our city, from Belltown to Alki Harbor Avenue to all over in the north end, too.

I'm told from having conversations with the mayor, the mayor's office and SPD that we received 911 calls for excessive noise in Kirkland and the east side of Lake Washington for excessive noise in Seattle.

And so today, we have the technology to manually detect excessive noises and potential violations, but not the automated capability.

And obviously, with our officer staffing shortages, even though we have that manual detection, we don't have the staffing to enforce and carry it out.

Just calling on a study for what prospective deployment in the city of automated sound enforcement technology could look like.

Thank you.

I ask for your support.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

We are going to, at this time, move into discussing the walk-on amendments.

Council Member Rivera, you've already shared yours.

Council Member Morales, you have two.

Council Member Wu, you have one.

And Council Member Moore, you have one.

Again, colleagues, I am not going to be very excited about having to suspend the rules tomorrow.

So if you do have a walk-on amendment that did not meet the 5 p.m.

deadline, I will give you this opportunity TO DAYLIGHT YOUR IDEA AND I WILL ALSO STATE THAT I MAY BE IN CONSULTATION WITH COUNCIL MEMBER MORE ABOUT THE AMENDMENT AND B, I MAY ASK TO SUSPEND THE RULES TO to fix that amendment because I think the space between us is so small, it's not even funny.

So with that, I'm going, Council Member Rivera, you've already briefed us on your amendment.

Thank you, appreciate that.

We're gonna turn to Council Member Morales.

You have two walk-on amendments.

Can you brief us just on the first one?

Yeah, how much detail do you want or about the same levels as we've just dealt with?

SPEAKER_26

Okay.

So yes, I have two amendments The first is to restore tenant services and STC I And What else

SPEAKER_20

Where's the money coming from?

SPEAKER_26

Okay.

So here, let me just open what I have sent as PDFs to everyone.

So this would increase proposed appropriations to the Department of Construction and Inspection by 527 in 25 and 527 in 26 to increase funding for tenant services, including rental assistance administered in conjunction with eviction legal defense.

It would propose a decrease in SPD for 527 in 25 and 527 in 26, specifically for the civilian positions at the real-time crime center.

It wouldn't remove authority.

It would just not fund them.

Let me get back to my email.

The second is to increase parks by a million dollars in 2016. and restore the 7.35 FTEs to restore the environmental programming at Discovery Park and Carkeek Park, and would reduce SPD spending by a million dollars in 26 for the same, for nine FTE to the real-time crime center.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Council Member Wu, I believe that you also have a walk-on amendment.

Would you like to brief us about what it is, where's the funding coming from, and how much are we proposing to spend?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, this is an amendment to SBU-008-A-1 that provides for 238,000 GF and SBU for sanitation services in Little Saigon.

Just got a correction from community members that this original ask was for the entire Chinatown International District, not specifically just for Little Saigon.

And so my amendment is to change Little Saigon to address the entire Chinatown International District.

Evidently, originally, the CADBA was receiving $200,000 from the Downtown Activation Fund for sanitation services.

That was eliminated, and so this is their request, asking for that amount for similar services in sanitation for the entire district, which comprises of three neighborhoods, including Little Saigon.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

And Council Member Moore, it's my understanding you have a walk-on amendment.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

I actually have two.

Okay, thank you.

The second one is furiously working to address what you talked about on the, sorry, tiny house villages to make it clear it applies to all non-congregate with the exclusion of hotels.

My other one is to Council Member Morales' renters work group to expand that to include renters and landlords of small, medium, and large and non-profits and to come together to work to create a healthy and sustainable rental environment for the city.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Colleagues, the opportunity.

Any more walk-on amendments?

This is how we stay in good graces.

All right.

I'll pass it back to central staff for just a minute.

I am making an executive decision about start time tomorrow.

We are going to start at, I will open the committee at 9.30 and immediately go into recess for an hour.

and this is going to allow us to clean up some of the discussion that I heard here because it's now after 5 p.m.

I'll work with central staff to understand if we need to take another recess or if we will start right at 10.30.

There was a lot that we got through today.

As you can tell, section D isn't the longest list, it is the longest time of list.

And so I wanna make sure that when we get into those challenging conversations, We have the space to have the discussion so that people feel like and know that they have the information that they need to make informed decisions and that they're able to speak on items on the record.

In the past, in what was, what is D, what was previously C, oftentimes every single council member would speak to every single item and it took hours.

And that is the work.

For the walk-ons, if they are tied to another amendment, for instance, Council Member Rivera has an amendment that is tied to an existing amendment and Council Member Wu has a walk-on amendment tied to an existing amendment, we will take those at that time or coordinate that way.

For all other walk-on amendments, we will have Section E and we will take them at the very end.

And so that's how we're going to move forward here.

With that, Director Noble, Deputy Director Ho, any final remarks before I adjourn?

SPEAKER_11

Excuse me, just to comment, I think that's a wise choice in terms of delay.

As we've been sitting here, we've been watching various proposed language options get bandied back and forth, and a little time to sort through everything I think is wise.

SPEAKER_20

Yep.

I think that we should prepare to vote on Group D on Friday.

So tomorrow, look, if we speed through everything at rapid speed tomorrow and we get to D early in the day, we'll take it up.

But if not, we're gonna do groups A, B, and C tomorrow, which should still take the majority of the day.

So just wanna prep everyone for where we're at.

With that, if there's no further business before the committee, the Select Budget Committee on November 13th will be adjourned.

Hearing no objection, the committee is adjourned.

Oh, that's not the right list.

We've reached the end of today's committee agenda.

The next Select Budget Committee will meet again tomorrow at November 14th at 9.30 a.m., where the Select Budget Committee will be voting on items presented today.

Verbal public comment will not be accepted at tomorrow's meeting, and members of the public may continue to submit written public comment at council.seattle.gov.

Is there any further business to come before the Select Budget Committee before we adjourn?

Hearing none, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_99

Thank you.

Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 11/13/24 Session II

Speaker List