I called it in and we are ready to begin on April 8 2019. Thank you for being here for a regularly scheduled council briefing Before we bring up our state legislative team.
I just want to give a brief description on the excite exciting application process for the vacant council member position And I have a document I'm going to hand out, which is just a preliminary list of applicants.
And so let me sort of give a summary to you and the public and sort of hot off the press, because I haven't even looked at this document yet.
So the application deadline was Friday, April 5th.
The city clerk received 15 applications.
And preliminarily, we believe 13 are eligible, and particularly eligibility based on the residence requirement in the district.
for District 4. The City Clerk will distribute a binder of the qualified applications to Councilmembers no later than tomorrow.
The application materials for the application will be posted online tomorrow as well, early if it's possible, but the deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday.
A news release will go out later today to describe the eligible candidates.
Let me just sort of walk through the chronology again, if everything goes as planned.
First, there will be a public forum on April 12th, which is Friday at 530, the Bertha Knight Landis room in the The purpose of the public forum are to involve community organizations, activists, residents, businesses, whoever feel as though they're vested in the District 4 to participate in a public forum for them to give input and receiving feedback from the candidates.
We've received a few interested organizations.
I think the NAACP are interested in participating as well as the, I think the Transit Riders Union.
And they had some questions, so I'm assuming based on their questions, they're interested in participating.
So the deadline for organizations sort of, the thought was that organizations were going to drive this for, but we didn't seem to have a lot of interest.
And so we're going to show some flexibility if some community organizations still want to sort of drive it.
But it's going to be held in the Bertha Knight Landis room, April 12th.
We've asked Brian Callahan right now as sort of a default person.
I don't want to call him a default, but he is the host of Seattle Channel and he'll sort of moderate it.
But the thought is we'll have tables with organizations.
We'll have all of the candidates there and truly have a rich conversation between community members and the candidates.
So that's Friday.
We'll have a special City Council meeting on Wednesday, April 17th here.
And that's where these applicants will have a public presentation.
They'll have time to talk to us.
We can ask them questions and it'll be the public discussion, if you will, on us reviewing these fine individuals who have applied.
And then on April 22nd on Council Chambers, we'll have a public vote and We'll see sort of where that leads, and I think all of you know if we cannot reach a majority vote on a candidate, we keep voting until we get one.
So hopefully we'll start that process, maybe end it on April 22nd, Monday.
The format for the public forum is still sort of being worked out, but At this point, we're looking at, of course, the general format, introductions by the applicants, many questions, giving them ample time to respond, the usual kind of Q&A, but certainly to give them an opportunity to explain their positions, why they're interested in applying.
So all, again, the process has been publicly posted.
I just sort of wanted to describe that it's triggered today with, and let me pass this out while I, Describe that this is just a preliminary list just take one and pass them on down of The of all of the people even those that we think preliminarily are not eligible Yeah, just I think it's a two-page document Okay, I'm gonna Yes, please questions, so did any community organizations apply to organize the Friday forum I Not necessarily to organize, but to participate.
And so what we're trying to do is gauge the interest level and what participation means.
And so the two I mentioned, the NAACP and the Transit Riders Union, they just ask questions.
And if I'm reading between the lines between their questions, perhaps they want to play a stronger role.
So we'll flesh that out later today.
That is a new process.
The whole public forum process is a new ordinance.
And so the last time we had a great turnout of community organizations.
So no is the short answer, not applying.
That's why we said we better have a default plan.
And we did a lot of mailing to a lot of organizations, I think over 34 organizations, on trying to see who would be interested.
So folks were notified of the opportunity to apply to organize.
And you said you, we reached out to 34 organizations.
I believe, I don't want to misstate the process there.
More or less.
I know that the clerk and our staff complied with the ordinance and so I'm assuming they did.
But the bottom line is if the word is not out as strong as it should be, we'll continue to get it out because Quite candidly, we're trying to have that process community driven.
Do you have organizations you know that want to apply?
No, but I think I got the same email that everybody else got from the Transit Riders Union questioning whether or not folks knew in advance of late last week that there was this opportunity.
So for example, the question where the changes made last week, no, the public forum allocated to each other posted online Monday morning, March 25th.
Will there be a public forum?
Yes, there will be one on April 12th, 2019. No one's really applied to participate in the development of the forum, but the NWCP did mail us on Friday, April 5th, asking to be part of the forum.
So if there's any interest, quite candidly, we'd rather have the community drive that.
But in the absence of that, we'll make sure we have a rich forum.
And again, if Katie's following this discussion.
if she wants to play a role in helping organize this, or even getting the word out.
I mean, in my opinion, we have time to organize that forum.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
We just have to have as much participation as possible.
And we can even change the format around the day before to make sure that we get meaningful participation from the candidates and the organization.
Okay, any other questions?
Everybody good on that?
Okay.
Oh, Mike, let me repeat the whole process in here for Councilman O'Brien.
We'll do a preview of today's full council actions after we bring up the team.
So if there's nothing else on that process, why don't the team come forward and we'll have a legislative session update.
Good morning.
Lily Wilson-Kodega, the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
Sarah Gill, State Relations Director.
Christina Post, State Lobbyist.
And we have less than a month left in the regularly scheduled legislative session.
20 days.
Things are moving very quickly at this point.
More Mondays.
Not that anyone is counting on this side of the table.
And at this point, both chambers are in the process of reconciling their operating capital and transportation budget.
So things will continue to move quickly.
We are also quickly approaching the fiscal committee cutoff deadline tomorrow, so we should see some additional movement tonight and then tomorrow, but I'm going to actually turn it over to Karen, who's going to do some budget highlights before we dive into individual portfolios today.
Good morning.
So as Lily mentioned, we are less than three weeks out from signing DYE.
Last week, we saw a lot of action on the budget side.
And I think it was our first indication that, and rumors started circulating that there might be special sessions.
So we're continuing to monitor those conversations.
We sent out some relatively detailed outlines about what was included in all the different budgets that were considered on their initial proposals.
And I know that several of your offices had followed up about some specific projects that you had been working on.
So if you do have any questions about specific allocations or whatnot, please reach out.
And I'm happy to confirm whether or not something has made it through this stage.
On the operating side, as Lily said, they are in the negotiations phase.
Each chamber has passed out their versions of the budget and are going through negotiations.
Same with the transportation budget.
The capital budget is the only one that hasn't moved off of the Senate floor at this stage, so we're anticipating that.
potentially today or early this week, and then they'll continue with the negotiations on that.
On the revenue side, there's a lot of conversation happening about that.
I'm sure you saw that both of the budgets would rely on a tiered real estate excise tax, so that would be changing from the flat real estate excise tax to the REIT that we have now.
The proposals are slightly different.
The Senate has a lower threshold, so for I think it's under $250,000, there's a lower rate, and then it kind of tiers up to higher-priced homes.
In the house, I think the higher tiers, there's a higher rate for homes that sell over $1.5 million, and then a higher one for $1.7 million.
So those are anticipated to bring in some of the revenue that they would potentially be considering to balance the budget.
Capital gains, the House budget does rely on a capital gains tax.
The Senate is considering a capital gains, but the budget is not reliant on it.
So what that means is that if they were able to pass a capital gains at their proposal, that they would use that money to offset taxes for lower income families and middle class families.
Again, all of that will be negotiated through the negotiation process, and I wouldn't say that there is a clear path for either of those proposals at this stage.
So, lots being considered right now, and we will keep you guys updated as all of those things continue to move through that process.
Any questions about the budget before I move on to education?
So on page 3, House Bill 2158, that's the workforce education legislation that was put forward by Representative Hanson.
And this kind of follows along.
This is another one of the House revenue bills as well.
And this would eliminate the state need grant and replace it, state the whole thing with, I think they're calling it the Washington College Grant Program.
And what that would mean is that they were going to make it an entitlement.
So right now, the state need grant is funded just if the state gives a chunk of money, then it's kind of just spent down.
And there are still students that are needing these services above what the state is able to allocate.
So the House is proposing to put forward a B&O surcharge on a variety of different places that would bring in revenue that would make this a dedicated funding source for higher education.
So really interesting, a little bit different than the way that the Senate put it forward and it has a higher threshold.
I think that the House proposal would be for families at the 70% of the median income and that the Senate was 50. So there is an additional need on that side.
But the bill was scheduled for executive session last week and it was not moved out.
So we're continuing to monitor that.
But it also included this large higher education proposal included our that the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship Match, and that was something that we had been working on that would help local governments that were interested in participating in the higher education space, that they could receive a state match to help stretch those dollars even further.
On page four, Senate Bill 5313, this is regarding the school district levy lid.
I know I bring this up every single time, but as you know, McCleary, they had changed the way that the school districts were able to collect their local levies.
And specific to Seattle, this created some pretty significant budget hardships on our school district.
They're anticipating a $40 million budget shortfall in the coming year.
So a lot of the conversations in Olympia have been about how they would expand that, if they're going to lift that lid to allow the school districts to collect more.
I asked a quick question on timing on that.
What's the expectation?
Is that going to pass this year to allow the school district to do that?
I think we'll see something, but again, that's all speculation.
Part of what I wanted to talk to you about today was that in the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week, following the executive session of their operating budget, there was a little bit of a blow up with the bill.
This is about 1.30 in the morning, and there were two amendments that were hung on the proposal.
One that would allow some of the education dollars to go towards charter schools, which is a pretty contentious issue in Olympia.
And additionally, it would put some pretty significant restrictions on collective bargaining for teacher salaries.
And that those two amendments were needed in order to move the bill out of committee.
And again, the House does not have this in their proposal.
And it's similar on what the local levy lid lift would be accomplishing.
But now the Senate proposal does have these pieces that are going It's a significant challenge and it will create some additional challenges for the budget negotiations.
WA has been all over it and has been lobbying very hard to have a lot of those pieces removed, but they were on the same page, the House and the Senate, and now they're on different pages.
And with this just being such a contentious issue because of the timeline that a lot of these school districts are looking at, that's one of the things that we think would potentially be putting us in the realm of needing a special session.
Council Member Swann has a question.
I just sort of remind us that I'm trying to keep today's agenda a little tight because we have a levy meeting at 1030 scheduled.
So Council Member Swann.
Thank you, President Harrell.
I'm sorry if you already mentioned this and I missed it, but did you say that one of the significant amendments that was needed was around charter schools?
And if you can just elaborate on that very quickly.
Yeah, I guess it would depend on who you ask whether it was needed.
It was a Democrat that put it forward, but it would allow some of the state dollars to go towards charter schools.
And some of the Democrats were.
Who put it forward?
I think it was, I want to say it was Mullet.
Mullet and Palomba were the two that put them forward, but I don't remember who put which forward.
Could you, and could you, just offline is fine, but could you just email me the substance of the amendment?
I'm happy to.
And maybe if there was any discussion around it, that would be useful.
I think, I was at 1.30, so unfortunately I did not watch it, but I did read a couple of recaps.
I should have watched it.
But I think that there was just some acknowledgement that a lot of people were unhappy with it and had felt that this was what was needed in order to move it out of committee.
And acknowledging that this is such a significant budget problem for some of the school districts, that they were willing to have those negotiations later.
But I'll be happy to provide you the link of when and what time it was up, if that would be helpful.
Moving on to environment, and I'll try to speed it up.
Sorry, guys.
Starts on page 6. 1512, that's on page 7. This is our, this is City Light's top priority bill this year, and this would allow them to have some authority in the electrification realm.
We were happy to see that that bill was pulled from the Rules Committee last week, so now it's on the second reading calendar, and we are awaiting Senate floor action.
On page 9, Senate Bill 5993, which is the Model Toxics Control Act Bill.
We haven't really talked about that much this year, but I know it's come up quite a bit in the last few years.
But this is the big proposal that's been put forward that would make adjustments to the hazardous substance tax.
As you are all very much well aware that the Model Toxics Control Account has had a lot of issues with fluctuating gas prices.
And some of the money has been kind of removed from the account over the years.
It's gone to the general fund.
So there's been some conversation about helping to refill the account by making these adjustments.
And so they're proposing on considering a hazardous substance tax on on like per barrel.
And this would raise some significant additional revenue for projects that are eligible for MATCA dollars.
This is particularly important for the city of Seattle because we have two very large projects that are coming online.
That's the East Waterway and the Lower Duwamish.
And they have, they would be eligible for Medial Action Grants through the Department of Ecology up to about, it's almost like $5 million in this next budget cycle.
And those monies do not exist without this revenue.
So really important that we're going to keep talking about how important that is for us and that was put forward by Senator Frocked.
In general government, and I'll go quickly through this one, on page 10 of the Duke House Bill 1403, this is the B&O apportionment formula adjustments, the simplification of it.
I've mentioned that FAS has been really involved with the Department of Revenue and Association of Washington Businesses to kind of help simplify the apportionment formula.
Everyone, there was consensus language that was put forward and currently in the rules committee.
Wrongful death, Senate Bill 5163 on page 12. It has moved out of its committees in the House.
It hasn't officially been referred to rules yet, but I'm anticipating seeing that today.
Additionally, on page 12, Senate Bill 5376, that's Senator Carlisle's Consumer Data and Privacy Bill.
That was one about how consumers' information is shared and their rights on being able to control how it's used.
It is scheduled for executive action today in the House Appropriations Committee.
about the arena tax it's on page 11 and it's the second item down does this allow deferral and it just has to be paid by the end of the 10th here correct that's the house what's happening in the Senate you know yeah it's being considered in the Senate right now it had a public hearing last week I don't believe it's been exact yet but I that there were we're monitoring it very closely thank you
Good morning.
I'm going to touch on a few health care bills for you.
One I wanted to share right off the bat.
It's on page 13. It's House Bill 1039. This would mandate that high schools and districts greater than 2,000 students and allow for others under that threshold to obtain and store opioid overdose medications to assist in an opioid-related overdose.
Part of this also requires that OSPI develop guidelines for use and training for the public schools and school districts.
Unfortunately, this is something that really is needed right now.
We're encouraged that it continues to move along there with a public hearing in Senate Ways and Means on the 3rd.
So we'll keep you apprised of any changes there.
Yeah.
Quick question.
Yeah.
So this is naloxone, right?
So this is overdose?
Yeah.
Has anybody looked at the possibility of bringing in buprenorphine?
I'm not sure the specific medication has been identified.
I know there are kind of at least a few that are out there.
So I think that would be part of the OSPI training and program overview process.
What we've seen is, Matt, the medically assisted treatment, how important this is.
So if we're doing one thing in the high schools, I'd love to see if we can expand.
So can you keep me posted?
Yeah, I'll look into that.
Thank you.
Moving on to page, let's see, to page top of 15, 1870. This is the Affordable Care Act protections.
So this would put key patient protections such as banning pre-existing conditions, exclusions from the Affordable Care Act into state law.
So this bill has passed both chambers and is now headed to the governor's desk for a signature.
We're really excited to see the progress that was made on that this year, a big bill.
Let's see, and also I wanted to talk briefly about The 1523, which is on page 16, that's the governor's requested public option bills.
This includes establishing a public option called Cascade Care and would establish standard plan design for health insurance plans sold on the health care exchange.
I know you have quite a few years invested in this one, Council Member Mosqueda, and looking into other options to control costs, such as cost-sharing reductions.
So the Senate version is being exact today, or is being exact in the Senate.
The House version today also in ways and means.
So simultaneous votes going on today.
We're eager to see the outcomes.
Any other questions?
Trying to roll through this quickly for you.
All right.
Housing and homelessness, so that starts on page 17. 1406, our favorite bill, the local option bond bill continues to move along well.
There was a public hearing in committee last week, and Emily Alvarado from the Office of Housing came down and spoke.
She did a really great job.
Her comments were really appreciated there.
Now we're just kind of continuing to vote count in ways and means to see where we think, who we think we need to really work on.
The mayor has been making phone calls advocating for this bill as well.
We're just continuing to work with stakeholders and find out how we can be of assistance or maybe where we need to back off sometimes.
But this is a big priority for a lot of members.
So our only concern as it moves through Ways and Means is they might lower the rate.
just they did that last year.
I do think we've done a lot of coalition building and education going into this session around this bill.
So they're less wary of it coming their way.
They've known it for a long time, but we are just keeping a very close eye out for them to kind of fiddle with it a little bit.
And that would really yield a lot less money that we'd be able to use in our communities.
And then, sorry, two pages of notes here.
So the top of page 18, the prevailing wage bill.
I know a lot of you probably heard what happened last year.
So under the 2018 law, it ended up, well under, so okay, provides the prevailing wages for residential construction are established by wage and hour surveys.
So what happened was there ended up being a different rate for residential versus commercial construction.
This was a big problem.
So there were quite a few meetings between the speaker and key legislators who work on labor issues.
So this would actually fix that problem, which we knew was going to be a big one.
And it did pass, it went through the concurrence vote this past week with 93 yeas, zero nays, and five nays.
excused.
So we'd say that's a win.
I also wanted to touch on page, sorry, I usually am a little more organized than on this one.
18, the homeless student support.
This was a bill that was prime sponsored by Senator Frocked and requires each K-12 public school to establish a point of contact within their own school and the building to identify and support homeless and unaccompanied homeless youth.
We know the number of homeless youth in our schools is growing and growing.
This would allow them to have a designated person to go to for assistance on a wide variety of issues.
The bill also includes changes to two grant programs that currently support students experiencing homelessness.
And it was heard before House Appropriations on April 5th.
We expect a vote shortly.
May I ask a question?
Please.
On this particular bill, how does the legislation define homelessness?
I don't know off the top of my head.
I apologize.
I can get that to you.
I don't know if they already have a current definition within OSPI.
I imagine one probably exists, but I can let you know.
So I think in this particular area, so through our families and education levy here at the city, this is a new area of investment for us as a city in the levy package and the implementation evaluation plan that's being considered in my committee.
We are proposing a focus on students within the K-12 system that are experiencing homelessness be defined as housing unstable.
So about 64% of the students in the Seattle public school system that are currently experiencing homelessness are not actually homeless.
They are experiencing housing instability.
In most cases, that means that they are doubled up.
So they are sleeping on couches.
There are doubled up families.
They're still experiencing housing instability, but they're not actually experiencing homelessness.
And that is, again, about 64% of the Seattle Public School population, it falls into that category.
So we, in the implementation and evaluation plan for those investments at the City of Seattle, are proposing focusing on that particular portion of the population, because that is the largest population.
And that's the most common way that students experience homelessness within the public school system.
So I would really encourage us lifting those facts up for legislators in Olympia to make sure that they understand that defining homelessness the way that the McKinney-Vento Act defines it is going to leave a lot of kids behind.
The McKinney-Vento Act unfortunately requires you to be actually experiencing homelessness in order for you to access particular benefits as a result of that.
So I want to make sure that we're not aligning the definition tightly to what the federal law does because that will not meet the full needs of most students who are currently experiencing homelessness.
Yeah, and I know an ongoing conversation that keeps happening, and it has for years since I worked down there, is that we can pump a lot of money into schools and into improving our teacher salary and building safer schools for our students.
But a student can't learn unless they know where they're going to sleep that night and where they're going to get their food that night.
It's just not a sustainable situation.
So I can tell you those conversations are ongoing, and I'll be sure to bring that up.
Thank you for that.
And my office has a lot of research around this particular point.
And Vy Nguyen in my office is the lead on this issue.
So if it would be helpful to have those data points, please reach out to my office.
We're happy to provide that.
I'll be bugging her shortly.
Great.
Thanks.
And then I wanted to also talk about a bill that we, it's a little bill that could, it kept getting knocked down and keeps coming back and we're very proud of it.
It's 5946, it's that SEPA exemption for city-sanctioned encampments and shelters.
It came out of the Senate with a couple problematic amendments, mostly not permitting the use of alcohol, I'm sorry?
Which one is it?
5946, so it's on the, It's the last bill on page 19 for housing right before public safety.
Apologies.
And it came out of the Senate with problematic amendments, such as a prohibition on alcohol and drugs typically used in these.
It would have really prevented us from doing our own contracting with our own service providers.
Proximity to schools, the schools definition is so broad as to include early learning centers and daycares.
And we did a lot of great work with Representative Fitzgibbon and Senator Nguyen before it went through Fitzgibbon's committee and all of those nasty amendments came out.
So we're very excited about that.
And it's still chugging along.
So now it's in rules.
I'm really, really proud of this one.
I think it's one of those great bills that can have an immediate impact on our community.
And then lastly, while I'm in housing, Council Member Herbold, I would love to, I know we keep talking about doing this, but I'd love to call your office and schedule some time to talk through tenant protections, probably early this week.
just to make sure I have all of the information that you were trying to get across.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
The update, it sounds like, on the eviction reform bill is positive, moving forward?
Yeah, everything's moving forward.
All right, great.
Well, yeah, I look forward to having those conversations.
Great, thank you.
Before we move off of housing, though, can I check?
I didn't see notice or mention in the housing section.
I quickly looked through some of the others, thinking it might have been somewhere else.
None of the property tax exemption bills move forward for seniors?
Yeah, we have one.
We do have one.
They're in the budgets, too.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you.
And that's for seniors and for veterans as well.
And it's allowing local jurisdictions to...
Yeah, it's tied to county median income.
Oh, sorry.
It's actually, it's 50-51-60, so it would modify the qualifying income thresholds for low-income seniors, individuals with disabilities, and veterans with taxes to be levied in 2022. It adjusts the disability rating qualification for the veterans property tax exemption to 80%.
And it's in rules right now.
And I would just flag, in addition to that, that the way that the House and the Senate are looking at them, the big point of conversation is the date that it becomes active.
Because if it goes in after, like before 2022, that there's some revenue that they have to fulfill on the state side because of the way that the McCleary property tax fix went through.
And if there aren't any final questions in the housing portfolio, Council Member Muscata, did you have a question?
Well, my two favorite bills.
1923, did we get a brief update on that one?
Yes, it's continuing to move along.
I did want to note that the folks probably received this magazine regularly, Governing Magazine.
They did a feature on a piece that Washington State is considering, including 1923, and underscored what this council has been talking about over the last few weeks, how important it is to have those state partners as we lift the floor for creating housing options and density throughout our states and cities truly are relying on these state partners.
So I thought it was just a great opportunity to mention it because it came out this morning and they also talk about our ADU legislation as well.
Yeah which passed out of house local government so that's in great shape and that bill has been a really great effort to focus on a policy discussion and a policy goal and it's really brought a lot of people together.
And moving on to the public safety section, I'm going to start on the bottom of page 18 with some of the council's significant priorities that are continuing to advance, including rape in the third degree, House Bill 1002 sponsored by Representative Orwell.
This would eliminate the requirement that a victim clearly express lack of consent in order to prove rape in the third degree.
That passed the House unanimously and it also made it out of Senate law and justice and has already moved to Senate rules.
Sexual assault notice House Bill 1016, also on the bottom of page 19, sponsored by Representative Caldier, would connect survivors to providers and put penalties in place for hospitals that don't comply with the referral requirements.
Excuse me, that is actually an update.
There were some concerns from the hospital association around some of those penalties.
The $2,000 penalty has since been removed in this version of the legislation.
I know that's probably disappointing to several of the council members who've mentioned the importance of accountability in this bill, but I do think that the advocates feel strongly that continuing to move it forward without a major stakeholder opposing will be important and understanding that changes will likely continue to be pursued in future sessions and it sounds like also at the local level.
Sexual assault, House Bill 1166, on the bottom of page 20. Another representative Orwell proposal would address the backlog of untested sexual assault kits in Washington State.
That's a remarkable bill, just given the fiscal implications and the level of support that it's received at this point, passing the House unanimously on March 6th.
It was also exec out of law and justice and has moved to Senate Ways and Means.
Then on the top of page 21, I'll move to domestic violence law enforcement This is a representative Jenkins proposal that would require law enforcement officers Secure firearms when responding to domestic violence calls that passed the house 60 to 38 on March 5th Passed out of Senate law and justice on the 2nd and has also been referred to rules.
So a lot of movement there and then A bill that Councilmember Juarez, in particular, has been very active in advancing in the middle of page 22, House Bill 1713, sponsored by Representative Mosbrougher, would create training and liaison positions to improve best practices relating to missing and murdered indigenous women.
We've also followed up with Representative Mosbrougher around Councilmember Gonzalez's suggestion around coordinating with the county medical examiners.
So we'll follow up as soon as we hear back from her.
And then death penalty elimination, very exciting policy.
I had a chance to touch base with Councilmember Bagshaw in the elevator this morning.
Towards the top of page 24, that's Senate Bill 5339, sponsored by Senator Carlisle, that would eliminate the death penalty in statute following the Supreme Court ruling that found the death penalty to be arbitrarily applied and racially biased.
That bill passed the Senate 28 to 19 on February 15th, was exact out of house public safety on the 1st, and has been referred to house rules.
And the governor has announced publicly that he will sign it.
So some exciting movement there.
And then just briefly, I'll try to move through these quickly, recognizing the time constraints today.
Under safety net and civil rights on the top of page 25, Representative Hansen's New Hope Act or Certificates of Discharge, House Bill 1041. This would address barriers to employment, housing, and other obstacles by expanding eligibility to vacate certain non-violent criminal records.
We've done a lot of work with Council President Harrell on looking at how to address some of those issues systemically.
So this is a great step in the right direction.
That passed the House 95 to 0 on March 1st and the Senate unanimously on April 3rd.
So very exciting unanimous support there.
Agency employees harassment house bill 1692 in the middle of page 26 would put disclosure protections in place for employees reporting sexual harassment That bill also passed the house 98 to 0 was exact out of Senate government and tribal affairs on the 22nd and referred to ways and means and then finally wage and salary information also towards the bottom of page 26 house bills 1696 sponsored by representative Dolan would expand on the last session's equal pay victory by prohibiting employers from asking about a former pay history, and that passed the House 56 to 40, passed out of the Senate Labor Committee, and has also been referred to rules.
Lastly, I will just highlight the LGBTQ commission on the top of page 27 that would establish the commission within the governor's office.
That bill is still moving, having passed the Senate 34 to 14 on March 6th.
probably having a lot to do with the letter that Councilmember Juarez authored and got some great responses around as well.
If I can speak just for a moment, I just want to thank you for all your hard work.
We did have some wonderful conversations with Senator Wilson, and we sent a letter as well, and it was really, really nice talking to her and learning a lot more about the impetus behind this and how we're moving forward and how we're going to get funding for this commission.
So thank you.
Absolutely.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Karen to touch on some of our transportation priorities.
So scooters, 1772, that moved out of Senate transportation last week.
There were some amendments that were put on the bill.
These were brought forward by the insurance industry.
The main focus of it was essentially some disclosure information for some of the drivers and the insurance requirements about that.
I don't think this was everything that they had wanted to see in that amendment-wise.
So our understanding is that interim conversations will continue.
The bill will likely continue and it's currently in the rules committee.
I don't see any big challenges standing in front of it right now, but the issue will likely come up again over the interim.
So we'll engage in those conversations when the time comes.
And this isn't in the transportation section, but I did want to talk about automated enforcement.
I know there's been a lot going on with that one.
So the bill itself technically is not alive in the House.
It failed to be pulled to the floor from the House before the House of Origin cutoff.
We attempted to revive it in the Senate by doing a budget proviso in the Senate transportation budget.
Senators Nguyen and Saldana were very gracious and put the amendment forward.
We were hoping that it was going to pass through, but unfortunately it failed to hang and was not adopted into the budget.
So we are now looking at alternatives and we are potentially looking at making our bill in the house necessary to implement the budget.
One of the budget proviso concepts that we were working on put a revenue sharing concept in there so that some of the revenue that would be generated by this enforcement would go towards pedestrian safety programs at the state.
So we're moving that concept back into, attempting to move that back onto the House side in an effort to make it necessary to implement the budget.
So it won't officially pop up as being alive again because it would have to be pulled from the Rules Committee again, and then it would be amended on the floor.
So you won't officially see it.
see action until that happens, which is still quite a significant lift.
But we've, I know several of the council members have been very involved in helping us with some of the stakeholder concerns and fingers crossed on this one.
I also just wanted to publicly acknowledge the work that Councilmember O'Brien, Gonzales, and Mosqueda have done to keep this moving as multiple different formats.
And the Disability Rights Washington Coalition and Rooted in Rights folks have been amazing.
They are incredible partners in this work.
really appreciate the ACLU's willingness to engage with us as this moves forward, understanding those mobility concerns and balancing that with a lot of privacy concerns.
So we appreciate the council's letter, the correspondence from the mayor's office as well.
We are very hopeful that we can continue to move this forward this session, understanding some of the issues with the period of maximum constraint and the need for that mobility right now.
So we'll continue to let you know about opportunities to engage with various legislators and will likely need your help.
Very good.
Council Member Muschietti, you're grabbing your mic.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thanks for the summary again.
Good luck in the last 20 days.
I hope it is 20 days and that you don't end up in special session.
One bill that died in the Senate Rules Committee that I think is unfortunate and I think does relate to transit, though I think the previous time I brought it up I related it to labor standards.
is Senate Bill 5457. This is the bill that would help to make sure that as bids are going out for contracts, we don't allow for the sort of underbidding of contracts.
We have a lot of union partners who are wanting to create the roads and the bridges and the bike lanes, right?
in our communities and we want to make sure that when these good bids go out for contract that we're not creating a disincentive to hire high quality laborers by creating the ability to underbid and that's exactly what's happening right now.
So the bill would have made it impossible to actually underbid these contracts and I understand that WSDOT was opposed to the bill.
Given that this may come back next session I'd love to talk with them the interim and see if SDOT is being a good partner as well and how we can maybe get to a place where underbidding doesn't occur because we wouldn't want that for any of the RFPs that we send out.
We wouldn't want people to devalue what we're valuing as public officials with the public dollar.
wanting to make sure that we're paying good living wage jobs and investing in union work.
So this would amend RCW 3930-060, which is explicitly allowing for this type of underbidding to happen.
And if it is to be resurrected in next year's session, we'd love to work with you all on that.
It's a big priority for the iron workers as well.
Thank you.
Very good.
And you got my email on going out.
Yes.
We'll happily work on some draft remarks as well.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
I think that's a next Thursday.
I'll testify.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Go get them.
Um, just very briefly, we do have an executive session after we go around the table and do a preview of today's full council actions.
Uh, cause my horrible, I did get a little information that, uh, we did send an email out to 35 organizations.
Probably could have it went out.
I think Tuesday the second And could have gotten out a little earlier house, but we're still trying to not do a hard cut So we're trying to stimulate some interest from community organizations Okay, so we have a short agenda this afternoon.
I think just four or five items primarily appointments.
So this shouldn't take too long But we're gonna start with council members want and go down there the table here, but it'll take long watch for all of you
Thank you, President Harrell.
Good morning, everyone.
There are no items on today's full council agenda from the Human Services Equitable Development and Renters' Rights Committee.
The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for its regular time, which is tomorrow, Tuesday, April 9th at 2 p.m.
At that meeting, we will hear from the Human Services Department, who will be reporting on the results of their homeless investments for the last year.
Thank you.
Oh, Councilor Juarez, I saw you had a newspaper there and everything.
Council Member Juarez.
Usually this newspaper means something, so okay.
I will be brief.
I will try to.
The Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee met last week.
We've had two reappointments to the Board of Park Commissioners that were voted out of committee.
That would be Mr. Huntley and Ms. McCaffrey.
The next meeting of our committee will be Wednesday, April 17th at 2, and we have planned for a shorter agenda to accommodate for our libraries meeting to follow at 2.30 that same day.
Today after council briefing we'll go on to our next meeting for the select committee in the library levy and that's for issue identification.
Asha at Central Council will be walking us through the brief memo she sent to everyone last week.
This meeting will be, the next meeting will be this Thursday April 11th at 530 where we'll hold a public hearing in council chambers.
Last Thursday evening the Seattle Police Department hosted a town hall in response to the Lake City shooting, a tragedy in our community.
which, as you all know, happened two weeks ago.
I normally don't do this, but I want to do this today because we are still healing this whole city, not just the north end.
I want to just quickly, again, say the names of those that we lost and those that were heroic.
We have Eric Stark, who was injured.
Our local hero, the driver of the Metro bus route.
He's 75 years old, and despite his wounds, he drove a filled bus away to safety and focused on his passengers.
None of the 12 passengers were injured.
Mr. Stark has been with Metro since 2012. We also had Deborah Judd, who was injured, and I'm sure many of you read in the news.
She is from Lower Hurst Elementary.
She's a Lower Hurst Elementary school teacher, I'm sorry.
She was actually shot three times in the arm, the shoulder, and the lung.
But she took the time to communicate to her students that she would be fine.
She's been teaching for over 30 years.
She loves her students and knows how traumatizing it can be for seven and eight-year-olds to process violence.
So her focus on them demonstrated nothing short of generosity, bravery, and love.
And of course, we lost Dr. Bob Hassan.
I had the opportunity to meet, I was honored to meet some of his family members last Thursday night.
Dr. Robert Hassan was a retired physician and an Air Force colonel.
He traveled the world.
He has two brothers.
He died of a gunshot wound to the head while driving his car.
He leaves a wife, a child, and grandchildren.
And last, we have Mr. Lee, which is unfortunate.
He was 75 years old, and he was also killed when the CESA crashed into his vehicle.
And so with that, we've been working very closely with the North Precinct.
We've been working closely with our new captain, Captain Sano.
And of course, we have been having meetings at the community center with our chaplain as well.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.
Councilmember Herbold.
Thank you so much.
There are no items from the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, Arts Committee agenda today at the full council meeting, but we do have a committee meeting tomorrow.
At our 9.30 a.m.
creative meeting tomorrow, we have our fourth meeting on the Public Accommodations Council Bill regarding closed captioning.
This will be, although it's the fourth meeting on the topic, it's the third since the council bill was introduced.
We will also be having the first discussion on the appointment of Mariko Lockhart as director for the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.
I'll be happy to share with each of you the responses to the questions that were prepared by myself, central staff, Some council members contributed questions, and I also met with each of the four commissions to solicit their questions as well.
We'll be receiving a briefing on the Only in Seattle Neighborhood Business Districts program from the Office of Economic Development, and we'll also be getting a work plan briefing from the Seattle Arts Commission.
And then finally, also from the Seattle Arts Commission, will be hearing an update on that department's arts and cultural districts update.
Today we will, at full council, we will be awarding the sexual assault awareness month proclamation to women's commission members and talking a little bit about the Denim Day event organized by the Women's Commission coming up later this month, and I will circulate the proclamation for signature.
Thank you.
And then finally, I just want to mention a couple events.
One that happened over the weekend that I had the pleasure of participating in is the 27th annual spring cleanup of the Fairmont Ravine.
And we worked for several hours focusing on removing garbage and debris from an area where there has been a homeless encampment for years under the bridge, as well as removing ivy from trees in the ravine and cleaning the sidewalks.
John Lane has been organizing this for 20 some odd years.
Matt Algieri has taken over, and it's just, I think, a really good example of a community coming together.
We also had some assistance from the Seattle Police Department's CPT officer as well for the Southwest District.
And then one other quick mention, just a plug for tomorrow morning's event with the West Seattle Senior Center in the Junction.
That's very good.
Custard or mosquito?
Good morning, Mr. President.
Good morning.
There are no items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's full council agenda.
The next Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will be on April 18th at 930 in the morning.
We have a packed agenda starting with the Fort Lawton plan overview.
This is going to be one in a series of meetings that will be coming to our committee, and we will, as well as we've done with other pieces of large legislation, provide for the full council a little binder so that you can have a sense of what's coming up in our committee if you'd like to engage in the Fort Lawton discussion.
That will be forthcoming and encourage you to join us if you're able to on the 18th.
We'll also have an overview of the Office of Housing Annual Report.
We will have a chance to consider the Respectful Workplace Resolution, which we circulated two weeks ago, ask for folks to get us feedback by today.
We've gotten a number of individuals who have sent us feedback, so I really appreciate that.
If you did have other items that you were thinking of, would like to add those, please do.
I think we sent an updated draft around so people had a chance to see that most recent version.
I want to reiterate that there's three kind of components of this.
One is that it's expectations of us as electeds.
We've seen from the national level to the state to the local level, it's critical that as elected stewards of representing the public that we act in a way that represents our constituent and is free from harassment, intimidation, and assault.
At the very core of our being, we should make sure that we are respectful and respecting these offices and the power and privilege that we have.
The second thing is that it has expectations of our staff, who are also in a very important position of privilege representing us in the community as well.
So we have similar expectations of our team members and everybody in the legislative branch.
But it's also actually applying to expectations of the public and how we engage as well.
We want to make sure that we're protecting those very team members, our staff, and our offices from the sort of vitriol and rhetoric that's out there, the tenor across the nation that has imprompted violence in many situations, and we want to make sure that the conversations that are had with our team members are also respectful.
In fact, on my commute in this morning as I was listening to the news on the bus on Democracy Now!
, there was a pretty shocking overview of the level of hate that has come in to, for example, Congressmember Ilhan Omar's office, where an individual called and had an expletive ranting against the staff members cussing at them and invoked his hate of her religion and identity.
And I think that that type of hate and vitriol at the national level is something that we hear at the local level as well.
And no matter what level of office we all participate in, we expect respect to go both ways.
So this is a really important, I think, tone setting piece of legislation.
and really appreciate all your engagement on this.
That will be sent around, the updated version will be sent around by the end of the day, so you'll have a chance to look at that and encourage folks to again participate in the April 18th meeting.
And then lastly, we'll be considering a piece of legislation that we discussed at our last committee, thanks to board members, Zachary DeWolf and members of IUOE.
for coming in and having a conversation with us about the need to ensure that there is harmony in terms of enforcement for our sick and safe leave policies for all workers in this city, including our folks who serve lunches and clean our yards at the school grounds.
We had a chance on Friday to visit District 4, since it's month four, we're in District 4 this month, and we had a chance to see last Friday the Northeast District Council, Neighborhood Farmers Market, the Ravenna Bryant Community Association, and visit at the Seattle Conservation Corps, which was very interesting if folks haven't been out there to see it, training folks who are currently homeless and previously homeless in job skills and placing them in housing and future employment opportunities.
I'm very impressed by the individuals that we met there and looking forward to scaling that up and creating greater connections to those strong union jobs.
This Friday, we'll continue our efforts in District 4 and be meeting with the folks at Solid Ground, University Heights, and we're going to be at the Family Works food bank on Friday.
Looking forward to that.
Thank you again so much for this and looking forward to working with you all on the respectful workplace resolution.
If you haven't had a chance to weigh in or chat with me, happy to do so.
Thank you, Councilwoman Esqueda.
Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Thank you.
Good morning.
We have nothing on this afternoon's agenda from the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans in Education Committee.
Our regularly scheduled meeting for this Wednesday, April 10th, 2019 will be canceled.
We will instead have a special meeting of my committee on Thursday, April 18th, 2019 at 2 p.m.
here in council chambers.
That special meeting will be called to consider a couple of matters.
The first one is we will consider amendments to the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Implementation and Evaluation Plan.
These will be presented as a consensus package, and council members that attend a committee may pull amendments for individual discussion from that consensus package if they so wish.
It's my hope that we will vote the implementation and evaluation plan out of committee on Thursday, April 18th, and if we do so, I will ask for the rules to be suspended in order to allow the full council to consider the amended version of the Implementation and Evaluation Plan at full council on April 22, 2019. Second, we will consider nine appointments and or reappointments to the Community Police Commission.
This has been a long time coming.
My office will have five of those nine nominations.
I'm really excited about the slate of nominees that we have for the Community Police Commissioner role.
And then lastly, I will just say happy Youngster Day.
Today is Take Your Youngsters to Work Day.
Was really excited to join them in the Bertha Knight Landis room early this morning to give them a welcome.
And I know that they have walked through the hall on the second floor already this morning, and I think you will see them floating around City Hall for most of the day.
So really strongly encourage you all to try to open your doors and welcome them in and help them collect all of the stamps that they need in their passports, in their city hall passports.
They will be in the Bertha Knight Landis room most of the afternoon and throughout the day, so please feel free to go down and say hello.
They'd love to see their council members, and I know that they're parents who are city employees would love to see you as well.
So thank you all for allowing me to carry on in the tradition of now former Councilmember Rob Johnson in making sure that we continue to have a City Hall that is kid-friendly and family-friendly.
So I'm really excited about being able to take over this event and host all of these families here.
So thank you all for participating.
means a lot of fun a lot of fun before the last two council members speak I just wanted again for when you have a lot of folks out there for our library levy meeting to start at 1030 but we still have an executive session we have to go to which will be hopefully a short one but have an executive session so customer back show
our committee today, but Finance and Neighborhood Committee this week.
We have an important meeting on Wednesday afternoon at 2 o'clock, and all of you received a memo from Eric McConaughey last week.
I think Allison in my office sent it out.
We will be considering legislation that will authorize a memorandum of agreement with the Washington State Ferries for the waterfront.
We will be accepting non-city funding from the Washington State Ferries as well as the State Convention Center.
If you've got any questions, let me know.
Also, this coming Friday at 9.30, we will have a scheduled meeting on our select committee to consider the confirmation for Jason Johnson.
I have met with many groups that have asked for that.
Additional questions have gone out.
I will reach out to you to see if there are any additional questions that you'd like to have answered for that day.
And the last thing I want to say is that tomorrow, Tuesday, my office has been working with SDOT to have a public life study in Pioneer Square.
We've done these around the city in the past.
This is the first time we will be focusing on Yesler Crescent, City Hall Park, the next block, Prefontaine.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
We have a lot of data available.
Thank you.
Sustainability and Transportation Committee has two items on this afternoon's agenda.
It's two appointments to, sorry, reappointments to the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee.
And we do not have a committee meeting this week.
Thank you very much.
Council Member O'Brien.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to make it really fast.
I just wanted to let folks know that my office last week was briefed and given an update on the status of implementation of the community service officer program over at the Seattle Police Department.
I know that this is something that many of you have an interest in, and Council Member Bagshaw's remarks reminded me that I had forgotten to give people a heads up that the response, the Seattle Police Department's response to our statement of legislative intent Asking for information around implementation evaluation.
We also have a budget proviso attached to that to make sure that we have a level a high level of confidence in the Renewal and the new structure of the community service officers that response is going to come to us probably by the end of the week and I have asked the Seattle Police Department to make sure that they reach out to council members who have expressed strong interest in this subject to do one-on-one briefs after the report has been released.
I just wanted to make sure that you all were keeping an eye out for it in your inboxes because I know that several of us are extremely interested in this program and seeing it progress.
I had an opportunity to sit down with Assistant Chief Diaz and I think that the program is is going to be one that many of you are going to be pleased with.
So we will also be having a hearing on the proposed plan around community service officers in my committee in early May.
And so we will make sure to send that date around.
or we may talk with the council president's office about the opportunity of having that presentation be made in council briefing, which might be an appropriate use of our time here in the morning.
Thanks for sharing that.
I apologize for taking more time.
No apologies, that's an exciting development, so thank you very much.
So this executive session should be relatively short but very important so let me move into executive session.
As presiding officer I will announce that the Seattle City Council now convene in executive session and the purpose of this executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation and this gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our City attorneys is authorized by law, and a legal monitor is always present to make sure we reserve questions of policy for our public open sessions.
This session should last approximately 15 minutes, so that'll be 10.50 a.m.
that we should be able to move back into public session.
And if we go beyond the 15 minutes, we'll announce that in open session and its expected duration.
So with that, we'll move into executive session.