Good morning.
Thank you for being here for a regularly scheduled briefing on August 12th.
We'll go around the room and just sort of give a preview of today's full council actions.
I'll go first and say that council members Bagshaw, Juarez, and Mosqueda are here.
And if there's no objection, the minutes of the August 5th, 2019 meeting will be approved.
Hearing no objection, those minutes approved.
For the full council today, The first item of business, I think all of you are aware of, will be a reconsideration of the mayoral vote on the sweetened beverage tax.
And so that'll be presented first on the agenda.
And I look forward to everyone's comments.
And I will probably at the beginning talk a little bit about the veto process.
A lot of people don't understand that, when it applies, what its purpose is.
And so I may just spend about literally less than a minute on describing the process.
But that'll be first on the agenda.
And then from the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee, we have three items.
One is the creation of a code revisor position in the city attorney's office.
And I talked about that at a briefing, which we think is a great position, looking at some of the inconsistencies in how our legislation is proposed.
And sometimes we have to do, as the kids would say, a do-over because of all the complications it presents.
And so this is a means to create a more efficient and effective way to go about the legislative process in the city attorney's office, give us the support that we need.
The second one is a technology matching fund legislation, $320,000 of city funding to many organizations out there in the community that are doing some great work to address the digital divide.
And we have 11 new projects in 2019 that we'll describe.
And then the last one is an approval authorizing FAS to enter into a 15-year lease agreement with Cascade Public Media, which is formerly known as KCTS Television, where Seattle Information Technology continues to operate a radio and antenna on the Capitol Hill Tower.
So those are three things, and with that, Council Member Baxter, I'll turn it over to you.
Very good.
Thank you.
Hello, colleagues.
Thank you so much.
Council Member Mosqueda, thank you for being with me last Friday, helping us get through the budget items.
I know, Council Member Juarez, you're going to talk about Live in D5 and how...
and how all that worked out on Saturday and results of the rain.
I just want to let everyone know that we've got five items on the agenda this afternoon from the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.
These are all related to budget and we had a special committee meeting last Friday.
We suspended the rules so that what passed out last Friday could be voted on today.
And prior to that meeting, we had a previous meeting where we actually went through almost line item by line item.
We have an exceptions ordinance, a carry forward ordinance, which means items that were in 2018 that weren't completed, but we had budgeted for.
We have the supplemental budget ordinance.
That was important because there are a number of things that all of us were interested in funding.
And again, Council Member Muscata, thank you for all of your work and help on that.
And I want to highlight a couple of things.
One is the Green Janitor's Ordinance, but what it is around green building for training in the private sector on using alternatives to some of the caustic cleaning materials that often are used.
And this is something that has come forward.
And other cities have been doing this.
It's making a big difference, both in terms of workers' health, but also just how the buildings are being kept.
So that was kind of a small but mighty $35,000 ad.
And then we also are adding an ordinance that will put an elevator into University Heights at their community center.
We'll talk more about that this afternoon.
But what just broke my heart was a description of a young girl who was in a wheelchair at a summer camp this summer who had to literally crawl up the stairs to get to the point where she was able to join in with her companions at the summer camp.
So that and the fact that many people just can't get up to the third floor to see the good work that's being done by many of these nonprofits.
So that was a unanimous pass and recommendation that we pay for that in the supplemental budget.
So we will be moving forward.
We also have a CIP abandonment ordinance and a grant acceptance ordinance.
The abandonment just means that there are projects that are completed.
There may be some additional funding left over that goes back into the appropriate fund.
and the grant acceptance.
We need to accept that so that we can spend the money that have already been identified.
So those are the last five items on our budget today.
I know there's a lot of other conversations that are going on.
So I just ask everybody hold in on your patience because I'll try to get through them as quickly as possible, but they are really important to get voted on today.
And then we will have a Finance and Neighborhood Committee this Wednesday.
We will have another discussion about the RV legislation.
I think that there was a pretty good discussion at the table last week.
Council Member Muscata, again, thank you.
And Council Member O'Brien, we're here raising concerns.
And really the concerns boil down to the individuals who are in these RVs.
These are the ones that are so dilapidated, they're considered to be unhealthy.
We need to find places for them to go.
And one of the additional amendments that I think Mike's going to bring forward today is that we'll put $100,000 into an account that will help us find places for those individuals to go.
It's really important to all of us that we achieve The multi things that the mayor is trying to do is to clean up these very horrible looking RVs that are on the street, but at the same time, not throw the people back out on the street in cardboard boxes and tents.
So I think we can get there, and I appreciated the mayor's crowd coming down.
and talking to us on Friday.
We'll have another conversation this Wednesday.
And we also are gonna have seven items from Seattle City Light that have been moved over from Council Member Mosqueda's committee because she's focused on the hotel workers this next meeting.
So we'll take those over, move them out through our committee.
And then we've got some human resources, pay zone and position list ordinance that we will be voting on as well.
So that's Wednesday and I know you're excited.
Thank you, Council Member Bakeshaw.
Council Member Mosqueda.
Thank you very much Mr. President and hello Councilmember Bagshaw.
Thank you for having me in your committee last Friday.
I really appreciate all the work that you're doing to let us have discussion in your committee on some of the more meaty policy issues as it relates to, for example, the transfer of the Yakima property.
Thank you for that.
I appreciated all of your work on the budget and for our work together.
Thank you.
On green janitors, on the U Heights, on making sure that the HSD inflationary adjustment was included for next year, and the capital investments that are so needed for the restrooms and potential kitchen facilities at some of our partners who work in the Native community.
So really excited to be working with you on those items that came through your committee.
for full council today.
And then from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee, we do have two items on the full council agenda for this afternoon.
It's Resolution 31893 and Council Bill 119590. These are both pieces of legislation that relate to the legislative action that was taken earlier this year from the state legislature on House Bill 1406. that would authorize Seattle to act on the brand new revenue opportunity to build affordable housing that was passed by the legislature.
So we are going to be working in partnership to make sure that Seattle and King County are moving forward to take every opportunity we can to not only access the dollars that the state legislature has offered, and again just want to remind folks these are not new tax dollars.
This is allowing Seattle and King County to access those tax dollars directly so that we can build affordable housing.
Part of what Councilmember Herbold and I have been talking about as she is a co-sponsor of the legislation as well as how do we bond against some of these dollars to make those dollars go even further so at the very least we get about 50 million dollars in hand.
The mayor is going to and be enthusiastically sending out news about this later today.
And we're really excited that we, both the city council and the mayor's office have jointly acted so quickly to take this opportunity and run with it.
So thanks to the executive and thanks to the office of housing for helping us move forward so quickly on this.
The Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will have its next meeting on August 15th.
That's this Thursday.
And just by way of reminder, we do plan to start at 9 a.m.
because our agenda is still packed.
At the first part of the agenda for about the first hour, we will have discussion on two pieces of legislation that come to us from Seattle City Light.
And these are in line with some of the goals that we were talking about related to the Green New Deal.
First is a solar program that we are going to roll out to establish the ability for larger commercial buildings to include solar panels on their roofs.
We want to make this not just something that is applicable for smaller buildings, but especially for midsize and larger buildings.
So larger than 100,000 kilowatts, I believe is how I say this.
And really excited about that.
And then also a briefing and possible vote on the Seattle City Light Western Energy Imbalance Authority Ordinance.
So we're really just making it possible for Seattle City Light to enter into the western energy imbalance market so that when we have surplus energy we can sell it on the market.
Our energy is cleaner than most others given that it doesn't rely on any fossil fuels and we want to make that energy available to others so that people are having to extract less fossil fuels and use our cleaner energy at times where we have a surplus.
So it's exciting.
And then at about 10 o'clock, 10.15, we'll start taking public comment on the hotel workers legislation.
Just by way of reminder again, this will be a meeting that will be slated to end at noon.
Our goal is to get through the discussion related to hotel worker safety, the various safety provisions that we need to put into place so nobody experiences harassment, intimidation, Assault on the workplace and then the other component is access to health care wanting to strive for high quality affordable health care for all of the workers in a hotel building and that will be part of the discussion on Thursday so briefing and possible vote on those two components and then colleagues just as a reminder No final vote is being taken on Thursday we're gonna hold the entire package which has four pieces of legislation to September 5th and And we'll have a chance again to see the full package all together, consider any cleanup amendments, any possible amendments that might have come forward at that point.
And that'll give us another two and a half weeks or so to really think through the package as a complete package and then potentially vote on September 9th.
Thank you again.
One more update if I might.
We have a really exciting resolution that I have copies for you all here.
I'm excited that today we are going to be bringing forward a resolution that mirrors what 11 other cities have done so far.
This is a resolution in support of the call to end the blockade with Cuba.
Many of our other city colleagues across the country have taken the opportunity to follow what some of our congressional members are calling for, which is really to end the blockade with Cuba, recognizing that multiple times the United Nations has had an overwhelming vote to support ending the blockade, 189 votes.
189 votes is the majority of UN delegates minus two and really just asking for us to be on record to say not only is it a lose-lose situation because the individuals in Cuba are not benefiting from the interaction, the cross-national dialogue, the cross-national learning opportunities in Cuba.
But we, too, in the United States are not benefiting from some of the groundbreaking medical advances that Cuba is making, some of the innovative strategies that they've been able to deploy, especially related to maternal and child support, preventing infant mortality rates, extending the life of individuals there through life-saving medications.
They have a better They have a better life expectancy than the United States does on average.
And so this is in line with what many of the organizations across the country are asking many of their city colleagues for.
And if I may, Mr. President, there's 11 cities across the country that have adopted similar resolutions.
Richmond, California, Berkeley, California, Oakland, California, Brookline, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut, Sacramento, California, Helena, Montana, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Paul, Detroit and then there's five other cities that are currently considering a similar resolution.
So I would love for your support on this and if I might be able to bring this into full council today I think it's gonna make a huge impact and just want to give one more thank you to Cindy Domingo which many of you know she's a labor and civil rights leader and she also currently works for Councilmember Larry Gossett and she has been leading the effort on over years with the U.S. women and Cuba collaboration, bringing delegations down to Cuba to ensure that there was greater cross-national interactions and opportunities to learn from each other.
And she has been working with me on this and will be here today with a handful of the folks who have had the benefit of participating in her program.
So if there's any questions, I'm happy to entertain those, but I'm really excited that we will be the 12th, making it a dozen cities across the country that are calling for this action.
So quick question.
There's one whereas in here that should draw some attention.
And it says, whereas 189 countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly in November of 2018 in favor of lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba, with only two countries, the United States and Israel, opposing the resolution.
And anyway, I thought that was context for what we're trying to do.
Just so I understand it, is this the first time this has been presented to us, or was this circulated through email last week?
I might have missed it.
I think it was intended to be circulated last Friday.
I'm not sure if it was, so I wanted to bring copy today.
So this, okay, so sort of, and your intent is to introduce and vote on it this afternoon.
Yes, Mr. President.
Thank you.
Not a preferred process, but sometimes we have to use available tools to us.
But I would sort of discourage.
Publicly handing me a document and asked me because I haven't read it yet And so it's just not a preferred practice and my intent was to send it around on Friday.
What is that the usual time frame?
Yeah, I mean because We treat yes Thursday Thursday afternoon we approved the agenda and then usually if there's something somebody's working on Friday that me know and I can get an email out such that I Again, complying with the OPMA, by the way, we try to get it.
But, you know, when I'm presenting something Monday morning for a Monday afternoon vote, like I just said, it's just not a preferred process.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. President.
My apologies for that.
Thanks for your work on this.
Yes, and happy to answer any other questions.
And if it pleases the council, I would love to still bring it forward.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay, so let's go back this way to Council Member Herbold.
So I have a Civil Rights Utilities Economic Development and Arts Committee meeting tomorrow on August 13th.
We're going to have the first discussion on two tenant protection items.
One of those is protections for survivors of domestic violence from being held liable for damages caused by their abuser.
That's Council Bill 119598. And the second proposal is a bill that protects the rights of roommates and family members that are living as co-occupants from categorical denial or evictions.
That's Council Bill 119606. It's modeled on a tenant protection law.
law in New York City.
We will be having the second discussion and potential vote on our eviction harmonization bill.
That's Council Bill 119584. This is the legislation that harmonizes our city's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance with recent reforms passed in the state legislature this last legislative session and the three main components that this bill will make sure that our just cause eviction ordinance is consistent with the new state law is first extending the three-day pay or vacate notice for non-payment of rent to a 14 day pay or vacate notice.
We will be making sure that rent is defined as recurring and periodic charges identified in a rental agreement and clarifying that when there is a non-payment, that rent is applied first before other costs like late payments, damages, legal costs, or other fees so that the tenant has the ability to make sure that payments that they make go towards the late payment of rent to ameliorate the likelihood of being evicted for nonpayment of rent.
And then finally, the bill extends the minimum notice to 60 days in advance for all rent increases instead of 30 days for most rent increases and 60 days for large rent increases, which is the current law in Seattle.
And under the new state law that all rent increases, regardless of the size, will require 60 days advance notice.
So those are the tenant protection items on the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, Arts Committee agenda for tomorrow.
We also have a couple of other items.
One is a social impact study of the arts that we'll hear from Arts Fund.
And then we'll also hear the 2018 Waste Prevention and Recycling Report.
from Seattle Public Utilities letting us know where we're at in waste reduction and increased recycling.
And then finally, we are going to be having a presentation from some other jurisdictions regarding their success with every other week garbage collection.
Linda Knight, who's the Solid Waste Coordinator for the City of Renton, will talk about Renton's process and what they've learned in the last 11 years since they've had every other week garbage pickup.
And we'll also be having 350 Seattle joining us at the table to talk about what they know about the successes of other jurisdictions.
Other items coming up for me this week, there will be a regional committee meeting that I have to attend for the flood control district on Thursday.
I have office hours on Friday at the South Park Community Center between 2 and 7 p.m.
And then lastly, I have no items from the Civil Rights Utilities Economic Development Arts Committee on today's full council agenda.
Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.
Councilmember Juarez.
Thank you.
Sorry I had to run out there.
I had a little panic there.
But now I'm back on track.
All right.
So good morning, everybody.
So I'm excited.
I'm going to be a little bit wordy, not too much, because I have a lot of stuff to share, besides we get to what happened in Live in D5 became Live in D2.
But most exciting is out of the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee, As you know, we've been working on legislation and resolution.
On June 6th of this year, our committee hosted a presentation by the Urban Indian Health Institute as well as the Seattle Indian Health Board on the missing murdered indigenous women and girls, the epidemic faced across this nation and in Canada.
And as you all know, Seattle is ranked number one with the highest rate of missing murdered and indigenous women and girls in the country.
We now know that poor data, racial misclassification, and the lack of government-to-government partnerships are a few major factors that have directly contributed to such a crisis, obviously, in our country and First Nations and in Canada.
I want to thank Esa Lucero and Abigail EchoHawk, who we've been working closely with and showed up at our committee to give public comment and a presentation.
So over a year ago in spring of 2018, as chair of the Native Communities Committee, I submitted a resolution calling for the city to assess its methods for collecting data on American Indian and Alaska Native communities and women.
These communities face disproportionately high rates of homelessness, poverty, and income inequality, so it's important that the city provide services to communities who need it.
I've been working closely, we have been working closely with the Urban Indian Health Institute to draft legislation that would address MMIWG.
I have a resolution listed for this afternoon's introduction and referral calendar which kicks off what will be a series of legislative efforts to reform and build a stronger city system that responds to missing murdered indigenous women and girls casework accurately and robustly.
I'm excited to work with my colleagues on this anticipated legislation, as well as Mr. Pete Holmes, who we've been in contact with, our city attorney, Dan Satterberg, a King County prosecutor, and of course, Chief Carmen Best.
I should add that King County put together a subcommittee on missing and murdered indigenous women, so we're looking forward to working with their subcommittee as well.
So it's my mission as chair of the CIPNA and as a Seattle City Councilwoman to work closely with the Seattle Indian Health Board and other experts to stop this ongoing crisis.
The resolution is slated for a briefing in our next committee meeting.
Our next committee meeting is Wednesday, September 4th at 2 o'clock.
So update on parks.
We have two events going on that I want to share that we've been working with parks on.
Number one is the Teen Summer Musical at Benaroya Hall.
Seattle Parks and Rec, Atlantic Street Center, and Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institutes will present the annual Teen Summer Festival, Uncle Willie's Chocolate Factory.
This is the culmination of a nine-week summer program that showcases the talents of dozens of teens of color, providing them with an introduction to the world of theater.
Tickets are on sale at the Seattle Symphony or Benaroya Hall website.
The second event is the Big Day of Play.
That's Saturday, August 17th at 11 to 5 at Rainier Playfields at the Community Center in Mount Baker Rowing and Sailing Center.
The Big Day of Play is a day to play your way as we celebrate our city's diversity, build relationships, and get active together.
So we're hoping you attend, bring your family and friends and neighbors for a full day of healthy activities, outdoor sports, water activities, and as they say here, tons of fun.
The event is free.
That's not how I talk, but everyone else is saying it's tons of fun, but okay, I'll be there.
This event is free, presented by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Let's Get Moving initiative.
Okay, so you guys, you're not going to believe what happened Saturday.
Live in D5 became Live in D2, and it was right out of an episode of Parks and Rec.
This is a great story about what community really means because not only did we get rained out and we were at the park at 7 or 8, we couldn't set up any of the stage because parks and everyone said you will electrocute everybody.
So with that being said, I want to really shout out to Brindell and Shana and Nageen and Tyler and the community members that showed up.
We had to act quickly on the phone to contact more than 30 vendors, three bands, a petting zoo, literally said, don't load the animals and drive up here.
Outdoors for All and many more vendors.
We also had a food truck coming down from the Tulalip tribe, which was already on its way.
And so anyway, Live in D5 became Live in D2.
So we all loaded up everything and we headed down to the Rainier Beach Community Center.
So we attended the Rainier Beach Action Coalition's Back to School Bash, where every year they give away backpacks and school supplies to kids.
And it actually worked out great.
We just got on the phone with everybody.
We said, everybody show up at 1145 at the Rainier Beach Community Center.
Our D5 and a ton of our community members got in their cars.
We brought down all the food.
We handed out and shared our food with over 500 kids and family.
So our salmon, our fry bread, our rice, our smoked burgers, our homemade berry jam, everything.
The cupcakes that were made from Hillary's The coffee clutch had the D5 pretzels, which we tried to make them look like D2, but that did not work out.
Everything was just wonderful.
It was packed.
The Tulalip tribe and tribal member Ryan Gobin, who owns Ryan's Rezipes, get it?
She's a great cook.
She's a great cook.
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She's a great cook.
I really want to compliment staff, especially Michael Stevens at Seattle Center, Larry Henderson, just saved the day, Martha Winters from Seattle Parks and Rec for helping us with this unexpected change of plans.
I want to thank Monisha Harrell from Equal Rights Washington, being a wonderful steward and making sure we got our tables and everything set up.
It's just a good feeling for once sometimes for all of us to remember why we have these jobs.
And even though we're in districts, it's just, We're just in districts, but we still represent the city of Seattle.
And it was really fun just redirecting everything south and having everybody come up to me and just be so kind and so nice and enjoying the food.
And so our bands were a little disappointed, but they did not want to be electrocuted, so they understood.
So we will be rescheduling live in D5 probably the first week in September.
So it definitely was an episode out of Parks and Rec, and we got it done.
Oh yeah, I'm, oh yeah, yeah.
Because Council President, I have a duet to do still.
Great event.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Juarez.
And Council Member Bryant.
Thank you, Council President.
I'm gonna read a few remarks from Council Member Pacheco too, who's not here today.
The Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee has one item on this afternoon's agenda.
It's the Comprehensive Plan Amendment Docketing Resolution.
I will circulated on Friday Amendments language to that so I'll be bringing that amendment which is add some more language to the docketing specifically around industrial lands Calling on the city to start an industrial lands process and come back with a proposal to us in time hopefully in time for the actual comp plan amendments in 2020 and The Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee does not have another meeting until after the recess.
The next scheduled meeting is Wednesday, September 4th.
In addition, in September, there will be two special meetings.
One is a September 9th, 5.30 PM meeting to do a public hearing on updates to the city's State Environmental Protection Act policies.
And then on Wednesday, September 11th at noon, there'll be another special meeting of the PLEZ Committee.
Now, on to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.
We have four or five items on the agenda today, depending on how you want to count.
The veto override, I believe, Council President, you spoke to that already.
Yeah, that'll be first on the agenda.
describe some procedural issues and then we'll dive right into it.
Great.
We have the ordinance at a committee that would approve the nine million dollars funding for the streetcar.
This is the funding that will get through the rest of the kind of engineering and design work.
The mayor has asked for this and has indicated her support for moving forward contingent upon hearing the news that we'll learn as we do further engineering work.
My understanding is it's probably about close to a year's worth of work that that $9 million will go through.
Can I just interrupt for just a sec?
You said that Council Member Pacheco is not here this morning.
Do you think he's coming in this afternoon?
I believe he's here this afternoon, yes.
And so what were you saying about the land use piece?
I'm sorry.
He has the industrial lands legislation.
The comp plan docketing resolution is on the agenda this afternoon.
And so, and then I have an amendment to that.
So in committee we made a few amendments related to industrial lands with the understanding that there was some more language we wanted to work out.
And that was circulated on Friday, I believe.
And so I'll be bringing that amendment to the full council.
It was circulated on Friday.
By the way, I read the resolution and thank you again for, I look forward to supporting it.
The one point I want to, now that I've read it.
We did get some, a note from some constituents and Commissioner Feldman at the port about some, Concerns about some of the language in the resolution.
He will be here this afternoon to testify Historical practice we're likely to have him first To to testify and so I just I think he might have emailed everyone as well.
So I just wanted to forewarn people
So can I ask a quick question on that?
So I met with the port folks last week as well.
Is your resolution, the one that you're proposing, is that going to address their concerns about wanting to have the entire industrial lands reviewed both north and south before we take final action and docket it?
Is that what your resolution is doing?
Yeah, and I've been sharing this with the Port Commission, Fred Fellman being the point person that we've been dealing with, and I believe this is what they support, but I don't want to speak for them, especially if they're going to be there.
The amendments that we made, Council Member Muscat and I made in committee, and this amendment, which I'll bring to the council today, essentially strip out, remove from the docketing any of the industrial lands.
So there was a proposal in the original legislation to docket the stadium area study in addition to three specific parcels in the industrial lands.
And we stripped all those out of the underlying docketing resolution.
And the amendment that I'm bringing today adds language that says the city should start an industrial lands process or restart it.
It actually says that we should build on what's been learned before.
It lists about a dozen stakeholders that should be included in that process, and so that's labor and business and port and maritime and stadium and neighborhoods and their whole routine.
And then it also says it would be, I forget the exact language I used, but it would be premature to act on industrial land changes such as, and I talk about the stadium plan, WASCA, those three sites that were in there, until we have a proposal from the mayor on an industrial lands policy that has been approved by the council.
And with the hope that that can be completed in advance of the comp plan updates next year.
Obviously, the timing of that has not been set.
It's traditionally March, but that'll be a future council will decide that.
Received indication from someone in the mayor's office that they were planning to have it by then.
I'm not sure, frankly, how realistic it is and if the people that are conveying that recognize the timeline we're on, so I don't want to I believe they think they can do it, and I think there probably needs to be a few more conversations before we are confirmed that industrial land process convening of some stakeholders.
reviewing a policy can happen if in fact that timeline is going to be March but again next year's council will decide when that's going to happen.
Can I just add one more thing?
So I had spoken to your office and we agreed that we would not put any specifics into this amendment but I would just like to indicate for those of you who will be here next year that a couple of areas I'm very interested in is one is to creating the makers space which is south south of the The Mariner Stadium now, there's a couple of block areas, there's a warehouse there, and I would love to have explored the idea that that is retained as a maker's place, which essentially means you're creating something there, whether it's furniture or whether it's clothing.
even a brewery there, but to explore the possibility of allowing residential on top of that.
So the industrial lands are preserved, but having affordable housing, the people who work down there can afford to live in.
So that was one.
And the other is, since the port is moving into Pier 48, I believe, that is going to be passenger ships now.
I would love to explore the possibility in the Waska site of allowing hotels there, not permanent housing, because I've heard enough from the port and from the folks that work down there that if you have affordable housing, it impacts the 24-7 nature of the port property.
But if you were to explore and allow hotels to be built on the Waska property that supports the Seahawks Stadium, what will become the XFL Stadium as well, and the Mariner Stadium, and the port with the passenger ships.
So just what we'd like to put on the record that I hope we can explore that, don't know the answer, but I just hope somebody will pay attention to those possibilities.
I could entertain an amendment to my amendment in addition to port, maritime, labor, business, stadium.
We could have former council members could be included on that commission if you'd like that.
The former council member is going to be out of town for a year.
Okay, we'll just pass on that one for now then.
But I appreciate you bringing that up, Council Member Bakeshaw.
Before we move on, Council Member Oshige, do you have a comment?
I just want to emphasize my appreciation for Council Member O'Brien's work on this language that was amended on.
Thursday?
Friday last week?
I think we sent it around Friday.
Okay, and I did receive a call from Commissioner Bowman and had a chance to talk to Commissioner Calkins as well who expressed her appreciation for that amendment so just wanted to pass that on.
I'm not sure if they'll be here this afternoon, but also we have heard a lot of support from the maritime unions as well with the desire to recognize that the city is changing.
That does mean at some point our footprint changes as well, but how do we do this in a way that's really thoughtful, looks across the city, and doesn't piecemeal the properties.
for discussion and allows us to think about Industrial lands the future of work and that also a couple that with the needs for Public assets like housing and parks and things like that So I'm excited about the potential next year when we see that plan come forward, but I think at this juncture Everybody who I've heard from is very supportive of the approach that was taken in our committee last week, in your committee last week.
I think there are some folks, maybe the stadium folks at the center of it, that would prefer to move more swiftly on the Waska site because that will likely be up for sale from, or being surplused from Watch Dot sometime in the next couple years.
And whatever zoning that's under the time of surplus will obviously tell on how it gets redeveloped and some of the other sites adjacent to the stadium.
I believe they recognize that making any substantive changes to industrial lands prior to a policy being adopted is probably unrealistic with this council.
And I think there's a lot of frustration from folks on all sides of this that an industrial lands policy update has not been concluded but I really appreciate the mayor I believe we'll hear more this week but I believe the mayor is committing to doing that process and I mean you know not sure how that's gonna end up obviously but I think there's a lot of folks that that would prefer something other than the status quo and whether they can reach some kind of consensus on that or not we'll see but the amendment has pretty broad support with the exception of probably stadium folks and their allies that would like to see us pull a couple parcels out and move earlier.
But I don't think, that's certainly not what my amendment would do.
Very good.
Council Member Herbold, do you have a comment?
I have a question.
Do you think there is an opportunity to communicate with WSDOT about the future of the WSCA site to provide some reassurances to the proponents of the stadium district that it won't be sold before we have a policy discussion around the land use?
designations of that site.
I just sense that even though there's this perception that they're on a fast timeline to dispose of that property, that we as a council and together with the mayor might have some influence on their timeline if we were to initiate that request and conversation.
Yeah, clearly conversations, I think, are open.
I don't know enough about the WSDOT and the state surplus property disposal rules.
And if there's any sort of timeline, my sense would be that if there's potential land use changes to the property that might change the value that WSDOT might get, there would be some alignment about kind of coordinating efforts.
And so I'd be open to working with you on maybe sending a letter to WSDOT and asking them to let us know about their timing and what their objectives are and start a conversation.
Probably want to bring in someone from the Office of Planning and Community Development into that to kind of maybe spearhead that.
But I think that's a great idea, Council Member Eberl.
All right, that's one of 20 things I'm going to talk about here.
I just want to reiterate, I mentioned the streetcar.
No one talked about it, but we're doing that.
We're talking a lot about industrial land.
So again, the ordinance today that would approve $9 million of funding so the mayor can proceed to the streetcar is on this afternoon's agenda.
All right, I'm inviting things to be said about that.
Thank you.
I'm going to support your nine million dollars.
I do want to say that there are two areas that I have asked SDOT to follow up on now for the better part of five years.
And one is the freight mobility whole strategic plan for downtown.
Because if we are removing much of the freight delivery on First Avenue and removing the parking so that we have dedicated lanes, and I am a fan of dedicated lanes if we're going to do this.
We've got to make sure that block by block we have places for freight to pull in, because package delivery downtown is increasing, as we all know.
So I've asked them, first with Kublai and now with Sam Zimbabwe, to pay attention to that.
We got started.
The UW is helping us.
It's not like it's new news.
But we haven't gone block by block to figure out how the freight is going to move.
And if we're going to require things like The first one is on first avenue.
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is cars get blocked up behind, both going north and going south.
And they try to turn left, and they are darting the signal at the last minute because there's no middle turn lane.
There's no way for them to get across.
And so I've asked them to look at this for the freeway streets, University, Spring, Marion, James, Just to take a look about what can work, and now going towards the waterfront, also on Madison, I believe we need to have a dedicated left turn light.
So as we're going forward with this, I'm just, again, expressing my concern that we don't have the system right.
And again, I'm going to support the $9 million, but I'm going to ask the mayor's office and SDOT to seriously take a look at those two issues.
On the issue of the permissive turn lanes versus protected turn lanes, I think that's the engineering term where you can go if it's safe versus no you have a light and you go and otherwise you don't and when you're when you have a Protected turn lane then the pedestrian environment is also controlled so that there's not the conflicts And that's true with on right turns and on on left turns I'm interested in something in advance of the budget or maybe during budget, maybe it's a slide to really come back with a comprehensive plan, maybe downtown or citywide about the permissive versus protected.
It's a safety issue.
It's consistent with Vision Zero.
They're obviously doing a lot of stuff on protected turns downtown with the transit to keep that moving.
A lot of those lights have changed over in the last year, but would love to get a comprehensive look at that.
So maybe that's something we could work on.
Of course, this is about pedestrians.
The cars can stop, they can slow, but it's when pedestrians start and then left-turning or right-turning cars get frustrated because they've been sitting there through multiple cycles.
And especially First Avenue is becoming a very cool pedestrian corridor between Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square and the stadium and the arena.
Lots and lots of people walking and lots of visitors that just don't know what the traffic flow is on that street.
So thank you very much.
Yeah, the permissive is definitely dangerous to pedestrians, cyclists too, because you'll find Find a driver that is anxiously waiting.
They're probably holding someone up there might be someone honking behind them They see a narrow window that they want to speed through but they've been focusing on the cars and not pedestrian just a lot to pay attention to and so It may be time that we look to get away from a lot of those so thanks We will Have the green new deal resolution before the council this afternoon at committee last Tuesday we passed that out of committee and but also discussed a series of amendments.
Council Member Begsha had suggested some amendments.
I know you weren't there, but had submitted those to me in advance.
So we talked about a tree amendment.
Council Member Sawant had probably about half a dozen amendments that she brought up at the table.
And Council Member Pacheco had an amendment or two also.
I've incorporated language for all of those into a single substitute that I'll be bringing.
You should have received that also on Friday with all the language.
We're moving to substitute that and then adopt, hopefully adopt the Green New Deal resolution.
Just following up on that, there's an ordinance that we had considered voting on a committee on Friday, but we're going to hold that until after the recess.
That Green New Deal ordinance would establish a Green New Deal oversight board.
and put that board into the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
And so just have some more work to do, both with the community, the department, the mayor's office, to figure out the composition of that board, what their specific tasks will be, things like that.
So we'll keep working on that.
That won't be there today.
We, let's see, hang on a second.
I have an amendment to the, what do we call those, budget, the supplemental budget.
And I don't know if you spoke to it before I got here.
We did, but please speak further and thank you for bringing this forward.
Absolutely.
So, colleagues, at Council Member Bakeshaw's committee last week, we had a discussion on, I believe, draft ordinance that hasn't been introduced yet from the mayor regarding vehicle living.
productive policy conversation I would say I learned a lot of what I think the intent of the mayor's office was which wasn't clear from just looking at the ordinance so some work to do there.
One of the questions that came up was I believe the the ordinance discusses some sort of setup where the vehicular vehicle landlords that are leasing out their vehicles if they were in violation by not maintaining them in a proper way would be subject to fines and then The tenant could recoup those fines.
It's not clear to me what the mechanism would be as sort of compensation to help them transition out of that housing.
We discussed a committee, like if we really want to support the residents of these vehicles who are living in poor conditions because their landlord's not keeping up the vehicle appropriately, telling them to get your money from the landlord didn't feel like an appropriate or timely way to address probably a crisis they're in, and suggested instead we should do what we do in house people and say the city will have a fund and will pay you and we will go collect from the landlord as can be.
After that conversation, central staff alerted me that because of some changes in the budget, The supplemental budget, there was a little bit of money available, and so worked up this amendment that would put $100,000 from the supplemental budget into funding for individuals that are transitioning out of RVs.
My intent of this is this money could become available immediately.
It would not be subject to us passing or continuing to work on the mayor's vehicle residence ordinance.
It wouldn't need to wait for anything in the future.
What I heard at the table, and I think there was consensus around, is there are some people living in some pretty awful conditions in RVs.
And whether those are a RV landlord that's not meeting the quality, the qualifications that we may choose to set up or not, if they're in bad conditions and some resources could help transition them into more permanent housing, let's make those resources available.
There's nothing preventing us from making those investments and getting those people out of those situations right now.
showed some pictures of some RVs that looked completely uninhabitable.
As we know, some of those exist.
Concerns about the ordinance about how it might be used, but no concern on my part on spending some money on individuals that are living in awful conditions to get them into better conditions.
Councilmember Gonzalez emailed over the weekend.
She will not be on the call for this amendment but asked me the question is this money intended to be used for direct support to residents or is it intended to be used for administrative costs for the city or both and my intent is it for direct support for residents the language here says appropriated solely to provide assistance to people experiencing homelessness who occupy vehicles.
So I think that's pretty clear but I'm just gonna double-check with central staff to make sure that that's explicit enough or not but make it clear that's my intent.
So you know we have been working on a number of options including our, they have a new name for it, but it's the Landlord Liaison Program that's now operational.
I am a real fan of supporting that program and making some of these units available to the folks that we're trying to...
help find a better place to live.
That isn't the only way.
I really believe that our tiny homes, even though people argue about whether it's a good place for folks, it is better than living in an uninhabitable RV, in my humble opinion.
And I asked the mayor's folks last Friday, are there spaces available right now?
Could we identify places for people to go that are 24-7 if we were to say you can't live in this RV because it's just absolutely unacceptably uninhabitable?
I don't get a yes answer.
What I've heard is, well, we've got shelter.
Well, putting people in overnight shelter does not stabilize them.
So I really want us to push during this budget, and I'm supportive of this amendment.
I want to push to make sure that we're increasing the supply and the places for people to go.
And again, we're going to come back to, What are we going to do on our budget?
But we've got to have places for people to go.
And whether it's every tool in our toolbox with landlord liaison or the modular housing or the tiny homes, understanding it's just part of the pipeline.
But I don't want to be taking people out of what we know is maybe their last ditch place and just take away the RV and destroy it and say, good luck, you're back out on the sidewalk in your cardboard box.
Not acceptable.
So I believe that we're gonna get there with the mayor's office, but thank you for that.
And thank you to Alison McLean who coughed up the good idea.
Thank you.
I appreciate that the approach that you are pursuing, Council Member O'Brien, is very similar to what we do when OPCD determines, I'm sorry, SDCI, Department of Construction Inspections, determines that a tenant is living in a place subject to closure because of an emergency order.
landlord is liable for the relocation costs, but the city does not wait until the landlord pays the tenant in order to basically front the relocation costs to the tenant.
So I think that's a really fair approach moving forward if the desire is to really assist the resident of the RV to get into another place.
My question is though that you mentioned earlier that this the budget action that you're proposing is not dependent upon the legislation proposed by the mayor, the RV rancher legislation in passing.
So if that is the case, what is the mechanism for residents of RVs accessing these dollars?
Because I think as I understood it, that if it was connected to the RV ranching, legislation for lack of a better term, what would happen is that the city would be in a position of taking or impounding the RV and in exchange granting the resident of the RV relocation assistance.
If this budget action were to pass absent that regulatory authority, how do we envision getting the resident of the RV the relocation dollars?
So this will be dependent on the executive taking some initiative here, but my intent would be that with the myriad of outreach work we're already doing, whether that's the navigation team or other outreach efforts to people living in RVs, they would need to set up some sort of program that just says, hey, if you find a person in these conditions, here's some more money that could help.
If it's a person that would be a good candidate for a landlord liaison, let's fund that.
If this is funding that would just help transition them into a tiny village or something else, that might be a better move.
There's not a specific program that I'm aware of that funds things exclusively for folks living in vehicles.
But I don't think it would be terribly difficult to set up, nor would they need to come back to council to create that program.
This is something that I believe they could do.
You know, we have allocated funding for a RV safe lot.
That has not been spent.
It has not been cited.
There's other things we've done about vehicles that the money is sitting there.
So my hope is that what I heard at the table on last week was executive staff or department staff saying, you know, Do you agree that the conditions that these people are living in is deplorable and we need to do something?
And I agree with that.
I don't necessarily agree with the approach, at least as drafted in the legislation.
Maybe there's a place we get to agreement.
But if we agree that they're in bad situations, I want to give those folks the funding so they can go out next week and start getting the people that are in the worst conditions into something better.
But I don't have a specific program.
I mean, they could use this money probably to augment You know, the landlord liaison, whatever the current name of that is, or a host of other things, you know, they could use them for vouchers for people living in vehicles to get them in hotels.
So there's intended to be flexibility if it's working for this population, but how they would use that is kind of left up to them.
And my hope is that they follow through on their urgency around this and do something immediately, because that would be outstanding.
Yeah, just a follow-up.
I am of course I'm going to support this, but I do I want to voice some concerns I have about the equity of providing basically relocation assistance for people in RVs that we don't provide for people living outside and equally deplorable.
conditions.
So just from a policy perspective I'm trying to wrap my brain around why people living in deplorable conditions in RVs are more important to fund their relocation costs than people who are living unsheltered, 100% unsheltered outside.
You know Councilmember Herbold I concur with you there and I would certainly be open to thinking about different language now or maybe it's work we could do in the coming weeks.
For whatever reason, we do tend to divide our money up into buckets, and there's money that's dedicated to RVs and money divided to tenant encampments.
And I agree that in an ideal world, we'd just say we'd find the folks that are in most need and go to them first, regardless of what type of structure they're living in.
We do know that when folks are trying to clean out a certain area because it's dangerous or problematic or whatever, they'll give people in a certain area priority access to shelters, and I struggle with that.
And so I think the question you raise is really fair, of course, because you know this work really well.
And so if you have any suggestions, I'm certainly open to that because I agree with what you're thinking about.
We're used to have a few more, correct?
A few more, yeah.
Okay.
I feel kind of popular, though, Council President Harrell.
I'm sure you appreciate that, too.
Let's keep plowing through and we can, of course, reserve some of our concerns for when it's presented for vote, but go ahead there, Council Member.
Good discussion.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I want to thank Council Member Baggio for helping to facilitate that conversation last Friday.
That was an easy discussion.
I did have to leave right as Director Goings was doing this analogy about how we wouldn't allow for dogs to sleep outside in these conditions.
Why would we allow people?
And I just want to comment because I didn't have a chance to comment in the moment.
I am hoping that going forward, we all refrain from using any of that type of analogy.
I think his intent was to say we need to treat folks humanely.
I think that was his intent, but I do think that the way in which the analogy was presented was not helpful with creating a constructive dialogue about what are the options that we have in front of us.
Just to be very clear, we want to make sure that individuals who are in poor living conditions have access to healthy living conditions, access to showers, access to Lockers access to case managers.
Absolutely.
Our council has been on the record with wanting to Provide additional supportive services both for shelter housing and case management and health services that you've been leading on So there's no doubt that we want to make sure people have a healthy and safe place to live I think the real question in front of us is I think it's important to understand why this approach and as we move forward, I appreciate Councilmember O'Brien's attempt to make sure that we are creating an alternative for people who are living in their vehicles, but as Councilmember Baggio said, we also know that they're doing this as a last-ditch effort, as a last resort to stay to keep their belongings.
This isn't an option people choose as their first option.
This is really the last option to keep families together.
So my questions, my skepticism about this approach really do align with what Councilmember Herbold just asked.
Why so much attention specifically on this population when we know over the entire spectrum of folks who are living outside, living in tents and living in RVs, we've got to help folks get inside.
But the questions that Council Member O'Brien asked during committee have yet to be answered in terms of how many of these you know, slumlords on wheels do we currently have?
Is it two people?
Is it five people you asked?
And the answers weren't presented.
So I think from our perspective, you know, I want us to be super clear with the public.
Absolutely we want to help folks get into safe places to live so that they can be with loved ones and get on a path to stabilization.
The question is not do we value that as was proposed at the table but more how much of this legislation is actually going to help that concern and and Legislation matters right the words matter and the language as it currently is drafted It is very difficult to tell that this was intended to go after those sort of slum lords on wheels And if that is our intent, we need to know what the with the scope of the problem is So I'll be supporting this amendment today as well but I do think that the bigger questions that are out there is How much of a problem is the marketing of these vehicles and if it is a problem?
how do we direct legislation to those individuals who are taking advantage of and Being predatory in their nature for those folks who do need a last place to live So those are the questions that I have but I'm happy to support this amendment today
Very good.
Council Member Bryan.
I'll be quick on this last one.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee does have a meeting this week.
It's a special committee meeting on Friday morning, I believe at 10 a.m.
And so the agenda items on that, we will take up legislation for discussion on the oil heat ordinance that the mayor has proposed, which I'm supporting and sponsoring here.
Just a quick overview, that would phase out oil furnaces in the city of Seattle over the next decade.
And it would impose a tax on oil used for heating oil, roughly comparable to the utility tax that folks pay on electricity or natural gas also.
And the revenue from that would be dedicated into transitioning low income households off of oil heat onto electric heat.
So this is for a variety of reasons, but it's consistent with our efforts.
Certainly, hopefully, the resolution we pass today to eliminate all fossil fuels in the city by the year 2030, this is a ten year plan to do that for oil heat.
There's about 18,000 homes, they estimate, that are still on oil heat.
We've been transitioning them off through a program similar to this without the tax for a number of years quite successfully, but Let's accelerate that program with this additional funding from the tax and finish this job over the next decade.
We'll also have a piece of legislation that would authorize the mayor to sell the Mercer Mega Blocks.
Those are the blocks on the northeast and northwest side of the Dexter and Mercer intersection.
So one's a little more mega than the other one, but they're two big blocks.
And so not a vote on this.
Both these pieces will come back to committee for a vote in September.
But a discussion of all the terms of that deal, the mayor made an announcement last week.
I think a lot of folks have discussed that, so if folks have questions or want to learn more about that, this will be a good opportunity to ask some of those questions.
Council Member Bagshaw.
I'm doing my best, Council President Harrell.
Yeah, really.
So, I really appreciate the work that's happening on the mega blocks.
I think there's some wonderful opportunities in South Lake Union.
And I believe 30,000 square feet, it was going to be dedicated to a community center, all good.
Can you, as you're going through this, find out if there's going to be child care attached to that?
We know that, like, in West Seattle, one of the larger community centers has child care within that is very effectively integrated into the community center.
So I've heard, when I've raised that before, people say, oh, it's too hard.
I don't believe it's too hard.
And we know there's a giant need for more child care.
So if you could just ask about that and see if we could push it forward.
Thank you.
And I know Council Member Esqueda has had multiple conversations with the executive on this around that.
So you may have more information than I do right now.
Very briefly, Mr. President.
Thank you, Council Member Baggio.
I know this is an area where we continue to have joint interests and when I've talked to the folks at the city about the potential sale, I've said we really need to have child care here.
As they look at the community center space, it shouldn't be one or the other.
You can absolutely have child care that abuts to a community space that maybe families use for events with the kiddos.
You can have a playground outside that is maybe open to the public when child care is not occurring.
So we've asked them to be very thoughtful and would love to work with the parks chair as well because I understand that parks will be Directed to implement the use of I think it's about 30,000 square feet And I think that for us to be explicit explicit about the desire to have a child care center embedded in this facility is going to be really important for the council to get behind and I You know, yes, we know people need access to things like amenities, like gyms, but if you do a quick Google search, I think there's like over a dozen gyms in the area.
If you do a Google search for childcare, I think I found four in that region.
So the need for childcare, not just for the folks who are working there, let's say in the tech sector, but the people who are coming into the city, who are working in industries around that is critically important too, so that people aren't stressed about getting home if they're commuting in from out of, the city or from far areas of our city so that they can be right next to their kiddos.
So thank you for raising that and I'd love to work with you all as we think about emphasizing that importance in any legislation before it's moved out.
Thank you.
I just want to thank you, Councilmember O'Brien, for keeping your eye on the ball on this project over many, many, many years.
You and former Councilmember Licata, a number of years ago, sponsored legislation envisioning this area to be sort of a campus style development with a number of different public purposes served with the public property.
The underlying idea behind the vision was that this is an area of high access to opportunity that the city was investing a lot of money in, and that a variety of people of different incomes, different demographics, should have the opportunity to benefit from the city's investments.
So I'm really excited about the affordable housing in the area, the community center, the child care.
I'm wondering, are there other open space, some of the other public benefits that we had talked about?
a number of years ago involved also workforce development and having a physical location for that kind of interaction between people who need to develop their skills and the primary employers in the area.
Is that something that is still being considered as part of the mix of this development?
It's something that I still think is a great idea.
I've had trouble getting the type of traction with either employers or You know, NGOs that would want to do that and set that up specifically.
It's not part of this transaction as far as providing space for that.
I still believe there continue to be opportunities.
We know the employers are hiring and have huge lists of jobs they can't fill and are searching the whole planet to find people and would benefit from.
people right here in our own community that don't need to be relocated, getting the skills to do that.
And yet, for some reason, it may be that these organizations are doing their own workforce development and own partnerships, just not with the city.
But that net I have not been able to crack yet, Council Member Herbold, but I think there's still opportunities there.
Thanks for bringing that up.
Colleagues, this week in review on KUOW last week featured a conversation around the Mercer Mega Block, Hannah Brooks Olson, David Croman, and Erica C. Barnett.
And I was really impressed with the dialogue and sort of some of the features that they highlighted of this parcel.
I know that over the years it's been relatively controversial, but it might be worth taking a listen to that piece from last Friday.
Again, I was impressed by some of the pieces that they highlighted as a benefit back to the city.
And I think, you know, as this legislation moves forward with your all leadership, there's a few pieces that we can add into it.
But it was a relatively refreshing conversation to hear and appreciate their in-depth analysis of the proposal as well.
I'll just add, and we'll work through this.
I believe the city did a really great job.
And when I say the city, I want to point to Stephen Shane, who I'm not sure if he's at OPCD or the mayor's office or where he lives right now.
But having someone with that level of real estate expertise who understands the comprehensive interests of leaders of the city.
and negotiating on our behalf in a very, you know, kind of secretive, you know, real estate negotiation way is a balancing act for sure.
But I'm impressed with what we have.
Of course, you know, it doesn't have everything, but I do think when you add up the value that we're getting for the various things we've discussed today, plus the, you know, hundred plus million dollars we'll get in cash for this that we can dedicate to things, the cost per square foot for the land that we're selling is, a premium compared to what other pieces sell for in probably one of the hottest real estate markets in the country right now.
And so I'm really impressed with that, and I think it speaks to having really quality expertise that the city leads to really good results, and I'm grateful that Stephen's on our team.
We will also have a few more items on this Friday's agenda.
We're hoping to take up legislation around transportation impact fees.
The discussion is dependent on, or at least passing legislation is dependent on a hearing examiner ruling.
relative to our ability to update the comprehensive plan with a transportation project list for transportation impact fees.
We expect to get a ruling sometime this week.
If we get the ruling and it's favorable, we will proceed.
If we get the ruling and it's not favorable, we'll probably scratch that and have to figure out what the new timeline is based on what the hearing examiner says.
If for some reason the ruling is delayed, I propose we still go ahead with the discussion with the understanding that it may be moot depending on what we hear in the future.
We have no action on that, but just a discussion about a proposal around transportation impact fees with some dollars attached to it.
We've had a number of high-level briefings, but we're starting to get specific.
On Friday, we discussed legislation about bike safety, specifically about complete streets.
I have legislation that we discussed in committee that I hope to pass out this Friday that would essentially say, that on repaving projects worth more than a million dollars, if that corridor is identified in the bike master plan for a protected bike lane, that that protected bike lane needs to be built.
It does leave some wiggle room.
I mean, clearly there's ongoing room for community input on how to design that protected bike lane, where it goes.
It does leave some room for the department or the mayor to come back and say we think the conditions have changed And it's no longer makes sense to do a protected like land this corridor But it sets a process up they need to go through as opposed to just a decision Pointing to the decision on 35th Avenue Northeast that felt like that was just a Decision without a lot of council input at least so the idea would be to prevent that from happening again there's also a resolution about implementing the back bike master plan and The the mayor's office came to us in March and then with a revision in June And this resolution would call for essentially, you know, but the supporting the idea items they laid out in there, but additionally saying the current implementation plan for the bike master plan means that at the end of the Move Seattle levy in five years, there will still not be a fully connected corridor from southeast Seattle to downtown.
There's two or three projects that are in the pre-planning phase for the next five years, but not even the planning or funding.
And we're really calling them to find a funding source to complete at least one of those corridors before the end of the Move Seattle levy.
The last thing I'll mention is that Council Member Pacheco has a resolution in committee that we discussed on Friday calling on SDOT to increase the number of what I'll call on-street bike parking corrals and that would support a whole host of things including keeping bikes off the sidewalks so that we have the sidewalks available for for all sidewalk users, but especially our most vulnerable users.
This would help support some work around the bike share programs, the free floating bike share programs, and any other free floating share program that might come forward in the near future.
Council Member Mosqueda, I don't know what that would be, but, and we may have some more language about enforcement in there, but that hopefully we'll vote on in committee on Friday, and those would all come to the full council after the recess.
Council President, I am done.
If you want to call on other people, but I'm done.
No, I think we're good.
We're good.
Look forward to a lively discussion this afternoon.
Council Member Esqueda, you just can't help yourself.
I got to tell you.
Go ahead.
Close this out.
Okay.
I just wanted to say thank you all for your earlier conversation, and I don't want to break the rules.
I just wanted to emphasize I did learn from our team.
that the resolution did go out on Thursday afternoon as a link to the agenda, so we included it.
I do apologize though that I didn't email you all to call it out, but it was in there.
So thank you for the reminder for going forward though that I will do that.
Thank you again for consideration.
And just so I could elaborate for the viewing public, the three that are left, that it often, and it's been over the years that we've just tried to give, this is an important piece of legislation.
I had now the opportunity to read it and you have, and I think there's some really good stuff in here, but it just doesn't give us the public dialogue that we want.
Any push back on any of the language we have to now do it.
behind closed doors and then presented that afternoon.
That's not consistent with the spirit of the OPMA.
So that's really what that's about.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the great work you've put in here.
And I just think, again, that's why I said she's not a preferred process.
We want to make sure the public, that's why we have committee meetings, so the public can see how we're wordsmithing these documents.
But she has some very rich stuff in it.
I look forward to supporting it.
With that, we'll see everyone at 2 o'clock.
We'll have Council Member Gonzalez, wherever she is, to join us at 2 o'clock in Copenhagen.
Knowing her, she's probably watching this briefing right now, so we look forward to hearing from her, and I guess we won't be able to hear much about her trip on that conference call.
We'll take care of our business, but we'll see everyone at 2 o'clock.