Council Briefing 10/4/21

Thank you so much.

Good morning, everyone.

The October 4th, 2021 council briefing meeting will not come to order.

The time is 9 31 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Herbold?

Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Present.

Morales?

Mosqueda?

Present.

Peterson?

Present.

Swarrant?

Present.

Strauss?

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Seven present.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of September 27th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

I'm gonna go ahead and dispense with the president's report.

Other than to say, this is just a reminder that we do have two executive sessions scheduled for the conclusion of our time together this morning at council briefing.

So just a reminder to folks to hang out after we are done with our regional reports and city council reports so we can do those two executive sessions.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and start our next discussion, which is the preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

I'll call on council members in the roll call order that was just mentioned.

As a reminder, this week's order is as follows.

We'll start with Council Member Herbold, and then we will hear from Council Members Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So let me see if we've been joined by Councilmember Herbold yet.

It doesn't look like we have.

Oh, there she is.

We have Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Morales joining us now.

So, Give it a sec here.

Council Member Herbold, we are already on regional and city council report outs, and you are first on the list.

If you're ready, happy to hand it over to you.

If you need a few seconds to settle in, perhaps Council Member Juarez would be willing to go first.

Oh, yeah, I'm ready.

Why don't you go first, Council Member Juarez, and we'll let Council Member Herbold settle in.

That works for me.

Get ready.

Thank you, Debra.

Oh, no problem.

Short and sweet here.

So good morning.

I have three issues this morning, starting with, yeah, public assets.

The next Public Assets and Native Communities Committee meeting is December 7th at 2. The committee will consider legislation to renew the Woodland Park Zoo contract.

Colleagues, if you have any amendments, please submit them to my office.

And Brian, good night of central staff by November 30th.

That's the deadline, everybody, November 30th.

Draft amendments will need to be approved by the law department and the Woodland Park Zoo in advance because we are negotiating.

Woodland Park Zoo has legal counsel.

Obviously, we have legal counsel, and this is a big contract, and so there's some things we need to work out, so it's got to go through law.

That's why I want your amendments on November 30th.

Metropolitan Park District.

There's a public hearing regarding the Metropolitan Park District on October 18th, beginning after the city council meeting concludes.

More to come on that.

Parks.

update again the parks department served almost 300 community members in their shower program between september 22nd through september 28th during the week of september 20th our clean city initiative crew members park employees Picked up 72,000 pounds of trash and 4,000 needles from 67 encampments.

Crews again are doing their deep cleaning and they are focused on Cottage Grove and the Green Lake Parks.

Cumulatively, the Parks Department has picked up over 3 million pounds of trash and over 80,000 needles in 2021. Last week, my staff and I attended the ribbon cutting and the community crossing of the John Lewis Memorial Bridge.

We were joined by Mayor Durkin, Director Zimbabwe, Peter Rogoff, Sharon Williams, Dr. Crawford of North Seattle College, former King County Councilmember Larry Gossett, Washington State Representative Jerry Pollitt, WSDOT, Cascade Bicycle, and Nathan Hale High School student reporters.

Many more were there, Councilmember, I think I saw Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Dan Strauss at the light rail opening on Friday.

If I miss some of you, I apologize.

Anyway, thank you, colleagues, for your support for the naming of the bridge, the John Lewis Bridge.

It really, really was important.

It was an emotional incredible ceremony Saturday as we walked over the bridge.

Representatives from John Lewis's family sent a wonderful letter thanking the city of Seattle for honoring him and said he would have been thrilled.

A lot of the leaders got up there and spoke about how they knew John Lewis, how they met John Lewis.

Mr. Rogoff met with him, worked with him when he was in Washington, D.C. So for us, that was that was pretty special.

So our office, as we started with Councilmember Baxhaw three years ago, We'll continue to pursue opportunities to recognize and elevate black, indigenous and people of color leaders throughout this great city.

As you know, every place has a name.

Every place needs a name.

And we will start and we will continue to looking at history of people.

and recognize those leaders that have been dismissed, forgotten, overlooked, or just purposely erased.

And again, history belongs to all of us, and we all should have the humanity and the right to honor our heroes, our leaders, and people that have made us a greater city and a greater country.

So thank you, Council President.

Back to you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez, for that report.

Are there any comments or questions?

All right, Councilor Juarez, on the Woodland Park Zoo agreement, I may have missed this as part of your report.

I heard you say what the deadline is for amendments, but I'm assuming that since we're now headed into budget, now that we're in budget, that you're not planning on having any committee hearings on the issue.

Yeah that's correct Council President and I may have skipped over this quickly and I apologize.

We are not having any more meetings.

We had our last committee meeting on September 10th and you also should all have received a legal memo about some of the issues that were raised on the September 10th meeting from some of the groups that had came and given public comment.

So it's It's all there.

And yeah, we're not meeting again until December.

That's why I kind of want to get these amendments in by the 30th, so I can round them back to law and to the zoo society and their legal counsel.

And it doesn't seem to be, well, I'm going into a different area there, but it seems pretty straightforward.

That's why y'all got a memo.

Okay, thank you.

I will try to dig up that memo.

I'm not sure that I've- I'll have our staff resend it.

I'll have it resend to you, council president.

Oh, thank you so much customer worries.

Okay, thanks so much.

Okay, we're gonna head back over to Councilmember Herbold and and then after Councilmember Herbold will be Councilmember Lewis.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

My report will be very short today.

I have no items on the full council agenda and committee meeting.

Just a couple updates.

First from the Human Services Department.

I want to just report out a little bit on the direct financial assistance program as part of the Seattle relief plan passed earlier this year.

Just a reminder, we set aside $25 million for direct financial aid to low-income households most impacted by the pandemic and priority groups for that funding.

included historically underserved communities, including immigrant and refugee communities, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, other communities of color, and those in industries that exist, including arts and cultural workers.

In partnership with OIRA, APSD has In partnership with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, the Human Services Department has finalized Seattle Relief Fund Outreach and Application Assistance contracts to approximately 22 community-based organizations last week.

And those organizations will help spread the word about the fund and help people apply.

There was a training session with community-based organizations the end of September.

The online application for the Seattle Relief Fund launches on October 25th.

It will be open for three weeks.

We have asked where the application will be accessible to people who want to apply, and I'll definitely provide an update when we get that information.

I also wanted to give a quick update on the Human Services Department's age-friendly programming.

On October 8th, Age Friendly Seattle will be presenting a program called Close to Home.

It's a National Disability Employment Awareness Month program with Kimberly Meck and Robert Blumfield of the Alliance of People with Disabilities.

You can learn more about the upcoming presentation, including how to participate at agingkingcounty.org forward slash calendar.

On public health, this morning the Seattle Times Reporting that theatrical COVID infections are spiking right now in a way that we've not previously seen during the pandemic.

Social care leaders are urging us all to protect kids who aren't yet eligible for vaccination by, as always, practicing good COVID hygiene, wearing masks, washing hands, and keeping socially distant.

In addition, it's a great reminder to get vaccinated if you are not already.

COVID vaccine is always free.

No insurance is needed regardless of documentation or citizenship status.

No appointment is required in a whole lot of places.

You can find your vaccination site at kingcounty.gov forward slash vaccine.

And then just to close it out, a couple just items of goings on for me this week.

The regional committee update for me is on Wednesday.

The regional water quality committee meeting is occurring and I'll be attending that.

And then a couple other events coming this week.

On Tuesday, I'm going to participate in the fifth year anniversary of the Mobile Integrated Health Program.

Also on Tuesday, the Seattle King County Behavioral Health Crisis Response Summit is occurring, and I know many of us will be joining that.

And then on Tuesday, there'll be a conversation with impacted communities on Asian American hate crimes.

A lot going on on Tuesday.

That's it for me today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Lewis, and then after Council Member Lewis will be Council Member Morales.

Good morning, Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Madam President.

Not very much to report during these weeks when committees are not meeting as frequently, but I will jump into the items that we do have.

So on this afternoon's I do have a resolution regarding city policy around the decriminalization mentioned last week and lift up the great work that Jeff Sims and Tracy Radsliff on central staff have done in aggregating together for us the statistics around shelter and housing for people experiencing homelessness capacity during COVID.

I think I am going to stitch that information together into some kind of supplementary report for public review to get a sense of the nature of how our shelter system and housing have evolved and changed during COVID.

given the early need to de-intensify, which has resulted in less supply but increased quality of shelter, and the incredible increase in state and federal support for acquisition of housing that is going to lead to a massive influx of social housing over the next couple of years.

and to present this information in a publicly accessible report.

So I'm not sure what form that's going to look like at this point, but I think it was very illuminating to really see that the very visible homelessness crisis we see on the streets of Seattle have been tracking very closely to the reduction in shelter supply and that our outreach strategies have been most successful at times when new shelter assets come online.

And that that is a demonstrable relationship that should instruct how we move forward in responding to the homelessness crisis.

I would note that This is going to be a very big fall for the opening of new shelter assets.

I don't want to steal any thunder from Councilmember Peterson because I believe it was last week that Councilmember Peterson hosted an open house at the University District Tiny House Village that he has been a great champion in getting stood up along with the rest of us here on Council in the budget last fall.

and that tiny house village I believe is going to start taking referrals in the middle of October to be quickly followed by a tiny house village expansion in Inner Bay, as well as a tiny house up in North Seattle later this fall as well, to also track along with the opening of several additional shelter assets and then several hundred units of housing.

So I do think that it would be helpful for the public to see all of that condensed into a report that they can really sink their teeth into and see the magnitude of the investment that is coming down the pipeline and the fact that we as a city have had to really struggle through a year and a half of having very, very little new shelter asset being stood up.

I would remind the public that it is now, as of today, October 4th, in all of 2021, there has not been a single new tiny home that has opened up.

That's about to change, obviously, here in the final stretch, but it really has shown that our struggle with getting our neighbors inside has mostly been due to the fact that we have a dearth of places to offer them to go.

So I do look forward to presenting that information to the public and look forward to having a fall that is going to be defined by a lot of these council investments finally being realized and being opened.

Finally, I'm going to have kind of a fun and unique experience, I guess, on Wednesday, where I've been invited by a neighbor to go on a bike ride with the Dutch Consul General.

Not really sure.

what level of, if it's just a regional consul general or for the entire country who's visiting Seattle.

But we're gonna go for a bike ride in true Dutch fashion and look at some ways that Seattle could become a more urban and better planned in sort of the Dutch tradition.

So I look forward to doing that and reporting back on how that experience goes.

I'm a very big fan of Dutch urban planning, obviously, and would love to get some candid advice from a Dutch diplomat on things that we could do here in Seattle differently.

So with that, Madam President, I don't have anything else to add and look forward to another week of getting ready to really dive into budget.

I want to go.

It's pretty remarkable if you hear Council Member Juarez volunteering to get on a bike.

This is quite quite a evolution.

Yeah.

What's up with these Dutch people, man?

I want to get on that bike.

I'm sure Council Member Lewis would love to have you join him.

Any other comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we'll go ahead and continue down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Morales, and then after Councilmember Morales will be Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

I have a fairly brief report as well.

There are no items from the Community Economic Development Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

I do want to echo the gratitude for last week.

It was really important for us to hear from departments and from our central staff as we begin this budget process.

And I want to thank Council Member Mosqueda as chair of the Finance Committee.

We had a lot of work last week.

And I really appreciate her willingness to adjust the calendar so that we could hear from the Office of Planning and Community Development.

There's clearly a lot of very important work happening, especially as we begin to look into the comprehensive plan.

And so it was important for us to understand what their programming and staffing needs may be in the upcoming year or two.

So thanks to the chair.

Last week, my staff and I met with young people who were experiencing safe harbor outside of the city as they tried to reduce gun violence.

Programs like Community Passageways, as you know, provide really critical services for helping young people after an incident.

and so Council Member Lewis and I both had the opportunity to talk with some of these young people who are in fact in a safe harbor right now about what their concerns are for coming back into the city and you know one of the things that they really emphasized was the need for safe space even when they come back to help de-escalate violence because things are you know, may continue to be swirling.

And so it was just a good opportunity to hear about the services that programs like Community Passageways provide and to hear about what they need in order to increase their capacity and to really help these young people stay safe once they come back into the city.

My staff met again with the Filipino Community Center last week to continue discussing their anti-displacement work.

They're doing a lot of work building affordable housing and they are in the early stages of planning a family housing project that will be able to accommodate 45 to 50 two to three bedroom apartments here in District 2, which is another great example of why community ownership is so important.

We know that private development is not currently building for families.

We have a lot of studios in ones, but we've got lots of households that are multi-generational or that just need larger size units.

And so the more we can take land and buildings off the speculative market, the more we can support the increased capacity and development for affordable units, particularly that are larger.

Projects like this are really an exciting opportunity to see what the future of housing in Seattle can be.

So I'm really happy that we got to hear a little bit more about the projects that they are working on and look forward to supporting that transfer into community ownership of land to support our neighbors.

We also met with the new director of LISC, the Local Initiative Support Corporation, to understand how they plan to reboot community economic development in the Puget Sound area.

I was excited to meet with Brian Surratt, who is our former OED director, and really happy to hear that he has signed on as the new director.

LISC was my first job in Seattle in 2000, and I know that there is a lot of important work that they do.

So I'm glad to hear that they are rebooting here in the Puget Sound region and really look forward to working with them to support some of our community development goals in the area.

That is all I have this morning.

Thanks, everyone.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, I am not seeing any hands raised, so we'll just keep on going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Mosqueda, followed by Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you so much for your kind words about last week.

I want to thank all of you for your generous time.

Three full days of a deep dive into the department's proposed budget via the mayor's 2022 draft budget that she sent us last week was a lot of your time.

So I want to thank you and your staff.

And really the appreciation is appreciated and I'm going to pass that directly on to central staff and to my office for all of their hard work as well as the folks who ran the meeting.

So thanks and more to come.

This week there is nothing from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full council agenda.

However, there is a really exciting piece of legislation that I know Councilmember Strauss is I'm equally excited about.

I'm excited to be co-sponsoring with Councilmember Strauss the ordinance to rename single-family zones to a name that is less of a misnomer and more appropriately titled neighborhood residential.

This is a piece of legislation that passed unanimously by the Land Use Neighborhoods Committee two weeks ago and again I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for and his leadership in that committee to shepherd not only a good conversation amongst council members and stakeholders, but to host multiple community engagement sessions.

I also want to thank the folks who have participated in giving us feedback over the last few months.

There are currently 17 neighborhood plans who currently have a reference to single family, and those 17 neighborhoods have been directly reached out to about the possible change to neighborhood residential.

So I want to make sure that everyone knows that of those neighborhoods we directly reached out, we engaged with and met with a number of those neighborhoods and had contact directly with the organizations who provide information to those neighborhoods.

It was an effort to make sure that we were proactively reaching into community as well as encouraging folks to come to public testimony.

and to the public hearings that were hosted by the chair.

And I think that's really important.

A lot of folks have been asking about why now, and we'll talk a little bit more about that this afternoon.

But the why now is because this has been called for for over five years.

This has been called for from the Seattle Planning Commission.

This has been called for from folks who are looking at the roots of our existing zoning policy and know how important it is for us to have conversations rooted in more inclusionary not only policies for the future, but making sure that language does matter and that our language is reflective of the current fabric of our city so that we can have conversations moving forward that are more accurately reflective of the neighborhoods that make our communities so great.

So more to come about that this afternoon, but I did want to thank Councilmember Strauss for the leadership in putting forward this important piece of legislation.

I think it's an important first step in creating a more inclusive and equitable Seattle and I think the members of the Planning Commission for every year calling for this.

So excited to talk more about that this afternoon and wanted to reiterate the importance of the conversations that we had and that we attended with Morgan Junction Community Association in July, with the members of Highland Park, Morgan Junction, Alki, and other West Seattle neighborhoods as well.

And we are excited about the nearly 400 individuals and organizations who have provided letters and feedback from the 17 neighborhoods that are referenced in our existing code that will, with your support this afternoon, have a more accurate name of neighborhood residential.

In terms of the budget committee, again, thank you for your generous time and for your staff's contributions as well as we have now a robust list of questions that we have sent to the departments via Allie and Patty.

We also have had the opportunity to ask questions on the record and tee up possible areas of interest or concern.

We do not have any Finance and Housing Committee meetings for the remainder of this year as we are focused on the Select Budget Committee meetings.

So as a reminder, our next Finance and Housing Committee meeting will be on December 7th.

As a reminder as well, we did have a chance to hear from all of the departments that were noted in the agendas the last three days, and our next Select Budget Committee meeting will be on October 12th.

This is dedicated to solely a public hearing.

October 12th at 5.30 p.m.

is the chance for members of the community to register to provide feedback, to provide testimony to us about what you've heard over the last week, what you've seen in the proposed budget that has come down.

so that we as the council, as we are crafting our legislatively mandated responsibility to finalize the budget, we can get your feedback.

We take the draft that's been submitted by the mayor and we rewrite the budget to make sure that we're incorporating council priorities and community feedback, and this will be your chance.

Again, starting October 12th at 5.30 p.m., in addition to the every meeting public comment period that's been added to the agendas at the beginning of those meetings, This one is dedicated for up to two to three hours for public hearing.

If you need additional accommodations such as translation services and or need any feedback about how to make the public testimony more accessible, please let our office know.

You can also contact customer support at 206-684-8888 or my office directly 206-684-8808.

If you're not able to join us for this first public comment hearing, you are always welcome to send us feedback in writing at council at Seattle.gov.

Also, please remember that there are multiple opportunities to provide feedback.

The next two public hearings that are solely dedicated to public hearings are going to be November 10th at 530 p.m.

again in the evening.

That'll be two to three hours.

And then November 18th at 9.30 a.m.

That will be an hour and a half.

It will go to 11 a.m.

And then we'll continue with our deliberations on the budget that day.

Final reminder as well that every public meeting that we have for the Select Budget Committee starts with 30 minutes of public comment at the beginning of each session.

And I want to thank folks who called in and provided very compelling public testimony the last three days.

We're going to move into committee discussions and issue identification sessions, which will start October 13th, 14th, and 15th.

Central staff will be presenting information to council to potentially identify budget issues, policy options, and future amendments for the proposed budget.

The purpose of issue identification is so that members can review, discuss, and ask questions about the proposed budget that we reviewed last week.

And we can provide direction to central staff on any issues and possible amendments that council members are considering.

Council members may also want to use this opportunity as a time to tee up issues that they're identifying with colleagues.

And I'm going to be working with our clerks and the council president to establish a way for us to make sure that we are getting through each of the presentations, having folks be able to allocate time for each council member to speak about their issues.

but making sure that we reserve time for every council member that does want to speak to have the opportunity to do so so that we can get through these dense meeting agendas in a timely fashion.

So more information to come from me on that.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet in community with several different community members and stakeholders.

I want to thank folks who invited us to participate in the University District Light Rail Ribbon Cutting, thanks to the University District Business Improvement Area and Don Blakeney and President Cauce from the University of Washington.

along with members of the King County Council, like Councilmember Zahalai and Dow Constantine, and our very own district representative, Councilmember Peterson, along with representatives from the 43rd District, Representative Chopp and Representative Macri.

It was a really exciting opportunity to see how we as a community can emerge from the pandemic more connected, connecting businesses and workers and communities in high-opportunity neighborhoods to our entire city.

via light rail and it was wonderful to be part of that ribbon cutting ceremony.

I know that this was just one of three celebrations that we had last week about the opportunity to open up new light rail across our city as we go north and south and future efforts to open up more going east and west and thanks to the Seattle subway folks for constantly being there to show us a vision of how we can continue to expand upon that in the future.

It was a great event.

I also had the opportunity to join Councilmember Herbold in her district in South Park, along with Representative David Hackney and Councilmember Joe Upthegrove and Office of Housing's Emily Alvarado, where we celebrated the opening of 13 new Habitat for Humanity homes, the turning over of keys to new homeowners in that neighborhood.

And it was developed on a parcel that used to house one single-family house turned into 13 homes.

around beautiful old growth tree and they planted new trees as well.

A great example of how we can do both development and add tree canopy, create community space while we're also developing in neighborhoods that are experiencing high rates of displacement and gentrification by creating inclusive housing that's affordable and really making it so more communities can have generations that can live in the city of Seattle, near community centers like Seymour, where I used to work.

Great example of the both and approach that we talked so much about.

I also wanna thank the folks from Habitat for Humanity.

That specific development was award winning across the nation and a great example of building density in a way that also promotes civic engagement and community cohesion.

So important post COVID.

Thank you all for your, your, excuse me, that's my dad calling.

I'll call him back.

I did also want to thank the Evergreen State College who have reached out to our office to present at the annual public administrators gathering that takes place on the international level as a graduate of the Evergreen State College master's program in public administration.

They wanted to talk more about how our city is creating greater civic engagement, highlight the democracy voucher program that we're all so proud of here.

and ways that we are working to create a more inclusive and reflective democracy for our Seattleites, and excited to highlight those programs and our service as council members on the international stage with the Evergreen State College.

I think that concludes my comments for today, Council President.

I really appreciate your time, and again, thank you so much for your work.

Colleagues, please get the information out about the public hearing that will take place next Tuesday at 5.30 PM.

Look forward to hearing from all of you then.

Thanks so much, Council Member Esqueda.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we'll go ahead and keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Peterson, and then after Council Member Peterson will be Council Member Salant.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our City's Transportation Utilities Committee has one item on this afternoon's full City Council agenda.

Resolution 32020 simply sets the date for a public hearing to vacate a city-owned alley that would benefit an affordable housing project called Grand Street Commons located in the Mount Baker neighborhood.

Again, this just sets the date of the public hearing.

All street vacations go through the Transportation Committee, but due to budget season, this public hearing would take place at a full city council meeting on Monday, November 8th.

Our Transportation Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 in the morning, but because we're in budget season, our next meeting will be December 1st, and we will also have a meeting on December 15th.

The city of Seattle this past Friday reached a $3.5 million settlement agreement for a lawsuit filed in August 2019 that said Seattle City Light improperly billed many of its customers based on an estimated usage of electricity.

While I was not a council member at the time, I know many residents in District 4 and throughout Seattle face tremendous anxiety over billing issues at that time.

I'd like to thank our city attorney's office for reaching the settlement and Seattle City Light for working to address the problems and cooperating with our independent city auditor to track that progress.

Really appreciate Councilmember Mosqueda calling for that audit back in 2019. And that important audit is another good example of why we should consider boosting the budget for our city auditor's office.

In District 4, last week, we opened, as Councilmember Lewis said, we opened a new tiny home village in the University District.

It's called Rosie's, and this is the first ever on Sound Transit property.

Rosie's Village is located at the corner of Roosevelt Way and Northeast 45th Street.

It has approximately 36 tiny new houses.

You can watch the upbeat event recorded on the award-winning Seattle Channel.

This past weekend I enjoyed speaking at the opening festivities of the new U-District station at Brooklyn Avenue and Northeast 43rd Street and the new Roosevelt station at Northeast 65th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast.

These light rail stations are transportation game changers for mobility and for our environment.

As Council Member Juarez might say, they're a big effing deal.

The U District and Roosevelt are already destinations with delicious restaurants, fun stores, world-class institutions, and now these destinations are easy to get to.

I know there's still work to be done to ease access to the stations, at least these two, by enhancing crosswalks, improving bus connections, and finishing utility work.

I look forward to working with SDOT, King County Metro, and Sound Transit to make sure we maximize the transit benefits of these new transportation assets.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Peterson, are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Sawant, and then after Council Member Sawant will be Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

Good morning and thank you.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

My office, as I think I reported last briefing, my office has contacted other committee members about scheduling a special committee meeting in early December.

And we are needing to do that because the regularly scheduled meeting of the committee in December would normally fall during the winter recess.

And it's also important to schedule this meeting because the meeting that we were going to have in September on a Thursday, I believe it was September 23rd, had to be canceled because of lack of quorum, even though that was a scheduled meeting with council members, committee members saying that they were available for that meeting.

That's how that was scheduled.

Um, I appreciate the committee members who responded.

Unfortunately, we have just.

I would appreciate a little more flexibility from committee members.

Given that virtually all of you send apologies for September meeting, I would appreciate a little bit more openness to schedule the dates and.

BLA commented, we're doing from my office.

We'll be reaching out to your offices.

I really appreciate Council Member Lewis and Council Member Peterson being very flexible with the dates and giving us more than one date that you all are available.

And that's very much appreciated.

I would appreciate that kind of openness from the other committee members as well, so that we can actually schedule this meeting.

There is one item on today's City Council agenda that was re-referred directly to the City Council from the Sustainability and Ventures Rights Committee.

I mentioned this at last week's briefing.

This is the legislation from the Department of Construction and Inspections clarifying that the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance applies to buildings that exit the multi-family tax exemption.

affordable housing program.

Because the committee, as I said just now, did not have quorum to vote this bill out of committee on Thursday, September 23rd, it was re-referred directly to the full city council meeting for a vote today.

And as I mentioned before, the bill is for clarifying purposes and it's pretty straightforward.

But still, if any council members have questions, please feel free to reach out to my office, to SDCI, or to Asha Venkatraman.

from the city council's unjust job.

There are no regularly scheduled meetings of the sustainability and renters rights committee right now since the council's budget deliberations are ongoing.

Just a few points on the budget.

My office has been reviewing the mayor's proposed budget and not surprisingly it is a business as usual budget.

Last year the tax Amazon movement won the big business tax generating 234.6 million dollars for the city's 2022 budget.

The spending plan that the council passed makes clear that the overwhelming majority of those funds should go to expanding affordable housing and green new deal programs.

And that is exactly what the community activists and the union members and the unions themselves as a whole, who were part of the tax Amazon movement, we're fighting for.

And those were the intended uses also the original version of the big business tax legislation from my office.

In the mayor's proposed budget, the majority of the funds are being used to expand the already loaded police budget and to prevent budget cuts in other departments.

Needless to say, I believe it is absolutely vital to prevent cuts in any of the other departments.

In fact, during the final votes of the Amazon tax last year, movement activists in my office proposed increasing the big business tax rate in order to both prevent budget cuts and still fund housing and Green New Deal programming, at least at the original intended I will be preparing the people's budget amendments to this year's budget to fully restore the funding for the green new deal and affordable housing programs.

because we've seen the lengths to which the mayor's office has gone to prevent these from being established, even though the People's Budget Movement and other organizations who were involved in it won funding for it in the last budget.

We're also preparing a budget amendment to fund the reparations for the central area Black community displaced by the urban renewal policies, the so-called urban renewal policies.

I would be happy to work with other councilmembers.

They would be happy to work on the budget amendments related to some of the requests that have come in from organizations like Real Change.

I'm definitely very interested in those.

The services that we need for our unhoused neighbors who are living in RVs is extremely important.

And I know this is becoming relevant in every part of the city, and it's just as relevant in District three as well.

I mean in on MLK just blocks from where I live.

We know there are many homeless neighbors who are surviving there and it's important that we support them and our house neighbors.

And I know that there is broad agreement that we have services for them so that we have We are able to bring in a humane way of addressing this problem, at least as a stopgap measure.

Obviously, we need affordable housing in order to actually address this problem, but I think these stopgap measures are being supported both by house neighbors and by our neighbors who are facing housing instability.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I'm not seeing any, so we'll go ahead and continue on.

Thanks again.

Next up is Council Member Strauss, and then I will go ahead and provide my Council Briefing Report.

Council Member Strauss, good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction and referral calendar.

We do have 11 items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full council agenda.

We have five appointments to the Seattle Planning Commission and an appointment to the Historic Seattle Governing Council.

We have an appointment to the Seattle Chinatown International District PDA Governing Council.

And then we have a number of council bills.

So we have Council Bill 12181, which establishes transferable development rights program with Pierce and Snohomish counties.

We already have this program operating here in the city of Seattle, and now we are extending this to Pierce and Snohomish counties to be able to protect farmland while creating the density and forest land, for that matter, while creating the density we need here in the city of Seattle.

We also have Council Bill 120.155, which amends the comprehensive plan to, as Councilmember Muscata noted, to change the name of single-family areas to neighborhood neighborhood residential areas as single family zones currently have legacy duplexes, triplexes, corner stores, and multifamily units, including apartment buildings.

This is simply a name change to better reflect the vibrant neighborhoods that we already have.

We also have Council Bill 12154, which makes other annual amendments to the Comprehensive Plan.

And finally, 120149, which extends the maximum size of use limits for sports and recreation facilities within industrial general to zones.

The land use and neighborhoods committee will have to hold two very brief meetings during budget in order to consider a quasi judicial contract rezone application in the state mandated timeline.

So again, the state mandates when we as council come together in a quasi judicial format where we are um, essentially the judges.

And that's why you cannot have communications with parties of the matter unless it is in a formalized fashion.

So those so if you have any questions about this, please talk to Ketel Freeman.

Those meetings will occur on Monday, October 25th and Monday, November 1st.

Both meetings will be scheduled for 10.30 a.m.

directly after council briefing, and we hope that each will take under an hour.

So again, thank you to Council President's Office and central staff for working to coordinate this meeting and the schedule.

In our office here in District 6, last week, we spent most of the week, as you know, colleagues, with departments reviewing the allocations in the mayor's proposed budget.

I was able to meet, retain my regularly scheduled meeting with SDCI Director Nathan Torgelson, and as many have noted, I ended my week with the Sound Transit Northgate Link opening Friday night and Saturday.

Saturday, I was honored to join Councilmember Juarez for the opening of the John Lewis Memorial Bridge.

and many other festivities with ribbon cuttings throughout the area.

This coming week, I'll be meeting with a number of directors as part of my regularly scheduled meetings.

I'll be meeting with Finance and Administrative Services Director Calvin Goings, SDOT Director Zimbabwe, and Judge Gregory of the Seattle Municipal Court.

I'm also going to have the opportunity to tour the West Seattle Bridge on Tuesday.

On Thursday, I'll be attending the Puget Sound Regional Council.

And on Friday, I will be receiving a tour of the Skagit River Dam projects as a follow-up to my meeting that was held in the office or via Teams Zoom, however you want to say.

This is a tour that follows up the meeting that I had regarding the Skagit Relicensing Project.

For those watching, just a reminder, next Not this week, but next week, October 12th, we do have a public hearing for the budget process.

If you are interested in signing up or providing testimony for the public hearing regarding this 2022 budget, you can go to the council's website or in my most recent newsletter, we have contained all of the different ways you can participate during the budget process.

My newsletters are contained on my website.

Please participate.

We'd love to have you participate.

Here in District 6, we have big changes to transit service that started this last Saturday.

We are having service restorations and revised bus routes.

Some of these changes are the Route 5X, the 5 Express route is being replaced.

So we now have the 16 Express, which will operate peak-only services on weekdays between Broadview and downtown Seattle, including Greenwood.

All Express Routes 15, 17, and 18 have been fully restored to pre-COVID-19 levels.

So if you are a daily commuter in the mornings or evenings, you can rely on the 15, 17, and 18 Expresses.

The Route 40 will stop at the new Northgate Station as compared to the previous Northgate Transit Station.

So just know that if you're looking for the route 40, go to the station that is now at the light rail station.

And as many know, route 44 was revised to better serve the university district light rail station.

And it is now has an eastbound bus only lane on northeast 45th street between Roosevelt and 15th.

You can also pick it up at the station.

So we're excited about that.

And I just want to note that these service increases and restorations are because we have a Seattle Transit Benefit District.

If we did not have a Seattle Transit Benefit District, we would rely on countywide planning and These bus routes may not rise to the level of need that we as Seattle residents actually need.

And so thank you, Seattle residents, for passing the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

That is how we have this amount of transit service.

Overall, in District 6 last week, my staff attended the Fremont Neighborhood Council on Monday.

On Tuesday, I attended the North Seattle Industrial Association meeting.

Tuesday night, Conducted a walking tour with Seattle City Light to assess lighting needs in the Freelired area.

Thank you for taking that walk and up the steep hillside in the dark.

And on Friday, I met with Executive Director of United Indians of All Tribes, Mike Tooley, about projects in District 6. This coming week in District 6, Tuesday, my staff will be attending the Finney Ridge Community Council, which will be discussing affordable housing projects and reopening West Green Lake Wayne North and public safety efforts.

At the same time, I will be attending the Whittier Heights Community Council meeting.

Last week and this week I continue to hold operational coordination meetings with government entities and non-governmental entities to make meaningful interventions and impacts in specific places in D6 regarding homelessness.

These meetings will continue multiple times a week until the transfer to the Regional Homelessness Authority is complete.

Office hours this week are extended because last week we did not host formal office hours due to the budget schedule.

I was, however, able to still meet with residents from Ballard, Sunset Hill, Freelard, Industrial Area, and Green Lake.

We spoke about public safety at large and in specific locations.

We spoke about development in downtown Ballard and the street cafe program.

Council President, colleagues, that is my report.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss for that report.

Are there any comments or questions?

All right, I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Oh, did you, go ahead.

I realized I forgot to share.

I got to have a great cup of coffee this morning from City Grind downstairs, which is now open till 1 p.m.

daily.

Thanks so much, Council Member Strauss.

I was just reading an email from John and Riley on that point, so thanks for mentioning it.

Okay, I'll go ahead and give my report.

It is going to be brief and then we will go ahead and move into our two executive sessions to conclude this morning's council briefing.

So really quickly introduction referral calendar.

I am sponsoring one piece of legislation on today's introduction and referral calendar.

You will see Council Bill 120186. This council bill would authorize the city to pay its eligible frontline employees additional compensation as negotiated between the city and various unions representing city employees.

The benefits addressed in this legislation would apply to both represented and non-represented frontline employees.

Eligible workers will receive a one-time payment of up to $1,750 prorated by the number of hours and months they worked in person at a city worksite retroactive to March 2020. The payment is structured so that employees will not receive both the maximum frontline worker pay and the telework reimbursement stipend, which has been in effect for several months now.

The city budget office has informed us that the funds necessary to cover these additional personnel expenditures has been budgeted for and is included in the mayor's proposed 2022 budget and in our reserves for 2021. Again, once an employee does submit their attestation and management review process is completed, the payments timing will be determined and appropriations to various departments will need to be authorized by the council via budget legislation later this year in our budget process or alternatively in early 2022 to effectuate that appropriation.

I do expect that this legislation will appear on the City Council agenda for final action this coming Monday, October 11. Again, you can expect to make a decision and have a vote on this final legislation this Monday, October 11. This legislation did not go through the ordinary labor relations policy committee review process, and therefore any individuals who have questions or concerns about this particular legislation should reach out directly to the executive, to the mayor's office.

I would recommend reaching out to Adrian Thompson directly with any questions related to the proposed legislation.

I have nothing else on this afternoon's city council agenda from the Governance and Education Committee.

I did want to report that this Tuesday morning, I will join a roundtable convened by our region's behavioral health providers, along with elected officials from both the city and the county, to discuss how we move forward as a region, how we can move forward meaningful policies and investments to continue the work of developing alternatives to police responses across our communities, specifically for those individuals whose needs are currently unmet through our existing behavioral health systems and response.

This work, of course, is very timely and necessary, and I hope to walk away with some tangible action items that we can all keep in mind as we work towards striving to improve public safety and access to public health and healthcare for all of our residents.

I'll be sure to keep all of you informed and look forward to tomorrow morning's conversation about this really critically important issue.

Okay, well, that's the end of my report.

Happy to answer any questions or hear any concerns.

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we're gonna go ahead and move into our executive sessions.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene in two executive sessions.

The purpose of the executive sessions are to discuss pending, potential, or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that the council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 1130 a.m.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond 1130 a.m., I will return to open session and announce the extension and the expected duration.

Thank you.

Thank you.