Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/30/19 Session II

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks for being back here.

It is October 30th.

It's now 2.05 in the afternoon, and welcome back to our budget session.

Today, we're going through and looking at what our colleagues affectionately known as Form Bs, which is an opportunity for us, once again, to see what my colleagues and I have proposed for ads or modifications to the mayor's budget.

And we're going through seeing who wants to be co-sponsors and to see if we can begin to identify some priorities.

So thanks again for coming back.

We're starting at on page nine of the agenda.

Item number 13, the Community Police Commission.

We got through 40 items this morning and we have 26 more to go.

So thank you, Council Central staff for being so good about understanding all of these issues.

We will once again ask that you do a frame up then our council colleagues will have up to a minute to explain why this is important and then everybody blows through the minute and laughs at me.

And then as we are raising our hands if we want to be co-sponsors that our friends at the table have said sometimes we move too quickly so I'm going to ask we hold our hands up high And then you give me the nod when you've done the count, okay?

And then if we still move too fast, Tom Holler, okay?

So who is going to do Community Police Commission?

Who's starting off?

Greg Doss, Council Central Staff.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you.

Start out with item 41, which is the Community Police Commission Budget Action 1A1.

This would add $150,000 general fund in 2020 to the CPC to allow for the agency to consult with outside legal counsel.

This is an ad similar to the one that we discussed this morning that you will also see in the Office of Police Accountability a little bit later.

This is reserving by proviso $150,000 in the CPC budget so that they may access that for a legal attorney-client relationship should they find themselves in conflict with the Seattle City Attorney.

And this is Council Member Gonzalez's item.

I think it is.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

So this is basically the same as my remarks that I made with regard to the Office of Inspector General.

Again, it's really important for us to make sure that we're preserving the independence of the Community Police Commission and part and parcel of that includes providing them the opportunity to have adequate resources to be able to hire outside legal counsel in instances in which there appears to be a conflict of interest or is an actual conflict of interest with the city attorney's office and the positions that they are taking representing the city of Seattle in the context of the consent decree and other matters.

Same rationale as before, and I know that there was wide support to add it for the Inspector General, and the same rationale and arguments apply in this context as well.

And I think you've pointed out clearly that we're not hiring an additional attorney, but it's funds that would be available for outside legal assistance should they need it.

Correct.

Okay, any further comments on this?

Then I'm going to ask all who would like to join on as a co-sponsor for item number 41. This is a $150,000 ad.

Please raise your hand and keep them there till Tom can make it count.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to item 42, Madam Chair.

Please.

It's the $200,000 ad in general fund one-time and one-time funds to the CPC to fund work plan items.

The CPC has put in a request for This funding, as they have three one-time items, one is a national search process for their new executive director.

Another is a planning process and help with the production of their strategic plan.

And third is to retain a subject matter expert to help them navigate the complaint appeal process for SPD.

These funds are set aside for that purpose and there is no proviso here.

Okay.

And it's Council Member Gonzales is that.

Okay.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Over the last five years, the CPC has demonstrated its critical role in maintaining balance and accountability with the civilian oversight system as they chart a new course into the future, one with a rapidly expanding and evolving body of work.

And I'll remind us all that some of their work is not just driven by community members and what community members want the Community Police Commission to do.

but there have been instances in which we as a city council have asked the CPC to also do additional work.

I believe that they need and deserve additional support in the short term for the 2020 budget in order to help them maintain their strong footing and their ongoing need to fulfill both their mandate under the consent decree and then some of the operational work that needs to occur in order to facilitate stability over at the Community Police Commission.

So this is one-time funding to assist the Community Police Commission in stabilizing their budget and making sure that they're able to carry out some of the unexpected projects in 2020 and to make sure that they are going to be able to be in the best position possible to continue to fulfill the mandates that they have under the consent decree for so long as we are under under the provisions of that consent decree.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

All right.

Those who would like to add their name as a sponsor to 42, number 42 for $200,000, raise your hand please.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Next on to OPA Office of Police Accountability.

Greg are you continuing.

Yeah this is my last one.

OPA 1 8 1 which is item number 43 and again would add one hundred and fifty thousand general fund in 2020 to allow for outside contracting with legal counsel an attorney client relationship if there is a conflict with the Seattle City Attorney and there is a proviso.

Thank you, Council Member Gonzales.

Nothing additional, and same rationale as the previous two items on the same subject for the OPA and IG, so this would balance out and provide $150,000 to each of the three accountability, civilian-led accountability entities to contract outside legal counsel if and when needed.

Very good.

Further comments?

All right, those who want to add their name as a sponsor to this one, raise your hand.

Very good.

All right, so Office of Sustainability and Environment, OSC.

Yolanda, thank you.

You've been doing a great deal of work for us on this subject.

Thank you.

All right, so Yolanda Ho, Council Central Staff.

So we have three council budget actions for the Office of Sustainability and Environment, all of which are sponsored by Council Member O'Brien.

So OSC 1A1 would add staffing and resources to the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

an ongoing general fund to provide support for the Green New Deal Oversight Board and Climate Action Interdepartmental Team.

The council had established this board in September, as well as the interdepartmental team with the passage of Ordinance 125-926, and the legislation had anticipated that OSC would staff both the board and the IDT However, the staffing is not included in the 2020 proposed budget, nor is the compensation for board members for whom participating on the board presents a financial hardship.

To that end, there will be $116,000 for a strategic advisor, one, this assumes an April 1st hire, to support the board and IDT, and $40,000 for board member compensation, assuming all 19 board members are eligible to receive that.

Okay, Council Member Bryant.

Thank you.

Yolanda, you said it very well.

I don't have a ton to add other than just to reinforce my colleagues that this and one other similarly sized investment we'll get to in the offset economic development I see as critical pieces for us being able to implement the Green New Deal as envisioned in the resolution a couple months ago.

further comments all right those who want to add your name as a sponsor to this is number 4456 for one strategic advisor raise your hand thank you just a question on this and I supported it so obviously I'm not in opposition the compensation of the board members who are

It presents financial hardship.

I fully support that.

I mean, I've always examined that issue for certain volunteers.

Is there some, would the department sort of determine the criteria and work on the implementation piece or do we need to worry about that now?

Maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

Sorry, it's a question about how we would ascertain the qualifying.

Yeah, who's eligible, what the amounts are because, you know, 40,000 could only go for some, there might be five or six people and, Is it a certain amount or do they just split the 40?

I mean, there's going to be these discussions are coming up.

So, we put it in there.

We may want to give the department or somebody some direction on what our thinking is.

Yeah.

So, this estimate was based on there's a transportation equity work group and the environmental justice committee, I believe.

They also are provided with essentially a stipend.

So, the estimate was about $2,000 per year for those whom, you know, if their work, you know, they have to take time off of work or, you know, there's transportation challenges, things like that.

I think that we did not in the legislation provide any, you know, criteria necessarily.

So, it is up to the department kind of deter and the idea was that, you know, the board members would, you know, it was contemplated to create some guidelines, but I think we wanted to kind of allow for some flexibility.

maybe determine if that needed to be done.

So Mike, that's good.

So my concern is we've done this at least for one other commission that I know of, perhaps more.

And so we probably want some uniformity in how we treat that, whether it's just a certain amount or there's eligibility requirements or something.

I'd hate for us to start picking and choosing what commissions we're investing in.

more than others.

Yeah, I think you raise a really good question for some of our colleagues to think about in the future.

That's what I'm trying to get some thoughts out now.

I believe, at least in the formulation of the amount, there's an assumed hourly amount.

And so I think it wouldn't be just a flat sum, but it'd be based on how many hours you worked on the commission.

And then the other, to the qualification, I believe that we leave it up to the individual to just essentially self-certify and say, I believe that, you know, this is a hardship for me and I need it.

But there's not like you need to be below 30% of area mean income or submit documentation for that.

And I just like to see consistency because this may come up time and time again.

And it should because, again, we want to pull from communities.

Not all communities are the same in terms of their resources.

And we want some parity, so that's fine.

I think, I believe we're trying to be consistent with the other commissions that do this, but obviously there are bunches of commissions that aren't there, and I think for considering if we want to do this consistently across all or certain types of boards and commissions would be something to consider in the future.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Just really quickly on this issue, so I know that one of the commissions that Is assigned to my committee as a community police commission.

I know that they have stipends on a hardship basis provided to their commissioners who Request it and I do think that they have set parameters on on how that is accomplished I think council president Harrell you were responsible for approving that and I seem to recall that there was actual legislation to approve and consider a particular parameters.

I think the concern would be getting into a pickle around the gift of public funds, for example, situation.

So I think that is an appropriate caution and flag to make and perhaps we can consider having some accompanying legislation with this particular Form B if it's included in the balancing package to sort of address some of those issues.

The other thing that I'll flag is that because of the way the accounting system works, I think it would be really important to make sure that these dollars aren't just subsumed into the OSC budget, and if the stipend isn't used, that OSC then believes that they can use the money to subsidize other OSC work that isn't related to the stipend.

So we've been working with the CPC, for example, on making sure that there's an independent budget control line within their budget that is specifically allocated to just this use so that it doesn't get washed into the general budget for OAC.

So those are just two cautions that I would And again, maybe these are things that could be addressed through some accompanying budget legislation if appropriate.

Right.

Or even I think a proviso on the $40,000 that says it can only be spent for this.

And so if they underspend, then they'd have to come back to us to reallocate it if we so choose.

Sure.

Okay.

I mean, it's not a significant amount of money, but I still think for accountability purposes it's important.

Good.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Those who would like to add?

Are we done with this one?

Okay, sorry.

Then how would we like to just skip to number 45?

Okay so we are at OSC 2A1 and this is um a rather there's a lot going on in this one so I will bear with me but um so the proposal is to cut from the Department of Neighborhoods um 2.5 million from the proposed 2020 budget that would go to capital improvements in the P-PATCH program and redirect this money to a variety of other sweetened beverage tax priorities.

Sorry, I don't think I said that.

The 2.5 million is sweetened beverage tax revenues.

And so the proposal is to redirect this to a variety of departments and I will quickly walk through that.

So this would, the 2.5 million would would leave 500,000 in the Department of Neighborhoods budget for the P-PATCH program.

And just noting that the P-PATCH program does receive about, receives $200,000 a year of Parks District funding annually for maintenance, but has otherwise not been provided capital improvement funding since 2008. So the priorities that this funding would go to, and this is, we're actually, this may be a little bit in flux, just to let you all know, we're working with the executive and other stakeholders to figure out where where these dollars may best be spent because they are one time.

$75,000 would go to the Office of Sustainable Environment for a scratch cooking consultant for the Seattle Public Schools to help them as the public schools assess what infrastructure and changes they might need to make and in order to cook meals from scratch to give students more options and possibly better food in their cafeterias.

Would also fund, would direct 260,000 sweetened beverage tax revenues to Seattle Parks and Recreation for water bottle filling stations and 140,000 to Seattle Public Schools for the same purpose, to install water bottle filling stations, prioritizing those located in neighborhoods that are, you know, kind of in alignment with the Sweetened Beverage Tax intent.

And 500,000 would go to the Human Services Department to provide micro grants to food banks, meal program sites, and home child care programs, for kitchen equipment and supplies like refrigerators, ovens, cookware, and other items to help provide fresh food options.

$225,000 to the Office of Sustainability and Environment for consultant services to develop a comprehensive evaluation plan for all Sweetened Beverage Tax funded programs and services and establish shared measurement protocols to collect common measures.

$325,000 to the Human Services Department to Family Resource Centers with a priority for assistance to families with children birth to age 3. This would bring that total investment to $1.1 million.

because there's already funding in the proposed budget for that.

$500,000 would go to the Office of Sustainability for an additional $1,000 fresh bucks vouchers, adding on to the additional $2 million.

an ongoing funding in the 2020 proposed budget.

This would result in a funding of a total of 7,000 vouchers in 2020 for residents who both, so residents who qualify for benefits may apply for the vouchers as well as those who are in the food security gap, meaning those who are food insecure but do not qualify for any benefits.

$375,000 would go to DEEL, the Department of Education and Early Learning, to evaluate how families connect to child care providers and develop.

strategies to improve this connection.

This is similar to Council Budget Action Deal 4A1, which you discussed earlier today, but this is only one-time funding via the Sweden Beverage Tax.

So this could possibly just be kind of setting a foundation for some of the work that was described earlier today.

in terms of connecting families to child care providers.

And the department may need to identify ongoing resources for that purpose.

And then the last item would be $100,000 to the Office of Sustainability and Environment for consultant support for the Sweden Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board, developing and translating some of their materials and analyzing key issue areas.

Thank you.

Council Member O'Brien.

So, colleagues, this, just to be clear, is a revenue neutral.

Again, in the mayor's budget, there was $3 million of sugar beverage tax money dedicated to pea patches.

And based on the recommendations from the Community Advisory Board, this shift is reallocating that to other priorities.

We are having my office is having kind of ongoing conversations with the Community Advisory Board to understand And inform them on the range of options there Various executive departments and central staff have been really helpful and Kind of helping understand how some of those investments would be made and so continue to work on with them over the next week or so.

And if any of you all would like to be part of those conversations with the Community Advisory Board, I'd certainly invite participation in there.

And the idea being in the next week we'd have some clarity on a very specific set of investments that they would like to see and we would know that and can make a policy statement.

With your community advisory board?

Not meeting set up, so we're just via email sending stuff back and forth.

And if someone wants to be looped in on those conversations, I'm more than happy to loop you in.

I see two sets of hands being raised, so I will make sure we do that.

Thanks.

Great.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments?

And we are on 45. You have a question?

Yeah.

So given that we very recently now set up the sugary beverage fund, I don't remember what we called it.

Are we saying that The intent of that legislation has not been honored with the mayor's proposed budget?

Or I guess the question really I guess is, is P-Patch funding inconsistent with the intent of our sugary beverage revenue priorities?

It's definitely clear that no one had anticipated P-Patch funding coming out of that pool, especially the Community Advisory Board.

But I think, I believe the executive in making the proposal was intending to fill some gaps and try to honor the intent.

So I don't want to, I don't want to be questing the judgment.

And so that, but the community advisory board clearly saw it differently.

And so that's the moment we're at.

You know, the big buckets that are supposed to be in there at the highest level are around food security and early education.

And one can make an argument about food security and pea patches and overlap.

And I think what I'm hearing the community advisory board say is, when we're focused on food security, we want to make sure it's going to the folks with the greatest need in the ways we think the most effective.

And they're like, Yes, we get the P-patches to do some of that, but depending on the P-patch and which program within P-patches you're investing in, they have to think we have other priorities such as the FreshBooks program.

So that's, I think, the distinction here.

And we obviously, I think there's a range of things we could do that would be consistent with the high level.

outlines of the legislation.

For me personally, I'm showing a lot of deference to the Community Advisory Board just because of who's impacted by the tax in the first place, but I also want to navigate something that works for people throughout the city.

Just really quickly, I want to absolutely agree with Council Member O'Brien's analysis there.

I think from my perspective, there's an open policy question as to whether or not funding P-Patches under their existing structure and rubric does or does not qualify for funding under the sweetened beverage tax.

And I say that because even though there are some food banks, as Council Member Bryant just mentioned, that do voluntarily contribute food from their pea patches to food banks, that's not a requirement.

It's encouraged, but it's not a requirement.

There's no minimum, minimal criteria set there.

So while there are some places that do, I think, meet some of the targeted populations that we're trying to reach with these investments, I think I continue to have questions about how geographically equitable those numbers really are.

So, for example, when you look at the citywide numbers around the P-PATCH program, they look pretty good, but I've asked the Department of Neighborhoods to give me a geographic map that lets me understand where we're seeing some of the good numbers around people of low income accessing pea patches for purposes of food security and food access.

I haven't gotten that information from them yet and am eager to receive it, but I support this particular form B and really wanted to appreciate Council Member O'Brien's staff for working with my staff around moving the dials on many of these investments in a way that I think is more equitable, still sort of recognizes that pea patches have some food access connections, but does it in a more, I think, reasonable way.

Madam Chair?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Council Member O'Brien, just for clarification, so, or maybe I should direct this at central staff, so when we're looking at the attachment with the one to ten items, the tab, the one to ten programs, right?

Okay.

So from number one, just again, I may be asking a dumb question, but please correct me.

So on that first one, it says increase sweetened beverage tax support to connect families to childcare.

That was Council Member Gonzalez's request this morning.

So that's not included.

That's not part of this number in here.

This is the revenue source for that request.

Got it.

Right.

Okay.

So taking that one aside and then going down from two to ten, I'll just be, you know, I'll just be candid what my concerns are, Council Member O'Brien, and again, thank you for your work.

I know you and I have had our differences about this, but I've always appreciated that you've been very kind and open about discussing our differences.

I couldn't support a increased support for community advisory board consultant.

Because my understanding with the community advisory board is that is a professional or expertise board.

It's not your regular community board.

We actually have people there with subject matter expertise on that board.

I couldn't go along with, I mean, looking at number eight, Increase support for scratch cooking at Seattle Public Schools.

I have concerns about 9 and 10. Number 9 being $140,000 to increase support for water filling stations at Seattle Public Schools.

$260,000 to increase support for water bottle filling stations at community centers.

I guess I think we're going to need some work here, so I'll have some additional questions for you.

And I have some of the issues along the same lines as Council Member Gonzalez about, obviously, P-patches are important.

But again, I want to see more, not just Equity, well, equity, of course, but how we're looking at it citywide, how these groups are actually maintaining that community to use a P patch and how effective they are.

And so for me, again, one reason I supported this tax and will continue to support it is because I continue to fight for line item funding for our food banks.

Thank you.

Council Member Pacheco, are you waving at me?

Well, I just wanted to really quickly kind of echo, I think, Council Member Gonzalez and Council Member Juarez.

I appreciate Council Member O'Brien's leadership on this.

I know that this is where we had a little bit of a, all of us collectively had a bit of a difference over the summer.

But I also want to just kind of flag for awareness that the Trump administration currently is making stricter requirements for, and this is what I've heard directly from community advocates as well, in terms of SNAP benefits.

And so, what I've also heard is just the greater need for food banks themselves.

And so, I think there's some, I appreciate the movement in this.

I think we're going in the right direction.

But I want to make sure that any way that I can be helpful or supportive in those conversations, please feel free to reach out at my office as well.

And I'll make sure to be engaged with the community advisory board as well.

So, thank you.

I think my concerns are a little bit different.

I appreciate Council Member Gonzalez's interest in getting more geographically relevant information about P-patches and the usefulness of that in determining who P-patches are serving.

I really am uncomfortable with what I feel like is a persistent narrative around P-patches.

And about who they serve, I mean, the reality is 45% of the gardeners are renters.

40% of them are low income people with household incomes of under $60,000.

Those are the citywide numbers.

And so I think once you dig into some of those geographic areas, it's going to be much, much larger numbers of people who are renters and low-income folks.

The surveys that they've done of gardeners show a significant percentage of folks who have, who are food insecure and have been worried or stressed about having enough money to pay for food.

And then further, the racial toolkit analysis that they did in 2018 showed that peapatch gardeners of color were more likely to grow food to reduce grocery costs and address food insecurity.

So I would like to find some sort of a middle ground between taking all of the funds for peapatch needs, especially considering they haven't received any funding for capital needs since 2008, and then maybe finding a way of targeting some of the funds towards P-Patches in the city that are serving the demographics of people who need it most.

I just, I see the incredible value of P-Patches in low-income neighborhoods in in the district that I represent and appreciate both the fact that there are long waiting lists and lots of folks who want to participate, but that there are also some physical needs associated with the pea patches as well.

Good.

Thank you for bringing that up.

And I just want to pile on just for a second, and that is that some of the pea patches have been authorized, some of the people that are actually doing the growing to sell.

and to sell what they're doing back to their neighbors in Holly Park and some of the others.

And I do think that that's something that we should keep our eye on, make sure that that continues to be an equitable thing.

Chair Baxter, just to add, I was going to make similar comments to what Councilmember Herbold just said, so I appreciate just clarifying that a lot of the peat patch growers are renters, and in fact, if you look at the peat patch growers on Capitol Hill and the Central District, I mean, one characteristic of them is not only that they're renters, but they're actually density advocates who don't have their own yard to cultivate in, and they like the experience of sharing the sort of wider space with other neighbors.

And they're also often, they're often apartment dwellers and sort of, it's sort of with the pro-density sort of attitude.

But they're also disabled community members who are starting to use P-patches, P-patch spaces and it really gives them a completely different opportunity to experience life that they don't otherwise have.

And I just, if I might just quickly read an extract of a letter from a constituent in district three who's not so much about this particular amendment so much, but as a larger issue, what indication does the city council give on P-Patches?

Like if we show that we strongly support it, that makes a difference in the courts as well.

So as the constituent writes, in the instance of the MADD-P P-Patch, That's what it's called, the MAD-P, P-Patch.

In order to aid and abet corporate developer Valmir, SDCI declared that half of our P-Patch did not exist.

I mean, these are the words of the.

constituent maybe that was not the intention of STCI, but that is what happened, declared that half of the PPAT did not exist because they didn't see it on a map that they used, the land use map that they used.

The hearing examiner then rejected the argument and the constituent further says, I can see that if council does not indicate that they support community gardens in a thorough way, then it will make it only easier for mayor and the departments to sort of not acknowledge them.

So I just wanted to make that general point that I think We should recognize that pea patches are not a luxury.

It's actually being used by a lot of working class and middle class people who have no other space and then of course the connection of food banks and affordability which is great.

Council Member O'Brien, do you want to?

Just a clarification question maybe for Council Member O'Brien.

I just want to I just try to understand the context.

So if we took a snapshot right now of Forget about the addition for right now.

If we took a snapshot of last year, this is all Sweden beverage tax money.

What are we, not the three million, but what were we putting into the P patches now?

I know there's 200,000 coming from parks for maintenance.

We haven't done much other than that, but is the three million for this year's budget a new three million?

Brand new.

So prior to that, there was just a 200,000.

That's correct.

Yeah, so the $3 million is for the proposed 2020 budget.

That is brand new funding.

And the money, theoretically, are those to refurbish the existing ones, or is this an additional number of pea patches throughout the city?

I think it's not entirely, they have not decided, you know, Department of Neighborhoods has not decided exactly where, well, obviously knowing that it's in the proposed budget, it's a new addition, so they have not formulated a criteria necessarily, but I think the intention, there is at least some attention to refurbish existing pea patches, they acknowledge that.

Many of them could use kind of walkway repairs planter repairs compost bin such that you know so I like what I hear from Councilmember Swan and Councilmember Herbold in terms of Educating us more about the pea patch, and I think that's good stuff the the mayor sort of asking us to go all in on pea patch and our double down if you will and not even double down and go pretty deep on this and I But if you look at how Councilmember O'Brien is trying to redirect it, that's all really good stuff, too.

So I'm not sure how we get ourselves out when we're doubling down on something that we all are saying it's really, really good stuff, but he's trying to redirect.

And I guess status quo was just $200,000 prior to this.

And so we go from $200,000 to $3 million.

I just don't want to do things bidded against each other.

So anyway, okay.

So maybe I'll make some suggestions on how we move forward.

This money, again, the background, my understanding of the money is there's 3 million in excess revenue.

I believe it's actually from 2019. They expect to be collected this year that has not been previously allocated.

So they're viewing this as one-time money.

So I believe the proposal in the mayor's office was let's not commit to ongoing programs, but use this one-time money for some one-time needs.

But we're talking about money that is in the Sweetened Beverage Tax Fund.

And so this does not, regardless of whether we leave it alone, or my proposal, or a series of other proposals, we're not talking about, it shouldn't have any impact on the general fund.

So for the budgeting work, Chair, that you're gonna be doing in the next few days to pull everything together, I'm hoping that there may be some time to have a little flexibility to continue to figure out how this works out.

Now, it does have some impact in that, like, this is a funding source for Council Member Gonzalez's Form B that's elsewhere in the budget that, without this, may need some general funds.

So there's a relationship there that we'll want to work on.

Because the Community Advisory Board is, they're all folks that are volunteering on this, I'm trying to go back and forth in as swiftly as possible.

And because there's so much interest here, I will try to loop everyone in on on what they see as their priorities.

I really appreciate some of the comments that folks have made about pea patches.

I generally think pea patches do a bunch of outstanding things.

And I think when we're talking even about the folks that are most food insecure, There's a role that pea patches play in those individual households' lives that help.

And I'm trying to make sure the folks on the Community Advisory Board have access to that information.

And I'll say that things like water filling stations, what the experts on the CAB have said is, those community centers and schools are one of the places where young people are targeted with soft drinks.

And oftentimes, the alternative of drinking fresh water is not available.

And so in the spirit of trying to make investments with this tax money to divert people from spending money on pop, water filling stations are something that is consistent with that vision.

How we rank those things, I think, is a policy decision we'll have to make.

And so what I anticipate is sometime in the next week or so, we will have a range of options.

And Chair Bakeshaw, you can help line us up or make a proposal on how to balance that.

But we'll keep this in its own bucket.

by Tuesday, because by Wednesday, I have to provide something back to all of you that incorporates as many of these good ideas as possible.

Council Members, do you want to?

Just very quickly, I just want to make it clear again that I don't think this is in opposition to any of you.

I think we're on the same page on this.

We don't want to pit good programs against good programs.

And so, The comments here should be construed on the basis that we think both are good programs, and in fact, perhaps, in many cases, serve the same communities with similar needs, and that we have to find a way of making sure that no program is undercut in any way, unintentionally.

Good.

Thank you.

No more comments?

Then I will pull the question here on item number 45 of adding the one point.

$1,040,000 of the sweetened beverage tax.

And those who would like to add their names as sponsors, raise your hand.

Okay.

We'll continue to work on this regardless.

So I appreciate that.

I'm hearing what.

We're all trying to be very careful about open public meeting conversations.

Go ahead.

I did not get that.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

Raise your hands again, please, on this last one.

I thought you were raising your hand on stuff.

Me?

Sure.

No, I'm raising my hand on everything because I love them all.

Did you get what you need?

Yeah.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

All right, the next one is item 46, requesting that OSC establish high road contracting standards for electrical contractors.

And I think Council Member Mosqueda, is that?

No, this is also Council Member O'Brien.

So this is a statement of legislative intent requesting that Office of Sustainability and Environment establish high road contracting standards for electrical contractors.

Just as a way of background, between 2010 and 2014, the Office of Sustainability and Environment administered the Community Power Works Program, which was funded through a federal grant.

that offered loans and rebates for eligible energy efficiency improvements to homes.

As part of this program, the Office of Sustainability and Environment developed a community high road agreement, a workforce agreement that focused on providing good jobs with living wages and benefits, equitable access, prioritizing underrepresented groups, and ensuring quality work.

And so this year the council passed Ordinance 125934 establishing the heating oil tax with the proceeds to go towards converting eligible low-income households from oil heating systems to electric systems.

As part of this program, the Office of Housing will be administering these conversions and the intent of the slide is that the Office of Sustainability and Environment based on its previous The work on the development of the high road agreement would assist the Office of Housing with developing conditions for a high road agreement with the electric heat installers who will be contracted for these conversions.

Additionally, the statement of legislative intent also requests that Office of Sustainability and Environment determine if it is possible to create a list of electrical contractors who are willing to agree to a high road agreement.

and if the city can prioritize these contractors for city-funded projects.

All right, Council Member Bryan.

Thank you, Yolanda, great job describing that.

I'll just, again, the big goal is if we're going to use city dollars, taxpayer dollars, or ratepayer dollars, whatever the case may be, to subsidize work, we want to make sure that those investments are not only going into the work to protect our environment, They're also supporting good family wage jobs.

And so this is simply asking them to use their past expertise and help us build programs out.

I suspect that the work we did around heating oil is not the last time we'll be making investments in the near future to get people converting to our clean electric system from fossil fuels.

And so a program that is ready to support that going forward is something that would be really beneficial.

Thank you.

So, this is a slide.

Anybody else want to add anything to it?

Okay.

All those who want to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Thank you.

All right.

The next item, I believe, we're moving into SDCI.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central staff.

We are indeed moving into SDCI.

There are eight potential amendments to SDCI's budget proposed by council members and an annual action to adjust fees charged by STCI for its regulatory services.

So the first action under STCI, this is item number 47 on your agenda, would add a term limited planning and development specialist and approximately $125,000 in general fund to STCI for CEPA rulemaking and outreach.

This one-time resource ad would be to perform rulemaking and outreach that is contemplated by Council Bill 119600, which the Council passed earlier this month.

As you'll recall, that Council Bill amended the city's State Environmental Policy Act SEPA ordinance to modify thresholds above which SEPA review is required, to limit the duration of SEPA appeals at the hearing examiner, and to make other amendments consistent with recent changes to state law.

That bill contemplates that SDCI will develop rules with outreach to stakeholders, including those with expertise in the environmental justice community, to improve consistency and uniformity of SEPA review.

So this is the resource add to accomplish that rulemaking.

Council Member Pacheco is the sponsor.

Very good.

Thank you, Council Member Pacheco.

So colleagues, we passed Council Bill 119600, which updated our SEPA laws.

Part of our ordinance grants SCCI the authority to create a director's rulebook that would serve as a handbook to guide SEPA analysis and help in the development of the environmental impact statements.

A handbook like this is something that other cities, including New York City, use to effectively create more uniformity and clarity of expectations for those complex documents.

This amendment would add $125,477 in one-time funding to add a term-limited position to develop this handbook.

Okay.

Any further comments on this?

I know that there's been a lot of work council members want that you were doing around SEPA recently.

Is there anything you would like to add on this?

Okay.

So, this is item number 47, a term limited planning and development specialist.

Those who would like to add their names as co-sponsors, raise your hand.

Moving on to item number 48 on the agenda.

This is another action sponsored by Councilmember Pacheco.

This would proviso $63,000 in STCI for updates to green building standards that are administered by STCI.

The city administers several different green building standards and programs.

They were adopted at different times and for somewhat different purposes.

The proviso requires a recommendation from STCI on updates to those standards and to help the council members understand how the standards can help achieve the city's overall climate protection objectives.

The provisor contemplates that SDCI will include in its recommendation an incentive to use cross-laminated timber as a building technology, as a construction material.

Good.

Thank you.

Council Member Pacheco, do you want to speak to it?

So colleagues, our various green building standards and green building incentive programs have long been in need of comprehensive review and update.

This amendment would provide a half of an FTE from SCCI's code development team to carry out the work of reviewing these programs and making recommendations to improve them.

It also requests that as a specific piece of that review, SCCI make recommendations for how these programs can incentivize the use of cross laminated timber in new construction, an area that the United States has been far behind on.

And cross-laminated timber has been championed by our own Governor Jay Inslee and Washington State Lands Commissioner Hilary France.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other comments on this?

It's a proviso.

Do you have a question down there?

Okay.

I couldn't tell whether you were stretching or raising your hand.

Okay, very good.

This is item 48, and those who want to add your names to the proviso for updates to green building standards, raise your hand.

Okay, pretty good.

Thank you, Tom.

The next one, I think, is Council Member O'Brien's, and I assume that you're...

That's right.

So moving on to agenda item number 49, this is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Council Member O'Brien.

It requests that the Office of Planning and Community Development and STCI prepare a proposal to limit siting of new fossil fuel production and storage facilities.

This slide originates in the council's comprehensive plan docket setting resolution, that's resolution 31896, which the council passed back in August.

That docket setting resolution contemplates that the council will be considering amendments to the comprehensive plan to establish policies limiting siding of fossil fuel storage and production facilities, so this would be a sly Directing SDCI to implement to develop implementing regulations for those policies.

Thank you.

Council Member Brantley.

I would characterize this as a bit of a belt and suspenders approach.

We've already indicated that this is what we expect to happen in that process, and we're once again saying we hope that I direct the department to do that work to bring us the information as we get to the comp plan updates for next year.

If I mischaracterize that at all, Quito, please correct me.

All right.

What's the timing?

What's the request, the return date on this?

So implementing regulations, a proposal on implementing regulations would be submitted to the council no later than June 30th.

The comprehensive plan amendments are typically considered by the council in March, so this would be about a three month process.

This would follow the council consideration of the policies by about three months.

Okay.

Are you okay with that timing?

Yes.

Okay.

Very good.

So, this is a slide.

And those who want to add your name as a co-sponsor on this is item number 49. Raise your hand.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

And the next item is number 50.

Yes.

So, agenda item number 50. An ad sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda would add one FTE electrical inspector and $106,000 approximately in general fund to enforce Washington state regulations related to electrical contractor licensing.

Specifically, the ad would enforce state laws and regulations that are intended to combat underground unlicensed electrical contractors and electricians.

Local jurisdictions were given authority to enforce the state laws through a House bill, ESHB 1952 in 2018. Enforcement is currently performed statewide by 11 inspectors with the Washington Department of Labor and Industries E-Corp team.

King County has one assigned inspector.

After the budget action was finalized and put on the agenda, we heard, got some additional information from STCI.

In addition to the one FTE inspector, STCI anticipates that if council were to add this position and the funding, the STCI would need an additional vehicle for the inspector.

That'd be $35,000.

Would you like to speak to Councilmember Muscatis?

I also support this strongly.

I think that 11 inspectors statewide for the amount of construction that's going on or one inspector in King County leaves quite a gap of folks who want to disregard the rules and regulations and sneak through.

We hear anecdotal stories where there's significant, projects where there's significant number of people that are not meeting this requirement.

So there's a couple ways this could play out.

One is that people continue to remain out of compliance.

And we will be able to collect a significant amount of fines from them, which would make this likely a self-funding position.

What I would prefer is that by having the inspectors and enforcement out there, we bring all the projects in town into compliance so that the work that's being provided on all the construction in the city is going towards folks that are getting paid appropriate wages and have the right amount of supervision and the right licensing so that we're all playing by the same rules and we're not undercutting each other.

And if we need another vehicle, I will absolutely support the $35,000 to make sure we have in one time to have a vehicle for this person.

Thank you.

Any other comments on this one?

All right.

Those who want to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

All right.

So the item 51, I believe we pass it off to Council Member Herbold.

agenda item number 51 adds approximately $236,000 and two positions one FTE housing and zoning technician and one FTE code compliance analyst to STCI for tenant outreach and to increase staffing in the property owner and tenant assistance group.

The additional staffing is necessary to implement a couple of council generated bills and three executive generated bills and also to deal with an existing increased volume in calls and complaints.

The action would also add approximately $15,000 to update outreach and education materials that POTO uses as a resource for tenants and the landlords.

Okay.

Very good.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So, since 2018, customer service calls by landlords and tenants to the SDCI Complaint Center have increased by 29%.

The length of time to resolve enforcement action related to violations of tenant protection regulations has doubled from 29 days to 58 days.

This would help address that backlog, but again, as Ketel explained.

We've also passed some additional legislation recently that is going to, conceivably, if we don't support this budget action, create an even larger backlog.

And one of the other items that we have asked SDCI to take the lead on is to develop a compensation program.

for that landlords can access when a tenant's unit is damaged in a domestic violence situation so that we do not hold the survivor of the domestic violence culpable for the damages done to the unit.

And so they are actually going to be working to develop the basically the application program and making recommendations to us later on this year on how much that program should cost.

And so that's another body of work that would be important for somebody in this unit to do.

The other bills that we passed in September that create new tenant protections include Limiting the ability of a landlord to restrict the number of tenants who reside in a unit.

I'm sorry, limiting the ability of a landlord to restrict the number of tenants who live in a unit.

And then also bills that require notices to terminate, enter, and increase housing costs, that those notices given to landlords also include tenants, include information to tenants about what their rights are in those instances where a landlord wants to terminate tenancy, enter a unit, or give a rent increase.

So in addition to the notices to do that, we also want to make sure that those notices also include language about what a tenant's rights are in those instance.

and also refer tenants to city resources to address those instances when there's problems either with a termination or a rent increase.

And then there are two more bills.

One requires that Landlords accept non-electronic payment options to tenants.

And there's some anticipation that there will be calls that SDCI will have to take about that change.

And then finally, a requirement that landlords must comply with the rental registration inspection ordinance before notices can be issued to terminate a tenancy.

That's it.

All right.

Anybody else want to add to that?

Okay, this is what item 51. Am I right on this?

Yes?

Item 51, to add 235,684 from the general fund for one FTE housing and zoning technician and one FTE code compliance analyst.

Those in favor of adding your name as a sponsor, raise your hand.

Okay, moving on to item 52, this is Council Member Sawant.

And Ketel, are you bringing this forward?

Sure, I'll just introduce it here.

So item number 52 would add $607,000 on an ongoing basis to STCI for renter organizing and outreach.

I believe Council Member Sawant has a recommendation for how the money would be expended, assuming that the appropriation went forward.

For a little bit of context, the endorsed and proposed budget includes $615,000 for tenant services and grants, tenant services, grants, and contracts.

Those funds will be re-competed in 2020. And this reflects a shift in some ways that began last year from a body of work that HSD was administering to SDCI.

Okay.

Council Member Biswat.

Thank you.

And thank you, Gidel, for that introduction.

As was mentioned, yeah, this is a body of work that has been sort of moving to the Department of Construction Inspections.

And in the previous years, we have won some funds for this kind of work, but this is for tenant outreach and organizing.

And it has, you know, we have had tremendous feedback from a lot of the grassroots organizations that it's actually having an impact.

And so this budget amendment adds to those funds And the specific areas of work that we're hoping will be funded is as follows.

One is the kind of know your rights boot camps that be Seattle, which is a nonprofit organization here in the city has been doing.

And, you know, initially they started very, very small or just on Capitol Hill, but now with help from my office and other tenants rights organization, they've had boot camps throughout the city and it's clearly It's becoming a very good tool.

I've personally attended many of these boot camps and it really draws renters from throughout the district who have nowhere else to go, who don't know that actually there are resources that can help them.

The boot camps also give them even basic information about, you know, what are the city laws, whom can you, you know, what's the phone number you can call at SDCI if you're facing a problem, all of that.

The other kind So, you know, part of this budget amendment I would recommend would fund those boot camps in 2020. The other aspect of tenant organizing and tenants' rights is through what the work that the Tenants' Union does, where they operate a call line for renters, which, as many of you know, and if you don't, just talking to the Tenants' Union, it'll be very clear that this is a tremendous support for renters, just having a call line with some people who are knowledgeable about what renters' rights are.

And often, especially big landlords, corporate landlords, end up abusing renters, tenants, just because the tenants don't know their rights.

And so this, I think part of this budget amendment to the tune of $200,000 could fund that ongoing work.

And last but not least is for Organizations like Washington Can and organizations like LGBTQ allyship, for example, LGBTQ allyship is supporting LGBTQ seniors who are renters and who are very vulnerable to housing instability and homelessness for them to get organized in their affordable housing, rental housing or in market rental housing, as the case may be.

And then with Washington Can, we know they have successfully advocated for eviction reform through organizing renters through door knocking.

And again, there are just endless examples.

Just very recent examples I'll mention in closing are where tenants organizing and having these organizations funded made a huge difference was preventing evictions in the first place, so the Kenton Apartments on North Capitol Hill, the Shadow Building in the Central District, and right now, the tenants at the Brighton Apartments on Beacon Hill are good examples of where this is actually coming to fruition and housing stability is maintained.

Okay, any other comments on this?

I have a question.

Yes, please, go ahead.

So, it's not clear to me from the description, or maybe I'm just missing it.

Is there any funding in the mayor's proposed 2020 budget for tenant outreach and organizing?

There is.

There is.

And both in the endorsed and proposed, there's approximately $615,000 for that purpose.

So that's for, okay, got it.

Outreach, education, and organizing.

There's 615,000 in the current budget.

Correct.

All right.

Actually, I just want to correct something here, Council Member Herbold.

I don't know to what extent any of that is for organizing per se, but there is an ongoing appropriation that is for tenant outreach and for the kinds of services that have typically been contracted for with the tenants union and other organizations like that.

And I think that's an important component to try to dig in a little bit on.

I know that two years ago, the council proposed funding specifically for organizing.

It wasn't spent that way.

And then in last year's budget, we said, hey, no, we really meant that.

We want you to fund organizing.

And I believe they did.

in this year's budget.

So I'd like to get a handle on of the 619,000 or whatever the number is in the proposed, the mayor's proposed 2020, how much is focused on organizing work?

Yeah, I can get that information for you.

And you know what I propose is we do a one tier, two tier on this one, like we did earlier.

I don't know that Council Member Herbold is objecting to this, but you are bringing up an important point about the previous funds that the council pushed for.

It's actually not being fully accountable because our intent was to fund organizing and tenants sort of advocacy, but not all those aspects were funded.

A very concrete example of what you're bringing up Council Member Herbold is, We had intended boot camps, tenant rights boot camps, among other things to be funded, but B-Seattle informs us that the boot camps were funded for the first time starting only in September.

We should ask for answers, but just to clarify, um, it's not sort of either or My amendment is adding to the existing funds, but that is separate from Demanding that the mayor's office show us where the monies were funded Use rather or what specific things were I think that's where I was going with this Tier one would be support your recommendation and tier two would be coming back to what?

Council member herbold was talking about having clarity about what we put in the budget How the money we put in the budget last year was spent?

and having a better understanding going forward about how we can put a corral around all of this.

So I'm gonna call first for those who want to add their name to, this is number 52, $607,000 to STCI for rent, organizing and outreach.

So if you raise your hand if you're supporting tier one on this.

So it's essentially just what Council Member Sawant was proposing.

Okay, and tier two is basically what I was trying to articulate is find out what we were doing, how the money was spent this year, and how much money that is currently in the mayor's budget for moving forward with supporting renters in terms of understanding what their rights are.

Okay?

Good.

All right, moving on to item 53, and Council Member Swant and Ketel, are you raising this one as well?

Sure, I can introduce it.

So, agenda item number 53, sponsored by Council Member Swant, would add approximately $535,000 on an ongoing basis to STCI for eviction legal defense by way of a reminder last year that council appropriated about $96,000 to contract for civil legal aid services related to eviction defense.

that funded one attorney position at the Housing Justice Project.

That was a one-time ad that has not continued in the mayor's proposed budget this year.

This appropriation, the proposed appropriation is estimated to fund approximately six attorneys for an organization like the Housing Justice Project or a similar civil legal aid organization.

Great, thank you.

Council Members Swann?

Thank you, Chair Bakhsha.

So as Ketil mentioned, we had funded this initiative to the tune of one city-funded attorney for eviction legal defense last year, but that was a one-time funding.

And so this amendment would I mean the intent would be to at the very least continue that on an ongoing basis, but the data also makes a compelling argument for augmenting it this year because of the data that we're seeing from the Housing Justice Project, which is the organization that uses these funds because they provide attorneys and legal consultation for tenants facing eviction and what they report is quite astounding in a good way.

The combination of the reforms to eviction law that were passed by the legislature in Olympia that went into effect this summer with the city funding for an attorney has meant, as the Housing Justice Project reports, has meant over a 400% increase in tenancy preservation, meaning that that's how much the evictions were prevented.

And Councilor Baxter, you and I were discussing this this morning.

Since then, we've had more information, sort of more numbers, so it has been a 431% increase in eviction protection or tenancy preservation.

And in numbers, it has meant that at least 500 households were helped in avoiding eviction, meaning it really made a life and death difference for them.

You know, you didn't get an eviction on your rental record, which is a huge thing.

And that has meant 3,000 household members overall, if you look at all those households.

So clearly this has been dramatically effective.

And so I would urge that we not only continue the funding, but we augment the funding.

Very good.

Any other comments on this?

I'm going to just put a stake in the ground saying I think that what you have articulated council members want is really important to have that legal counsel.

I'm not sure that we can expand it five times in this budget but I would like to acknowledge that I will be supporting at least one attorney going forward.

So those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor will argue about the level later.

Raise your hand.

Okay.

Very good.

Did you get the count?

Okay.

Council Member Swann is number 54, and Ketel, would you like to introduce it?

So this is a one-time out of $84,000 to STCI to contract for or develop itself a landlord-tenant history resource that would allow tenants to research a property's history of housing code violations and housing code compliance and also history about a landlord's eviction history.

By way of context, the council has appropriated, made appropriations to SDCI before for web-based portals.

Renting in Seattle was created in part through a council appropriation of $150,000 in 2019.

Just more of the same or add-on?

What's the intention?

Separate function.

I was just analogizing to another appropriation for a web-based resource.

Okay.

Council Member Swann.

And yeah, Keetil, correct me if I'm wrong in understanding what you're saying, but the SDCI has web-based portals for tenants' rights.

So in terms of, you know, understanding your rights, and we went over this in the committee some months ago, this is a specific thing which is, not, it's separate from what SDCI is providing right now.

And this is a web application that was created by B-Seattle, again the same organization that is on the ground working with renters.

And the whole point is to level the situation a little bit because there's such an imbalance of power between especially big landlords and tenants, and lots of landlords own lots of buildings together.

The same landlord, like for example Carl Haglund, owns a lot of buildings in the city.

But the thing is the landlord will often do background checks for their renters' history, and the more low-income you are, if you're a person of color, if you have other vulnerable aspects in your background, then you're more liable to have a background check done.

about you, but there's rarely any opportunity for renters to do any similar checking.

Who is this, you know, who's the owner of this building, and so on.

So this app, and if my staff hasn't already sent you a link, I'll make sure that happens, but it's a very simple app.

You just, it has to be populated, of course, the whole point is to have the data populated in the application for all the rental units, rental buildings and so on, and you click on any of them and it tells you who the owner is and how many, if there have been any evictions ever from that rental property.

you know, other variables so that you can also have a sense of who the landlords are and if it's one of the more notorious landlords, if there's been a spate of evictions and so on.

So you can type in the address of the rental housing you're considering as a tenant and it will tell you some other things.

It will also tell you housing code violations history.

But all of this requires some resources because the app is only as good as the data that it's populated with.

And so just as a As a sort of a pilot project, so to say, what we did through my office is we spent our own council resources to have BC Seattle create that web application just for district three rentals.

And what they've used is, you know, use standard sources of data like King County parcel viewer, King County superior code case search, King County property tax search, and so on, to put that together.

And it seems like it's very useful.

If we wanted to expand it to other districts in the city, then we would need a little bit of one-time funds.

So would the history of citations or violations pertaining to the healthy building or a problem, would you anticipate that would be included in this?

Yes.

And in fact, what we include in it could encompass all the information that's legally available to us.

It's just a question of whether we have somebody to actually do that work.

And keep it up.

And keep it up.

As soon as it's not current, it's not useful.

That's true.

Go ahead, Council Member Weiss.

I have a question and perhaps customers who want can help me or staff so councilmember Sawant you did this in district 3 and so I see how you got to 84,000 you just did 14 times 6 correct?

So, I'm guessing you wouldn't need the same startup costs in each district, wouldn't it be less?

Probably not, but on the, and I'm open to discussing that and we can invite B-Seattle folks also for our discussion in our offices to get more information.

However, I will say one thing.

This, yes, my office helped to fund this, but it has been a labor of love for B-Seattle with a lot of endless volunteer hours.

So, if you want them to expand it to the entire city, then I think we have to make it a little bit more viable for them.

Okay.

Any comments?

Further comments?

All right.

Those who would like to add their names as a co-sponsor on this, raise your hand.

It looks like we got some of us down here and not so many down there.

All right.

Good.

You got everybody?

All right.

Next one is a due pass on Council Bill 119669 on the annual fee ordinance.

Right.

And this is a piece of this would be an action sponsored by the Budget Committee as part of the suite of legislation that would implement the Mayor's proposed budget.

It includes inflationary adjustments and some other adjustments to STCI's fee ordinance.

The council sees an ordinance pretty much annually for STCI to make these adjustments.

The adjustments, assuming that council passes this bill, would increase STCI's construction inspections fund by about $1.2 million in 2019, which is less than a 1% increase in STCI's operating budget.

Okay, thank you.

Next we'll move on to the legislative department.

We have 10 more to go, colleagues, and then for those of you who are waiting patiently for public comment, thank you for being here.

Okay, the next one will be pitched to Council President Harrell, and who is going to lead us through?

Is that?

That will be Lisa Kay, Council Central Staff.

Thank you, Chair Bagshaw.

I've got three items that I'll cover for the Legislative Department ads here.

Item 56 is Ledge 2-A-1 on your agenda.

As you mentioned, it's from Council President Harrell.

This council budget action would appropriate $20,770 in general fund resources to the Legislative Department to increase the Communication Division's program budget in support of two reclassified positions.

The two positions were reclassified last May from Public Relations Specialist Senior to Strategic Advisor Legislative.

The positions advise council members and staff about communications options to disseminate messages to their intended audiences.

Thank you, Lisa, and thanks for the work on this.

So this is part of a process.

We went through a reclassification of the positions in the communications department.

These particular positions we're talking about, and they were reclassified in May of 2019, like Lisa talked about.

And the short of it is this, is that now that we are by districts, now that many of the issues in our city are almost unprecedented, these jobs are 24-7.

The social media that we use, the demands on this group are just overwhelming and they haven't really been examined since 1991. So I ask the director of that group to take a good look at And I have to thank them for their patience.

Take a good look at what we're what these positions are doing, work with our central human resources department to see if there's a reclassification.

And they did all of that and made a very, very strong and compelling case that we need to expand these classifications and recognize that they are actually, I think, working out of class.

And this is an adjustment to make sure that in the years to come, they will be properly treated.

That's the net of it.

Yes?

Anybody else?

She has a question.

They haven't been reexamined since 1991. Those positions have been the same basically positions.

So, and I would just to say in closing, this is my closing statement here, that I would ask if any of you have questions about this, Dana is available to talk to you, but she makes, she's done everything possible to be a strong advocate.

I hope I did it justice, but I strongly support this and would ask those council members working next year that I think this would be really good and effective for the council.

So it doesn't go to Dana?

That doesn't seem right.

No.

Well, but I'm saying she'll make herself available to brief you on this if you need additional briefing.

So let's see how many hands go up.

All right.

We are now adding our names as co-sponsors.

OK.

Overwhelmingly.

Thank you.

The next item is a perennial item that comes in front of us.

To cut $430,000 from legislative salaries, that is council member salaries, and to reduce mayor and council salaries.

And I would just, without being in the least bit snarky, I would suggest that Council Member Pacheco, President Harrell, Council Member O'Brien and I not make any jokes about this since we aren't gonna be here.

So, yeah, right.

How nice would that be?

Okay.

I know it's Council Member Swantz.

Does anybody want to speak to this?

I can just give a brief introduction if you'd like.

Please.

So item 57 as you said is Ledge 3-A-1 sponsored by Council Member Sawant.

This action would reduce the mayor and council salaries to 100% of the area median family income for a one-person family which is about $76,000.

The change would be staggered with the terms of the council members and the mayor.

Anybody want to speak to this?

Well, you said we couldn't even joke about it.

Yeah, not you, not me.

All right.

So, anybody like to add your name as a co-sponsor on this?

Seeing none, let's move on.

The next item is item 58. It's Ledge 4-A-1, sponsored by Council President Harrell.

This council budget action would repurpose an administrative staff analyst position in the legislative department to a new deputy director to the city clerk.

The deputy will provide management oversight over two of the five citywide and department programs managed by the city clerk.

The deputy will serve as the city clerk representative on specific city initiatives, including and not limited to citywide information governance, and operational coordination, and will be acting director in the clerk's absence.

Thank you, Lise.

And thank you all for supporting the comms division, what we're trying to do there.

Very similarly, we've been looking for the last 12 months at what's happening in the clerk's office and the level, the increase of work and sort of the organizational structure.

This basically creates a deputy director position for for the organization.

Now I have to say in full disclosure that the $71,000 is likely to change and I actually think it may come down some because there is an elimination of a administrative position in the office because what I've asked the city clerk to do is to help us out a little bit here to see if there's some efficiencies we can gain.

And so what Ali and Lisa will do is fine-tune this a little bit.

But I, again, and this is the last ledge department, I don't want to say that because there might be more, but this is the last one I know that I'm working on right now that I strongly support and I want to thank the city clerk, Monica, for really, again, going through the proper channels, making the case, showing what this looks like, working with the budget office, and making a strong argument.

So, and again, Monica will be more than happy to explain to you in greater detail the increased workload in this office, and we think a deputy clerk, deputy director position makes all the sense in the world, and they've been working on this for some time.

But again, I want to change that the number actually may come down a little bit because of the administrative position that's trying to get eliminated.

So we've been eliminated, so we've really been working feverishly on trying to make the numbers right.

I think we'll get there.

Okay, any other ads, any comments?

All right, those who would like to add your name as a sponsor to this $71,000 ad to the legislative budget.

For next year to have a more effective operation, make sure things go smoothly.

Nice.

You still got two months.

Okay, very good.

The next is a slide and is this yours, Dan?

It is.

And it will be pitched to Councilmember Herbold.

Dan Eder, Deputy Director of Central Staff.

This is the first of several items that would affect the City Budget Office's budget.

As the Chair mentioned, it is a statement of legislative intent, item CBO2A1.

In 2017 the city created a municipal income tax for high-earning Seattle residents via ordinance 1 2 5 3 3 9 The law was intended to apply to income earned beginning in 2018 But the tax has not been collected due to ongoing litigation In anticipation of a potential resolution of the lawsuits this statement of legislative intent is asking for a report providing A proposed implementation timeline and identification of funding needs for the city to begin collecting the tax on high income residents as early as practicable the request to report would be due by March 31 2020.

Great.

Council Member Herbold, do you want to speak to it?

Nothing more to add.

Okay.

I'd just like to add one more thing, and this came up a couple of years ago before we were sued on the issue of the income tax, and that was the question of re-examining the possibility of an unearned income tax, which we know is constitutional if it starts at zero dollars.

We consider this far more progressive because people that are not making much money are probably not struggling with unearned income like stock dividends or interest that might be sitting in a bank somewhere.

So I would, at some point, even though I will not be here, I would like to have this question revisited at the appropriate time.

Okay, all those who would like to add your name as a sponsor on this slide, raise your hand.

Council Member Gonzalez, this is the slide about the, CBO to report on income.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

All right, the next one has to do with the proposal for the compensation for boards and commission volunteers.

Is that back to you, Lisa?

That would be me again.

Great, good, and I will be speaking to it on behalf of Council Member Mosqueda.

Great, okay.

This is item 60, it's CBO 3-A-1.

As you mentioned, it is from Council Member Mosqueda.

The slide requests that CBO work with the Department of Neighborhoods and the Office of Civil Rights to develop a proposal to pay volunteers serving on the city's boards and commissions if their employers aren't paying them to do so.

The payment could be through scholarships, stipends, or other benefits such as transit passes.

The report is to include a best practices review of other cities that provide such compensation and also identify the funding needed to support any recommended approach.

The report's due by June 1st, 2020.

Very good.

Thank you.

Not much to add to that other than We all know that lack of financial support could really restrict somebody's ability to join one of our commissions.

We've got over 60. It's important to see that we can really encourage people who have not been at the table, whose voices want to be at the table, and this is one way to approach it.

So it's a slide that Councilmember O'Brien is going to speak to as well.

Just in light of the conversation we had earlier about the Green New Deal Oversight Board, I think this is something that's absolutely appropriate and fully support.

Very good.

Okay.

All those who would like to be added as a co-sponsor on this particular item, raise your hand.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

I guess I'm struggling here.

Moving on to the next item, which is another slide from CBO about using and contracting cost of beds at King County Jail.

This is item 61. As you said, it's CBO 4-A-1.

It requests a report from the CBO on the use and contracted cost of beds at the King County Jail and options for distribution of services inside the King County Jail.

It's sponsored by Councilmember Gonzalez.

Very good.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Bagshaw.

This slide is in alignment with our ongoing work to take a closer look at how and where the city is investing in the criminal justice system.

Given the increased number of our community members experiencing homelessness and given the recent prioritization of finding solutions for those hardest to serve or reach.

And in conjunction with the city and county's recent commitment to finding holistic solutions for this population include renovations in the west wing of the King County Jail.

I am advancing this slide because I think it's prudent to not only take stock of what resources we have already put into this space and sunk into purchasing services that aren't providing real solutions, but to further explore how to redistribute those resources into more meaningful options that are actually going to make a difference in terms of recidivism.

So the county stated in response to a slide we passed last year, that was slide, excuse me, a slide that was passed in oh yeah, last year, 1270AE2, that they didn't have, quote, a fiscal incentive, close quote, to reexamine our current jail contract with them.

So hopefully with a renewed commitment to meaningful solutions through this second sly in the same space, we can take a look at not necessarily potentially changing the total value of the contract, but how to better deploy resources within our current obligations.

So it's an attempt to sort of re-evaluate what we're currently spending in that system that doesn't make sense to continue to do so.

OK, very good.

Did I hear you say something about West Wing?

I'm just saying that that's just part of, I think as the city moves towards more holistic approaches like the West Wing, I think this is a good opportunity for us to continue to evaluate the contract that we have with King County for purposes of buying jail beds, many of which we're not using.

And so we're effectively subsidizing King County Jail's system.

and we have attempted to renegotiate the contract with them to right-size that contract so that we are only paying for what we need and have received a response from them that it's not financially, that they don't have a financial incentive to modify the contract which I think if I recall correctly was signed by former Mayor McGinn and it's a 30-year contract.

So we are paying for an incredible amount of jail beds that we don't need and it's been almost impossible for us to get the county to reopen that contract and it has been Communicated to us that it's because they don't have a financial incentive to do so.

So I think there's an opportunity for us to Be a little bit more direct in what we would like to see Here because I do think that there could be significant cost savings that we could then redirect to things like another West Wing enhanced shelter or other upstream services like transitional housing or re-entry services that these dollars would be more appropriately used for.

Thank you for that I support you highly and just for my colleagues any of you who have not gone to visit the West Wing I really want to urge you to do that because it is a one of the best things that I have seen that is affecting a positive outcome for individuals who were formerly homeless.

And DESC is operating it.

The things that I like the best about it was former space, unused, and now is being used for places for people to sleep, to get food, to wash their clothes, to have toilets and showers, and a dignified place where Operation Sack Lunch is bringing them breakfast and dinner and there's food during the day.

And what I especially like about this is that they were telling me last week when I went for a couple of visits there that they've only had two 911 calls in the six months they've been open.

So contrast that and assuming that those numbers are accurate with what we see down in downtown emergency services center where 911 calls come very frequently.

Okay, thank you.

Any more comments?

Council Member Worth?

Yes, first of all, I want to thank and I support Council Member Gonzalez's statement of legislative intent here.

As you know, we've all been working on this about local governments that we're looking for all possible resources to shelter and house those who are homeless and often most vulnerable people in our community.

It makes sense to get up-to-date, accurate information on facilities being used for such purposes, including beds in King County Jail.

But what I really was intrigued by and wanted to respond to and support what Council Member Gonzales has shared as well as you do, Madam Chair, is we are moving towards a regional response to regional problems in this city, in this county, and this furthers the conversation in how we look at these regional responses to public policy issues, public safety issues, public health issues, and Right now, of course, our most glaring one is how we shelter the unsheltered and what kind of services we provide.

So when we have people that leave the King County Jail, that way they're just not cycling in and out, that we actually provide a roof over their head voluntarily with services, food, accommodating those people that have jobs, accommodating those people that, you know, they don't have to check in at eight at night and get kicked out at six in the morning.

So I applaud this effort.

Thank you.

Great, very good.

All right, those, any further comments to send?

Those who would like to add your name as a sponsor of this slide, please raise your hand.

It's item 61. Okay, very good.

All right, so we can move on.

The next one is passed Council Bill 119681. Yolanda, are you here to speak to this?

Yes, I'm Yolanda Ho, Council Central Staff.

So this is a item of budget legislation.

So Council Bill 119681 would amend the Sweden Beverage Tax Fund policies that were amended earlier this year.

And so this would add an exemption from the prohibition against using sweetened beverage tax revenues to replace other funding sources in the case of existing program expenditures that were previously supported by non-city revenues, such as grants, gifts, and loans, and also would add an optional use of revenues to be held in fund balance up to $2 million for the sole purpose of supporting existing program expenditures when revenues decline below base program expenditure authority.

The intent of these changes are to protect against future revenue declines and to encourage city departments to seek non-city funding, such as grants, to expand existing programs or create new programs that align with sweetened beverage tax financial policies.

Thank you.

Anybody want to speak to this?

just briefly I think I appreciate this legislation I the discussion this past summer and dividing the plan was to prevent supplantation and I think we considered that really internal supplantation consider a program like fresh bucks that has received federal funding in the past and we continue to want to expand that if for some reason that federal funding went down that could be interpreted that expanding that is just supplanting other money and that's not we don't want to prevent that from happening

Okay.

All right.

No further comments.

We can continue to the next item.

Office of the City Auditor.

Okay, so this is item 63. I'm sorry, was there an indication of support?

No, it's Budget Committee.

Budget Committee?

It's not necessary.

Okay.

Very good.

Apologies, item 63 for the Office of the City Auditor.

This is a proposal sponsored by Council Member Bagshaw.

It would add about $69,156 total to fund a 5% salary increase for the director and auditors in the office.

But one of the auditors are funded through the general fund.

Funding for the increase for the utilities auditor in the office would come from City Light and Seattle Public Utilities.

Good.

Thank you.

Briefly, as we've discussed before, the city auditor is doing a tremendous amount of work for this council at our request.

And we learned that he has not had a base salary increase for almost 10 years, I believe.

And so this would bring his salary up and also provide some additional funding, about 5% for strategic advisory positions in the office as well.

I can just add, just so folks know, they do get a COLA adjustment, but I am absolutely supportive of this.

We rely so heavily on the auditor's office doing their work, and without them doing great work, we can't do great work here.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay, those who would like to have their names added as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

All right, thank you very much.

And I think we have the last two items are.

I'm sorry, can I just say something real quick?

Yeah, sure, go ahead.

I want to thank, I believe this started out as the budget chair's ad as it relates specifically to one of the positions and has been increased to add some others.

But I want to thank you in particular for adding language as it relates to performance of the people in that position, particularly as it relates to the city auditor, that is an independent office.

And I think it's really important that when we're looking at our budget and including raises for that independent office, that we'd be very clear that it is based on their performance.

Nice.

And thank you for that language.

And I want to tip my hat because that was your idea, Council Member Herbold.

Okay, we're good, and we can move forward to 64 and 65, and these are items the two of you will speak to, and we won't be voting on.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Tom Mikesell, Council Central staff.

So the next two items are unique on this afternoon's agenda because these, well, the prior items all impacted the 2020 budget.

These are actually impacting the 2019, so the current budget.

So the first, BLG 1A1, is the recommendation to pass Council Bill 119667, which is the third quarter grant acceptance ordinance.

So what this does is it provides the respective department directors the ability to, it gives them the authority to accept up to $7 million in grants for a number of sources.

So I'll just cover a few of the highlights that are within that $7 million total.

So there's $4 million from the State Department of Transportation through the Regional Mobility Grant Program, which goes to the Transportation Fund to support the design and construction of the Market 45th Multimodal Corridor Project.

There's $700,000 from the 2020 to 2022 State Department of Transportation Local Programs to the Transportation Fund for completing the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation System Plan.

Approximately $1.1 million from the Federal Department of Homeland Security.

This is for the BioWatch program in the Seattle Fire Department.

This is in the general fund.

It's supporting the continuation of the current BioWatch air quality monitoring activity and strengthening the area's capacity to respond to biological terrorism.

And finally, there's $254,000 from the State Department of Social and Human Services to the general fund to support naturalization assistance for state benefit recipients in the Office of Immigration and Refugees Affairs, new citizen program.

And so just to underscore, these are grants coming our way if we say yes.

That is correct, Madam Chair.

And I would add that this is not the actual expenditure authority.

The spending authority will be in the next item on the agenda.

Thank you.

Any questions on that?

Council Member Gonzalez.

The form B that I'm looking at says that there's a full list somewhere else.

but I don't seem to have that.

So where's that?

Can I get a copy of that full list?

Yes, Council Member Gutzalski.

The full list would be the attachment A to the legislation.

So we can provide that.

Great, thank you.

Okay, move on to the expenditures.

Okay, so moving on.

So the next item, item 65 on the agenda.

is BLG 2A1, which is the third quarterly supplemental adjustment for 2019. So this is the second of three supplemental adjustments that will be before Council this year, with the fourth quarter one coming in December.

This budget action recommends the passage of Council Bill 119668, which revises the 2019 budget by way of including additional appropriation authority.

Providing the authority to spend the grants that were authorized in the grant acceptance ordinance on item 64. So I'll just run through again just some highlights of this legislation.

One is a general fund increase or decrease, I apologize, of $7.4 million in the Seattle Police Department.

This is for the SPOG retro adjustment that was provided in the budget.

However, not all that authority is needed.

So this reduces for that adjustment in spending authority.

There's a $5 million adjustment, a decrease in the general fund for salary savings in the SPD budget.

And there is a $5 million general fund increase, which is a transfer to the Judgment and Claims Fund to provide additional funding for several large unanticipated settlements and judgments in tort cases and increased use of outside counsel.

Chair, Chief Council Member Herbold.

Can we take a quick pause?

I just want to identify that this is the sort of bucket that I think of when I refer to my belief that that $5 million decrease because of SPD's Recruitment crisis should instead a portion of it should be in instead of all of it going to judgment and claims sub fund that some of it should be held Sacred for the public safety purpose that those dollars were originally identified for and go for Seattle Firefighter fire recruitment good.

Thank you for that councilmember Gonzales Yeah, and I just want to flag that I still have a lot of questions about the proposal around the judgment and claims fund So I know that we have signed on to sort of a strategy in terms of how much we want to fill it by when.

I think I need more details about where we're at in terms of our pace to fulfill that and sort of just a refresher in my mind about the timeline associated with those things.

I just have just given the amount of things that we are looking at prioritizing in this budget.

I think there's an opportunity for us to have a conversation about whether it makes sense to at this juncture allocate the five million dollars to the judgment and claims fund when we're about to head into a biennium budget.

So I just I just think it would be helpful to meet instead of just sort of accepting this as truth and this is what needs to happen just to get a little bit more granular detail around what's the pace so far under the prior policy fiscal policies we've passed.

Are we on pace.

Does this sort of advance us in that in that strategy or are we still rather quite behind in terms of the reserves that we wanted to provide the judgment and claims fund.

If you could get that information back to all of us.

Yes, some of that information, I mean that would be information you might want offline.

Some of it would be if you got it as a group would be in an executive session, I think.

That's separate from the question of whether you're meeting the revised financial policies.

We're in year two of that ramping up, but we can certainly talk to you one-on-one and get you more information and share it with the rest of the council.

Yeah, I don't, I'm not asking for specifics around particular claims, so I don't, I'm not asking for an executive session, but I think that my question is more from the fiscal policy perspective.

We took some action through the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee around this issue and sort of making a commitment to building reserves within this particular fund for future litigation.

And so I just need a refresher on what exactly did we commit to and is this proposal falling in line with those fiscal policies that we effectively green-lighted?

Is it, you know, being more cautious than those policies?

Is it being less cautious?

I just think that gives us a better sense of how much we can play with this five million dollar appropriation, and I personally would find it helpful to get a better understanding of that.

My sense is that this might be a little aggressive, but in terms of the proposal of the entire $5 million, but I also acknowledge that we want to be prudent in this space.

We certainly don't want to be put in a situation where we are deficient in terms of those reserves if there's a reasonable belief that they are needed.

And I did have a meeting just last week with the legal folks and the finance people to go over these numbers.

And we're, the reserves target that you have is about $13 million, and we are several years away from meeting that.

So I would say that they're not being aggressive, but I'll get you the data so that you can see if you agree with that.

And then my last really just weird obsessive thing, judgment is the most misspelt word.

In the country, it does not have an E.

Did we toss it in here?

I don't know.

Yeah, just to be very cautious.

It's a weird pet peeve of mine.

I appreciate that.

All right, anything else?

Just to add, there are a number of capital program adjustments within this legislation.

There's a large one, which is $131 million in the Seattle Public Utility.

So that's a large reduction, but that's a technical item that just abandons a carry forward from prior years.

So- You're telling me I can't have that $131 million to spend on this budget?

Unfortunately, it's just an abandonment of the carry forward, so there's- There's no cash.

All right.

Very good.

Anything else?

That's it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay.

And I see no other questions.

Then we are going to move into public comment.

Thank you all for being here, being so patient.

I know how much fun it is to watch us up here.

And I think we've got, it looks to me like we have almost 30 people signed up for public comment.

So those of you who can stay till five o'clock, otherwise I will be here.

So, I'm going to call three, and I'm going to ask you to please get up to the microphone so it can move us forward.

Is it Rhea Shentani?

Okay, Rhea, thank you.

Robert, G-R-U-B-B-Y, maybe?

Robert?

And then Patience Malaba.

Okay, you're the first three.

I don't see Patience here, but she was.

Please, go ahead.

Hi, my name is Rhea Shintani from Interim Community Development Association.

Interim CDA supports the proposed budget action to conduct EIS to expand, I mean explore more diverse housing option and single family zones.

as one way to begin to address racial and income disparities and create more equitable access to all of Seattle's neighborhoods.

As EIS process moves forward, we urge the city to please take a people-centered approach to focus on preventing the displacement of the people and not solely rely on the number of units that's produced at various affordability levels.

to avoid unintended consequences.

We also urge the city to pursue an equitable community engagement process that centers the voices of those most impacted by displacement, such as low-income immigrants and refugees, people of color, and other marginalized communities.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Robert Patience?

Do I not see?

No, Robert?

Oh, Patience, you're here.

Good.

Come on up.

Mallory Van, Mallory Van somebody?

And then Calvin Jones.

Good afternoon, Budget Chair and Council Members.

I know it's been a very long day, so I'm going to keep this very short.

My name is Patience and I'm with the Housing Development Consortium.

I'm here to urge you to approve the amendment that was proposed by Council Member Mosqueda that many of you also co-sponsored, which requires the funding for the Comprehensive Plan Update, EIS, to include a growth alternative looking into allowing more housing choices in single-family zones and also looking into more anti-displacement strategies.

You all know too well that the compliant update in 2023 will be guiding us for the next 20 years, and that's until 2043. And the biggest goal that we should have is to ensure that future generations do not have to deal with the housing shortage that we are facing today.

And I want to be clear that zoning reform is not going to address the housing crisis, but it is the most powerful tool that we can use to address the housing and climate crisis that we have and ensure that we have a path to a truly equitable city.

We all know that the housing crisis that we're facing today is really deep-seated in policies of over years of systemic racial discrimination and exclusionary zoning policies that have guarded the history of those policies.

And this is the opportunity to make sure that we are protecting those who are most disproportionately impacted by these policies.

While supporting this budget amendment is not in itself a policy, It is a critical step in creating more policy tools to address the issues that I've raised.

We look forward to working with you, and thank you for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you, Patience.

Mallory, Calvin Jones, and Doris Garcia.

Good afternoon, Council.

Like patients, I'm going to be as brief as possible.

My name is Mallory Van Abema, and I serve as the Policy and Advocacy Manager for the Housing Development Consortium.

HTC is here today to urge the Council's support for Councilmember Mosqueda's budget action to allocate $500,000 for an environmental impact study requested by the Office of Planning and Community Development as a component of Seattle's comprehensive plan.

In this beautiful city tied by equally stunning natural boundaries, it's essential to understand the ramifications of retaining 75% of residential areas as single family zones.

The establishment of these zones was and continues to be exclusionary and we need bold leadership driven by strong analysis to move our city closer to housing justice for all people.

Reversing and preventing the extremely harmful tide of displacement, expanding rental and ownership options through deeper development of diverse housing types, and enhancing opportunities for all residents to be securely housed in a home that suits their needs are all outcomes that can stem from this study when embedded in comprehensive growth planning.

Approving this funding will create a long-term vision for a Seattle where communities can stay and or develop roots and continue to thrive.

We appreciate your leadership and your thoughtful consideration of this action, and we welcome opportunities to collaborate and see it through.

Thank you, Mallory.

Calvin Jones, Doris Garcia, and Josh.

Do we have Calvin?

Okay, Doris Garcia.

After Doris, Josh, Linda Spain.

Hi, I'm Doris Garcia.

I'm with Fair Work Center and work in Washington.

I'm here on behalf of the organizations, but also in the workers.

We want to support funding, extra funding for the Office of Labor Standards.

They're doing an amazing job by funding a lot of programs like the ones that we have on different community organizations that we work together as a part of the grant support that we get from OLS.

Also, I want to mention that thanks to the funding that OLS has, I was able to bring a worker in a timely issue, in a timely manner issue that she was experienced in.

the investigators at the OLS were amazingly helpful for her.

And if they didn't have this funding, this worker probably wouldn't have that help.

I also want to address that we work with over 60 community organizations that also need your help and your funding.

And I think it's very important that also you know that we are committed to building worker power an agency about the rights connecting workers with a legal clinic that we have and connecting workers with other organizations that provide different resources that we don't have.

But it's important that you keep supporting OLS and their budget.

We have over 60 partners.

We help workers to help them grow and become leaders in their communities so that they can also teach in their communities.

We had over 500 legal consultations, and also we give back $1 million in wages to workers.

So it's very important that we have this funding from the OLS so that more workers are being helped.

Thank you, Joris.

Josh, Linda Spain, Cesar, and then Eliana.

Good afternoon.

Thanks for the opportunity to be here, Council Members.

In addition to supporting additional outreach funding for OLS, I just want to speak to a few other issues.

A few other pro-worker budget items.

We support the High Road Apprenticeship Coordinator position, which you'll hear about tomorrow, OED-4-A-1.

We just think it's important that whenever the City is investing in job training and workforce development programs, that we are connecting those folks with jobs that are living wage, have good benefits, and the ability for workers to have a voice on the job.

We think public dollars need to support those excellent jobs.

We also support, you're gonna hear, there's a number of tax proposals related to the city's fair share proposal that we support.

And in general, we support the city's efforts to raise standards for gig workers.

we look forward to continuing to work with you on that in the future.

We also, you know, I wasn't able to watch yesterday's Budget Committee meetings, I'm really sorry to say.

I'm sure they were amazing, but so I don't know where things stand on Councilmember Herbold's efforts to bolster outreach, education, and enforcement in the Office of Civil Rights, but just wanted to say that we strongly support bolstering the enforcement capacity and the outreach and education capacity of that agency.

You know, we always say our labor standards, our employment standards are only as strong as our ability to enforce them.

The exact same thing holds true for all of our civil rights protections and laws.

So, you know, if that's something that's moving this year, we strongly support it.

If it's not, we'd love to be a part of that conversation in the future.

Finally, I just want to take off my organizational hats and put on my parent of a young child hat and say that I strongly support the city building a child care center here in City Hall or somewhere in the Civic Center.

The city can really lead by example here.

We have a child care crisis.

I pay twice as much as what it would cost to send my child to UW.

So that just seems kind of out of whack.

So thanks so much for your opportunity today.

Thank you.

And I don't know if you were teasing about yesterday.

All the meetings were canceled yesterday.

Oh, sorry.

So you missed nothing.

Literally, you missed nothing.

I meant this morning, but yeah.

Thank you.

Linda, Cesar, and then Eliana.

Good afternoon.

Thank you very much for having me here and listening to what I have to say.

I have two, requesting your support for two proposals.

The first one being number item 21, which is the South Park Public Safety Coordinator.

And that is something as a member of the South Park Task Force that was heavily recommended.

Thank you for supporting it for the first year.

And we are actually in our 15th month of this.

It was meant to coordinate the community to get resources out there, to get information out there, and for the community to actually make some decisions for themselves.

This is a very proud community and they feel geographically disenfranchised from the city of Seattle.

for this to be supported again for another year would be tremendously important for this community and thank you Council Member Herbold for your support on this.

It's vital to the community.

The other one is for item 24 which has to do with violence prevention initiative And I think most of you are familiar with the Rainier Beach ABSBE model, which is what we are using as a model, although it will be different because it is different communities, obviously.

We're talking about a community that has a substantial student population, which is the Chief Sealth High School and the Danny International Middle School, which is almost nearly 2,000 students.

And we deal primarily as it, community-led initiative, it's place-based, and we are looking at interventions that are non-arrest interventions.

That's vitally important to this community.

And this model works, and I think if you've heard of how it does, it's been well-evaluated and well-documented in the Rainier Beach area.

Although, as I said, it's going to be different.

The principles and the goals are the same.

So I hope that you will support both of these initiatives.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Linda.

Cesar here?

Okay.

After Cesar and Eliana, we have Denise.

And I'm looking forward to what Eliana has in her hand.

Hi, City Council.

My name is Cesar Roman.

I'm here to advocate on the importance of the public safety coordinator position.

That's item number 21 in the budget for South Park.

There's currently a lot of work happening in South Park, whether it's environmental, housing, economic development, parks, both community-led and led by the city.

And there's a lot of traction gaining with all this, and it all intersects with public safety.

So it's very important to have this public safety coordinator position funded for the next year and for the future.

And I would also like to say that there was a lot of interest from community members to be here and advocate for the position, but unfortunately they weren't able to be here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

After Eliana, we have Denise, Megan Murphy, and Nancy Helm.

Hi, my name is Eliana Skathonis.

I'm Chair of the Community Advisory Committee for the Othello Tiny House Village.

Last Tuesday was the final day of the Jewish fall holiday season, and we gathered in our synagogues to complete our annual Torah reading, cycle and start over again, dancing and singing.

with the Torah and renewing our commitment to living, loving, and learning in accordance with our deepest values.

I wasn't able to be here because of the holiday, but here at City Council there was also an annual ritual of community and love and aligning our actions with our values.

In these cyclical observations, we hope to be spiraling upwards, to be continually elevating our actions in our community.

Sadly, this year, folks were coming with many of the same heartfelt cries.

Our homeless neighbors are dying on the streets.

Our communities of color are being harmed by our so-called criminal justice system.

Our carbon footprint is increasing.

And important community projects, once again, desperately need funding.

You were implored to remember that a budget is a statement of our values, and again, asked to align this year's budget with our shared values.

Again, heard all the stirring, heartfelt stories about why these are urgent issues.

And again, it's been said that without bold action, more people will die and more harm will be caused.

And it's really sad that you all have amazing intentions, and I have great respect for the work that you've done, but a lot of that bold action has not yet happened.

So we do studies, and we gather data, and we make little incremental improvements.

And kohakavod, all honor to you and all of the community members who fight for those incremental progress.

But on so many of these issues, we're out of time for fiddling around the margins while people die and the planet implodes.

We don't need more studies to know why communities of color are saying decriminalize Seattle.

We don't need more studies to know that the NAV team is not navigating people anywhere.

We don't need more studies to know that we need to be investing in the Green New Deal.

We need to be expanding our tiny house villages.

We need to be investing in our communities in deeply meaningful ways.

Thank you, Eliana.

In 2017, I want to give you my roses here, in 2017, the Housing for All organization, coalition, came here and called out the names of the dead.

And we gave you roses, then, for remembrance.

I brought a rose for remembrance for each of you here, in honor of the 94 people have died this year, outside or by violence, amongst our homeless neighbors.

Please.

We said then pass the Homes Tax and stop the sweeps.

We don't have a Homes Tax this time around.

Invest in deeply affordable housing, decriminalize Seattle, invest in the Green New Deal, and stop the sweeps.

Thank you, Eliana.

Denise, Megan Murphy, Nancy Helm, and Charlie.

Is it LAPM or LAFM?

It's LAFM.

Oh, LAFM.

Okay.

All right, so Denise, Megan, Nancy, Charlie, LAFM.

Good afternoon, budget chair and council members.

My name is Denise Perez-Lawley and I'm here on behalf of El Centro de la Raza.

We are in support of a requirement of DEEL to provide a written report that describes its demographic data collection and analysis process because despite DEEL's commitment to disaggregate data by age, race, ethnicity, languages spoken, socioeconomic status, gender ability, and income to the extent possible to promote equity in our investments, too often that data and analysis is missing.

When, number one, what students are most impacted by an educational system impacted by racial ethnic disparities?

Two, what policies, programs are needed to eliminate disparities for a particular impacted population?

Three, how resources will be allocated to deliver equitable results for all students, including students of color?

El Centro de la Raza is deeply concerned that this data collection, analysis, and reporting responsibility is not occurring as stated.

For example, El Centro is consistently struggling to secure data related to Latinx school performance.

It is often not reported, and as a result, the development of appropriate programs and policies is not undertaken.

Without a more equitable approach, Latinx students will continue to suffer from racial ethnic hurdles that perpetuate poor academic performance, lower than average graduation rates, and bleak post-secondary options.

Thank you.

I see I still have 18 minutes left on the clock.

18 minutes, that's more than most people get.

We are also in support of the DACA one-time funding to OIRA.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Megan Murphy, Nancy Helm, and Charlie.

Hi, I guess I'd begin by saying that I'm standing on Duwamish land, and if we go further south, there is no border except the one we conceptualized, so then we would be standing on Aztec land, which I'm so grateful to be in Seattle, because a lot of places I go, I am reminded we are standing on Duwamish land.

which was taken excellent care of and pristine, left pristine for us to collaborate with, which we declined to do.

So anyways, I wanted to say the single family zone, Being re-evaluated is really awesome because there's a book by Samuel Stein where it said the whole concept of people needing to own a house and a car was a ploy to get more people to buy things.

And so it's really interesting to re-evaluate that whole state of mind of ownership of a house and a car per person, one for each family unit, and how that impacts our environment.

Second, I studied special ed, and so usually if you have students, you get you to have a test and see where their needs are.

So when I walk past DESC and I see people in front, I'm thinking that they still need special ed services and they need more support.

And I'm sure a lot of other people agree, which is why I think the West Wing is really awesome.

And, you know, instead of real estate becoming the next, you know, hot market, why not human services?

Why not use our minds to figure out a way to make that possible and communicate with people instead of, you know, being worried about bioterrorism.

And I think the P-Patch is really awesome.

When I lived in L.A., they were outlawing it for Compton.

And I think it's really a political statement to say that we should all have access to a P-Patch, which is why I'm glad it's allowed here in Seattle.

I feel like, oh, it must be pretty safe here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Nancy, Charlie, is it Nisma?

Nisma?

Thank you.

Go ahead, please.

Good afternoon.

I'm Nancy Helm from 350 Seattle.

I'm here to speak in support of Councilmember Muscata's budget action requiring the city to produce an EIS studying land use in Seattle.

We strongly support this opportunity to explore additional housing capacity and diversity in areas currently zoned exclusively for single-family houses.

Seattle is long past the time when we can afford to reserve 75% of our residential land for single family houses.

Our city faces an unprecedented population growth and affordability crisis, and our planet faces an existential climate crisis.

We have no hope of solving these problems unless we get serious about increasing housing capacity and diversity throughout our city.

We need a city where people of all ages and abilities can move around using excellent transit, bicycles, their feet, and other non-motor vehicle options.

And we need a city where people, regardless of income, can access excellent parks, schools, and public amenities.

Zoning reform alone won't achieve these goals, but it is an essential step toward creating an equitable and climate resilient city.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here, Nancy.

Charlie, Nisma, and then Keith Weir.

Hi.

Is this one on or this one?

Hi, my name is Charlie LaFamme.

I'm with the King County Labor Council and the 150 unions that we represent.

Speaking in support of the budget item that Councilmember Mosqueda has put forward that would study looking at putting more ways that we could put more housing options all across Seattle.

The reason that this matters to unions is because unions are really, really worried about the future, about their members of the future being able to live in and near where they work.

You know, like so many people have said, this is a crisis.

It's a crisis that we need to take bold steps to solve.

And looking at single family zoning is the bold step that we need to take to make this city more affordable for future generations.

And so we are strongly in support of this, strongly in support of looking at how we can make sure that more people have access to living in this city, near transit, near where they work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nisma, Keith, and then Heppner.

It looks like Matthew Heppner.

Good afternoon.

My name is Nisma Gabobe, and I'm a research associate at Sightline Institute.

I'm here to support Councilmember Mosqueda's budget proviso to allocate funding for an environmental impact study on the addition of middle housing options in single-family zones and exploring anti-displacement strategies to ensure low-income residents can stay in their homes.

As others have said, three quarters of residential land in Seattle is reserved for expensive single detached houses that are financially out of reach for many families.

This is a product of zoning laws originally enacted to segregate our neighborhoods by class and race.

And today we have an opportunity to undo this legacy by re-legalizing middle housing types like duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes in our most exclusive neighborhoods.

This would open up single-family enclaves to more diverse housing options, allowing more residents to live near our parks and schools.

As we try to correct past historical harms, it's important that we ensure that marginalized people are not negatively impacted by our actions today, and that's why we also support exploring anti-displacement strategies as part of the EIS.

Going further, we also urge city council members to explore how low-income residents and communities of color can actually benefit from these changes as well.

And so we asked city council members to support the proposed budget action for the EIS to allow more housing options in our neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nisma.

Keith, Matt, and then Farah, speaking about the Somali community.

Good afternoon, council members.

Good afternoon.

And Madam Chair, Keith Weir.

here representing not only IBEW 46 electricians, but also the new and PACE pre-apprenticeship training programs.

As I came in to comment on Council Member Mosqueda's ad, the other pieces in here obviously as well.

Council Member O'Brien with 46 there with OSC and the High Road Standard Agreement spent many, many, many, many hours of my life down in the basement.

Helping craft that high road agreement and whatever we could do to implement standards in place to ensure better outcomes and holding people accountable.

four projects that the city is involved in, it's great.

Obviously, also childcare.

I'm jumping in on that piece too.

As a construction worker, I have my members.

We start at 6 AM.

They gotta get kids to childcare, so anytime we're talking helping folks gain access to that is a great thing.

So speaking mainly in support today for STC I add, and I'm going to be lazy and just read.

Licensing is a critical, is critical to maintaining a safe built environment.

For-profit multi-story towers, as well as low and affordable income single multifamily housing are all responsible and need to have responsible contractors, licensed contractors.

It was noted earlier the lack of inspectors for the state, for the Ecore team, right?

We have one for all of King County.

all of King County, just imagine all the construction in Seattle as was mentioned, so we need to keep an eye on these folks.

One instance that I've iterated to council and your staff resulted in $171,000 in fines.

This was from a contractor not complying with state law and mandated state apprenticeship training ratios.

It makes it very easy.

A person can go out and see a green license means you're a journeyman, red tag on your license means you're an apprentice, and you should have, if you've got 30 workers, ideally it should be 15 green tags, 15 red tags, not three green tags and 17, 18, 19 red tags.

Not only is that not in compliance with that training standard, but the way I view it is, I know we have the Office of Labor Standards, and we have wage theft that we got on the books.

I view this as career theft, in essence, because those folks may be misclassified if they're not a state-registered apprentice.

Those hours they're working under that contract are not counting towards the ability to gain a state license and sit their exam.

And in 2023, Washington State will become an apprenticeship-only state, meaning that you can only sit the state exam if you've completed an apprenticeship.

So some of these folks have lost years of opportunity if they have not been treated fairly.

So with that I'd like to close.

Thank you for coming Keith.

Matt and then Farrah and I'm sorry I can't read the first the first name.

Might be Sam.

Steve.

Rube Stello and then Thatcher Bailey.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you counsel.

My name is Matthew Heppner.

I'm the Executive Director of the Certified Electrical Workers of Washington.

I represent 15,000 workers statewide.

Today I'm here in support of item 46. Thank you Councilman O'Brien for bringing that forward.

That's absolutely amazing policy.

And also Councilwoman Mosqueda's item 50. The driving source behind item 50 and House Bill 1952 was egregious violations of the apprenticeship model.

It's supposed to be one to one, one journey person to one apprentice.

This was 15 and 14 apprentices to one journey person.

That's not, it was a day after day issue.

I mean, it's a predatory business practice that we're really trying to keep in check.

Now besides all of the safety issues that that brings up, also workers, customers, and the public at large, those apprentices that work on those jobs, they lose all their hours.

They don't get to take that state test.

You have to have 8,000 hours, and this is basically they're working and not ever able to get to that journeyman position because they're losing all those hours because they're not within ratio.

So that's why this is such a On so many levels, it cuts the city, it cuts the workers, and I thank all of you for your support on this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew.

Thank you for stepping up, Steve, and then Thatcher Bailey.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sara Farah, I'm a director of the Somali Community Service of Seattle, but today I'm here for behalf of who are helping us many times we work together.

And today the budget, we are here for OSL Community Opportunity Project.

And as a Somali community, this is our second time that we're doing this project.

And we have a lot of other people who are workers, and they don't have any other opportunity.

They're always facing discrimination.

They're always facing a lot of things.

But at this time, we get an opportunity that organization who region, a grassroot organization who bring it together, work it together and educate those people who don't speak the language or don't know the system or who facing a lot of discrimination or losing their jobs.

So we are here today to support the budget and I hope you can help us to educate and help those community who've been left behind.

And as a Somali community, most of the time we never get any budget, but we're always there for the community to support those people who cannot speak themselves, and to support those people to educate them and know their right, so they don't have to feel like nobody's there for them.

So I'm here today to support Workforce Center, and Josh and Ms. Garcia was here before me, so I'm here today to support that.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Steve Thatcher and then we go to Kimber Connors.

Well, I think it's about time to take a look at some of the solutions we've been talking about.

We have real problems with housing.

How come in MHA we don't require one for one replacement of under market cost housing?

How can we keep tearing it down and gentrifying neighborhoods?

Because to the shock and surprise of the Land Use Committee, many communities want to have at least one for one replacement of lower cost housing in their neighborhoods.

They don't want that be simply all the same.

And that's what's happening.

You're gentrifying Seattle, gentrifying many neighborhoods.

If you had one for one on the housing, that would help.

The other thing is, The goal was 50% taking the buyout and 50% putting the lower cost housing in the neighborhood.

It's not happening.

So let's raise those costs.

That'll be more money for subsidized below market housing.

And let's do something.

Let's just not keep saying how much you support.

keeping Seattle diverse, while every action you take goes the other way.

Let's take a look at your oil tax.

Now, most people are not putting in oil furnaces.

I hate to tell you this.

It's kind of economic.

And who are the people who have them left?

Older people who are not on a 50-year plan, when they eventually sell the house, guess what?

Normally it's going to be pulled out and you're going to put something more efficient in anyway.

So just like the sugar tax, you're going after the people who are probably least able to afford it.

And on child care, since I only have two minutes, let's just take a look at how about making it available to the people in the city who make the least amount of money instead of to those that are the most powerful and to the leadership of the city.

Let's make child care from bottom up, not top down.

Thatcher, Kimber, Magdalena, and then Bish Paul.

Thank you Chairperson Bagshaw for leading this budget process and thank you so much to all of you for being so attentive and thoughtful through what can often feel like a grueling process but I hope is one of the most fun things you do for the city because it is a great service to listen so attentively and thoughtfully.

I'm here particularly to thank Councilmember Erbold for her support of $125,000 to help build a It'll access ramp into the Concord Elementary School in South Park.

Not a very sexy project, but part of a larger endeavor that I'm, I'm Dr. Bailey with Seattle Parks Foundation.

The Parks Foundation is working with the PTA to kind of enhance on many aspects of the school experience.

We've been able to raise a lot of private money to make this happen, but of course, an access ramp replacing a slippery, muddy slope that gets you into the school is not something that the private sector feels is priority for them to support, and it seems fantastic that the public sector is stepping up to try to make that happen.

So thank you, Council Member, to you and to your extraordinary staff for getting this on the budget.

I hope you all raised your hand when she brought up the item.

Thank you, good luck.

Thanks a lot, Thatcher.

Kimber, Magdalena, Do we, Jody, do we have another sheet there?

Good afternoon, Chair Bagshaw and members of the council.

I'm Kimber Connors.

I'm the executive director for the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship, here to speak in support of the statement of legislative intent encouraging the city to participate in the municipal matching program for WSOS.

Since 2012, WSOS has provided scholarships to low and middle income students pursuing degrees, certificates, and apprenticeships in high demand trade, health care, and STEM fields.

Our unique scholarship program couples financial aid with student support services so we can connect our state's leading industries with top Washington talent.

We reduce barriers to education and training and launch scholars into the industry our economy needs.

In the Seattle-King County region, 95% of entry-level job openings paying a family wage require some type of credential after high school.

Across the state, an estimated 76% of family wage jobs will require some kind of credential in the next five years.

Yet just 20% of students from historically underrepresented populations are on track to earn that credential.

WSOS has a proven ability to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and close opportunity gaps.

More than two-thirds of our scholars are women, first-generation college students, and students of color.

According to a recent state audit, WSOS alumni graduate with less debt, are employed at higher rates, and earn more than their peers.

In 2019, the legislature expanded our innovative scholarship model.

Now, cities can invest in WSOS and receive dollar-for-dollar state matching funds, which will be used to support students specifically within the community of the city.

Seattle has an opportunity to be the first municipality to partner with WSOS.

As partners, we can further Seattle's commitment to post-secondary education and training and help your students get through college and launch a family wage career.

Seattle can be a role model for others across the state to see how strong partnership can support both student success and workforce development.

Thank you for considering.

Thank you for coming, Kimber.

Magdalena Bish, and then we have one Martin Westerman on the fourth page.

Please, go ahead.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm here in support of council member Pacheco's item 13, funding for DACA and TPS application scholarship.

My name is Magdalena Fonseca, and I am the director and co-founder, director of the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center at the University of Washington and co-founder for the first undocumented student program called Leadership Without Borders in higher education in the Pacific Northwest.

This funding is crucial for the success of our DACA recipients and their families, and as a representative of Leadership Without Borders, I have had the privilege of working with and for undocumented students for the last 18 years, and it has not been easy.

As time has passed and laws have changed, nothing has made more of an impact on our undocumented community as the ability to work.

Many times we only hear about the high-achieving students, but what about those who simply want to be able to provide for their families?

In my day-to-day work, I see firsthand the multiple barriers these young people face.

From navigating a hostile campus climate to fearing their parents will not be there when they come home and not being able to close the gap to pay for college.

This fall, I have already seen the negative impacts those students attending their dream school only to know that without DACA, they may have to look for alternative ways to work.

Those with DACA can only hope that it will still exist when they graduate.

It is imperative we as educators, professionals, and those with privilege and power to do our part to support in any way that we can.

And you as council members have the responsibility in investing in our communities, including the undocumented community.

I urge you to invest in their future and that of their family for our collective and our collective community.

With this funding, you are making a commitment to changing the lives of young people and telling those with DACA that you are committed to their well-being and that of their families and therefore changing the trajectory for generations to come.

Thank you.

Thank you, Magdalena.

Bish, Paul, is there a Bish?

Oh, very good.

Thank you.

And then Martin Westerman.

Do I see a Martin Westerman?

Okay, thanks.

Please go ahead.

Good afternoon Chair and Council Members.

First off, thank you for the time and also thank you for your service.

My name is Dr. Bishpal.

I am the Policy Director for Washington STEM and we are here to support the WSOS Municipality Match Program.

A little bit about us, Washington STEM is a statewide nonprofit that advances excellence in innovation and equity in science, technology, engineering, and math education for all Washington students, especially those furthest from opportunity.

We are here to urge the Seattle City Council to participate in the WSOS Municipality Match Program and help students gain access to financial aid.

We usually take positions on statewide matters, but we felt that this is very important and this is a chance for the city of Seattle to lead the state.

So this is my first time at City Hall.

I usually am down in Olympia, but we thought that this was very important and it needed our support.

A little bit more about us.

As a statewide organization, we work in three ways.

One, we partner with regional STEM networks across the state.

Two, we provide direct support through data and measurement.

And three, we advocate for equitable solutions.

And that is why we're here, advocating for something that we believe is an equitable solution, the WSIS Municipality Match Program.

As you heard before, through our work on data and measurement, we found that currently in King County, in the Seattle-King County region, 95% of the annual entry-level job openings that pay a family wage require some kind of credential.

Again, that number is 95%.

Hence, it is extremely important that we help students find a way to attain these credentials.

The Washington State Opportunity Scholarship Program is one pathway that can help these students furthest from opportunity to attain these credentials.

Again, thank you for your time and service, and hope you can support this.

Great.

Thank you, Dr. Paul, for coming, and you're welcome in City Hall anytime.

Drive up from Olympia and join us.

Martin Westerman?

Before I start, I think maybe you're kind of sure about this.

I'm not sure if this is good.

Okay, thank you for that.

If it was under that chair right there, that's where Thatcher was, I can take it.

Okay, thank you.

Honorary chair, since he's still with us.

Thank you, council members, for conducting these hearings.

listening to the public.

Could you stand right in front of the microphone?

Okay.

I am here in support of Council Member Herbold's budget request for $35,000 for a natural capital assessment.

I begin by saying that probably 10,000 or more of your constituents want this.

They're represented by more than two dozen organizations and enterprises across the city.

And those enterprises include REI, PCC Natural Markets, Sustainable Seattle, the Faith Action Network, Telth Alliance, and pretty much two dozen more organizations.

All those thousands of people estimate that, well, actually, the Seattle Green Spaces Coalition, for whom I'm a co-director, estimates that in the water and green space areas within Seattle's 84 square miles, they deliver more than $3 billion worth of benefits and savings a year.

We want you to account for that.

We want the city to treat that as an asset, steward it, protect it, and grow it.

And the way to start doing that is to hire the consultant who will work with the city departments and interview them, do workshops with them, and teach them how to incorporate natural capital into their asset portfolios and into their policymaking decisions, into their reporting, into their accounting, and into the implementation projects that they propose.

I strongly and our two dozen co-signers strongly and the thousands of people they represent strongly encourage you to sign on, support this, provide the $35,000 and get this natural capital show on the road.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Westerman.

All right, we are at the end of our list.

Thank you all for coming and participating in public comment.

And I think, Council President Harrell, you have an announcement.

I just want to make an announcement to our colleagues that Monday, our council briefing and our council hearing will be canceled.

We have no agenda items other than payment of bills that we can defer.

We only had six council members showing anyway because of some excused absences.

and we didn't have any special items on our council briefings.

Both the briefing and the hearing will be canceled, okay?

Thank you very much.

I only have seven council meetings left and you just took one of them away.

I'm feeling bad for Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you all for your attention.

Thank you for staying to the bitter end today.

I appreciate all of your comments.

It's going to be very helpful for me to be able to go in and just hear how we're going to come up with our first package that you will all see next Wednesday and then we'll go at it again.

Thank you.

Tony, thank you.

Tom, thank you.