I'm Brian Calinan.
What changes does the City Council want to make to the Mayor's budget plan?
And, with all eyes on the Council, after the repeal of an employee head tax to fund homeless programs, how will Seattle tackle homelessness this fall and winter?
Plus, what impact will two major land use proposals have on affordable housing?
Council members Lorena Gonzalez, Teresa Mosqueda, and Lisa Herbold answer these questions and the ones you're sending in, too, next on Council Edition.
We are going to dedicate resources to it to ensure that we are moving those individuals from RVs to safer places.
If we no longer need that land, we should be building the housing that our community needs now.
That will take away funds from bus service at a time where more Seattleites are using bus services than any other city in the country.
All that and more coming up next on City Inside Out, Council Edition.
And here they are, Councilmembers Lisa Herbold, Teresa Mosqueda, Lorena Gonzalez.
Thank you all for being here because I know it's a very busy time.
We're going to dive into the budget to start because I know that's really something that's consuming a lot of your time right now.
So let's talk about this.
The mayor has unveiled her plan, a $5.9 billion budget a few weeks ago.
Spending's up about $300 million.
There were some cost-cutting measures citywide, saving about $50 million.
I want your thoughts on the budget overall.
Please give us some ideas of some things maybe you'd like to change.
Councilmember Gonzalez, can I start with you?
Yes.
Well, thank you for having us here this morning.
And I guess before I answer your question, I just wanted to let folks know here in the city of Seattle that our thoughts are with them.
If they have family members in Florida, Hurricane Michael just hit.
And so I just want to acknowledge that we have everybody in our thoughts and hope that we're able to deal with that natural disaster sooner rather than later.
But in terms of our budget here, I'm gonna be looking for a couple of things.
One is, a top priority for me is making sure that we hold harmless the legal defense network that the city council funded a year ago.
So originally we funded at a million dollars, it's currently funded at $795,000 by the mayor's proposed budget, and I'll be looking to make sure that we can find some additional resources to bring that back up to a million dollars.
Secondly, I'm very concerned that there is only a marginal increase in dollars allocated to be able to increase the number of affordable housing units for those experiencing homelessness or formerly experiencing homelessness.
And so I think I'll be working really closely with my colleagues and others to identify how, using existing resources, we might be able to increase the production of housing units throughout the city.
I'm going to dive a little bit more into that homeless issue in just a bit.
Patrice, I'll go to you here.
Your first budget process on the council.
What are your impressions of the mayor's budget?
Where do you want to make some changes?
Well, I think first of all, having this be my first budget season, I'm interested in what we can do going forward to help make this budget easily digestible by the full public.
I think that what I've seen from other opportunities to work at the state level is that it's easy sometimes to find those line item budgets.
I'd like us to go into an opportunity to see what we can do to make this more digestible, folks in the community, regular families, because it's a little hard to digest.
But let me tell you, there's five things that I think that are critical right now.
Number one is what Councilmember Gonzalez spoke to.
We know that the most important thing to be healthy is a home.
We do not see radical increases in the amount of dollars going into housing here.
And I know that's because We're having to work within the existing dollar amounts that we have, so working together with our colleagues, I think we can try to figure out what we can do to bond to get additional dollars in hand so we can build housing.
The second is additional shelters.
I want to see how we can rapidly scale up the enhanced shelters, and I'll be looking at some innovative models from LA.
The third thing is we need those folks who are providing services to those who are homeless and on the verge of becoming homeless to have adequate wages.
and child care.
We know that many people are falling into poverty because they don't have the child care.
And lastly, I want to make sure that we have dollars for health.
Communicable diseases are increasing.
I want to see how we can do a better job with providing the foundation for health going forward.
And lastly, we can't get dollars in hand unless the federal census count includes every resident.
So a big priority of mine this year, working with our colleagues, is to make sure that we have enough funding to do the outreach so we can count every resident in Seattle.
That helps us with dollars for housing, education, and health.
Big story.
Councilmember Herbold, I'll go to you.
Your initial budget impressions.
I know you've been through this process a number of years here, and I wanted to talk about, too, economic forecasts for Seattle aren't bad, but the message I've seen is that we've been growing quickly, but that growth is starting to slow down a little bit.
Let's talk about that a little bit, if you could, and some of your budget priorities, too.
So it's true that the experts who do forecasting are anticipating a slowing of growth.
That doesn't necessarily mean a downturn.
Really what you have to look at is what the cost of providing services is and how much that increases versus what your growth is.
Now, if your growth is less than the increase in cost and services, then you're in a position where you might need to look at some cuts.
And, you know, the reality is that the situation is now and has always been that the booms create the busts.
So it's something inevitable we have to prepare for.
It's just a matter of whether or not it means leveling off on spending or actually having to make some cuts in a couple years.
And let's talk about some of your priorities, please.
Sure.
I agree with my colleagues here on particularly the issue of the lack of new dollars to increase housing production.
There is a significant reduction over last year's housing dollars at a time when we know that the best way to get people out of homelessness is to produce more housing.
Another issue that I've come to know about being a district representative relates to something called the Vacant Building Monitoring Program.
But it's, even though I've learned about it through my representation of West Seattle and South Park, it's definitely something that affects people in neighborhoods throughout the city.
So the complaints about vacant buildings have increased about 65% over the last few years, from about 235 complaints to over 400 complaints.
But the number of buildings in the vacant building monitoring program has reduced significantly, almost 20%.
In West Seattle alone, there are 95 open vacant building complaints, but there are only two buildings in the monitoring program.
So we need to figure out how to make that monitoring program work better because we see what happens when a property is vacant for just a year.
It becomes a magnet for a lot of property damage that affects the neighbors.
It becomes a magnet for crime.
So we're looking at trying to increase the fees.
for the vacant building monitoring program so that we can get more buildings into the monitoring program, fund more inspectors in such a way that it doesn't affect the regular taxpayer.
It's an increased fee to the person who owns the vacant building.
And actually also hoping that this fee will serve as a disincentive for people to keep their houses vacant.
One other thing I wanted to mention that's really important is that there are a number of recommendations coming out of the Seattle Women's Commission's eviction study recently.
And I'm going to have some recommendations related to that.
And I'm also really excited to work with my colleagues here on some recommendations related to the need to fund services for LGBTQ elders related to a community center that they have, a senior center.
All right, the green sheets are flying right now.
Thank you for breaking all that down.
I want to focus specifically on the homeless budget, if I could, because I think back to the repeal of the employee head tax not too long ago that would help Seattle's homeless here.
I know a lot of people are paying closer attention to what the city is spending on homelessness.
And maybe I can start with you, Lorena, here.
The mayor wants to add another $12 million or so to our homeless response.
It's about a 17% increase.
But I know there's one program she doesn't want to invest in, and that's parking for homeless people living in RVs.
I bring this up because I know there was a constituent that talked to you about it.
She was attacked by a dog in the Soto neighborhood, came from a homeless person's RV.
I wanted to talk about that RV camping piece in specific, and then maybe more about the homeless budget overall.
Yeah, I'll start with the RV camping piece.
So I think it's fair to say that in my interactions with people in community and certainly the number of calls and emails that I receive from constituents, one of the top concerns expressed by constituents is RVs.
And we know from the point-in-time count that the number of people living in RVs in particular has increased by, I believe, almost 50% in a year.
That is a huge number of people who are living in RVs.
Unfortunately, the budget that was submitted to us by the mayor only allocates about $250,000 in additional dollars that would be specific to a remediation program or a pilot program related to vehicular living as distinguished from folks living in RVs versus cars.
And so I'm going to be looking at this budget cycle to see if we can find some clear parameters on how those dollars are going to be spent to address the concern that I hear the most about from constituents and that is how do we address people who are living on a day-to-day basis in RVs, in neighborhoods like Soto, in neighborhoods like West Seattle and Harbor Avenue, Ballard, et cetera.
It is a big problem, and we need to acknowledge that it's a big problem and that it creates livability and public safety concerns.
And we need to show our constituents that we are going to dedicate resources to it to ensure that we are moving those individuals from RVs to safer places.
And, Teresa, I want to bring you in here.
You mentioned this idea of enhanced shelters earlier.
Can you talk about what that is, what you want to try to do with these?
Sure.
Well, what we do see in the budget is a large increase in the number of dollars going into emergency services and cleanup.
That includes basic shelter and enhanced shelter.
What's important to know about enhanced shelter is it's 24-7.
It allows for people to keep their items in lockers.
to be able to take a shower, go to work.
We know that somewhere between 20 to 40 percent of people who are homeless have a job.
We need to make sure that people can be stabilized and not getting kicked out at six in the morning with all of their belongings just to wait in line again.
The concept of an enhanced shelter is showing to work five times as effective at getting people out of shelter and into housing when they come from enhanced shelter.
because there's case management, because there's people there caring for them 24-7, and because it's more like a home.
But the reality is, if you are in basic shelter or if you are in enhanced shelter, you are still homeless.
If you are in a tent or if you're in an RV, you are still homeless.
So what we have to do is build housing.
That's why I think it's important.
If we don't have a revenue stream like we would have had through the hours tax, We need to look at what we can do now and hopefully in the long term so that we can create another revenue stream.
I'm very interested in the ideas that I know Councilmember Herbold has led on in the past to try to see what we can do to bond to get dollars in hand immediately.
The reason that I think it's important that we invest in shelters and enhanced shelters specifically is because people are living outside.
That's where we hear the frustration from, from those who are living outside themselves and their neighbors.
We don't want people to live in tents or RVs.
We want people to be cared for, to have case management, to have a shower and a toilet and a locker, to be able to be with their loved ones or their pets.
I am interested in seeing what we can do now because it is three years since an emergency has been declared.
Initially, I was not in favor of putting additional dollars into what is seen as a tent.
But when I went to Los Angeles and when I heard about the concept that they're talking about with partitions between beds, allowing for loved ones to be with each other, allowing for open space and for pets to have a place to play, kitchens and the ability to have your locker.
with case management, that's what it looks like to treat folks holistically, and I think that's what it looks like to treat this as an emergency.
But the key is, you have to have housing on the horizon so that there is light at the end of the tunnel, because I do not want to warehouse poverty, and I do not want to sweep homeless people out of sight.
We have to care for them and create housing.
Lisa, let me send this to you, because I know you've been talking about some changes potentially to the city's navigation team.
Goes to the streets, helps our homeless.
Maybe you've been talking about adding a medical component to that group.
Can you dive into that a little bit, please?
Sure.
Just a little bit of background.
During last year's budget session, There's a lot of conversation about how the city was addressing unsheltered homelessness.
A lot of people came to council and were arguing that we should stop encampment removals altogether.
I think we found a really good approach, which is more reforming the city's practices.
We required the city to move the navigation teams into the department for HSD and out of the department that manages city property.
We also require the executive to report to the council on the encampment removals that are going to be coming up in the following week so we can monitor what they're doing and make sure that it's consistent with the protocols.
One of the other things we did is we required HSD to create what's called a theory of change.
And that theory of change is simply put is a blueprint to make sure that the navigation team is actually accomplishing what our goals are for the navigation team, which is not just chasing people around the city, but actually getting them into permanent housing.
And so the city auditor has created these 14 different checkpoints on the theory of change and they've been reporting quarterly and they've identified a number of things that they think the navigation team needs to change.
One of those things is better coordination with King County so that we can actually use the services that King County provides, nursing services, mental health services, and put them on the NAV team because studies show that much like enhanced shelter, people in encampments are more likely to accept services if there are medical services also provided in that engagement and if there's enhanced shelter that's offered as an alternative to more traditional shelter where you have to schlep your stuff around when you leave in the morning.
That's a key piece to this.
I'm going to wrap up the budget discussion with a mailbag lightning round here.
So here we go.
Lorena, you're up first.
Alarming headline.
Julie's wanting answers on this.
8,000 untested rape kits in Washington state.
Please address this and speak about the dollars necessary to tackle this issue.
Attorney General Ferguson threw an amount at it recently.
Next steps, Julie via Facebook talking about that.
Lorraine, I'm asking you because I know you've been legal counsel for a lot of different sexual assault survivors.
We do have hundreds of these untested kits right across the street in the Seattle PD, excuse me, in their warehouse in Soto there.
Thoughts about this?
Anything the city could do about this?
Well, I think that we saw some movement on this in the legislative session this last year, so I think we are going to see some clearing of the backlogs.
I believe it was Tina Orwell who submitted a successful budget request to begin the process of processing a lot of those untested rape kits, and I thought that that was a a good move on her part, and I'm very grateful for the fact that she has repeatedly brought this issue to the state legislature for the funding needed to do this testing.
And so my hope is that we'll now begin to see a diminishing of that backlog, and we'll continue to work with her and the state legislature on figuring out how we can make sure that Seattle cases are part of that clearing of the backlog.
Thank you for that.
Lisa Robert writes this.
What's the status of the Center City Connector streetcar?
I know the mayor isn't really happy about this project in terms of trying to fund it.
You've been a critic of it, I know, for some time.
Does it make sense financially to literally stop this in its tracks, though?
What do you think?
Well, there's the whole concept of sunk costs.
They actually call it a fallacy of sunk costs.
And so if something is a bad financial decision, the fact that you've spent money on it earlier is not a reason to keep going down that path.
And I believe that we have a lot of information that shows that the city is going to be needing to subsidize this form of transit to a level that is much more than we currently subsidize, for instance, our bus service.
And what that will do is that will take away funds from bus service at a time where more Seattleites are using bus services than any other city in the country.
In addition, the thing I'm...
hoping for right now is while we're in that sort of decision-making period around the First Avenue streetcar, I've been asking the mayor and SDOT to consider allowing the fact that we're not moving right now forward on the streetcar, and we have more street right-of-way, to have a dedicated bus line, bus lane on First Avenue so that we can, especially from West Seattle, deal with the period of maximum constraint and have those buses go straight through.
That maximum constraint when the viaduct comes down.
We've got so many different traffic issues there.
Coming right up.
Councilmember Mosquitto, here's one from Kevin talking about the sweetened beverage tax.
Here we go.
It's pulling in $21 million instead of the $15 million projected this year.
He asks this, given the highly regressive nature of the tax and that it isn't fulfilling its policy objective, limiting sugary beverage consumption, would you be willing to scrap it?
What do you think?
Let's be honest, what's harming communities is the targeting of communities by soda beverage companies.
We know that kiddos, especially kiddos of color, are more likely to have higher obesity rates and have poor health outcomes.
And what this measure does is it makes sure that we're investing dollars into health services, into early learning, which is one of the best investments that we can make in the health and the long-term, lifelong health of a kiddo.
And we're investing it into making sure that we have greater opportunities for nutrition access throughout the community.
I am very hopeful that not only will we change individual behavior, but that we will continue to have dollars in hand to invest in grocery stores, in pea patches, in early learning and nutrition opportunities across this city.
This tax is doing exactly what we hoped it would do, which is generate revenue so that we can reinvest in communities.
And behavior changes take time.
We talked about that earlier as it relates to whether or not you're going to bike to work or drive your car.
Behavior takes time.
When we passed laws to require everyone to wear a seatbelt, it took time for that to be the norm.
I know that we can change behavior here, and we are not We are not in the moment right now poised to change anything.
What I want to do instead is bond against those dollars, actually, the extra $5 million that came in the door, and create somewhere between $40 to $65 million to invest in housing that could have health centers, child care centers, and grocery stores across Seattle where we currently have food deserts.
That's what it looks like to invest those dollars in, I think, what the community wanted, which was investments in nutrition, education, and affordable housing.
Thank you for that, Teresa.
I want to stay with you and I'll pick up the pace ever so slightly here if I may.
A new measure from the city to make affordable housing the first priority in cases where we have surplus land.
This is a big deal.
What does this mean?
Why did you sponsor this?
This is a really big deal and I think that the council's been working on this for a long time thanks to the legislature as well earlier this year in 2018. They passed the legislation making it more possible for us to look at Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, and now every parcel of city-owned land to make sure that we're prioritizing building affordable housing.
If we no longer need that land, we should be building the housing that our community needs now.
And when we do so, it reduces the overall cost of building that housing by 15%.
So this is what it looks like to be fiscally responsible.
I think this is what it looks like to create affordable housing throughout the city.
I think this is what it looks like to make sure that we're building the city of the future, so that we have child care, that we have grocery stores, that we have health clinics.
Small women and minority-owned businesses on the first and second floor buy those transit hubs so that we can create housing across Seattle.
I'm really excited about this.
I know this is just the first step, though, and we have some work to do next year to make sure that our community has access to the assets to create the housing that's needed on that land.
Lisa, related question I think, another big land use story, backyard cottages.
The council's been working on this one for years as well.
A hearing examiner's now essentially cleared the way for more of these cottages to be built.
What does this mean in terms of affordable housing in Seattle?
We can all jump in on this one too.
There are thousands of homeowners in Seattle who are chomping at the bit to build an ADU on their property to help them with the rising cost of living in the city.
And so I think we're making good strides.
After the budget process, the council will begin developing legislation that will represent one of the alternatives.
I'm fairly certain they're going to be focusing on the preferred alternative, the EIS.
And we'll begin our deliberations and hopefully get something passed next year.
Yeah, Lorena, I know you had spoken out on social media about this, too.
Your thoughts on what it means to have backyard cottages, more of them in Seattle?
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we like to throw around the acronyms of ADUs and DADUs, but really what we're talking about is mother-in-law units and basement apartments, right?
And in some instances, the backyard cottages.
And this is huge for us to be able to move forward on this.
I mean, I printed this out today, Single-family homes represent all of the blue on this page.
This is where people are being excluded from living in currently because it's unaffordable, because they cannot afford an 850,000 single-family home.
And we know that under existing policies, if we do not change the policies, we will see 2,030 homes single-family homes demolished, torn down in these zones if we do not pass this policy.
If we pass this policy, we will only see 1,500 single-family homes torn down as opposed to over 2,000.
Likewise, if we continue on the path that we are, we will only see about 1,970 mother-in-law units or backyard cottages produced.
If we pass the policies as recommended by this EIS, we will see the production of over 4,000, over 4,000 different alternatives for middle class families to be able to move into single family homes and have a place here.
And likewise, for single family homeowners to continue to be able to bear the cost of an ever increasing expensive city.
This is really a displacement mitigation strategy as well.
Because we know that individuals who may have been able to buy their homes in the 60s or 70s or 80s, especially for communities of color when housing was more affordable, these are the very families that are now struggling and getting pushed out of Seattle.
We don't see the same level of home ownership, especially for communities of color.
And we know that those who lost their equity in the last recession were predominantly coming from communities of color.
When we think about the opportunity to maybe build a backyard cottage or an adu or dadu, allowing individuals to live on that same parcel of land without adding to sprawl, you're actually also creating revenue for that family who might have otherwise been displaced, kicked out of Seattle.
If an elderly couple can now have a backyard cottage that they rent out to a family with one little kiddo, that creates density, but it also allows for that family to stay in place.
It also makes sure that we're creating equity opportunities for the future generation.
We're talking about allowing people to stay in home and potentially allowing people to get out of generational poverty by potentially having a place that they can call their own in the city of Seattle.
So it's also a displacement strategy.
It's an anti-pollution strategy where you're creating opportunities for people to live in the city.
Alone, it's not enough.
It's a piece of the puzzle there.
I think that is 100% correct and one of the things about this particular proposal that I think is really, it addresses one of the concerns that I've heard about detached dwelling unit development is a lot of people are worried that they're not going to be affordable.
They're not going to be affordable because there are these big buildings that the rent's going to be really high.
Well, this particular proposal messes with what's called the floor area ratio, and it reduces the floor area ratio so that big giant dattoos can't be built.
And those big giant dattoos are the ones that are really expensive.
So by making the size a little bit smaller, we're going to have better affordability.
and greater tree canopy, which having opportunities for green space, especially when we think about communities maybe not having a backyard anymore.
Green space is so important for us as a city overall, so greater opportunity for green space as well.
And important to the new houses that will be built.
They're talking about some size issues there too, so a lot still ahead with that.
Thanks for diving into that.
Lisa, can we talk quickly?
National Hockey League looks like it's loving Seattle.
Recommendation now in to the NHL Board of Governors to vote yes on bringing an expansion team here.
Your thoughts on this, what this means for the renovation of Key Arena?
Oh, Citi is working with ArenaCo on a bunch of pre-construction steps, including fencing, geotechnical testing.
It's begun.
Yeah, right.
We're in the process right now.
We'll know a little bit more at the start of December.
Thanks for that.
I wanted to ask Teresa, new CEO at CitiLite, Deborah Smith, industry veteran, but I know she's going to have her hands full.
Your expectations for the new boss of this utility?
Well, I really appreciate Deborah Smith coming forward and wanting to be part of this process.
She came to the interview table knowing the challenges that Seattle City Light has.
We have an expectation that she will be the leader that can help us address workplace culture, meaning harassment, intimidation, and bullying.
We need her to address workplace safety from everyone on the lines to the people answering the phones.
We need her to be that leader so that we can continue to be a public utility that we can be proud of.
She has not only the support of industry experts, but as we were interviewing her, people from the environmental community came forward.
Seattle Silencebreakers had a chance to meet with her.
The union members from IBEW Local 77 came forward.
People are optimistic, and that gave me a lot of optimism that she will take the reins.
She will surround herself by people who know the issues well, from frontline staff to community colleagues, and we can see the change that we need.
She's taking these issues head-on, and we look forward to working with her.
I think my committee especially, we're going to be asking for a lot of accountability, and she said that she's ready for that.
Thank you for that.
Lorena, I'm going to wrap up with you.
You said a few months ago the show box isn't going anywhere as the council voted to expand the Pike Place Historical District to temporarily save that theater from the wrecking ball.
Do you still feel that confident about it?
I'm trying to figure out what might be going on behind the scenes at the city level to make that happen.
Well there's, honestly there's not a lot I can say about this because we're currently under litigation and so I'm going to channel City Attorney Pete Holmes and exercise restraint.
But I think, you know, I think that the reality is that there's still a lot of the processes that have been triggered and are working their way through the process.
So everything from identifying whether or not the exterior of the building is going to be landmarked, that's a process that's still undergoing.
the litigation will help to also provide clarity around the city's ability to utilize the Pike Place Market expansion as a tool or not for preservation.
And so these are things that are just going to have to wind their way through the system and the process.
I think we'll hopefully learn more sooner rather than later.
But for now, I think it's fair to say that the ordinance is in place and the processes are what they are and we will hopefully get a positive result that will give us and the art and the music community a path forward.
Thank you very much for that.
Thank all of you for this.
We will see you next time on Council Edition.