Governance and Education Committee 9/11/20

2020 Governance and Education Committee meeting will come to order.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Councilmember Sawant?

Councilmember Strauss?

Madam Clerk?

Present.

Madam Clerk, this is Council Member Rosqueda.

I'm present.

Great.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

We have five present.

Thank you so much.

And I just want to note for the record that Councilmember Alex Peterson from District 4 is also joining us in committee.

He is not a member of this standing committee, but is attending at my invitation as the chair of the committee pursuant to the council rules.

So welcome, Councilmember Peterson, to the Governance and Education Committee.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, we're going to go ahead and dig into some public comment.

At this time, we will open the remote public comment period.

Before we begin, I'd ask everyone to continue to be patient with us as we operate this system in real time and navigate through the growing pains and changes of these platforms.

As we move forward, we will always look for ways to fine-tune this process and hopefully add new features to make public participation in our council meetings consistent and moving forward so long as we are in this remote virtual world.

I will go ahead and moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting is scheduled to be 20 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes to address the members of the committee.

I'll call on three speakers at a time and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you've not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment by going to the City Council's webpage and the link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone.

and the speaker will hear an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted.

That will be the speaker's cue to press star six in order to unmute themselves and begin speaking.

So again, once you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted, you will need to hit star six and then begin speaking.

Once you begin speaking, please state your name and the item which you are addressing.

Public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda.

During your public comment, you'll hear a chime at about 10 seconds.

That means that you have only 10 seconds left of the two minutes being provided to you this afternoon.

Please listen for that chime and wrap up your comments.

If you do not wrap up your comments at the end of your time allotted, your microphone will be muted.

If you don't get a chance to give us all of your public comment, you can email the members of the committee with the remainder of your public comments.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following the meeting, we'd ask that you do so via Seattle Channel or any of the listening options listed on the agenda.

So the public comment period is now open, and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Again, as a reminder to our speakers.

Please remember to press star six before you start speaking so that we can hear you.

I may periodically remind folks of that.

So it's 2.05.

We should go until about 2.25.

The first three speakers are Michael Ruby followed by Kathy Tuttle and then we will hear from Jim Street.

Michael.

Michael, are you there?

If IT could let me know whether we've got Michael on the line.

I am Michael.

There he is.

OK, there we go.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Go ahead.

I'm Michael Ruby.

I'm speaking regarding the carbon note.

I've been professional.

I've been doing professional modeling of atmospheric gases for the past 50 years.

For decades, I have been warning that we will see the very climatic catastrophes that we are witnessing this week in Washington, Oregon, and California.

I've worked for industries to help them reduce pollution, and I have worked for good carbon emissions legislation.

But we're heading in the wrong direction.

We're increasing, not decreasing, emissions in Seattle.

This carbon note will provide you with information to help you calculate whether proposals you vote on will increase, decrease, or will have no effect on our carbon emissions.

This simple report will have an immediate beneficial effect.

When a project proponent from utilities or parks or fire is told by council staff, you know I'm going to have to put an adverse carbon note on this, there will be a mad scramble to rethink and rework their proposal.

An adjustment here, a change there, and some creative thinking will mean a revised proposal with less carbon emissions, and you will have an easier time voting yes.

My neighbors and your constituents do not want to hear that you have approved a city project based on a wish and a prayer.

They want to know that you had the information and carefully considered the climate consequences of your action, that we are moving in the right direction, finally reducing our carbon emissions.

I want to suggest one change that I feel will improve your results.

I've sent you in an email an edited version of attachment B that includes a phrase that makes it clear that the evaluation should include consideration of embodied carbon.

This is an important consideration.

An example construction project's embodied carbon was found to be equal to 20 years of operational carbon emissions.

I urge you to adopt this recommendation with the change I have provided.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael, for calling in today.

And I do want to note for the record that Council Member Sawant has also joined the community meeting.

Thank you so much for being here with us.

Next up is Kathy Tuttle, followed by Jim Street and then Meghna Shankar.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

I'm Kathy Tuttle, also speaking to Resolution 31933. Today's smoke-filled air is a reminder that we're just at the beginning of a climate emergency that's going to last for the rest of our lives and the lives of our children's children.

Today, you can help transform Seattle into a city that thrives in the future.

Right now, when you take a vote to support spending and legislation, you do so understanding the economic impacts of your vote.

And recently, you've taken another important step and started to evaluate whether your votes increase or decrease anti-racist policies.

Knowing a bill's economic impacts and racist policy impacts before the vote allows you to make better decisions.

This carbon note will give you more information and confidence that the votes you take will decrease carbon or increase carbon or have no impact.

Just as every decision you make now should have a lens of financial impacts and anti-racism impacts, every decision should consider climate impacts.

A carbon note simply asks you to direct your attention to whether you're agreeing to finance projects that will increase or decrease carbon gases.

This climate bill is very small and very imperfect right now.

Just as with considerations of anti-racism and policy we're going to need to define and refine our understanding over time.

This is a small step that focuses the city's attention on carbon carbon impacts of its decisions.

I encourage you to vote to approve Resolution 31933 the carbon note.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kathy, for calling in next up is Jim Street, followed by Shankar and then Katie Wilson, Jim.

Jim, if you're with us, just make sure you hit star 6 so we can hear you.

Can you hear me now?

We can hear you.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

So my name is Jim Street, and I'm here to speak on the carbon note resolution as well.

First, I'd like to say that the job you have today is much tougher than the job I had when I served on the council 25 years ago.

The challenges from multiple directions are unprecedented.

However, right now, with those challenges you face, we, our children, and our grandchildren still face an existential threat from climate change.

Seattle needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 53 percent or 100 percent by 2030 depending on which statement goal statement you check.

We are not on track on either goal.

We are losing ground not making progress.

Every member of the council has expressed deep concerns about global warming and the council's 2019 Green New Deal resolution was an excellent ambitious declaration of intent.

But as far as we can tell the dates that were set in the mayor's executive order in January have all slipped and or disappeared.

And I wonder whether the council knows what those dates when those dates will be re-established.

The mayor's and the council's attention is elsewhere.

Your leadership is essential if we're going to have a chance on climate in Seattle.

Council members need to have information to make good decisions.

So do executive and council staff.

so do we as citizens.

The Carbon Note, in addition to the information that it provides, is like the creation of a select committee.

It re-centers or centers the issue of climate change to show where your priorities are and where our community priorities should be.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Meghna Shankar, followed by Katie Wilson, then Heather Price.

Hello council members.

My name is Meghna Shankar and I'm also addressing Resolution 31933. I am a rising second year at UW.

I am also an organizer with the youth-led organization Fridays for Future Seattle.

And you may have seen my fellow protesters and me outside the city hall every Friday before the pandemic hit.

Sacrificing time we should spend at school to urge the mayor and you to take aggressive action against climate change and protect our future.

I support this resolution for a climate impact analysis of city budget items that require legislative approval.

Currently not all city departments conduct climate impact analyses of their policies.

Requiring climate impact and resiliency analyses as attachment A to the proposed legislation would do ensures that all city departments prioritize policies that will decrease Seattle's climate impact.

In Resolution 31895 or Seattle's Green New Deal The mayor and city council acknowledged the UN IPCC report's conclusion that humans have only until 2030 to reduce our emissions to avoid massive devastation due to climate change.

Seattle's Green New Deal presents very admirable goals to improve the economy help Black and Indigenous people of color and frontline communities and combat carbon emissions at the scale we need to.

But without further legislation to put these plans into action it is just empty words to appease the people who are relentlessly called for its passage.

resolution 31933 is just one step in the many it will take to actually achieve the ambitious goal set in the Green New Deal.

It requires the city and its people to account for the climate impact of every budget item, which will hopefully stop harmful legislation from being passed and encourage policies that actively reduce our city's emissions.

This is why I urge all council members to vote yes on this important resolution.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today and for your advocacy.

Really appreciate it.

Next up is Katie Wilson.

Then we will hear from Heather Price and then Daniel Clark.

Hello, council members.

This is Katie Wilson here representing the Transit Riders Union.

And I am also testifying in support of the substitute version of Resolution 31933. The wildfire smoke that is choking our city and the entire West Coast is a reminder that in a year full of crises, the global climate crisis continues to pose an existential threat to our society and quality of life.

While we need action at all levels of government, cities like Seattle can take the lead in cutting carbon emissions, especially in transportation, housing, and the built environment.

We support adding a carbon note to proposed city legislation because we think this can help to encourage you as elected officials and the public to make a habit of always thinking about climate impacts in the process of designing new programs and policies.

This is important so that the work of decarbonizing our city is not siloed.

For example, in discussions of housing, zoning, and parking policy, more attention should be paid to the expected carbon impacts of households and their travel patterns.

The same is true when we think of investments in our city's transportation infrastructure.

Thank you to Council Member Peterson for bringing forward this idea and improving upon it in response to feedback.

The Transit Riders Union supports this resolution and we hope this committee will too.

Thank you.

Thank you, Katie, for calling in.

Next up is Heather Price, and then we will hear from Daniel Clark.

Hi.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Go ahead.

I'm Dr. Heather Price, and I'm an atmospheric chemist and also a climate scientist.

I conducted my I did my PhD research in air pollution.

So the things that are going on outside today are very clear to me.

And I also did my postdoctoral research with the program on climate change with a group at University of Washington at Harvard.

So this resolution that I'm speaking to the carbon note 31933 is also very timely.

And it's something that I hope that the council and the mayor will support.

The smoke that you are breathing today, the fires that are raging out on the West Coast, up and down our coast, these are being supercharged by fossil-fueled climate change.

We are in a climate crisis.

Me and my colleagues, I've been working in climate science since the late 90s, when I was in graduate school at University of Washington.

My PhD advisor was one of the first one of the authors of the very first IPCC report.

And so I understand the connections between this climate crisis, the fossil fuel industry, the fossil fuels that we continue to burn, and the emissions that our city emits as we put in capital improvements and make changes.

And so the other connection that is becoming more and more relevant and We're seeing it in the city starting to take into account justice and equity and taking that into account in the improvements in the buildings that we're doing.

Well, we need to do the same thing with climate.

Climate impacts are a justice and equity issue as our most vulnerable neighbors are the first that are hurt first and worst by this.

Was I cut off or am I still going?

No, you're still, you got three seconds.

Oh, okay.

Well, please, I support this resolution and I hope that you will too.

This is a climate justice issue.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Price for your work and for calling in today.

Last but not least is Daniel Clark.

Hi, my name is Daniel Clark and I've been an active protester since May 30th.

I want to acknowledge that today is the anniversary of the attack of September 11th.

We must all be sensitive to those affected by the loss of life on this day.

There are many survivors with trauma focused around the state.

I believe government control over people needs to be restricted and not expanded.

This is a time some think is the beginning of a revolution or the crescendo of a cold war coupled with climate emergency.

I think the Seattle City Council must understand the context in which they are making decisions.

Expanding laws and government facilities before this November's election is reckless.

It puts citizens under more control and surveillance.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

That appears to be the last speaker on our list for today.

So I wanna thank everybody for calling in.

We're gonna go ahead and close out the period of public comment and begin on items of business in our agenda.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda Item 1, Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy Funding Process Update for Briefing and Discussion.

Thank you so much for those particular, for that reading of the record.

Okay, we have awesome members of the Department of Education and Early Learning joining us here this afternoon.

Really excited to welcome you, Director Chappelle, and your team to give us Some updates on the FAP levy funding.

I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you so we can go ahead and dig into the presentation.

Okay, thank you.

It is also awesome to be here again in front of you.

And V, thank you for moving the slides along for me.

As I mentioned, good afternoon, council members.

It's nice to see you again and appreciate you for having us.

I'd like to introduce deals interim K 12 and post secondary director Dana Harrison, who is here with me today.

And our early learning director was not able to join us today.

So I will be speaking to our early learning funding processes.

And should you have any specific questions, my team will follow up with our responses.

And I know it's been quite some time since we've presented to council.

So we're happy to update you on our FEPP levy funding processes.

V, if you don't mind going to the next slide.

So before we dive in, and since it's been a while since I've briefed you, I wanted to, I really want to just quickly ground you in, or ground us in a department's work.

So DEEL is focused on four key results, and to ensure that all children and young adults in Seattle, especially those for some educational justice, are kindergarten ready, graduating high school on time, college and career ready, and that they access and complete a post-secondary education.

And these results drive deals, investments, and this is our why.

You can go to the next slide, Vee.

Throughout our work, we center our actions and approach our investments and service delivery around these four values seen here on the screen.

You can go to the next one, Vee.

So finally, all of DEEL's investments are aligned with three core strategies.

One is ensuring access to equitable education opportunities through investments such as tuition subsidies and facilities development, providing student and family support such as our health services, and delivering services in high-quality learning environments, which we support through robust professional development for our providers and through investments in education, diversity, and culturally responsive practices.

Before I move to the next slide, I want to provide some reminders about FEPP.

Council, since you approved the FEPP Implementation and Evaluation Plan in the spring of 2019, DILL has been busy bringing these new investments to life.

As you may recall, the first year of the FEPP investments, this past school year, 2019-2020, was a transition year for us, where many of our existing school and community-based partners under the 2011 Families and Education Levy received one-year funding.

And this approach served two purposes.

One was to ensure providers had adequate time to prepare for transition in funding and funding priorities.

And two was so that DEEL had time to facilitate intentional and equitable funding processes.

And under FEPP, our department has implemented some new approaches to how we competitively bid funds, which I'd like to highly or should I say highlight for you for a quick second.

The first is we made sure that all of our funding review panels included community representation.

from parents to young people, and that those community representatives received a paid stipend for their time spent reading and scoring applications.

And second, we made sure that all information sessions for deal funding processes were both offered in person and online.

And third, wherever possible, we included oral interviews as part of our funding decision process.

such as for our recent funding, K-12 funding opportunities, because we knew from feedback that we had received from many of our culturally diverse partners that written applications don't always adequately capture a program's strengths.

Next slide, please.

So what you see here is a snapshot of our completed funding processes.

I'll provide a quick overview of these investments and speak briefly about our early learning processes before passing it off to my colleague, Dana, to speak to the K-12 and post-secondary division, which comprise majority of the funding opportunities.

So we did, we're excited about all of the investments you see here in the early learning sphere.

Our amazing Seattle preschool program just completed 5 year, or should I say the 5th year?

The 2020-21 school year marks our 6th year as a program.

Under FEPP, SPP will grow annually with funding for new providers and more classrooms, as well as facilities funding that will increase existing providers' capacity.

Under our K-12 and health umbrella, In early 2019, we ran a funding process for design and implementation of new homeless and housing supports investments.

This is a three-year award, and we will run the process again in 2022 to finish out the FEPP levy term.

We've also completed funding processes for new FEPP school-based investments, and those are six-year investments set to begin this fall.

Our new Opportunity and Access Investments were just announced a few weeks ago.

The Opportunity and Access Awards are for a three-year term and will be rebid in 2023 for a second, third-year cycle before the FEPP levy term ends.

The FEPP levy also made possible the expansion of the school-based health centers to four additional schools, two middle and two high schools.

This is, as you know, this is really exciting and it means everything comprehensive.

Middle and high schools and Seattle Public Schools has a health center on site.

And the rebid of the funding for elementary school-based health clinics just wrapped up in early July and will support school-based health services in eight of the SPS elementary schools.

And Director Chappelle, on this particular, I know we're going to get into more granular detail here, but just as a reminder, when we're talking about some of these funding processes and awards, it would be helpful to know, particularly as it relates to school-based investments, opportunity and access, school-based health centers, how those investments are being impacted, if at all, by the ongoing realities of COVID-19 and the remote.

learning situation that many of our SPS students find themselves in.

And it's probably true for just about all of these areas, I'd say, but as we go through the slides, if you can add a comment about that, if you weren't planning to do so already, I think that is probably something that's at the top of the mind of most of us in the committee today.

Thank you.

And Dana will be speaking to some of that as well when we get to her.

Okay, next slide.

I just lost my screen.

Let me pull mine up.

Here we go.

So we're excited to welcome new agencies and nine new classrooms to our SPP family.

El Centro is bringing on three classrooms and converting from Pathway.

Hearing, Speech, and Deafness Center adds one new SPP classroom and is also converting from Pathway.

Seattle Public Schools is adding three new SPP classrooms.

And Wells Springs Early Learning Center is adding two new classrooms.

Our SPP providers continue to serve a very diverse population.

The four providers listed here offer SPP plus inclusion classrooms for children with special needs, dual language programming, and tailored supports for families experiencing housing instability.

And we expect this same rate of growth to remain steady throughout the life of the levy, adding roughly 10 classrooms or 250 kids per year.

For SPP facilities funding, the last round of funding was announced October 2019. So Voices of Tomorrow received an award of $250,000 that will allow them to renovate and expand classrooms, restrooms, kitchen space, as well as construct an outdoor play area.

These renovations will allow the program to begin serving as many as 40 children within a four-day program.

Tiny Tots will be part of the Othello Square Complex opening in 2021. The third award they received was $900,000 will be used to open two SPP classrooms inside the Tiny Tots Early Development Center at Othello Square, which will serve 40 children.

And the awards, or should I say the funds awarded to the Family Child Care Bella Creative Learning Center will go towards expanding a residential space to accommodate 12 SPP students.

So now I'd like to pass off to DEALS Interim K-12 Post-Secondary Director Dana.

Thanks, Dwayne.

And good afternoon, council members.

I'm going to speak just a little bit about the process here.

And then to get to your question, Council President will certainly address the impacts of the COVID situation and the remote learning environment this fall.

So first, just to share a little bit about the funding process, as Dwayne said, it kicked off in the fall of 2019. These investments provide supplemental funding for extended learning and academic support, as well as college and career readiness experiences for the express purpose of ensuring that students graduate from high school prepared for what it is that comes next in their pathway.

Schools submitted their proposals to provide these services in their context, so accounting for the unique needs and circumstances of their particular school community, which is a critical part of our investment model here.

And over the remaining six years of the FEPP levy, these funds will support the 20 elementary, five middle school, and five high schools that you see listed on your screen here.

During this funding process, Steel provided technical assistance and guidance just to make sure that the intent of the funding and the desired impact was clear and also that we were supporting schools and submitting strong applications.

All the applications that we received go through a technical compliance review and then are evaluated by a community review panel, which Duane alluded to earlier.

These panels are comprised of city staff, as well as community members that have backgrounds and work experience in education, youth development, or as a parent, as well as institutional partners that are representative of government and nonprofit, as well as higher education and the City of Seattle Boards and Commissions.

including our levy oversight committee.

About 70% of the panelists we had for this process identified as people of color and all participated in orientation that included racial equity and anti-bias training in alignment with the city's race and social justice initiative.

So we're incredibly excited to work with these schools and have been doing so since the spring.

The school leaders and the district staff as well as students and communities in these spaces all work together to support this work.

It's truly a collective effort.

as we all try to support students on their path to graduation and into college or career.

Let me show you one more slide, and then I'll get to the COVID impacts here.

If we could advance to the next slide, please.

Thank you.

So here, what you see is a representation of where these schools fall across our city.

And it looks like the top of your slide might be cut just a little bit on District 5. We have two additional schools that are up there on the north end.

You know, Dana, Council Member Juarez is a member of this committee.

She's going to be upset that District 5 got cut off here.

But we know it was not intentional.

A clear graphic error on our part.

I'm not sure why.

But yes, two additional schools up there in District 5. And it's Robert Eagle Staff and Northgate Elementary and Olympic Hills.

Oh, sorry.

Okay, got it.

Thank you so much.

Yes, of course.

So here, one point I just want to make sure to reiterate is that the FEPA levy expressly directs services and supports to historically underserved communities and students that are furthest from educational justice.

And as a result of that, we see that the schools that we're funding have a greater racial and ethnically diverse population than the school district as a whole.

Students at these schools, it's about a third of the district's total enrollment, 28%.

And of the students enrolled in these schools, 63% are students of color as compared to just 34% in SPS overall.

So we are purposefully making sure that services are directed to students who need the support most.

Of across the district, these schools serve more than half, about 55% of all the Black male students that are enrolled in Seattle Public Schools.

And we know that that's a shared priority for both the school district and for us to make sure that students are advancing and reaching their full potential.

And lastly, just a quick statistic to mention is that these schools also enroll 24% identify as English language learners.

which is another population that we want to make sure that we're directing services towards as we help them progress towards their educational goals.

And that's a greater percentage than the district overall as well.

So overall, this supplemental funding is really intended to make sure that students furthest from educational injustice have access to educational opportunities and the opportunity to reach their full potential.

And so before we, move on to the other funding opportunities.

Let me just make a few quick comments about this fall.

So obviously, we are entering a fall that's like no other.

We've been working with our partners diligently since the spring.

And what we have been doing is adapting and modifying the services to make sure that they're accommodating the current circumstances.

So that means more direct virtual learning support, more focus on social emotional well-being, and more support for basic needs, including internet connectivity and access to services that are critical in this current time.

So it's our partners have been incredibly adaptive and figuring out creative ways to make sure that we continue to reach students and families in this unusual context.

And we anticipate continuing to work with our partners at the school district as needs evolve.

As you're probably aware we just wrapped up SPS's strong start period and start full course schedules next week.

And we will be closely monitoring how students are doing in that environment making sure that our services adapt accordingly.

Next slide please.

Thank you.

So two other funding opportunities that we ran recently, both of these again centered community input and included technical assistance from DEEL.

The review panels all participated in anti-bias training and we prioritized equity in their application review.

And in addition, as Duane mentioned earlier, we had former SPS high school students participating in the review panel process to make sure we had youth voice elevated.

So for the Homelessness and Housing Support, which is a new investment in the FEPP levy, the funds were awarded to the YWCA to implement the co-designed program called Student Stability Program, which is built on HSD's homelessness prevention model.

This brings together the YWCA, Seattle Public Schools, the Human Services Department, as well as DEEL, to collaboratively provide supports and funding assistance to assist those that are unstably housed or experiencing homelessness.

And the expressed intent here is to serve African American youth and families.

Programming provides them with additional resources to obtain and maintain stable housing.

So it includes a referral process where SPS staff make direct connections to the YWCA, needs assessments are conducted, and then it transitions into emergency assistance funding or connection to additional services through both the YWCA and other agencies across the city.

Programming here began last spring.

And to address your point, Council President, we've already worked diligently to adapt to the COVID context.

An example of that would be an early revision to the model to make sure that we continue services over the course of the summer rather than just being restricted to the school year.

In addition we've expanded access to accept referrals from all Seattle Public Schools rather than just those few that we had targeted initially.

And lastly all partners have really adapted outreach and engagement efforts to make sure that we are accepting as many referrals as possible.

And we expect demand to continue to pick up as the fall progresses and everyone is kind of back in session and the weather is changing outside.

Dana, on the homelessness and housing support services, I want to thank you all for your hard work in that space.

That was a priority area of funding for me in particular.

And I want to thank Dean Nguyen in my office, who really also helped to champion this new line of business in the FEPP levy.

And one of the questions that we have is, In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that the unemployment rates are at an all-time high.

In fact, there was just an article published in the Seattle Times today about yet another increase, another bump in the unemployment rolls.

And I'm just wondering whether the department has given any thought to the intersection between this line of business and ongoing eviction moratoriums and rental assistance investments that are being done by United Way and other partners through HSD dollars, not through FEPP levy dollars, just sort of would be interested in hearing from you how you all are approaching that and whether there's been any conversations with other partners in the rental assistance area to figure out how to leverage dollars here and make sure that we're really going granular in terms of the kinds of families who would ordinarily qualify for this but may be experiencing disproportionately the impacts of of unemployment rates and the realities of eviction.

Yeah, thank you for the question.

And most definitely.

It's something that we're watching closely and have been doing a lot of talking about since this pandemic began.

So it's certainly true that we are working to leverage as many partners in this space as we possibly can.

And the model itself includes connections to services beyond housing.

That means also the related employment and income, any food security needs or health or legal or other family and community needs are all part of that needs assessment.

And then if we are unable to address them with the direct resources through this investment, we're sure to make connections to other spaces, either through our city partners or through the broader community.

And I think to your point, it's gonna become even more closely watched over the course of the fall as some of those eviction moratoriums come to a close.

So we'll be really closely monitoring this, as will the partners that are working on it to make sure that we are doing as much as we can to connect to resources that are available.

Great.

I know we have limited resources in this in this particular bucket.

I mean, I want I wanted there to be more resources, but of course, we have to turn the dials carefully when we're asking for these levies to be renewed.

And this is sort of a.

initial new line of business for us.

And so I appreciate that we don't have unlimited resources in this area, certainly not to meet the scale of the need.

And the scale of that need is growing because of the realities of how COVID has impacted our families.

And so just want to make sure that we are working proactively to address the needs of and identifying families who might be at imminent risk of eviction once the moratoriums are lifted as sort of another layer of targeted focus that can help us meet the greatest need of families in the area of housing stability.

Yeah.

It's a great point and a great benefit of the way that this particular investment was designed around prevention modeling so that we have the ability to foresee and prevent falling further into housing insecurity.

So, yes, we will certainly monitor it really closely and are happy to follow up as the fall progresses and things continue to take shape.

Thank you.

The other funding process I want to note here before moving on is around our opportunity access awards and as Dwayne shared, these were just announced a few weeks ago, and they will take us through the next 3 years for the 10 organizations that you see here and funds are providing expanded learning and college and career readiness programming for the fall.

You know, we certainly anticipate and have talked with partners and providers about how to be as creative as we can to make the remote learning context work.

It is certainly elevated the need for greater social emotional supports and mentoring services so that students feel supported in the remote context.

Excuse me.

And these investments.

include a mix of continuing and new partners for DO, which is exciting to be able to expand our network of community partners as we all work towards improved outcomes for students.

Over the course of just this academic year, I should say, these investments anticipate reaching over 1,400 students.

So we're excited for this, again, new opportunity through the FEPP levy to continue our support for students.

Next slide, please.

As Dwayne also shared, the FEPP levy has allowed us to expand at the secondary level to four additional school-based health centers.

You see them listed here.

It's two middle schools and two high schools.

And what this means is that now we have school-based health centers in all of the comprehensive middle and high schools in Seattle Public Schools, which is a great way to be able to provide this critical service to students.

And on the elementary side, funding for school-based health centers, which were new under the previous levy, was rebid in order to ensure that schools had equitable access and that we could tweak the model based on some of the lessons that we learned from the previous levy.

Next slide, please.

Oh, yeah, Council Member Strauss, I think I see your hand, do I?

Yeah, thank you.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

On that last slide regarding health centers, the health center at Nova Middle School has always been very important to me as we know that going across the street to Garfield is not necessarily serving students in the best place.

requesting them to go to the world school a mile away uphill is also not the best way to serve them and so I'm really grateful to see that we have moved forward with a health center at Nova.

I know that in the FEPP levy we were able to provide or maybe it was during a budget session we were able to provide seed funding for this this health center.

Has that Have we found that match funding?

Is this a fully open health center now?

Can you give me a little bit more of an in-depth update about what's going on at Nova?

Sure.

Yes, absolutely.

So you're right.

This is a new venture and it included some capital improvements to make sure that they were appropriately set up to be able to provide the full suite of school-based health services.

So the work has been ongoing.

Those capital improvements have continued even through the school closures.

in this environment.

It is not fully open yet, but services are expected to begin this fall at that site, just like all of our other school-based health centers will be open.

So it's a very exciting new service to be able to offer to make sure that those students feel safe and supported in that environment.

Wonderful, thank you.

And so you just hit on my follow-up question, which is, even though students are remote learning, are they able to access their health centers at their physical locations and how does that work?

Yeah, great question.

And if we can maybe advance to the next slide, and I'll speak to that a little bit here too, because one critical point that I want to make is while you see on the screen here, our full suite of 29 school-based health centers and the health providers that help support operations there, any Seattle Public School student can access school-based health services, regardless of whether or not their enrolled school has a school-based health center on site.

And for the fall, it's very exciting to be able to say that we are going to be able to offer a combination of health services through both on-site at the school, in community at some of the community-based clinics, as well as through web or phone-based telehealth services.

So we're really trying to make sure that what continues to be a critical need, the need for health care hasn't gone away just because We are in this remote context that students have access in a way that's going to meet them best, whether that be onsite in campus, in community, or virtually.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's very exciting.

And I have to definitely acknowledge our partners at Public Health of Seattle and King County for making sure that they were able to stand that up, as well as our partners at Seattle Public Schools, who have been great about making sure that we can open those buildings and provide those services for students.

So again, a collective effort for all partners involved here to be able to make sure that access is maintained for students throughout the remote learning period.

Next slide, please.

I think this is back to you, Duane.

Yes, thank you.

So, in closing, well, actually, before I close, I wanted to circle back and let you know that for the SPP providers, the SPP providers have the option to choose one of three program models, 100% remote learning with program supports.

in-person programming with current health guidelines, or a hybrid combination of both.

And based on provider choice, about 40% of our children will receive remote services this fall, which is largely represented by the SPS programs.

30% will be in both person and hybrid programs.

And we know that so that's that's that's one thing I wanted to highlight with you all another one was that we know that SPP tuition is reduced for this year.

or should I say, families receiving in-person services will receive about 50% off of tuition for the year, and tuition will be waived for families receiving 100% of remote SPP.

So I wanted to share that with you before I actually closed and speak to this slide right here.

So, yes.

Hold on, Director Chabot.

It looks like Council Member Stroud has a question.

Please.

And sorry, this one came to me just as I was Digesting what Dana had said, how are students made aware that they're able to access health care at any school?

Good question.

Again, a combined effort here.

So definitely being messaged through school-based staff.

and our especially our nursing partners through Seattle Public Schools.

We are also outreaches being conducted through our health agency partners as well through their avenues.

And then another critical piece here is our family support staff and those through SPS are often the ones best positioned to be able to point students and families towards resources.

So they're also a critical part of the messaging process.

Thank you for that question and that supplemental answer.

Okay, back to you, Director Chappelle.

Okay, so now in closing, we have two upcoming funding processes this fall, both in support of the Seattle Preschool Program.

we will conduct our annual call for new SPP classrooms where existing SPP and SPP pathway providers can raise their hand to expand and new providers can express their interest in offering SPP.

And we will again offer the new annual facilities funding opportunity for SPP and SPP pathway providers through which providers can improve the conditions for quality of their existing SPP classrooms or expand their business with new SPP classrooms.

Next slide, please.

And there we have, I guess we'll pause for questions if we didn't answer.

Yeah, thank you so much, Dr. Chappelle, really appreciate it.

I know there was some information previously provided around Promise, which is not in this version of the presentation, but I did want to ask a quick question about Seattle Promise if I could.

So, In the, you know, originally when we looked at the FEPP levy, the model assumed enrollment of about 544 students, 13th year students, for this fall.

And in looking at the notes that my staff gave to me based on the number of applications that were actually received, which were about 1,762 applications, If the enrollment rates are similar to the previous two years, and that enrollment rate was about 37%, then that number would be about 652 students that would be enrolled as 13th year students, or about a 20% increase.

in the original, what the model originally predicted or assumed.

And so I was just wondering how DEEL is planning to, whether DEEL is planning to fund the higher than expected enrollment in the Seattle Promise Program, and if so, how DEEL is planning on doing that funding.

Yeah, Dana, you should you feel confident right now or should we kind of circle back with Council President?

Yeah, I'm more than happy to circle back as needed.

I think we can say, you know, it's really exciting to be able to welcome our first class this fall that includes students from across the district after the expansion to all those schools, as you alluded to.

And we're closely monitoring how the COVID situation is impacting enrollment.

And we'll have some updated information probably within the next month.

The first day of school for them begins on the 29th of the month.

And it's certainly been a discussion, to your point, about being able to support higher than expected enrollment.

And we have some contingencies planned and certainly can follow up with additional detail as we get a firmer sense of what enrollment is going to look like.

I'd appreciate it.

That would be, that would be super, super helpful.

And I think that.

Um, you know, really what I want to make sure that we're, we're having some fidelity to is around, um, ongoing questions about underspend from.

Um, from either the families education levy, or from the FAP levy as a result of, um.

A lot of different variables that we're all dealing with in 2020 and so.

So I'd appreciate a follow up.

And I think a related question for me is that, of course, we saw the recent announcement by mayor Durkin that that that directs 5Million dollars in mentorship programs for youth and.

And I have a specific question about how these programs are being funded and whether.

Any portion of the 5 million dollars is a result of underspend from either the families and education levy or the current FEPP levy.

Can we add that one to the follow-up list with you?

And once we connect with you about the Seattle Promise, we'll follow up with you with that one as well.

So that way we can...

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just wanted to put that on the record that it'd be good for us to know whether any of the underspends were being used for that.

I apologize for all this coughing, but this smoke is really...

Irritating me.

I'm sure others are feeling the same same having the same experience.

Okay, colleagues, any questions for Director Chappelle or Dana on the presentation or comments?

We're coming in just in time here.

It's almost three o'clock, which is about when we were slated to switch to the next topic.

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you, Council President and Chair.

Director Chappelle, Dana, my comments earlier this week at Director Chappelle, your reappointment just speak, this presentation speaks exactly to that, to your work.

You always bring a very fine focus to your work and your team just does such an amazing job.

So I wanted to thank you very much for all the great work you're doing, especially at this trying time of learning.

So thank you all.

Thank you.

I have some really amazing folks that help keep me laser focused and they're awesome.

So literally, if it wasn't for my team, none of this wouldn't be as focused.

But thank you.

We, as a council members can certainly relate to that sentiment.

If it wasn't for our teams, we wouldn't be able to be doing the work that we're doing.

So appreciate the recognition of your team as well.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments for deal folks here?

Scanning the virtual room.

Looks like there are no other questions or comments.

I want to go ahead and close out this portion of the agenda for today.

Dana and Director Chappelle, thank you so much for spending time on pulling together this really important presentation.

Of course, the FEPP levy is a taxpayer-funded levy, so I felt it was really important to get a report out on how we are spending those dollars.

this year, and I was on maternity leave for the first quarter, and I came back from maternity leave, and now we're in a pandemic, and so I do appreciate your willingness to, amidst everything that is happening, to make time to join us in a special committee hearing today, or this committee hearing today, to sort of hear publicly about some of the work that you are doing and some of the fantastic investments you all are making and the results that we are seeing as a result of those investments.

So my gratitude to both of you and to the entire DEEL staff for the hard work that I know you all are doing in these evolving, ever-changing times.

All right.

Well, we thank you and we appreciate your support and just happy to come and present.

Just let us know.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, folks.

You're free to go.

Take care.

All right.

Thank you.

Bye.

Okay.

We're going to go ahead and move into the next agenda item.

Will the clerk please read items two and three into the record?

Agenda item two, Council Bill 119896, regarding the Civil Emergency Orders for briefing and discussion.

Agenda item three, Resolution 3196 regarding violations of Civil Emergency Orders for briefing and discussion.

Great, thank you so much for reading both of those agenda items.

That way we can just move smoothly through both of them.

So let's go ahead and start with the briefing and discussion of agenda item two, which is regarding violations of civil emergency orders.

So Karina, do you wanna kick us off on the conversation first or should we hand it over to the executive?

I'll begin it.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Karina Bull.

I'm on Council Central staff, and I will provide an overview of these two related bills, and I'll begin by sharing my screen so that Council members and the public can see a memo that was submitted.

Can everyone see that?

Okay, great.

So these are two proposals that are sponsored by Councilmember Lewis, and they are both related to enforcement actions for civil emergency orders, and it's a two-step process.

So if one passes, then the other can pass.

And I'll give a quick overview of both, and then I'll dive a little deeper into the first one, which is the council bill.

So Council Bill 119869 would amend Seattle Municipal Code.

10.02.110 to make some general changes in how civil emergency orders are enforced.

It would allow some civil remedies and update the criminal penalties.

And then if this proposal passes by council, then that would provide a legal basis for considering resolution 31966. And that resolution would add these new enforcement options to the mayor's order relating to capping restaurant delivery and pickup commission fees.

So for a deeper dive into council bill 119869, The mayor is authorized to issue civil emergency orders under the code.

It's chapter 10.02.

And under this code, the mayor can issue civil emergencies and then related civil emergency orders.

So of course, one example that we're all very familiar with is the COVID-19 emergency order that was issued on March 3rd.

There are other ones.

There's a civil emergency related to homelessness and there's a civil emergency related to the West Seattle Bridge.

Under the code, the sole method for enforcing a violation of any civil emergency order that's related to the civil emergency is just a criminal penalty.

And that criminal penalty requires conviction of a misdemeanor to impose a fine, which right now is $500 or imprisonment, or both a fine and imprisonment.

And just to specify, that is up to $500 and up to 180 days.

So to give some context for some of these civil emergency orders, the one that is directly at issue is the mayor's order relating to capping restaurant delivery and pickup commission fees that third-party apps are able to charge.

There are some other ones as well.

There is currently emergency order relating to a moratorium on residential evictions and a moratorium on small business evictions.

There also are emergency orders that authorize the mayor to request and receive federal assistance, say, to help with repairs to the West Seattle Bridge.

So what this proposal would do, would recognize that first, the criminal penalty is outdated.

It hasn't been refined since 1978, a long time ago.

And so the current penalty for a misdemeanor is different now.

And I'll scroll to the memo to that section.

So it would amend the penalty so that it's a fine up to $1,000 or imprisonment up to 90 days or both a fine and imprisonment.

So that is a correction that would need to be made.

And then next, it would allow for the option of civil remedies to enforce a violation of th Specifically, it would all have a method to enforce members of the public, a w orders for the city.

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a violation of that, they to a penalty of up to $250 The other civil remedy would be the ability for members of the public to file a private right of action.

They would able to sue someone, take them to court for a violation of an emergency order if a person or class of persons was harmed by the violation.

And so any specific emergency order would specify which of these types of enforcement actions would apply.

It would be at least one and it could be up to all three.

And the substance of the emergency order would obviously guide what type of enforcement options would be appropriate.

A quick note on the civil infractions and the city's enforcement of those.

There are three departments that can enforce civil infractions, the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, the Seattle Police Department, and the city attorney's office.

So again, the order would specify which of these departments would.

enforce the order, and then the process that's already established for enforcement of existing civil infractions would flow.

So as you can see in the memo, the city attorney's office would review any finding by that specific department, and then that department, say it's FAS, would issue a notice of infraction, and then the person would either, who has been found to have violated the order, would either pay that amount of money or would appeal it to the municipal court, where they could enter into a settlement or they could go into a hearing in front of a magistrate if they wanted to further contest it.

So as noted earlier, If council passes this proposal, then that would provide a legal basis for amending the mayor's order relating to restaurant delivery and pick up commission fees.

So I will look to the memo regarding that proposal.

Here it is.

And a bit of background on the mayor's order relating to restaurant delivery and pickup commission fees.

It was issued in late April with some modifications a couple of days later by city council.

The basic premise of the order is threefold.

First, the order prohibits these third-party apps, that would be Postmates, Grubhub, Uber Eats, from charging restaurants a commission fee of more than 15% per order that their drivers deliver.

The order also prohibits the third party apps from reducing the compensation of drivers as a result of the order going into effect.

And it also prohibits the third party apps from reducing areas of service to the city as a result of the order going into effect.

So what this resolution does is it proposes increasing the enforcement options that are available for violations of this order.

And those enforcement options would include the full plate of what's available under SMC 10.02.

Number one, it would allow civil infractions to enforce the order.

And the order specifies that the Consumer Protection Division at FAS would enforce the infractions.

And Beth Gephardt is available today to talk more about that.

And then if a third party app is found to have violated more than two times the emergency order, the director of FAS could decide to move forward with the criminal prosecution.

And that's where there would be consideration of the misdemeanor penalties that would be updated again to reflect the current penalty of up to $1,000 fine or imprisonment of up to 90 days.

Also, the order would specify that an individual or class of persons could file a private right of action for violations.

So that would allow an opportunity for restaurant business owners and drivers and members of the public to have the ability to file a private right of action if the commission was too high or if the driver believed that their their compensation was reduced as a result of the order, or also if people believe that their neighborhood where they live was no longer being serviced by the app as a result of the order going into effect.

And one important piece to mention about the council bill, and that is reflected in the resolution, is that the amendment to the code that would allow these civil enforcement options defines person.

So as you might imagine, pursuing a criminal charge against a corporation can be difficult.

And so this defines person to include a corporation.

So a civil infraction could be imposed on a corporation, a private right of action could be directed towards a corporation.

That is a brief overview.

Are there any questions about either proposal?

Thank you, Karina, for that.

Before we open it up for questions, I did want to give Council Member Lewis an opportunity to address the bill, since he's the bill and the resolution as the prime sponsor of both.

And then I think Beth is with us to add some additional details.

So why don't we hear from Council Member Lewis first, now that we've had the benefit of your briefing and overview of it.

Thank you so much for that.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair and thank you for the invitation to the committee today to address this.

I think I'm purely here now as a presenter because it looks like all five sitting members of the committee are here.

I appreciate the invitation to discuss this.

The origin of this is pretty simple.

I have a question about the fee cap.

I am in position of the fee cap that passed through restaurant fee cap executive order that was pursued with the leadership of Council President Gonzalez and Councilmember concerned because they believe that the cap was still being passed along to them and they wanted my assistance on, you know, what do I do?

What do I do in the case for the orders being violated?

So I responded, that's a great question.

Let's figure out kind of what some of the things are here in the code.

And I was sort of surprised to see that a lot of the enforcement provisions were fairly outdated or a little ambiguous or not clear.

I had not encountered during my previous career as a prosecutor in the Seattle Municipal Court any kind of strange criminal sanction that was 180 days in jail or a $500 fine and was not surprised to see that that was a leftover sort of relic from 1978 when I guess that was a more common definition of a misdemeanor in Washington state.

So I contacted central staff.

It must have been early May or late April.

And started working on this project back then and we've had a lot of back and forth with the law department with the various enforcement agencies really want to thank Karina.

For her work on this, but especially since we're in a, in a climate now.

Where states of emergency have been very definitive of this year, 2020, and there's been lots of orders to try to address.

economic fallout from states of emergency that probably fall on outside of the scope of of uh...

who the original sort of drafters of some of these ordinances were expecting uh...

these orders to cover and it didn't seem to me that that this old uh...

sort of misdemeanor uh...

would be adequate to potentially deter uh...

conduct in violation of these orders by corporate actors uh...

since we can't really you know like jail grubhub in the you know, in the King County Jail if they violate one of these orders.

So some kind of civil remedy seemed warranted that investigators could consider in the alternative.

And a private right of action, if a group of restaurants wanted to kind of band together and sue some of these companies for violations of the law.

protections that they should be receiving under these emergency orders.

And I think especially as we've seen this year through the massive economic devastation that COVID has had and a lot of our orders that have interfered in the marketplace to make sure that equitable policies stay in place and economic fallout is limited and does not hit the most vulnerable in our community.

retooling some of our enforcement mechanisms is warranted.

So I do want to address the resolution briefly.

I did have a conversation with the mayor's office earlier today where they suggested the possibility of, in the event that the ordinance passes, simply resubmitting the entire order rather than trying to change it through resolution.

That is something I'm open to potentially pursuing on Monday in the alternative.

I think we could still do everything on Monday in the event the committee wants to pass the ordinance and consider this later this month.

I just wanted to flag that as a potential alternative to the path of updating the fee cap through the resolution.

Instead, resubmitting the order in recognition of the new ordinance is something that the mayor's office is interested in, and they are supportive of the underlying ordinance that sort of re-addresses and updates some of these enforcement mechanisms that haven't, as Corinne said, haven't really been revisited since 1978, and to adapt them to our current enforcement needs.

I will add, and I know we have folks to present from the executive here, I don't know that there's a considerable amount of data indicating that there have been tons of violations of these particular orders this year, but I still, frankly, think these code changes would be warranted, even if there was just one or two violations, and could be applicable to emergencies that are unanticipated in the future, where the looming prospect of enforcement, particularly toward corporate actors in the economy that we try to regulate through emergency orders, could be a deterrence for not following those orders as they've been put forward.

So with that, I don't have anything else to add, and I'll turn it back over to the other panelists.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis, for the sponsorship of this bill and the resolution as well.

And then I know we have some folks from the executive available to also give a presentation, so I'm going to go ahead and hand it over.

Beth, are you going to walk us through that?

Sorry.

I am.

That's okay, Council Member Gonzalez.

It's a pleasure to see her, I will say.

It's really fun to be in a meeting with her.

For those of you who don't know, my name is Beth Gappert.

I'm the Division Director for the Consumer Protection Division inside of FAS.

I just want to give a brief overview of what my division does and how we could fit into following through on this resolution and the updated ordinance changes.

The Consumer Protection Division, as I said, is housed within FAS.

We oversee the regulation and licensing of over 20 regulated business industries within the City of Seattle, from taxis and TNCs to short-term rentals to pawn shops to towing companies to a plethora of other industries in there.

We employ licensed and standard inspectors and supervisors, and those folks have special law enforcement commissions, which allow them to engage in very limited law enforcement action.

Their commission gives the department director, Calvin, and his agents, these inspectors, the authority to enter and inspect business establishments, to issue citations and civil infractions, and to collect evidence.

And from our perspective, this enforcement of the SMC allows FAS to help preserve the public peace health, safety, and welfare of the city of Seattle.

And while my division does have the ability to enforce sections of the municipal code, our focus really is on education and outreach towards businesses that violate the code.

We already have mechanisms in place to respond to complaints about businesses.

We utilize the Motorola CSR system, which is the system folks call 684-CITY, that is the customer service records management system that we use in order to respond to complaints.

So what happens is if someone were to file a complaint, call 684-CITY about this, That complaint would get routed to my team.

It would get assigned to a CPD inspector, and then that person would contact the complainant and open an investigation into the complaint.

And again, these are processes that we already have set up and are very easily adaptable to new types of complaints, such as the ones we're discussing today.

As I said, we do have the authority to enforce, to issue civil infractions to businesses that fail to comply.

We do that already.

towing company and pawn shops and use good shops, for example, our businesses that we do file infractions in the municipal court.

For this particular type of complaint, we estimate that conducting an investigation would take a couple of weeks, and then we would file the infraction.

We would obviously partner with the law department, but then we would file the infraction in the municipal court.

And at that point, the infraction process takes its natural course.

It's just like a parking ticket or a speeding ticket.

The court then issues a summons or lets someone know that the infraction has been issued.

They have the opportunity to either pay it or contest it or mitigate it, and it would go through that process.

My division has 26 license and standards inspectors with these special law enforcement commissions.

Five of them are currently assigned to the citywide warehouse supplying PPE to all city departments, but all of my remaining inspectors are currently working remotely and have the experience and capacity to respond to this new type of complaint.

Given what we know about the number of complaints, we do believe that we can incorporate this into our existing practices without additional staffing resources.

So that's my update and my overall overview for you all on my division.

Thank you.

Thank you, Beth, for that report and for the additional information about the enforcement, the actual enforcement part of what we're trying to accomplish.

I really, really appreciate it.

Colleagues, any questions for Karina or Beth about, or Council Member Lewis, about the council bill and resolution here?

I'm not seeing any additional questions.

Colleagues, this item is just listed for briefing and discussion.

It's already been listed to be on the agenda for full council, so I expect that we will consider the bill and the resolution at this Monday's full council meeting.

Because it's already on the introduction and referral calendar, For Monday, there's no need for us to take action on this legislation in committee today.

And so Council Member Lewis, in terms of your potential shifting around the resolution, we'll just make sure that our offices stay in close contact to get a better understanding of how that's going to play out for Monday's full council.

Let us do let us know what you end up deciding, but for purposes of committee today, there's no need to take any votes.

Today, during committee, since we've already got it listed and ready to roll for for Monday, but we will need to connect before then to make sure that we, we know procedurally what you want to do next.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

Okay, colleagues, that concludes these two agenda items.

You know, Council Member Lewis, you're welcome to stay throughout the whole meeting, but you are also free to go as the alternate if you wish to move on with your day.

That is totally, totally fine.

Thank you.

I think I will leave given that all five members are present.

Absolutely.

Yep.

Totally understandable.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

And thank you to Karina and to Beth.

You are also welcome to leave the committee meeting if you need to do so.

Thank you so much to both of you for being with us once again.

Okay, so the last agenda item is agenda item four, and I would ask that the clerk please read agenda item four into the record.

Agenda item four, resolution 31933, a resolution explaining the requirements for the summary and fiscal note that accompanies new legislation so that it also considers impacts of climate change and for certain capital projects seeking funding from the city of Seattle.

The basic financial documents needed for a more thorough assessment of fiscal impact and renaming the summary, environmental and fiscal note for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

So colleagues, this is the only agenda item on today's agenda that will require a vote of the committee in order to advance the resolution to full council.

I understand that we have the base resolution and we also have a substitute version of the resolution.

So once we have heard all of the presentations and had discussion, We'll need to go through some procedural steps to get the substitute before the committee and ultimately.

resolution.

And then we will be voting on advancing the substitute version of the resolution to full counsel if that is the will of the committee.

We have Lisa Kay from council central staff here.

We also have director Ben Noble from the city budget office.

933. Council Member Peterson, would you like to make some introductory remarks about the resolution and then we'll go ahead and hand it over to Lisa Kay and Director Noble for presentation.

Thank you, Council President.

First, I'd like to thank you and your team for getting this Resolution 31933 onto your agenda in the short window that we have, and for inviting me to speak on it today.

I'd also like to thank those who took the time to call into the public comment period, including Dr. Kathy Tuttle, who originated this idea.

Also, Katie Wilson of the Transit Riders Union, and several other important environmental scientists and advocates.

This resolution also received a renewed endorsement today by email from the Washington State Director of the nonprofit Climate Solutions.

So colleagues, it's timely to approve this resolution today because as we speak, as you know, wildfires are burning across our state and once again contaminating the air we breathe.

After conversations with some of your offices, our council central staff, environmental advocates, including Dr. Tuttle, and the directors of the City Budget Office and Office of Sustainability and Environment, we circulated and posted a streamlined substitute resolution that removes all the additional financial reporting recommendations so that now the substitute resolution that you'll ideally move forward on focuses just on the two climate questions added to the summary and fiscal note.

Last month, King County updated its climate plan and like the resolution before you today, it appropriately addresses both carbon emissions and adaptation or resiliency to climate change.

King County's progress is a powerful reminder that City Hall can also do more to address climate change now.

and we have this resolution 31933 to do something more, specifically to update the summary and fiscal note template so that we view each piece of city legislation through a climate lens.

How will it impact climate change, specifically emissions and resiliency?

So just asking these two questions on emissions and adaptation will provide council members with a more comprehensive pieces of information when making legislative decisions.

I'm happy to answer questions.

And of course, like Council President said, we have Lisa Kay and Ben Noble here as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Peterson for those introductory remarks.

Lisa, do you want to go ahead and describe the substitute bill and the changes and all of those things for us?

And then we will hear from Director Noble as well.

Happy to do that, thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm Lisa Kaye on central staff.

As members of the committee know, council's rules require that all council bills and resolutions include a summary and fiscal note.

Executive staff prepare these notes for the mayor's transmitted legislation and central staff prepare them for council initiated legislation.

So as you heard in the original title for resolution 31933, As introduced, it would have modified the template for the summary and fiscal note by adding a new section on environmental and climate implications and a new subsection pertaining to your financial document checklist or certain kinds of capital projects.

As I'm going to, if you bear with me, I'm going to take a risk here and see if I can share my screen.

So many things I could share and so I will

Is this showing?

Yep, we can see it.

Okay, so what I'm sharing with you is a clean version of the substitute resolution.

So the substitute would still add these questions to the template and more focused questions about carbon emissions, impacts, and resiliency to adapt to climate change, but it would not include the provisions, as Council Member Peterson said, related to the financial document check.

The substitute resolution, so I'll just enumerate a couple other of the changes that the substitute makes.

So the substitute resolution would also require all departments and offices to use the revised note by January 1st of 2021 instead of right away on the effective date of the resolution.

It shifts the due date for an implementation report from December 31st, 2020 to March 31st, 2021. And finally, the substitute would not require central staff to revise the summary and fiscal note to reflect legislation that's adopted, as central staff and CBO are having ongoing discussions about how to best accomplish this.

In terms of the impacts of the substitute, as with the introduced version of the resolution, implementation of the revised summary and fiscal note would require additional staff time for training and or assistance to complete the emissions and climate change impact questions.

It could inclusion of the environmental and climate implications section could indirectly support the city's efforts to achieve its environmental justice goals, such as protecting communities vulnerable to climate change impacts, identifying legislation that would likely increase carbon emissions or decrease the city's ability to adapt to climate change.

That completes my summary I'm sure.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues any questions for Lisa at this juncture.

I'm not seeing any.

So Director Noble welcome please.

Thank you.

Just brief comments to express the executive's full support for this.

A welcome change.

The events of the moment obviously speak to the importance of it but but we all know more broadly than that.

events of decades in the past and looking forward to make it an essential piece of careful policy consideration analysis.

We had the opportunity to work with Council Member Peterson and central staff on the changes.

So again, looking forward to implementing.

Great.

Thank you so much, Director Noble, for being with us today and for making sure that we're aware that there is support on the executive side to also help out with this.

Of course, that's important because legislation comes not just from the council, but also from the executive side.

So really, really do appreciate it.

Okay, colleagues, any other questions for Lisa from Council Central staff or for Councilmember Peterson, or any comments that anybody would like to make about the proposed resolution?

Again, there are several procedural steps we're going to have to go through to get the substitute before us, but I do want, before we go through those, more mundane details, wanted to afford folks an opportunity to speak more generally about the concepts articulated by Councilmember Peterson, the legislative intent, I should say, that was articulated by Councilmember Peterson that is reflected in this resolution.

I see Councilmember Mosqueda, and again, any others who would like to speak, please do let me know.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Madam President and Madam Chair.

Thank you as well Councilmember Peterson for your work on this effort.

Also for including our office and working with us as you drafted the amendments in front of us for the modifications to this resolution.

I'm really appreciative that we have added language under climate impacts and climate resilience sections that call out the potential impacts and intersections of carbon emissions and injustices due to racism and social inequities.

We also know that climate change disproportionately impacts black, indigenous and people of color community members and low income workers disproportionately.

So I think that this legislation here will help us focus our analysis to make sure that we're considering climate justice and not just climate impacts.

And I think that's an important distinction.

We've also added a prompt to describe the potential impacts on emissions and climate resiliency and climate justice of not implementing certain policies and projects.

And I think that helps us get a long ways towards what I think is our end goal, which is a more dynamic fiscal note.

This is not something that's unique to just the city of Seattle, but fiscal notes in general are generally not dynamic in looking at only the cost of implementation, and it's important to look at the costs and consequences of not implementing policy as well, so appreciate that.

What I wanted to ask Council Member Peterson, recognizing there are some policies we put forward that have non-significant climate impacts, and attempting such an analysis that we have outlined here in the amendments in front of us, would require central staff to rely on speculation or insufficient data in certain circumstances and wanting to avoid any unintended consequences that may arise from such an analysis on policies that are not necessarily closely linked to climate justice or climate impact.

what is the intent for reporting requirements for these policies or projects?

For example, like a labor policy comes to mind, such as minimum wage or secure scheduling, how would staff be required to report on these policies that don't directly have a significant impact on climate justice?

And I say that, and I recognize we should probably be thinking about climate justice in every policy that we do, but for the sheer sake of our staff's time, how do they respond when there's not an access there?

If that's appropriate, Madam Chair, Council Member Peterson.

Of course, Council Member Peterson, I think that question is directed at you and you're welcome to provide a response.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for the question, Council Member Mosqueda.

And as Chair of our Finance Committee, I mean, this is the fiscal note I know is very important to you as well.

And so that's a really good question.

If it has nothing to do with climate, just as with other questions in this section of the fiscal note called other implications, it is appropriate in a lot of cases to say that it's not applicable and simply by addressing the questions, thinking through the questions.

The point here is to be more mindful in a consistent way about climate and viewing things through this lens.

And by thinking it through and concluding that it is not applicable or not material, then it is fine to note that for us.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson, for that clarification.

I think we were sort of toying with how does one respond if there's not a direct nexus.

So having the option for central staff to just say not applicable in this situation helps.

And I'll just say, so I don't have to come off mute again, Council President, I think that it is really important for us to take a look at each of the policies that we are looking at.

And to the extent that there is a nexus and we can look at the bigger picture for understanding the trade-offs of the policy decisions in front of us, this will be a helpful tool.

So for instance, we talk a lot about building affordable housing near transit and how this will have a positive impact on climate associated with the construction of housing and other infrastructure.

However, the climate benefit of having a dense housing near transit so that folks don't have to rely on cars to get around is sometimes sort of juxtaposed with whether or not we should be building anymore.

And I think that this is a great example of us being able to look at every policy, for example, in housing to show that if we don't continue to build affordable housing throughout the city, there's not just an impact of not doing that or not spending that money this year, but it has a much longer impact on our globe and our local environment, but when we continue to push people out of the city by not building affordable housing and so that the benefits of building the housing far outstrip the impacts of for example, that one development at that one moment.

So I'll just put that plug in to say thank you as a good example of how we can apply this in real life to, for example, housing.

And also a plug for Jumpstart.

With new housing investments we're making through Jumpstart, that housing will be built free of fossil fuel use, 100% electrified.

And I want to thank the folks who testified today for helping to make that possible, in addition to our partners in the labor community who worked on that effort in the Jumpstart bill.

looking forward to supporting this, and thanks again for letting me ask that clarifying question.

Of course.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda, for that line of questioning.

I do think it's really important.

Of course, as we look at the summary and fiscal notes, there are times I have seen that there have been times when there has been remarks indicating that there aren't XYZ impacts in that category.

So I can certainly appreciate the concern around undue delay to legislation by either us or the executive in terms of working up legislation if there's a sense of feeling like they've got to come up with something.

So I do appreciate the flexibility there.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments?

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for bringing this forward.

It is inherent that we bake all of our policy decisions into understanding the climate crisis and understanding how we are addressing this climate crisis.

This is invaluable.

I think there are additional steps that I'd love to work with you on.

about making this part of not only our fiscal analysis, also just our general policy analysis, and a plug for needing to put all – maybe it's a select committee on the climate crisis.

As we know, our everyday actions are contributing in ways that may not be reversible if we do not take immediate action now.

So thank you for bringing this to the forefront, and I look forward to voting for it.

And thank you for making the substantive changes to really focus this on just the climate crisis.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss, for those comments.

Really do appreciate it.

Are there any other comments or questions before we go through the procedural steps of getting the substitute before us.

And then I think there's like some amendments that we, there's a lot of procedural steps we're going to go through right now.

Any other substantive questions or comments?

Great.

I'm not seeing any.

So Council Member Peterson, I just wanted to say thank you as well.

I know our office has worked really well together on streamlining some of the questions here.

Really do appreciate the opportunity.

It is serendipitous, I suppose, that we are about to vote on a resolution related to climate change on the day in which Seattle's world ranking today is to have the second worst air quality in the world as a result of the wildfires in Oregon, California, and in our own state.

I really do appreciate an opportunity to take this small step, but significant step forward in making sure that we're at least being intentional and aware of asking ourselves the question of whether or not or how this policy either positively or negatively impacts our efforts in the space of climate justice and climate change.

So I'm looking forward to supporting this resolution as well.

Okay, so let's go ahead and go through the process of getting the resolution before us now that we've had the presentation.

So I move that the committee recommend adoption of the resolution.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of the resolution.

I am going to now move to put the substitute before us as described by Lisa.

So I will move to amend the resolution by substituting the resolution attachment A and attachment B as presented on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to substitute the resolution, including attachments A and B.

Lisa, thank you so much for walking us through that proposed substitute.

Did want to give you one last chance to give us any additional information if you felt like you didn't cover everything that you needed to.

Good.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Lisa.

I really appreciate it.

Okay, so we have a slight technical amendment to the substitute.

So I'm going to move to amend the substitute resolution in sections three and five to delete the language environmental in both sections.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

Are there any additional comments on the resolution amendment to delete the language environmental in sections three and five?

hearing and no additional comments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the amendment as described?

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

That's three in favor.

I think you forgot to call on Council Member Strauss.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Okay, and then Council Member Juarez, are you still with us?

I see she's on the line.

She might have just been on mute.

Okay, go ahead.

So it's four in favor?

That's four in favor.

Zero.

Sorry, I'm trying to find the words here.

That's all right.

Four in favor, zero against, no abstentions.

So that motion carries and the substitute is amended.

Are there any comments on the substitute as amended?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the amended substitute?

Council Member Juarez?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Thank you.

Just got a note to roll call.

Council Member Juarez?

She is on mute.

I can see that it's on mute.

Go ahead.

Aye.

There we go.

We got you.

Yeah, I've been seeing it.

Dang, sorry guys.

That's all right.

I figured there was some technical issues.

Okay, so V, did you get Council Member Juarez's?

Yes.

Okay.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

That's five in favor.

Zero.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the substitute is adopted as amended.

Are there any further comments on the resolution as amended?

And Council Member Peterson, if you have anything else to say, you're welcome to say that now.

Thank you, Council President.

I just want to thank everybody on the committee, but also a shout out again to Kathy Tuttle, who originated this idea.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Really appreciate your stewardship of this resolution.

Okay, so this is the final roll call on the resolution.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted as amended?

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Councilor Mosqueda?

Aye.

Councilor Sawant?

Yes.

Councilor Strauss?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

That's five in favor, zero against.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries.

The committee will recommend that the resolution be adopted as amended and it will be sent to the September 21st, 2020 City Council meeting for final consideration.

Thank you everyone so much.

Thank you, Lisa and Dr. Noble for being with us.

And of course, Council Member Peterson for being with us on this resolution.

Really appreciate you taking the time.

That is the end of our business on today's agenda.

So if there is no further business to come before the committee, the committee will be adjourned.

Hearing no further business, that concludes our meeting for today, and the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Take care.