Seattle City Council Briefing 2/16/21

Good morning, everyone.

The February 16th, 2021 council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

We'll now do approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of February 8th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report.

Really quickly, colleagues, yesterday, Mayor Durkan did deliver her State of the City speech via Seattle Channel.

As is required by the city charter, we will have an opportunity to consider filing Clerk File 314469, which represents the 2021 State of the City address delivered by Mayor Jenny Durkan on February 16th.

2021, excuse me, February 15, 2021. Senior Deputy Mayor Mike Fong will be available and present at our full council meeting this afternoon to make the formal presentation of the text of the mayor's speech at this afternoon's city council meeting as is tradition and custom.

Also, we do have a full agenda this afternoon.

We will have exactly 20 minutes of public comment offered this afternoon during full council, and I look forward to seeing you all then.

Let's move on to state legislative session updates.

We do have members of our Office of Intergovernmental Relations with us this morning for the state legislative session update, and I'm going to hand it over to Director Wilson-Kodega to do introductions for the record and to kick off this session update.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm going to pass it along to Robyn Koski.

Robin Kosky, Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing on to Quinn.

Quinn Majewski, State Relations Director, Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing it to Hannah.

Elizabeth O'Hare.

And I will just start by saying I hope you all had a good weekend in the snow, and we are before you today with a state legislative update.

Now, this might be a little optimistic, but I'm going to say we're just short of being halfway done with the 2021 virtual session.

which ends on April 25th.

Yesterday was the first major milestone of this 105-day session.

We passed the House of Origin Policy Committee cutoff, the deadline for bills to pass out of the committees they were introduced in.

And coming up in the not-so-distant future, we're also looking at February 22nd for the cutoff or the last day that bills need to pass out of their fiscal committees in the House of Origin.

A quick note of thanks to Council President Gonzalez, Council Member Herbold, and many council members who've been doing a significant amount of work with our labor partners on arbitration reform.

Robin Kosky is going to touch on this in more detail in her report, given that work is within her portfolio.

But your leadership is greatly appreciated by OIR.

We still have a ways to go in order to advance the changes you have asked us to prioritize related to police discipline in the city.

And just reinforcing your engagement is much appreciated and will be very helpful moving forward.

And we also appreciate the Council's engagement in the revenue space this session, which Quinn Majewski, our State Relations Director, will review next.

Thank you, Lily.

Thank you.

Council members, starting in the budget and revenue space this week, 2 major updates.

The 1st is that House bill 1368, which is the early action covid relief package, allocating federal funding out through state programs.

That passed the Senate last week by a vote of 47 to 2, and is now headed to the governor's desk, which means it will start flowing out to the executive agencies, and then, as additional details are worked out, out to local organizations.

So we will be working closely with our partners at the state to make sure that funding is used to its highest and best use and trying to secure funding for the city of Seattle, in particular, our public health response.

The other item that I would highlight in the budget revenue space is Senate Bill 5096. This is the Senate's, well, currently it is the governor's version of the capital gains tax.

It is scheduled for a vote out of committee later today.

And I anticipate that we may see some changes offered by the Senate to make it more in line with what they are thinking on capital gains.

So those are not currently available, but when we return to you next week, I'm happy to provide an update on what, if any changes were made there.

I will pause there for any questions on budget and revenue.

Colleagues, any questions on budget and or revenue section?

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

Quinn, thank you so much for the update.

Really excited to hear about capital gains in the Senate, especially.

I know many of us have been working on.

capital gains for a number of years and appreciate those in the House who've continued to pass it over and those in the Senate who've continued to fight for it.

Very optimistic to hear about the conversation happening today around that bill.

So please do keep us updated.

Can you comment at all about whether or not we're weighing in in support of Kristen Harris-Talley's, Representative Harris-Talley's bill, House Bill 1494?

I would have to check and get back to you.

I'm not sure about that bill number.

Okay, great.

As we're talking about greater, more progressive taxes, especially on the wealthiest and largest companies, I believe that this effort by Representative Harris-Talley is a way to offset some of the taxes that have been more regressive in nature and to try to find that balance.

I would love to just send a note of support if that bill continues to move forward, 1494. And as with many pieces of legislation, it often takes many years, but I just wanted to note my appreciation for her strong work on that effort right out of the gate in her tenure in the legislature.

Absolutely.

I think I just pulled up the bill.

I think we may get to that in the housing space, but if not, I will certainly follow up with you in your office.

Colleagues, any other questions for Quinn on this section?

Did a quick scan, had to click a few times, sorry, because of the way the presentation is.

It looks like Council Member Mosqueda has another question.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you.

To add to the scanning complications when I don't ask my questions all at once, I apologize.

Quinn, just any back of the envelope estimates on how much additional support the city of Seattle can expect with the early relief package that is passing the chambers?

Yeah, unfortunately, at this point, we don't have that information yet.

I know it is an interest of keen concern.

The legislation itself provides very little detail about how the money will be allocated out and leaves a lot of flexibility to the executive agencies.

In our conversations with some of those agencies in particular at Department of Health and OFM who are receiving the money for public health response, we understand that's likely to, at least some good portion of that is likely to come through local public health agencies.

So we'll be wanting to work closely with King County Public Health on that.

But I think we're still getting details about how other funding will be allocated.

But as as we learn more, I'm happy to provide more information at council briefings as well as to you in your office.

Councilmember Mosqueda, the one thing that we do know is that the city will be receiving $23 million directly in rental assistance that isn't coming as a result of this bill, but that is a direct allocation.

And then other housing money is similar to what Quinn is saying.

We're not exactly sure how that will flow, but it will very likely be very similar to what happened with the last tranche of funding from the federal government, where the money will go directly to the county.

but I do know that city staff are actively engaged in conversations with the county.

Okay, thank you for that.

Council Member Sawant, I see your hand is up.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

Just one question.

On the bill, sorry, I don't remember what number it is, to basically make The progressive, sorry, property tax revenue, more progressive than it is now.

I mean, it is, it doesn't fall on renters, but it's still not progressive in the sense that working class and middle class homeowners end up basically paying the same rate.

So to make it progressive, am I right that it would require a constitutional change or am I wrong about that?

Yes, that is correct.

Council members want it would and there's a companion resolution that goes along with the bill by 1494 by Representative Harris Talley.

OK, sorry if I missed you mentioning that already.

And again, I'm sorry if I you already said this also.

I was sorry I was distracted.

But what what is the what is your sense of how likely it is?

I mean, obviously, this would be a hugely welcome shift, but this is something that people have been raising for years, but hasn't changed.

And of course, now the Democrats have a majority in both houses.

So do you see this going somewhere?

I am not sure exactly what the odds are of it passing.

It is still alive.

The fiscal cutoff isn't until next Monday, so there is some chance that it could pass out of committee.

I'm just not sure exactly what the prospects are.

As you and Councilmember Mosqueda have both said, Councilmember Sawant, it is a significant change and quite a heavy lift.

Okay, thank you so much.

I don't see any other hands raised, so let's go ahead and move to the next section.

Thank you.

Great, and I will hand it off to Hannah.

Thank you.

A few updates in the education space where a lot of our priorities continue to move through.

The first is.

Bill 1213, that's the Fair Starts for Kids, the Omnibus Child Care Bill.

Both the House and the Senate versions have hearings today in their fiscal committees and are scheduled for action.

So those continue to move through, slightly scaled back from their introductions, but good progress being made there.

Senate Bill 5136, which is the Child Care Licensing Bill, had a hearing in Ways and Means last week and is scheduled for executive action today.

And another bill to highlight is Senate Bill 5340, that school board director qualifications, that expands the eligibility criteria for school board directors, allowing lawful permanent residents to apply.

Executive action was taken on that last week, and it's now been passed to rules.

With that, I'll pause for any questions in education.

Colleagues, any questions related to education?

I'm not seeing any, so we can keep going.

Moving on to the environmental space, I would note broadly here, just as an update, since we have passed policy cut off that all of the bills that we have been tracking here as priorities for support are on track are have passed out of policy committee and are on track to move forward out of fiscal committee with hearings and committee votes scheduled in the respective fiscal committees this week.

So that includes 1075 on-demand transportation, 1084 building decarbonization, 1091 which is the clean fuel standard, Senate Bill 5022, which deals with recycling and product stewardship, and 5141, which is the HEAL Act.

The one bill that is still in policy committee is the Climate Commitment Act, which is the governor request cap and invest legislation combined with the restoration of authority for ecology to manage indirect or non-source point pollutions.

While this didn't make it past or didn't make it out of committee after the the policy cutoff.

It is going to be considered NTIB, necessary to implement the budget, and so is exempt from those cutoffs.

We know that the prime sponsor, Senator Carlisle, continues to work very diligently to incorporate feedback that he has received in public comment and subsequently, and we expect that he will have a substitute version of the bill in the coming weeks for consideration.

I'll pause there for any questions on the environment.

Colleagues, any questions on environment?

I am not seeing any hands raised, so we can keep going.

All right, moving on to general government.

Just a couple of quick highlights here.

First, House Bill 1095, which is considered to be a sort of early action economic recovery response, has passed both chambers and is headed to the governor's desk.

This exempts grants that are given out for the purposes of economic stabilization and recovery, exempt from state taxation.

So it just means that the grant funding can go a little bit further.

So that is headed to the governor's desk, expected to be signed.

House Bill 1173, which is the armory PDA scheduled for a vote in the capital budget committee.

This is the 2nd committee that's going through its version of the fiscal committee scheduled for vote tomorrow at 8 am.

And then highlighting one bill that was a problematic bill that we were tracking, which did not make it out of committee, and so is dead for the session, which would preempt the city in a variety of ways on telecommunications.

Senate Bill 5110, that has not passed out, and so it will not be considered for the session.

And I will pause there for any questions on general government.

Colleagues, any questions on general government?

Quinn, I have a couple of questions, one related to.

Yes, HB 1056 public meetings and emergencies just want to that one's sponsored.

Looks like by.

Representative Paulette just wanted to get an understanding of where you think.

That is in the process.

In the legislative process and then the 2nd.

question I had was on SHB 1443, which is the cannabis industry social equity bill.

Just wanted to get a better understanding of what that bill accomplishes.

I know I've been receiving a lot of Emails from constituents about social equity issues in the cannabis industry just wanted to get a better understanding of what this bill accomplishes in order to understand whether this bill would address some of the concerns that I've been hearing from constituents in my inbox.

So those two questions, please.

Yeah, absolutely.

So hospital 1056 is actually pretty far ahead of of what we would consider the general schedule of legislation.

It is already passed the house and received a hearing in the Senate committee.

It doesn't look like it's currently scheduled for a committee vote yet, but that's not unusual given how far ahead it is and the Senate sort of dealing with.

Senate bills at this point.

It has been moving at a pretty good clip.

This would, just by way of background, this would provide for any future declarations of public emergency that the provisions related to the Open Public Meetings Act, which were initially implemented by executive order by the governor and then subsequently extended through the duration earlier in session.

This would make sure that they apply prospectively to any future public emergency.

certainly very good for not just the current crisis that we're in, but future crises.

So I would anticipate that that bill, you know, it is in a good place and I have not had any indication that it is facing any problems in the Senate other than just being so far ahead that it needs to catch up with everything else.

On House Bill 1443, and this is actually one We ran this report as late as we could to catch all of the updates as bills were passing out of committee.

But there were a few that between the legislative system, our system with lobby gov didn't get updated.

This one actually did pass out of the policy committee.

So it is still alive.

It is in appropriations right now.

I can provide a brief update, Council President, and then provide more information to you.

But in general, this would make some changes to the social equity and cannabis task force.

I would have to double check the exact framing, but there's a state task force that works on these issues.

So this would make some changes to the membership as well as provide for a grant program to be managed by the Department of Commerce to provide social equity grants for the cannabis industry to help address some of the concerns that I know you and your office and other council members have.

I don't know that it addresses all of the issues of which there are many, but I think it is a small step forward.

And I'm happy to provide a more comprehensive update to you in your office.

Thank you for that.

And then in reviewing the bulletin, sorry, I have one more question and I think it's on.

If you scroll down Hana to page six, cause my computer is acting up over here.

Uh, tax increment financing, um, SSB 52 11. Can you just quickly tell us what, what this is, what the intent of this particular bill is and, um, and where we're at on it in terms of the process.

Certainly.

So this bill would authorize a version of tax increment financing.

I don't have the specifics of what the program would look like, but I'm happy to follow up on that.

This is the issue that AWC has been working on for many years, attempting to provide some additional revenue options through tax increment financing for local governments.

It's currently in Senate Ways and Means.

And it's got a committee vote scheduled tomorrow.

And so I anticipate it will will continue to move forward in terms of its overall prospects.

I don't I don't have a good sense of that, but happy to do some digging and get back to you.

It'd be helpful.

I would just like to get a better understanding of sort of what what problem this is designed to fix, to get a better understanding of of the legislation.

So I'd appreciate that, Quinn.

Council Member Morales, please.

Thank you.

I will say that this is a bill that has been supported.

The idea of this sort of tool is something that the PSRC Economic Development District folks have been talking about for some time.

And as Quinn said, I know the Association of Cities is supportive and different economic development entities are also supportive.

The idea here would be that it would generate some revenue based on future value that could be assessed so that there is some additional revenue available for community economic development projects.

There is some concern that it be used, if something like this passes, that we make sure it is used in an equitable way.

I know particularly in the south end of Seattle, there's some concern, but in general, I think it is something that folks are interested in as another tool for supporting community economic development.

Thank you for that.

That's what I was hoping.

I was hoping to get a better sense of sort of what, how this would be utilized.

And so I appreciate that additional context.

Customer morale is very helpful.

Okay.

I don't see any other hands raised.

So Quinn, I think you can keep going.

All right.

I will hand it off to Hannah to cover healthcare.

Thanks.

A couple of updates as healthcare bills continue to move through.

House Bill 1477, which is the reintroduced version of the national 988 system and creating high-tech crisis call centers and mobile rapid response teams, was heard last week, is scheduled for executive action today.

There's ongoing work with stakeholders to refine the bill and address some of the concerns of our implementation timeline and costs, but that bill continues to move forward.

The postpartum Medicaid bill that we followed so closely last year and continue to support this year had a hearing in Ways and Means yesterday and is scheduled for executive action tomorrow.

House Bill 5195, the Opioid Overdose Medication Bill, is scheduled for hearing in Waze later this week.

House Bill 5313 continues to move forward.

That's the bill that establishes it is an unfair practice to deny coverage for gender reaffirming treatments.

That is scheduled for hearing in ways and means at the end of the week as well.

And then an additional bill to add this week is Senate Bill 5399 that establishes a universal health care commission.

that is charged with developing a plan for affordable health care coverage publicly financed for everyone.

And that passed out of its policy committee last week and is scheduled for a public hearing on Friday.

Those are the highlights for health care, so I'll pause for questions.

Colleagues, any questions or comments on health care?

I am not seeing any hands raised, so we can keep going, Hannah.

Great.

Hi, thanks everyone.

I'll just say a few more words about House Bill 494, 1494, excuse me, by Representative Harris-Talley, the anti-displacement property tax exemption.

That bill would exempt the first $250,000 of a primary residence once the owner of the home signed a declaration.

As we said, it would require a constitutional amendment.

So just wanted to make sure everybody understood what that bill was before moving forward with the other housing bills.

There are many other important housing bills that are still moving, including House Bill 1236 on just cause eviction and 1277 to increase the document recording fees.

As far as the bills go to address the eviction moratorium ending at the end of March, Senate Bill 5139 that would limit rent increases has unfortunately died and that bill will not be moving forward by Senator Doss.

Senate Bill 5160 is therefore even more critically important since it's the only vehicle at play to address the end of the eviction moratorium.

It was executive action was taken last week in the housing committee and was referred to the Ways and Means Committee.

It has an important hearing later today that the city is of course supporting and is scheduled for executive session on this upcoming Thursday.

That's all I have on the housing bills for this week if there are any questions.

Colleagues, any questions?

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we can keep going, Robin.

As far as police reform is concerned, this is another area of great importance at the legislature, as Lily mentioned, and there are many bills that are still in play.

Two bills passed the House last week that we haven't really talked about since the first week of session.

House Bill 1088 by Representative Levick, which toughens the state law on officer impeachment disclosures.

creates best practices and online trainings, and requires law enforcement to inquire about past impeachment disclosure before hiring an officer, passed the House last week on a bipartisan vote of 61 to 37. Similarly, House Bill 1089, sponsored by Representative Ramos, that would provide transparency regarding investigations and charging decisions made after deadly force is used, This legislation authorizes the state auditor to actually review deadly force investigations to determine whether the involved law enforcement agencies complied with all applicable rules and procedures, and that also passed on an even larger margin bipartisan vote in the House.

House Bill 1203 that deals with community oversight executive action was taken in the Public Safety Committee last week.

We're still working with the prime sponsor of that bill, Representative Johnson, and the Office of Police Accountability to ensure that it is compatible with our police oversight system in Seattle.

And that bill has a hearing in Appropriations tomorrow.

Um, House Bill 1267, the governor's independent investigations, uh, legislation is in the Appropriations Committee, but hasn't had a hearing yet scheduled.

House Bill 1310 by Representative Johnson on the use of force also had executive action taken last week to move it forward to the Appropriations Committee.

There also hasn't been a hearing scheduled on that yet.

One bill that does appear to have fallen prey to the cutoff is House Bill 1507 that I mentioned last week on independent prosecutions.

It was heard very late and introduced very late in the process.

It was heard yesterday, but executive action wasn't taken.

We will keep an eye out to see if any of those provisions are, you know, likely to get amended onto other bills or, you know, it may be something to work on in the interim, given the other independent investigations legislation that's still moving forward.

And then finally, over in the Senate, the decertification bill, Senate Bill 5051, had executive action taken yesterday, was amended with mostly technical amendments, one that changes the to include a law enforcement officer was included as part of the process in the executive session yesterday.

So now it will move on to the Senate.

That is all I have for police reform, although that was quite a lot.

That is always a lot in this area.

Any comments or questions, colleagues?

Councilmember Peterson and then Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, our team, for the update today.

I had a question about Senate Bill 5134, Senator Solomon's bill.

Did you touch on that yet, or what's the status of that?

That seems to be one of the strongest police reform bills that we have, especially in regards to arbitration.

Yes, Councilmember Peterson.

I do think that that is also a bill that has fallen prey to cut off.

Next week, we will also make sure we indicate.

We just didn't have time.

It takes a little while for the system to update.

So some things that you know, we haven't adequately marked in this agenda, but we will do that going forward.

As you know, I think, you know, the elimination of arbitration completely was a extremely controversial issue that, you know, drew significant We have had a number of conversations with the legislature and with the opposition on a number of fronts, and so this did not make it out of the labor committee.

We do continue to have conversations with legislators, as Lily said, to highlight the importance of police disciplinary process reform.

we will keep you posted on those efforts and certainly enlist your support because it is definitely quite a steep hill to climb.

And thank you to everyone who has been supporting those efforts thus far.

Go ahead, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Quick follow-up.

You said it created controversy on a number of fronts.

Could you specify who was opposing that type of police reform to remove arbitration?

I think it was clear at the public hearing on that bill that there were some labor unions that represent police officers that expressed their concern about not having arbitration as a way to move forward.

And I don't know, Lily, if you'd like to add anything.

I think you covered it perfectly, Robin.

I would just note for our, you know, council members, you know, there are really, there is strong opposition to kind of this theoretical threat to labor unions existence and changing any of these statutes because of this kind of existential fear about that given that labor unions have experienced attacks across this country locally as well from groups like the Freedom Foundation.

So there's quite a high level of concern there.

What the work that we have to do in front of us is to really illustrate, you know, the council's work and the mayor's priorities are very much aligned in lifting up working families.

while squarely addressing police reform.

And I think we're getting very close to identifying some options that we are very hopeful all parties can agree with.

And it's just hard to move anything without consensus this challenging virtual session, but we are doing work with the impacted unions who do represent police unions and corrections groups and whatnot that have expressed concerns to their leadership.

So we can follow up with some more specificity there if that is helpful to you.

But we still have a little bit of work to do.

And we'll certainly be calling on you and your colleagues to help as that moves forward.

Thank you.

Yes, I would love to get some follow-up offline.

I think it's disturbing if the police unions are saying they don't want something about police reform.

I don't think the state legislators should be listening to that.

So I'll follow up with you afterwards.

Thank you very much.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I have a question also

why there's been some controversy.

What I don't understand is why everything else in that bill is going to basically languish because of the controversy around arbitration.

And just, again, for the record, Senate Bill 5134 allowed for outright elimination of arbitration.

Senate Bill 5055 make some changes to arbitration, but we learned last week that the title was changed to Senate Bill 5055 to limit the ability to make amendments to that bill, amendments that would serve the city of Seattle.

So I'm very, very disturbed about that development as well.

But back to 5134, there's a lot in that bill that is not about arbitration.

And I'm wondering if anything has been identified as priorities to try to move into another vehicle.

That bill prohibits collective bargaining agreements from requiring things like waiting periods for misconduct interviews, prohibits collective bargaining agreements from requiring time limits on complaint filing or limits on use of civilian supervisors and investigators or limits on use of subpoena authority.

These are all really important issues to the city of Seattle and I'm very concerned that there is no vehicle moving forward that addresses any of Seattle's police accountability issues.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I mean, I will just say that I think that many of the provisions of that bill, in addition to arbitration were seen as quite controversial changes to.

I'm happy to follow-up with senator Solomon to see if he has

Yes, if you could, I'd really appreciate that.

And when you inquire, please inquire on my behalf as a big supporter of that bill.

Thank you, and a fan of his work.

I will do so.

He will be happy to learn that.

All right.

Council Member Sawant, please.

Thank you.

Just on the earlier point that Lillian responded to about what the police unions might be saying about the question of arbitration and the connection between arbitration and police accountability.

I just wanted to note that It's quite disturbing when, and this is not the first time we've heard police unions do this, and also we hear this from the right wing on a regular basis, this sort of false equivalency overall, the false equivalency between left wing and progressive movements, peaceful movements like Black Lives Matter, for example, that faced all kinds of weapons during the Black Lives Matter street protests, comparing that to the attempt by hundreds of far-right Trump supporters violently attacking the Capitol in an actual bid to try and overturn a democratic election result.

I just feel like I would reject all these false equivalencies, but it just struck me that for them to compare the question of the very urgently needed police accountability and the fact of police unions like the Seattle Police Officers Guild being one of the key obstacles to achieving police accountability, which is a fact, not an opinion.

comparing all of that in some way to Freedom Foundation, which is a right-wing think tank, conservative policy kind of organization that has a long track record of attacking workers' rights and union rights, that's just a false equivalency.

And I think the rank and file of the Martin Luther King County Labor Council last summer during the protests during the Black Lives Matter protest made a very important point when they voted, when the delegates to the labor council voted in a majority to expel the police officers from the labor council by explaining that, of course, we think that all workers have the right to unionize and demand decent workplace conditions, advocate for their wages and other workplace questions, but that that cannot be in any way in opposition to the fact that the labor movement also has to stand against racism, against violence on the working class, and that an injury to one is an injury to all.

So I just wanted to note that we have to very decisively and unambiguously reject any kind of false equivalency between the fight to unionize, the fight for workers' rights, and the proud history of the militant labor movement, and in any way compare that to the right of the same workers demanding police accountability, especially in light of the systematic racism in the country.

Thank you, Council Member Swan.

If I can just respond, you made a good point.

I did not intend to make a comparison between what we are seeking as the city with our partner cities around arbitration reform and what the Freedom Foundation is doing.

I just wanted you to have the information as council that the concerns that the labor community is expressing have less to do with, and I do think there is a lot of goodwill.

There is a lot of commitment to racial justice and police reform.

It's one of those delicate negotiations at this point where we are trying to be respectful of the fact that labor unions have been, for many years, feeling very under attack by those kinds of groups.

And they want to make sure that as we pursue reform, that we are not doing harm to those folks and those institutions that protect workers.

We all know clearly that is not the intent, but just given some of the complex policy issues at play here, that's why we have continued to have that conversation.

We would love to keep you and your council colleagues engage in that as we move forward, because I really do feel like we're making headway with our labor partners.

They also care deeply about racial justice and police reform.

They just also have the experience in very recent history of being under attack from all angles.

And so we're trying to thread that needle appropriately and engaging in some very, you know, in some negotiations right now around what we could move forward.

But we do believe we have a path It is a challenging one, certainly, but we're very committed to this.

We understand this is very high on your agenda, the council's agenda as a whole.

I just want to clarify my comments were not directed at you, Lily or yours, but just that as progressives together, we have to be united in that false equivalency that is often drawn.

I'm not saying that you're drawing that false equivalency.

I'm just saying that the right wing does draw that false equivalency and it's happening more and more, you know, given the polarized sort of atmosphere, not just in DC, but nationwide.

And I also would say, again, as a rank and file union member myself and as someone who's been a dedicated fighter for labor rights, that we also should not paint the labor movement.

The labor movement is not a monolith.

I mean, there are conservative elements in the labor movement, and there are tremendous numbers of rank and file who are, you know, really have spoken up about Black Lives Matter, about the fight against racism, and also have made it very clear that The fight against specific oppression has to go hand in hand with the fight against, for example, as you said, Lily, the backlash that especially public sector unions have faced, not only from right-wing think tanks like Freedom Foundation, but primarily from big business politicians and the overall idea of corporate politics, which has really, you know, for decades has logged attacks at public sector union rights.

And we have to, I mean, I agree with you, very unambiguous about the rights of unions and of workers as a whole, but also, you know, make it very clear that that fight against attacks on unions goes hand in hand with a fight against racism and oppression.

Thank you.

Thank you, council members, a lot.

Okay, thank you for that conversation.

I just wanted to provide a little bit of additional information and clarity that I think is getting missed or overseen in this conversation, which is that my understanding based on my own conversations with the statewide coalition that is working on these police accountability reform efforts It is not just labor unions that represent correction officers or police officers that are involved and engaged in this conversation.

In fact, there is a Washington Coalition for Police Accountability organization that really focuses on centering impacted families, families that have lost family members to police violence in the past.

That coalition also includes members of folks who were involved in the initiative 940, DS Light Washington campaign.

It also includes civil rights organization members, tribes, labor unions, members of the faith community, and activists who are all working together in concert to try to thread the needle on these issues to see some progress in the state legislature as it relates to many of the bills that are included in this bulletin that the city of Seattle has continued to support.

Those bills are listed publicly on their website in terms of the ones that they are actively Um, actively supporting, um, to, um, and, and encouraging community members to also, um, also support.

And so I just, uh, my understanding is that this particular bill Senate bill 5, 1, 3, 4 is not one of the bills included in, in their legislative agenda.

And so I just want to be.

a cognizant of the fact that I think that there's a lot of folks advocating for for differing strategies at the state legislature, including the Washington coalition for police accountability.

who is not made up of just police unions or unions that represent correctional officers.

So I offer that as just sort of another helpful piece of information that I think supports Lily's position, that things are complex and complicated, and there's a lot of stakeholders who are engaging on this issue.

And of course, our role is to make sure that we, from my perspective, make sure that we don't that we continue to support many of those community driven initiatives and continue to advocate for the strongest version of accountability measures that will make a difference for our accountability system.

And we're gonna keep working together to try to accomplish that goal.

Okay, doesn't look like I don't see any other hands up in this space.

So why don't we go ahead and keep going?

I'll just say a few quick things on the public safety front.

The bills aimed at limiting armed intimidation are still moving House Bill 1283, House Bill 5038. Also another incorrect item on here, right at the end of the page that you have before you, civil protection orders.

substitute House Bill 1320 that would streamline the civil protection order system.

That bill is still moving and has been referred to appropriations.

And then the last bill on the page that I think is on the next page, I know some of you are interested in driving with a suspended licensed Senate Bill 5226. That bill was substantially amended and now it would require a person who attests to an infraction that they don't have the ability to pay be informed of how to submit evidence of their inability to pay.

And also information that if they do not pay, they may be subject to a collection action, including the garnishment of wages.

And then it also requires the court to attempt to enter into a payment plan with a person who attests that they don't have the ability to pay.

So the provisions of that bill were streamlined and limited a bit.

But that bill is moving forward.

And that's all I have on public safety.

All right, any questions on that?

I'm not seeing any, so let's keep going.

Just a few bills to highlight in the safety net realm.

House Bill 1151, bolstering the economic recovery, which is one of the big priority bills for human service advocates, continues to move forward.

It passed out of appropriations and has been referred to rules.

The Working Family Tax Credit continues to move forward and was referred to Appropriations.

And then lastly, as I scroll down, Senate Bill 5214 by Senator Nguyen, which reinvests in and reduces barriers to TANF, was amended so that any month that the state unemployment rate is at or above 7% doesn't count toward a family's total limit of 60 months on their lifetime in that program.

And that is retroactive through March 1st of last year, so covers the pandemic period.

And that bill is scheduled for a public hearing today in ways and means.

That is all I have on safety net and civil rights.

Any questions?

Not seeing any questions, so we can keep going.

Closing with transportation, just some brief updates because I know we're probably low on time.

The clean fuel standard, I discussed in environment, just a small update here.

There was a notion that this would not go to transportation this year in an effort to expedite and support that legislation.

It does appear that it has now been referred after going through environment and appropriations to the transportation committee.

On the House side, it is passed out of there before and anticipate that it will again.

I think it remains to be seen what happens in the Senate and something that we are tracking closely.

And then House Bill 1304, which I know is of interest to a couple offices, has passed out of the local government committee.

It was amended to make some changes to the motor vehicle excise tax piece.

In the interest of time, I won't go into all the details, but if anyone's interested, I'm happy to follow up.

Any questions on transportation?

All right, seeing none, let's keep going.

That concludes our presentation.

Excellent.

Okay, great.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions for the good of the order before we shift gears into the next section of our agenda?

Hearing none, I wanna thank all of you for your good work on all of these issues.

I know that many of us are having ongoing contact with you all on various priorities and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Thanks everyone.

Okay, let's go ahead and move into preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

This week's roll call rotation begins with Council Member Peterson, followed by Salant, Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So first up is Council Member Peterson and then Council Member Salant.

Good morning, Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on today's full City Council agenda, but our next meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee is tomorrow morning, Wednesday, February 17, at 9.30 a.m.

The agenda was posted online last Friday, February 12. There are two items on the agenda.

The first is an agreement with King County Metro, and the other is an integrated resource plan progress report with Seattle City Light.

I'm happy to answer questions about those.

In District 4 this past Friday, I held my weekly office hours by telephone, constituents calling about homelessness, public safety, and the status of the police union contract.

Regarding the archives, I'm pleased with the good news that the U.S.

District Court postponed the sale of the National Archives facility.

granting a preliminary injunction.

That facility happens to be located in District four.

I'm hopeful the new Biden administration will agree that Trump administration officials did not follow the federal law, and it's best simply to keep those vital historical documents here as our congressional delegation already supports keeping the facility in the Northwest.

Ideally, they can find federal resources to pay for any necessary upgrades to the facility.

I greatly appreciate the hard work of our Washington State Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, as well as the tribal nations, advocacy organizations, Council Member Deborah Juarez, researchers, many others successfully fighting the proposed sale so we can keep the priceless archival histories here for generations to come.

Snow.

During the snowstorm over the weekend, I was I just want to thank all the city government work crews and their managers for working around the clock this weekend, especially those departments that we see a lot in our committee.

The Seattle Department of Transportation, with help from Seattle Public Utilities, clearing arterial roads, Seattle City Light, keeping the power on or restoring power where needed.

It's a testament, in my opinion, that our Mayor Jenny Durkan and her team They were once again very prepared and ably launched into action during the snowstorm.

So this is a great example of local government doing the basic and good work it was meant to do.

So I really appreciated their hard work over the weekend.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

Good morning, everybody.

On today's City Council agenda, there are no items from the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee.

The next meeting of the committee, which is normally scheduled for February 23rd, has been rescheduled for March 4th at 9.30 a.m., which is the Thursday of the following week.

and I appreciate committee members working with my office to enable the rescheduling.

The committee is discussing, as I've reported before, a package of renter's rights bills from my office and among them, one of them being co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis also.

At our last meeting, we discussed the eviction moratorium, the right to legal representation for renters facing eviction, and I hope at the next meeting of the committee we will be in a position to vote on the right to counsel legislation, and we will also further discuss the problem of default evictions renters who do not respond to the necessary paperwork.

or are not able to be present for their eviction hearing which obviously happens a great deal because the people who are facing eviction are also facing other types of crises in their life and get evicted by and these people get evicted by default and it's actually a huge issue.

It's the unfortunate outcome of half the evictions in Seattle, actually.

And in addition to the bills discussed at the last committee meeting, my office is working on companion legislation to the right to counsel legislation to address the problem of really pervasive problem of default evictions.

The Office of Sustainability and Environment is finishing up the hiring of the Green New Deal Oversight Board direct coordinator that the People's Budget Movement won funding for in the last budget.

Once that is done, we will finally be ready to appoint the board, which I hope will include environment and climate activists and organizers, and we'll really fight for investments in green infrastructure in Seattle.

Like the Renters Commission and the Human Rights Commission and the LGBTQ Commission, they will have the opportunity to take courageous stance to fight for our communities and I look forward to them doing that.

There is one item on today's city council agenda from my office as I've reported before last Monday.

It is a resolution urging Washington state legislators to approve statewide taxes on big business and super rich and clearly stating the city council's opposition to any preemption such as a ban limitation or phasing out of Seattle's authority to tax big business and the rich.

As was just discussed in the last item, there are three progressive tax bills currently being discussed in Olympia.

One is to tax big business corporate payroll, one is taxes on billionaires, and one is taxes on capital gains.

All of these are crucial and urgently need to be passed by the state legislature for raising the funds ordinary people need for housing, services, COVID relief, and jobs programs like the Green New Deal.

This resolution states that the city council urges state lawmakers to pass progressive taxes on big business of the rich and oppose preemption on municipal ability to raise progressive revenues because we need statewide progressive revenues urgently in addition to not in place of Seattle's big business tax and also other municipalities should also have the right to uh...

raise big business taxes however i would also say it is not simply a question of introducing the bills as we saw in the previous discussion you know uh...

every section lawmakers introduced bills progressive bills that then go nowhere, because it's really a question of fighting to win progressive measures.

The Washington state legislature has presided over decades of inexcusable underfunding of education, housing, health care, jobs, and services, including periods when the Democratic Party has had full control of the legislature and the governorship, unfortunately paying lip service to working people and their needs while doing the bidding of big business and the billionaires.

Now working people are facing compounding crisis in the crises in the pandemic and the recession on top of the crisis that they were already in before the pandemic.

Once again, Democrats have the governorship in Olympia and decisively control the State House, 57 to 41, and the State Senate, 29 to 20. So I would say there's a serious responsibility on the shoulders of the legislature as a whole to approve taxes on big business and the wealthy to address the suffering of working people and also small businesses, which are actually getting decimated during this pandemic.

pandemic and recession, while at the same time defending the gains won by hundreds of Seattle's working people, rank and file union members, and community advocates who have been part of the tax Amazon movement, and by the tens of thousands who marched in the George Floyd protests and strongly supported the tax Amazon movement's demand to tax big corporations to fund affordable housing.

and green new deal projects.

So as I said this resolution states that the city council urges state lawmakers to pass progressive taxes on big business and the rich and oppose any preemption on municipal ability to raise progressive revenues.

I also wanted to share that I have sent a public letter of solidarity to The workers who are fighting to win recognition for what's now being called the Bamazon Union because it's primarily black workers and in fact black women workers.

The Bamazon Union in December, Alabama at one of Amazon's newest warehouses actually.

Socialist Alternative in my council office.

have sent solidarity to the workers as they encourage their fellow workers to vote a resounding yes for workers' rights, dignity, and respect, and for membership in the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, or RWDSU.

Amazon, we know, alone has made a record $21.3 billion in profits last year.

As with other corporations under capitalism, these profits primarily derive from exploiting workers with low wages.

But on top of that, workers at Amazon face chronic short-staffing and sweatshop-like conditions, including monitoring workers to the minute, making even bathroom breaks difficult, and forcing work despite COVID symptoms.

Over 20,000 Amazon workers are known to have tested positive for COVID, with the Alabama warehouse reporting one of the highest infection rates.

Amazon has also notoriously skipped out of its obligation to pay federal taxes and shamefully even stole over $61 million in tips from its contractor delivery drivers.

And the solidarity that I have sent also states that Amazon has absolutely no business telling workers not to pay union dues or carry out a completely dishonest anti-union propaganda campaign, which actually has been relentless.

Literally, when workers walk from their stations to their bathrooms, they are surrounded by anti-union literature.

And the very fact that Amazon executives are fighting so hard itself is proof that they are lying.

Their company is fighting precisely because they know that when workers win a union, they will have to begin to respect the demands of the workers and they're afraid of the collective power they will have.

as a union, because if workers organized in a union had no power, why would the bosses fight it?

So I wish the workers the very best in the coming weeks as they carry out the vote for their union.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

I just want to reference last week's conversation related to the introduction referral calendar.

And I was uncertain the specificity that was included in the city council's resolution related to our our state legislative agenda and I did not speak up when Councilmember Peterson raised the question of whether or not there's a necessity to pass another piece of legislation given the passage of Resolution 31982 in early December adopted by the Council with an 8-0 vote.

I went back and I checked the language from that resolution.

And that resolution states the city's support for, quote, comprehensive tax reform that leads to more equitable and progressive tax structures and decreases reliances on flat tax sources like sales and property taxes.

It goes on to say that the city's support to the state legislature for, quote, a statewide capital gains tax and a progressive statewide payroll tax that does not preempt or diminish the city's local authority.

And I agree with the statements of Council President Gonzalez last week where she stated that there is nothing to prohibit us from passing legislation about items that are on our state legislative agenda if there's new information or the circumstances have changed.

But from my perspective of the strength of our earlier statement, in the resolution that we passed in December with an 8-0 vote, and the status of the current bills in the state legislature, I don't see that we would have a need to pass another piece of legislation.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I appreciate the recognition around the comments that I made last week on Monday.

I did want to, from a procedural perspective, make clear that resolutions are oftentimes come up because there's new information or new interests that might not have already adequately been resolved through other pieces of legislation.

By virtue of making those comments, I wasn't trying to put my thumb on the scale one way or the other, but simply making sure that as council president, I made clear to all of the council members and members of the viewing public sort of what the lay of the land is in terms of the process and the procedure.

I also went back and took a look at that resolution.

I also had a conversation with members of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

It is my understanding that the bills that are currently introduced in the legislation that is currently being debated at the state legislature fit squarely within the city's state legislative agenda that was adopted by Resolution 31982. of which I was the prime sponsor.

So again, the bills that are being discussed right now related to wealth tax, capital gains tax, and other progressive revenue tax streams do not include any preemption language and would not harm the city council's efforts around passage of and implementation of Jump Start Seattle as proposed by Council Member Mosqueda and as it was co-sponsored by many of us on this council.

So I think that the issues that are being highlighted by this new resolution are, as far as I can tell, redundant of the issues that we've already addressed and taken an 8-0 vote on in our adoption of Resolution 31982. I am not So I agree, Council Member Herbold, that I don't think it's necessary for us to adopt a second resolution that effectively reiterates a position that the city has already taken and that would, that purports to address issues that aren't ripe or under consideration by the state legislature as I understand it based on my briefing from OIR related to the bills that are currently being debated in the state legislature.

Are there any comments or questions before we move on?

Council Member Sawant, please.

I don't think that the resolution is in any way redundant from a political sense.

Yes, the legislative agenda includes this information.

And, you know, my office has never denied that.

And, you know, we had a conversation about that last week.

But the legislative agenda resolution, I mean, if anybody was being in any way honest, does almost nothing to actually build momentum to get these things passed.

I mean, Democrats have been in power before.

In the in history, in recent history, and many progressive bills have been introduced in the legislature.

Similarly, in this section, many progressive bills are being introduced, which is a positive thing.

Of course, we are urging the resolution is urging that those bills are actually passed.

But simply introduction of those bills by legislators does not ensure that they pass.

We have seen this time and time again.

And if all that was needed was to pass the state legislative agenda from the city council, then Olympia would have had progressive taxes years ago.

Because progressive taxes have been on the state of this legislative agenda from the city council for years.

This resolution, obviously, as other resolutions from all of us as council members have brought resolutions forward, and we do that because we intend for the resolution to actually highlight the most crucial issues and have, and in this case, for example, to have a specific influence in favor of progressive taxes at the state level and against preemptions, and the resolutions that city council members bring forward are also brought forward so that the ordinary working people can have an opportunity to tell the city council how they feel about a very, very crucial issue.

We don't bring resolutions willy-nilly on all kinds of issues.

I mean, the state legislative agenda is many, many pages long.

There's many issues.

obviously, we don't do it as a time waste to bring all kinds of issues.

We bring issues that are the most crucial and that are the most at stake.

So in that sense, I would say that this resolution is important, and I would urge council members to vote yes on it.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss, I see that you do have your hand up.

Um, I just wanted before I calling you customer stress, I did wanna I just did wanna, um, put out there that the bills that are currently being debated in the state legislature have been introduced, supported and advocated for by, um, by very well known, established progressive Democrats in the state, um, legislature and, um, there is an incredible amount of momentum behind those bills.

Those bills are being introduced unlike any other period of time in our history during one of the greatest economic crises in over 100 years.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to support our democratic legislators in Olympia who are seeing a window of opportunity to actually get something done this session.

And I am hopeful, and I am supportive, and I'm also using my relationships with those Democratic leaders and with other leaders in Olympia to make the case as to why it's important for us to get these progressive tax bills passed through the state legislature to meet the needs of thousands of our constituents here in Seattle and across the region who are desperately waiting to see some tax relief.

and who are desperately waiting to see additional revenue that will actually meet their basic needs, paying rent, access to making sure that they continue to have their business in place.

I mean, these are all things that we support, and these priorities and values, I believe, are shared by Representative Sen, by Representative Frame, who are fighting like heck and have been for years to try to get consensus and the votes they need to pass these important legislative pieces at the state legislature.

And I think right now we are on the cusp of that, and they are supported by thousands of people in their efforts.

to advance these legislative efforts.

And I, for one, at the city council stand with them.

And because I stand with them in those efforts, those priorities and those legislative values are reflected in the city's state legislative lobbying agenda that the council in an 8-0 vote voted to support and passed in December.

That has been the guiding principle and the framework by which our lobbyists at the Office of Intergovernmental Relations have been approaching this work and advocating for this work.

So these bills just haven't been introduced laissez-faire, sitting there on a desk somewhere.

We have all been actively engaging with, lobbying, and encouraging our constituents to do the same in Olympia to make sure that legislators across both aisles understand why these bills are so important and why they're so important in this historical period of time where we may not have another opportunity to make the strongest case possible for the passage of these very strong progressive revenue tax bills.

So I think it's important for us to acknowledge the hard work of our state legislators.

on the Democratic side of the House and the Senate who have been working tirelessly to try to achieve these goals and look forward to continuing to support those efforts.

Councilmember Strauss, please.

Thank you, Council President.

And all of the comments already made have really centered on the fact that we have made these priorities clear in our previous resolutions.

And I do want to just flag from all of the work that I've been doing to advocate for city priorities in the legislature this year and my work with Association of Washington Cities, that resolutions don't necessarily, while they may be technically delivered to legislators, they aren't necessarily read.

And last year we used, and so Council Member Sawant, to your point that passing the legislative priorities resolution isn't necessarily ensuring that the follow-up is occurring, I absolutely hear you, which is also why I have been sending letters to different legislators on different topics.

Colleagues, I may be Circling back with a few of you on some transportation priorities that I'd like to get signatures to ensure that some of our priorities in Olympia are are met, and I've been making phone calls and again sending emails.

I guess.

What I'm stuck with, and then something that's very important to me is when I'm speaking with legislators, especially the ones who are already championing the issues that I'm trying to support, my question to them is, how can I best support you?

And sometimes that means sending a letter, and sometimes that means not sending a resolution.

So I know last year, similar topic as this resolution is being discussed, we sent a letter.

I found that to be much more effective than passing a resolution, especially because we've already passed our resolution.

And so I just wanted to flag those thoughts for you all.

Thank you, Council President.

OK.

Any other questions, colleagues?

Okay, let's continue on with reports.

Next up is Council Member Strauss, don't go too far.

You're up next, followed by Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council President.

For my report, there are eight planning commission appointments on today's introduction and referral calendar.

These were on last week's introduction and referral calendar, and they're being re-referred to full council.

So to skip the step of committee, we find that as we are in remote, having our commission appointments just come to one meeting is better than coming to two.

There are no items on from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full agenda and the next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is on February 24th at 9 30 a.m.

Last week on Wednesday I joined the Ballard District Council meeting to discuss homelessness and was joined by Councilmember Lewis, County Councilmember Cole-Wells and Senator Ruben Kyle.

Carlyle.

Last week I also testified another way of advocating for our city's priorities.

I testified in favor of House Bill 1035 to create a local option six-year tax exemption for property owners who set aside 25% of their buildings for low-income tenants.

This was a hollow recommendation that still has not been followed through with.

I also attended the Association of Washington City's Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday.

I met with the Ballard Alliance on Thursday and I've been working with the 36th delegation on Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor.

Also last week in the Ballard and Fremont neighborhoods, there were a number of fires.

Thank you to the Seattle Fire Department for responding in earnest.

both at Ballard Blossoms and an RV in Fremont.

Ballard Blossom was determined in arson and my office is following up to find out more information and I'll reserve my comments until the final report is provided.

The RV fire was ruled as accidental and it is clear and it's clear that we're leaving people to suffer outside and this has unintended consequences that are rippling through our community that we can't continue to let people live outside the way the way it is occurring today.

A number of people, while I met them in the snow this weekend, asked why people are living outside during the snow.

And it was really heartbreaking for me to share with them that we don't have the shelter and housing at the level of our homelessness crisis.

Even with the emergency shelter that opened up, it wasn't enough to bring everyone inside to weather the storm.

Other folks asked why we can't force people into shelter or treatment, especially in situations like this.

And again, we can't force people into beds and shelter that simply don't exist.

If the shelter doesn't exist, we can't ask them to go there and we can't force them to go there because it doesn't exist.

And last week really demonstrated even more clearly the need to have the spectrum of adequate shelter and housing options available at the same rate of the number of people who are living outside.

This week, this coming week, I will be attending the Fremont Chamber of Commerce meeting on Wednesday at 9 a.m.

Council Member Peterson, I may be a few minutes late to the 9.30 Transportation Committee.

I'll be right there as soon as possible.

I'll also be attending the Regional Transit Committee and be spending time with Council Members Juarez and Peterson on the Seattle Channel.

My staff will be attending the Licton Springs Community Council on Wednesday, the 17th.

Here in District 6, I continue to hold District 6 resident meetings, and last week I had robust conversations with neighbors from Ballard, West Woodland, East Ballard, Tingle Town, Green Lake, and Finney Ridge.

We discussed plans to address the housing affordability crisis, police accountability, crime prevention, plans to address homelessness, the great work of the Seattle Clean Cities Initiative, and what they're doing around Green Lake right now.

I just, again, want to thank all the D6 neighbors for giving me your time.

We do meet with residents during the nine to five hours and in the evenings as well.

Our district office hours this week are on February 18th.

Thank you, Council President.

That is my report.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, next up is Councilmember Herbold, followed by Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the opportunity.

I want to first just highlight one item on the full Council agenda this afternoon at 2 o'clock from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee last week, and that is Council Bill 11-9996.

fire code update.

As I'm sure you all remember, we updated building codes earlier this month.

And that was following Councilmember Strauss' leadership and bringing those building codes to the full council.

Similarly, the fire code is updated along with the building code in order to ensure consistency in development standards.

fire code was last updated in 2016. usually it's updated every three years.

last year both the building code and the fire code updates were delayed because of the public health emergency.

proposed changes to the fire code were presented by the seattle fire department and chief scoggins and changes are relatively minor.

Nevertheless, the code plays an important role in public safety.

Changes included are allowing alternative fuel vehicles on display inside of buildings to maintain their ferry connection in order to keep safety systems alive.

Requiring new integrated testing requirements for high-rise buildings to ensure that fire protection and life safety systems work together as intended and are tested at least every 10 years.

An amendment that allows mobile fueling of vehicles in designated areas such as parking lots that meet certain standards.

And finally, a new chapter to address the installation of large electrical energy storage systems that are more prevalent and unregulated by the previous fire code.

I will have an amendment to the fire code which was sent out by Carlos on central staff on Friday.

The amendment adds back in page 116 regarding fuel tank storage.

Some may notice that there are missing pages from the fire code attachment.

Those pages were omitted on purpose as there are no updates to those parts of the fire code, and publishing the entire code would violate the International Fire Code Council copyright.

So, 116 we want in because it does include some changes.

The other pages that you might notice are missing are missing intentionally.

We have a motion and a second.

I'll hold that until her presentation.

And then as far as items related to the public safety and human services committee coming up, no committee meeting this week, but I do want to mention a few things related to each fire, police, and the human services department.

The fire department COVID-19 tests administered at their four sites is now 627,000 tests administered up until February 11th.

Vaccines have administered 4,323 vaccines through February 13th.

These vaccinations have occurred at 86 adult family homes, 29 affordable housing buildings with seniors, and at six pop-ups.

I think folks are aware that coming out of the public safety and human services committee was a motion indicating that the committee members supporting the motion wish to send a draft bill to the Monitor as relates specifically to the less lethal weapons bill.

And last week, the City Attorney's Office did share this bill with the Monitor and the U.S.

Department of Justice in line with the motion coming out of committee.

I believe there's a 45-day time period for the Monitor to I will certainly keep the full counsel apprised as we find out more information.

In addition, the city attorney's office filed a motion with the U.S. district court regarding revised Seattle police department policies, both regarding the use of force and crowd control policies.

I think everybody remembers that because of the consent decree, there's a schedule of review.

And while we have been deliberating on the less lethal weapons bill, the police department has been going through the schedule of review for their use of force and critical policies.

And so there's some overlap with the areas that we are recommending legislation for and the review that SPD is going through for these policies consistent with the consent decree.

I want to lift a couple things regarding the Human Services Department.

Many, many thanks to their employees and partners who have worked over the past several days to keep people safe during the snowstorm.

I think as folks are aware, HSD, the Human Services Department, monitors programs during severe weather and develops plans to provide care for our most at-risk residents, HSD clients, in the event of service disruption.

Apparently, HSD is reporting that there were no known impacts to case management programs.

assisting older adults and adults with disabilities.

The holiday schedule is impacting some food bank and meal service programs.

The City of Seattle operated four severe weather shelters over the weekend with the ability to serve 239 guests at each City Hall, Fisher Pavilion, at Seattle Center, Bear Lake Community Center, and Garfield Community Center.

And I wanted to just also recognize that in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, HealthONE, and other city departments, performed welfare checks and transported individuals experiencing homelessness to shelter during the winter.

storm.

As of Monday, the HOPE team conducted 380 welfare checks, shared information with 310 individuals about the temporary severe weather shelters, provided 277 individuals with winter supplies such as hats, gloves, hand warmers, provided basic needs supplies, such as water, snacks, et cetera, to 237 people, and transported 42 individuals to temporary shelter.

On Monday, the HOPE team made 13 additional referrals from the city's temporary winter shelters into permanent shelters.

The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle is sending outreach to Fisher Pavilion and City Hall shelters.

The areas visited by the HOPE team include, but are not limited to, Soto, Georgetown, Beacon Hill, Allard, Lake City, Downtown, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, University District, Belltown, and the Chinatown International District.

Last week I attended the regional policy committee and representing the city of Seattle together with councilmember Mosqueda.

And Thursday I chaired the watershed resource inventory area meeting.

to be co-chair of that body for a second year.

And I'm happy to report that we passed the Salmon Recovery Plan, a body of work that that entity, that regional governance entity has been working on for several years.

And then it's coming up this week, Estelle will be hosting a virtual open house on West Marginal Way on Thursday from 6 to 7.30 p.m.

regarding potential changes to the road.

I know a lot of folks are very interested in this since this is one of the You can find information available at SDOT's West Marginal Way website.

And then a couple things that I think are significant coming out of last week's West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting.

I was unable to attend, but I know that I wanted to share with folks that SDOT has reached preliminary 30% sign.

That's a significant benchmark.

for the West Seattle bridge repair.

They've shared the design with other agencies, including utilities in the port, for feedback, and they expect to finalize 30% design later this month.

And that's all I have today.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, let's go ahead and hear now from Council Member Juarez, and then we'll hear from Council Member Lewis.

Good morning.

Good morning, everybody.

So, quick overview of the public assets in Native communities, and I'll also go through the Resolution 31990, which is the equity in vaccines, presented by Council President Gonzalez.

An update, a little bit more information on the lawsuit that Council Member Peterson spoke to, an update on parks, sound transit, last week's highlights, and of course, the week ahead.

There is one item on the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's introduction referral calendar, and that is resolution 31990. And that is a resolution setting the time and place for hearings on the appeals to the hearing examiner's report on the final assessment role for the local improvement district number 6751, otherwise known as the waterfront lid.

It's the same process we as council have acted on before in 2020, and the year before that, and I think the year before that, to schedule appeals, and I will speak more to this at two.

We actually are getting a system down of written appeals and how the quad judicial matter will come before Seattle City Council.

In the council agenda, item number five regarding resolution 31992, I want to thank Council Member Gonzalez and Vee for their work in putting together a strong committee panel of community leaders to address equity in COVID-19 vaccinations.

As you know, Council President, we were in your committee on Tuesday, education and governance.

I'll let you speak more to your committee, but I want to highlight and thank you on the inclusion of the Seattle Indian Health Board as they continue to demonstrate a successful model for education, outreach, and community responsibility.

as shown in their national survey, which was published January, 2021. We heard loud and clear across the panelists that as council, we must identify ways in which we are shifting power to community.

In addition, we learned as organizations adapt to meet community needs, resources need to be flexible because the impact of COVID-19 varies week to week.

I think one of the biggest takeaways for me in messaging was what we heard from the CEO and Abigail that trusted community messengers are the best folks and the best people for anything, whether it's vaccines, housing, mental health, any of these kind of community services.

Those are the people that you want to go to.

People who are embedded in the community, again, who are trusted community messengers who can deliver those services.

And I think we've also seen that across the spectrum.

in our efforts with sheltering the unsheltered.

In regards to the National Archives lawsuit, Council Member Peterson stole a little bit of my thunder.

Thanks, Council Member Peterson.

Yes, Judge Okunhara did rule in our favor and issued a preliminary injunction.

But I think you buried the lead there, Council Member Peterson.

There were 49 plaintiffs and there were many, I think there were 10 in the pleadings.

I think there were 10 issues that were in the original pleading.

But the judge only ruled on one, actually, and that was the fourth pleading in which the federal government lacked government-to-government consultation with the tribes.

And the lack of that consultation is what he ruled on on the preliminary injunction.

As you know, tribal governments under federal law are sovereign and have self-determination and self-governance, but also under federal law require consultation.

when you have anything that affects the tribes and what we saw.

So it was a good day for the state, the region, the city of Seattle, but more importantly, I think for me too, it was a good day to be indigenous, but it was also a good day for tribal sovereignty.

So we're happy about that.

So the injunction is temporary and we're going to continue to protect this history in these archives in the city of Seattle.

And last Friday, big shout out to Nagin Kamkar and our staff, circulated a draft letter to the White House administration asking for federal support on this issue.

I plan to ask for signatures in this afternoon's council meeting.

This will be a joint letter signed along with Mayor Durkin.

I know some of you think that writing a letter to the president doesn't really matter.

But in this case, it will, because we have some new appointees in Interior.

And we've been on the phone and making those calls about why.

And this is unusual in Indian country.

When you have a lawsuit, you certainly do the track of the lawsuit, but you also run parallel the political side of that.

And so with that, we hopefully will be going through Interior and the White House.

Since this is an administrative issue, we believe that we can pull the sail and hopefully stop this and then start looking at alternatives for the archives, not just for the tribes in these three states, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, but for all the other organizations that were plaintiffs as well, including the city of Seattle.

Big shout out to Pete Holmes.

who really was great in getting us to be a plaintiff along with the other 48 other plaintiffs.

Parks, an update on this Clean City Initiative.

Crews collected 288,000 pounds of trash, 670 needles from 53 encampments across Seattle.

Crews focused on Cascade Playground for a deep clean this week.

In the month of January, The Clean City crews cleaned out over 1 million pounds of trash from parks, neighborhood streets, and business districts.

They have properly disposed of 26,000 needles, visited encampments 293 times to collect trash and garbage, and cleaned graffiti from over 200 structures.

And Clean City efforts took place in over 60 parks and neighborhoods throughout the city.

Big shout out to Parks, Jesus Agare, Superintendent, for giving me a weekly, We speak at least once a week and get these updates from their staff.

Lake Washington Boulevard, the Keep Moving Street, starting Monday, February 15th to Sunday, February 21st, one mile of the northern portion of Lake Washington Boulevard from Mount Baker to Stan Sayers Park is opens to people walking, rolling, biking until the morning of Sunday, February 21st.

Estad is planning an April event to coincide with spring break from Friday, April 9th through Sunday, April 18th, and more on that before the end of the day that you'll get in your inboxes of your weekly update of parks.

Shelter operations.

Parks staff opened the Bitter Lake Community Center and Garfield Community Center Thursday evening through Sunday night, February 14th as emergency shelter for folks sleeping outside.

Facilities staff provided tents for entryways and custodian salted access pathways.

Staff provided sanitation supplies, masks, wipes, PPE.

They set up cots and provided custodial support at these locations.

The snow response, parks monitored the situation and was prepared to assist SDOT with plowing 17 routes and hauling salt.

Crews went out and retreated all active childcare sites shelter sites, and high-use sites.

Let's see, the need to shift crews to focus on snow response may lead to impacts to the clean city work this week.

The team focused on encampment cleanups and will shift to supporting transporting homeless individuals to shelters as needed.

We will continue with our emergency food distribution and the update for February 10th.

Our nonprofit partner, Food Lifeline, reported that there were 1,081 individuals and families that resisted with boxes of food, that is meat and vegetables.

Our shower program, we served 406 users from February 3rd through the 9th.

And Uplift Northwest at Green Lake Community Center location served 128 people, our families.

Quick update on Sound Transit.

Sound Transit on the program realignment.

Sound Transit's board will continue capital program realignment discussions at the upcoming board meeting with a focus on realignment scenarios.

In March, Sound Transit will define approaches for public engagement and execute those plans in April.

A majority of the agency's efforts right now are focused on organizing for new revenue at the state and federal level.

Recently, the board signed on to two letters seeking expanded capacity for the agency to close the affordability gap burdening Sound Transit's capital program.

The letters were sent early last week, one to Secretary Buttigieg and the other to the members of the House and Senate Transportation Committee in Olympia.

And more to follow on that.

As you know, I think we have a 12, well, it's a huge affordability gap.

And what we're looking at is money from the feds and from the state.

And hopefully with our bill tracker, we've been finding that we do have some common ground there.

So more to come.

Downtown tunnel closures.

There will be a series of upcoming Link service closures to complete an important milestone for the East Link project.

Sound Transit will also be removing the temporary center platform at Pioneer Square, which was installed for Connect 2020. During this work, Link will need to stop running between Soto and Capitol Hill stations for five consecutive weekends beginning April 2nd.

The closure will last from 10 p.m.

Friday until the start of service on Monday morning.

On each weekend, trains will run between Angle Lake and Soto and between Capitol Hill and the UW stations.

Shuttle buses will serve all stations from Soto to Capitol Hill.

This will be very similar to the experience for passengers as the weekend closures that occurred during Connect 2020. To help customers find their way, Sound Transit will have staff ambassadors and extra security staff to point passengers towards shuttle buses and answer questions.

Last week's highlight, I attended the Downtown Seattle Association's annual address, the State of Downtown.

Of course, it was virtual.

This year, the theme was Recovery Starts Here, and quick highlights.

Over 1,200 people signed up to watch.

We learned that we know that there's about 83 square miles in the city of Seattle, and downtown makes up three square miles, and about 55% of our jobs.

We know that much is at stake during our recovery.

Pre-COVID, downtown hosted 348,000 employees, 12.5 million unique visitors annually, and 477,000 average people per day.

Downtown lost an estimated 48,000 jobs in the first half of 2020. By the year's end, some jobs returned, but we still have an estimated loss of over 20,000 jobs.

Among the hardest hit industries were hospitality, retail, entertainment, and the arts.

The Downtown Seattle Association has tracked more than 235 permanent street-level business location closures in Seattle in 2020, including more than 165 businesses in downtown Seattle.

Despite a decline in foot traffic downtown, roughly 90 businesses overcame all odds to open new storefronts in 2020. Upon request of our office, the DSA provided our office with a fact sheet with helpful diagnosis of our current state of downtown.

I'm happy to distribute that interest if you are interested.

It's basically two pages that give you some more information than what I've just shared on some of the highlights and some of the numbers.

I know I kind of glossed over them, but if you're interested, we can get that to you.

I think it's important because Well, as you all know, downtown has been hit really hard with businesses, and we're trying to come back with that.

It's not enough to do the waterfront or the arena or our light rail or other areas.

We really need to focus on how we're going to get to a place where people come back downtown to live, to work, to play, to shop, and to have businesses.

I attended the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board meeting regarding new revenue for transportation.

And the week ahead, this is very exciting.

At North Seattle College, this has been going on, at least for me, since 2015. I will be meeting with the Bellwether Housing, Susan Boyd and Chief Seattle CEO Colleen EchoHawk, to discuss their plan for building more than 200 affordable homes and a longhouse at North Seattle College.

Very exciting.

Two residential buildings will create affordable homes on campus, serving families ranging from 30 to 80 AMI, Area Medium Income.

Youth Care will coordinate services and support the young folks transitioning out of homelessness with at least 20 homes available.

The Longhouse is rooted in the tradition of the Coastal Salish people and will serve the college and wider community.

We are expected to open July 2024. This Longhouse in the North End is a long time coming.

Those of you who've been around as I have, probably remember almost 30 years ago when the Evergreen State College was the first to do a Longhouse.

Now we have the Duwamish Longhouse, and we have the Longhouse at the UW, and now we're gonna have a Longhouse at North Seattle College with housing.

Very excited about that.

As Councilmember Strauss shared, I will be on TV with Councilmember Strauss and Peterson and Brian Gallagher.

I think it's this Thursday.

I don't know what we're talking about, but I'm sure it'll be riveting and exciting.

And I'm sure you all tune in because I love going on that show.

I don't know about you guys.

OK, so Town Hall, Seattle UW Town Hall with Joni Balter, Town Hall Seattle and Seattle University Institute of Public Service will be live streaming a conversation titled The Promise and Peril in Seattle's New Era of Female Leadership.

With Mayor Jenny Durkin, former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, and Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau.

This event is on Wednesday, February 17th at 6, and I will be watching.

That's it.

Thank you.

See you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for that report.

Colleagues, are there any comments or questions for Council Member Juarez?

Okay.

Council Member Juarez, you did offer to share that two-page information sheet from DSA.

I would be interested in seeing the sheet.

Thank you.

I see you showing it to me.

I would actually want to be able to see it and read it.

But if you wouldn't mind sharing that with my office, having someone from your office share it with my office, that'd be great.

I do think that as we are thinking about equitable economic relief, we know that there are lots of different strategies at play and a lot of different economic needs throughout our city.

There certainly are neighborhoods districts and Main Street business districts, those need a particular set of strategies in order to recover from this economic crisis as a result of COVID-19.

There are sort of regional strategies that I think we need to keep our eye on and be good partners in as well.

And of course, there are There are issues in downtown that are specific to downtown that will require its own set of strategies that may be good for downtown but not be great for the businesses in Lake City.

So I think it's important for us to just sort of collect as much information as we all collectively think about how we are going to facilitate our small business community and other members in the business communities survival through the end of 2021. And then as we're getting into 2022, thinking about how to, you know, promote equitable economic development strategies throughout the city are going to require us to take in consideration how those strategies evolve based on the geographic location of the business districts that we're discussing and hearing from.

So I appreciate that.

If I may, Council President, I think it's important, and I glossed over some of this, but I'll make sure everybody sees it.

If I can just say this, when we're looking, some of the statistics that I want to share just briefly are pre-COVID numbers and we've been devastated by where we're at now post-COVID.

that pre-COVID we had 348,000 employees who commute from neighborhoods outside and come to downtown Seattle.

We had over 90,000 people that actually live in downtown Seattle.

And we know that 81% of all office space is in downtown Seattle and 55% of the jobs are in downtown Seattle.

And so when you look at post-COVID, and now they're saying we've lost almost 50,000 jobs in the first half.

That's devastating for any city, and every city is dealing with this.

And like I was listening to what John Schultz was saying, the strength of any city is it's downtown, but one thing is we've gone through epidemics, we've gone through economic downturns, but we will learn how to get back out of this, but we're not gonna be able to do it unless we do it with government, the private sector, and the public sector.

Um, so, and again, like I said, the hardest hit areas are hospitality, retail arts and entertainment, um, over 13,000 food service jobs, 63, 6,000 arts and entertainment jobs, 4,400 brick and mortar retail jobs.

over 4,000 hotel jobs, and I could go on and on, and I'll get you all this two-pager.

And I say that not to shake or wag my finger at anybody.

It's mainly like, these are the facts.

This is what we're gonna deal with.

We won't always be in this pandemic state, and we have to be ready to go.

So thank you, and thank you for giving me the additional time to add a little bit more information.

Yeah, absolutely.

Again, I think that you know, the benefit that downtown businesses have that perhaps, you know, Main Street businesses don't have in our respective, in each of your respective districts is they don't have sort of a research arm to a business association that creates that data-driven factual picture of the devastation of COVID-19 on those local economies.

Again, that's why I want to be mindful of the fact that I think in downtown there are going to be certain strategies that are going to need to be at play.

And then there are many of our business districts, neighborhood business districts throughout the city that are going to need probably, that I believe will need more help.

Because we don't we don't actually have that level of formalized data for our local economies to really to really guide some of the strategies in the work.

So I think that's going to be a heavier lift and require much deeper engagement.

in our local economy system to really get a clear picture of pre-COVID, post-COVID, and then getting a good understanding, right, of what the strategies are going to be moving forward this year and in the next few years for helping our very diverse business community not only survive but thrive well into and past this year, so well into the future.

I think that's a, I appreciate you bringing up that information.

And I think that we will have hopefully an opportunity with Council Member Morales' leadership to, through her committee and otherwise, have conversations about how we are going to address not just economic relief, but equitable economic relief that is reflective of all of the different needs based on where the business district is in the city.

Well, Council President, if I can just add, it wasn't all gloom and doom, because the good things that are happening are the waterfront, light rail, Seattle Center, the Convention Center, and believe it or not, the NHL Training Center and G5.

I was talking to some folks, Mr. Lewicki, last week, and, you know, we're anticipating around yearly 800,000 people coming through G5 at the Northgate place alone with housing You heard me say this last week with transit or in housing development, all the things that we're pushing and pushing for light rail, because this is going to be a center.

I don't think people realize how big the NHL training center is.

And now that we have Virginia Mason moving in and the UW is already here, how big of a, it's more than a hub.

And so I want to see, as you were saying, council president, you know, that equitable distribution of wealth and brick and mortar for businesses that normally were not allowed or could not find themselves allowed.

In the marketplace, so I'm excited about that for the remaining time I'm here.

Yeah, no, I, I couldn't agree with you more.

I think it's such an important conversation and And it's one that shouldn't just be limited to our budget committee deliberations, but one that we should be thinking about throughout the year in our respective committees as we think about how we're going to.

Come together on this, and I appreciate you saying that it's not all doom and gloom.

It isn't there are some there are some bright spots out there that that.

that we should acknowledge.

And we can also acknowledge that we want to see more of those and have more positive stories coming out of the work that we're doing together.

So really appreciate that.

Okay.

Well, are there any other comments or questions for Councilmember Juarez?

Okay, hearing none, we're going to segue really smoothly into Council Member Lewis's report, who happens to be the representative for downtown.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Madam President.

So I think I'll start my remarks actually just by saying at the top that I also had the pleasure to attend the virtual State of downtown program put on by the downtown Seattle Association.

I won't go into it given how comprehensive Councilmember Juarez's report back on that event was.

But we'll just briefly say that I appreciated the programming highlights, particularly for our friends in the nightlife, music, and entertainment industry that have been particularly hit and were the first to close down, will be the last to reopen due to this pandemic.

And that the DSA did a really good job, I thought, of really showcasing the unique struggle that that sector has faced and the unique contribution that sector makes to the downtown entertainment center in the city that is really the heart of what makes us a music capital and a fun cultural space to visit and live in.

So I really appreciated that.

I thought it was a very well put on event that highlights the steps that we can do collaboratively and together to work toward recovery.

not just for downtown, but for the entire city, and that the recovery of a vibrant downtown core will be critical to the overall vitality of the recovery of the city.

So with that, I'll move on to a couple of other things.

There are no matters this afternoon from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments, nor do I have any legislation from that committee on the introduction of referral calendar.

I want to start just by giving a shout out to HealthONE.

This weekend on Saturday, I had the great privilege to go and do a ride along in the middle of the snowstorm with HealthONE, which was sort of an impromptu thing that came together from giving a call to that unit to make sure they had everything they needed to do outreach to folks who are experiencing homelessness and get them into shelter.

That led into an offer from them for me to come along and see for myself if I wanted to.

So, of course, I took advantage of that.

And it was really, really great to see firefighters Young and Weber Really getting out there into city parks, into encampments all over the city to really, really make sure that people were aware of winter shelter options to distribute hats, gloves, even hot chocolate to people who were completely exposed to the elements.

And then most critically, arrange direct transport for several people.

of who we encountered who adamantly wanted to get into shelter and were able to access shelter through the direct referral that Firefighters Young and Weber were able to provide.

So just a shout out to the great folks at HealthONE and a testament to the council's decision last fall to dramatically expand that program and look forward to seeing that scaled up this year.

I do want to transition on that note that the 545 spaces that the council funded in our budget in November to provide additive, more long-term shelter, for folks who are experiencing homelessness.

Still has not seen any of those units be stood up, despite it now being several months since the council made those appropriations.

My committee is going to be meeting again on February 24th at 2 p.m., the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

As folks are aware, there is a standing agenda item in that committee to provide updates on this council's shelter surge budget priority that we included in the budget in November.

Just as a reminder, that included 120 tiny house There is a lot of work to be done.

We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Tiny houses, 125 enhanced shelter placements, and 300 hotel rooms.

As of this time, I am unaware that any of those positions have been stood up yet.

fire smoke in the summer or snow storms in the winter, it makes the lack of shelter that we are currently offering a more profound problem in terms of the hazards that folks experiencing homelessness are exposed to.

So I do just want to request We will send this again an email that for this meeting towards the end of this month, that we get a detailed presentation from the human services department on the state of all three of those investments.

I think it is important that we have an identification process on what precisely the hurdles are and how this council can stand ready to assist the executive and implementation of those critical assets.

Those shelter options, are there regulations or rules that need to be waived and are those within the power of the city council?

Does the state legislature or state officials need to weigh in?

Are there things that are within the power of the governor to issue emergency orders to expedite the standing up of those assets?

I really want us to be able to work together as a council and an executive to realize what the hurdles are, given that we are now in the middle of February, and those positions are not yet realized, and really identify where we all want to go, which is the 545 spaces stood up, and then work backwards together on what Hurdles need to be overcome to make that a reality.

And I will send that in email, that request in email form as well to the Human Services Department and we'll expect that update on the 24th so that we can work through these hurdles together.

I...

have a couple of other meetings this week that I can highlight briefly.

I will be joining my colleagues, Council Member Musqueda and Morales at the Board of Health on Thursday on the 18th of this week.

I will also be attending the Magnolia Community Council this evening to talk about a number of different issues facing the city, particularly the response to the homelessness crisis.

With that, Madam President, I don't have any other additional updates and appreciate the opportunity to get started on this short week.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Lewis.

I had one quick question for you, and I think this might be an area of shared responsibility between you and Councilmember Mosqueda as the chair of our finance committee.

And I know Councilmember Mosqueda, you brought up the issue of supplantation, particularly as it relates to FEMA reimbursement.

on issues related to sheltering and non-congregate shelter in particular in terms of how we're addressing unsheltered populations during the pandemic.

And I'm wondering if as part of the regular monthly reporting it would be helpful or useful to incorporate a a status report or any kind of briefing also related to some of those federal dollar issues related specifically to increasing our shelter capacity during the pandemic.

And I guess what I'm trying to do is find some synergy and connectivity between the resources available to us and the reality of how finite our dollars are and also sort of an afford going basis.

and it's sort of as a complimentary supplement to some of the things that we've already funded, right?

So there are things that we've already funded and where are they?

And we have dollars for that and why isn't it happening?

When's it gonna happen?

What's the plan?

And then there's the issue of here are these other additional potential revenue sources and opportunities available to us that are emerging from the federal government, how are we tying those together to really create that shelter capacity that we need, not just for the now, but moving well into the next several months.

Yeah, and I think including those kinds of questions, which were alluded to a little bit, I think, in our committee meeting last month, particularly in lines of questioning from Council Member Mosqueda, are going to be important things to dive into in this conversation.

I think it is definitely of interest from what I've gathered from the executive to try to seek FEMA reimbursement, particularly for the hotelling.

But since those plans are already funded and established, that is where the as you bring up, Madam President, the the supplemation argument is coming up that we are.

You know, these are things we were already doing.

And so now we're coming in and saying it's directly responsive to the emergency.

I mean, obviously it's, I mean, it's like a sequencing issue, right?

Like we're doing the shelter surge because they've been de-intensified, you know, because of COVID.

So it should be an argument we can make.

I think regardless of the success of that, I think there's probably ample scope given the new guidance from the Biden administration for us to pursue a completely new and more expansive hoteling policy where we wouldn't run into that supplementation argument because we hadn't kind of conceived of it yet and we could be conceiving of it in response to the new Biden administration policy that provides more generous reimbursement.

We do know that a lot of other jurisdictions seem to be squaring the circle quite effectively.

Los Angeles has their operation key card or something like that, which is a hotel based sheltering policy where they are at least saying publicly and it's been covered in the media that they are getting 100% FEMA reimbursement for that.

If that's the case, I don't really see why we cannot also.

do that.

So that is certainly going to be something else we're going to be digging into because, you know, we also, as you well know, we have a lot of community stakeholders who have been coming to us at the council and been going to other local governments, particularly King County, you know, with hotels, with provider plans, with everything kind of set up.

They just need you know, a government partner to provide the contracting and provide the money.

So it seems like we're kind of ready to go.

It's just a matter of, it's just a matter of getting the resources out the door.

So, but this is an ongoing conversation.

Yeah, yeah, and I think the reason I brought up this issue was specifically related to some of the stories nationally that I've been seeing of other cities, major cities who've been taking what appears to be better advantage of that FEMA reimbursement program, particularly as it relates to hoteling.

And I just wonder if in the spirit of creating Connectivity and sort of breaking down those silos in our own bureaucracy, if it would be useful, I think it would, I would find it useful to be able to have a conversation in in your committee around or customer mosquitos committee to to really sort of get a better understanding of how those other cities are using.

that program and to help us begin the process of understanding what we need to do on our end in our city structure to be able to take full advantage of that kind of programming that allows for 100% reimbursement of hotel rooms for non-congregate shelter options that would immediately help us increase our shelter capacity.

And just as one more comment, Madam President, because I know some other people want to jump in on this, but one thing I'll just say, you know, it's not just this council that's interested, and it's not just sort of, you know, left-leaning Democratic socialists on Twitter.

The group I probably talk more about this than anybody else is the Downtown Seattle Association, the Alliance for Pioneer Square, who are eager to see the city expand hoteling-based So I guess another question would be, you know, I would hope that in addition to to nailing down a lot of these logistical hurdles.

I just don't really see.

what the political constituency is in the city that is opposed to this, because the small business, you know, I mean, we're talking rightly about the people who are experiencing homelessness, who are experiencing extreme hazard to life and safety from the elements and everything else that desperately need to take advantage of a program like this, just as part of our humanitarian mission in the city.

Small business owners who have folks that are camped in front of their business or small business owners that have to take on a role to try to attempt to deescalate people experiencing mental illness in their business.

The scalability of benefit to something like this helps everybody.

And I know that this council has a sense of urgency about it.

And I just wanted to uplift that the coalition for this is very broad.

And I would hope that we can figure out a way as a council and a mayor to actually make it happen, because there's really no one that's against this.

And it really is critical to our recovery and to get through COVID.

Well said.

Council Member Mosqueda, I'm sorry, I know you've been in the queue for a little bit.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Council President, and thanks as well to Council Member Lewis for your leadership on this and your committee in following through on the investments that the Council has made four months ago in our budget that have yet to be implemented.

I appreciate that.

Council President, to your point, I think you're right.

It's a both and strategy, both making sure that we're monitoring and ensuring accountability for the dollars that Council has allocated through our budget process and making sure that there's follow-through because there hasn't yet been the follow-through that I think this council would find satisfactory on issues related to hoteling and tiny houses.

And the other strategy is making sure that we have a full understanding of what federal dollars are available to the city, how those are being deployed, and how quickly we can expect to see some relief in our community.

This is a preview of what I will also note in my presentation, but on Friday at 930 in the Finance and Housing Committee.

We have asked Director Ben Noble and his team to come present on the COVID relief dollars and an update on the federal funding that the City of Seattle should be receiving, and specifically how funds are going to be used for the hoteling strategy.

Council President Miu noted, and along with Council Member Lewis and Council Member Herbold, has been sending me news clips about this as well.

We've seen that national coverage, for example, in San Francisco, showed that the shelter-in-place hotels used San Francisco, which was slated to potentially close at the end of last year, now have received notice that they will be able to use 100% of the federal funds to reimburse expenses.

That was an article dated January 22nd.

Here we are two to three weeks later, and we're still trying to get a better sense of how federal dollars can be used here in the city of Seattle.

Last week, as Councilmember Lewis alluded to, the Los Angeles program called Project Roomkey is an initiative that allows for individuals who are experiencing homelessness to be sheltered in hotel rooms and that they receive notice that they will be able to get 100% of the costs reimbursed by FEMA.

and Mayor Garcetti was quoted saying, you know, how excited they were to move forward on this on February 4th, again, a week and a half ago.

So part of the conversation on Friday will really be to drive home the point that's been made today and last week and last month, that we want these federal dollars to be used to house those who are currently unsheltered.

And to your point as well, they should be used in partnership and, to the dollars that we've already allocated.

Especially going back to the committee meeting that we had a few weeks ago, where it was noted how individuals who've been living outside are very likely to have multiple compounding crises that they're dealing with, which equals a need for greater assistance.

So we can't just be looking at the lowest cost.

We cannot be driving to the lowest denominator.

We have been getting additional information about the time in which it takes to get reimbursed.

not the three year period that we had historically heard from CBO and other reports.

So a six month reimbursement is great news.

100% reimbursement for efforts like this is fantastic.

And in the meantime, we have folks sleeping outside while it's snowing.

So look forward to working with you on that on both of those fronts and tune in on Friday for more information about that.

Thank you so much for that additional information.

Really, really do appreciate it.

Okay, colleagues, any other questions or comments for Councilmember Lewis on his report?

Okay, hearing none, let's go ahead and hear from Councilmember Morales, and then we will hear from Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning, everyone.

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

Our next meeting is going to be Friday, February 26th at 930. So looking forward to that, we will be hearing the final report from the Black Brilliance Research Project and look forward to sharing that with all of you.

Um, I want to let you know that, um, our arts department is partnering with OED and the office of film and music to bring more black content to our, to their social media channels.

Um, this effort is beginning now in black history month, but we'll continue.

Uh, the partnership will continue, um, throughout the year so that they can highlight and honor, um, black businesses and artists in the city.

So looking forward to learning more, um, throughout the year.

Last week, the mayor announced that Pamela Banks will be serving as the interim director for the Office of Economic Development.

She will be stepping into an office that has been extraordinarily busy supporting our small businesses through the COVID crisis.

So I look forward to working with Ms. Banks to bring the economic recovery process, to begin that process.

As we've been talking about today, we know that it is going to be really important that we find not just the sort of normal steps that we take, not just normal steps for recovery, but we really focus on an equitable recovery, as we've been talking about for our neighborhood commercial districts, for downtown, for our regional recovery here, and really need to look at different strategies for the different levels and neighborhoods.

I want to say also as Council Member Juarez was saying, we know that there were businesses leaving downtown even before the COVID crisis hit.

We may need to think a little differently or more creatively about what downtown means so that it's not just shopping, particularly as so much shopping moves online.

you know, I think it is an opportunity for us to make downtown more equitable and more affordable, maybe bring young people, young families back downtown, uh, to live and to enjoy, um, all the cultural assets that we have.

So there will be a lot of work for us to do, um, this year and, and in the next several years, as we think carefully about what an equitable recovery looks like for the city.

I do want to let folks know that applications are open for the 50th annual Northwest Folklife Festival.

They will be having a virtual marketplace, so small businesses, crafters, artists can apply to be vendors.

It's a Memorial Day weekend event, and you can check out that application at nwfolklife.org.

And speaking of small business, last week I attended the grand opening of Queen Care Products at the new development at 23rd and Jackson.

It is great to see Black-owned businesses coming back to the Central District.

I want to congratulate my friend and constituent, Monica Matthews, who opened the first Queen Care in Columbia City a few years ago.

It's been really special to watch her idea for social enterprise, which was meant to support the mentoring and the development of entrepreneurial skills for young women.

To watch that grow into a strong business that now offers beauty and wellness products in her second location.

So congratulations to Monica and to all the young queens who have worked so hard to make that happen.

I continue to meet with constituents.

Last week I met again with folks in the Rainier Beach area, including organizations who are part of a couple different initiatives, a beautiful safe place for youth and the new community safety initiative that we have.

started here.

We've been talking about with and about Safeway and the safety of their parking lot.

Safeway has agreed to replace all the lights in the parking lot and install new LED lights there.

We are meeting again with them this evening to continue those discussions and look forward to some positive relationship with them so that we can improve the safety of that parking lot.

in the neighborhood.

Also met with constituents about several other things this weekend.

I met with a 74-year-old constituent who told me about the hours that she has spent trying to get an appointment for a COVID vaccine.

She and others are really frustrated by the lack of clear information about whether supply is actually available, not just whether there is an appointment available.

And told me several stories about the kind of Byzantine effort she's been going through to get a vaccine, which she has yet to be able to do.

I do want to thank Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Herbold for the meetings that they had last week and also to congratulate V on a really fabulous, provided some really specific steps that we should be taking as a city and as a region to ensure greater equity in the distribution of the vaccine.

I also met with somebody who is interested in, wanted to discuss the need to get more culturally appropriate food into the emergency food system.

Colleagues, you may know that our food banks rely on donations and really on relationships with very large grocers, which is how they get supply and the quantity of food that they need.

But it's not necessarily culturally specific food that some of our food insecure neighbors need.

And so there is an interest in understanding how the city might work directly with immigrant communities, rather than only funding our traditional food banks in the city.

So we will be having those conversations.

I have district hours this Sunday afternoon and folks can sign up on our website.

One last thing I want to say is, while I am very thankful for all of the work that our city workers did over this very snowy weekend, we have a big issue with how to make sure that our neighbors who don't have cars are also able to get around safely.

Yesterday, as I ran an errand in my car, was driving through the intersection of Rainier and Jackson, At that one intersection, I saw a man in a wheelchair navigating in the street because the sidewalks were icy.

His friend was helping him push through the slush along the gutter while looking behind him to make sure that the traffic that was coming, you know, saw them in the street.

Across the street from that there was a man on crutches with his foot in a cast who was trying to make his way down the street.

And then there was an elderly man shuffling his way at the curb, you know, to try to step out of the street onto an icy sidewalk.

So we really have to do a better job as a city to ensure that our neighbors who don't have cars can make their way safely around our community when it's wintertime and snowing.

It is the responsibility of business owners and homeowners to shovel their sidewalks, but I'm not sure how many people know that.

And especially our small businesses who I know have lots of other things that they're also dealing with.

I'm helping them understand that it is their responsibility to make sure that their customers and their neighbors can navigate around the streets during the winter is really important.

So we'll be working with community partners to understand how we can better support small businesses to comply so that their customers and their neighbors are safe.

That is all I have for this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions for Council Member Morales?

Councilmember Morales, I did want to thank you for all of the work that you've been doing together with many of our community partners on the issues of public safety and the Safeway parking lot.

I know that several of our offices have been on now weekly calls with a coalition of community leaders from the South End who have been doing work on this issue for years, not just now, but for years.

And so I really do appreciate all of the effort that you're putting in as the district representative to make sure that solutions are being addressed there and that we are identifying additional resources available to South End organizations and community members to address ongoing issues of gun violence in those communities.

So I wanted to recognize your work and your contributions and your leadership in that space.

Thank you.

Okay, colleagues, next up is Councilmember Mosqueda.

Please take it away.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Good morning, everyone.

There's a few items today that I'd love to give you an update on first is on the introduction and referral calendar this morning, you will see the capital projects watch list resolution.

The mayor recently transmitted this list of projects that includes the 2021 capital projects watch watch list as established by Council in resolution three one.

I believe Councilmember Herbold was the prime sponsor of that.

We had a robust discussion about the watch list last year, and I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you colleagues, any questions or concerns you have, and any changes that you'd like to see to this list.

We will have this project watch list in our committee meeting on Friday, again this week.

and it is expected to go through the quarterly reporting to council as well.

I look forward to hearing your conversations and your questions and issues you'd like to raise for the watch list in our Friday committee meeting.

There are no items on today's full council agenda from the Finance and Housing Committee.

I do want to thank Council President Gonzalez for the resolution that she authored on equitable distribution of COVID relief.

Thank you very much.

I've been honored to be able to work with you and support you on that and will be holding my comments on that until after your presentation today on that item.

And in the Finance and Housing Committee, we will have a committee meeting scheduled for Friday, February 19th.

This got pushed to Friday due to President's Day on Monday.

We will be meeting at 9.30 a.m.

this Friday.

We're going to have a few items on the agenda.

First, the appointment of Rita Hayward to the Seattle Housing Board and the appointment of Munira Mohammed and Jamie Marsh to the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

possible confirmation of Steve Marchese as the Director of the Office of Labor Standards.

Folks, thanks again for your questions and your feedback.

As we asked the interim director to provide feedback on those questions, we are going to make sure to send that back around to you.

But thank you for offering your questions that we could get in front of him.

And I did have the chance to meet briefly with him and really appreciated some of the initial answers that we heard, especially around equitable relief and solutions for workers and small businesses as we seek a more balanced recovery in a post-COVID world.

Again, we should be getting the answers to your questions on Wednesday and we'll make sure to send those around.

I mentioned the capital projects watch list that will be on our committee this Friday as well.

And please do let us know if there's certain items that you'd like to highlight as established in the city's intent to use a stage gate appropriation process for selected projects.

And finally, as I noted just a moment ago in response to the questions from the council president and in council member Lewis's I wanted to offer that there is going to be Director Noble and his team from the city budgets office that will be present and presenting on the overall federal funding for COVID, this latest relief package and an update on the federal funding that the city should be able to receive.

I expect a lot of questions from council as we seek to find answers to both the timing question and the resource allocation.

that we just discussed previously as it relates to our unsheltered population.

In terms of department updates, Office of Labor Standards wants to make sure that folks know related to the Grocery Employee Hazard Pay Ordinance, on Wednesday, February 3rd, the mayor signed the Grocery Employee Hazard Pay Ordinance and has posted the fact sheet, which is currently being translated into a number of different languages.

Over the upcoming weeks, Office of Labor Standards also will be providing a Q&A document and begin training community and business outreach partners on the law, among other tasks.

OLS will be encouraging businesses to call them for technical issues, technical assistance that they can use for doing outrage and educating workers and employers about their rights under the law.

If you have any questions or you'd like to learn more, you can always call 206-256-5297 or email the Office of Labor Standards at labor.standardsatseattle.gov.

From Finance and Administrative Services, an update on the vaccination planning and implementation process to complement some of the other reports that we've already heard from today.

FAS continues to lead the operational discussions with the mayor's office, Seattle Fire Department, and other city partners on high volume vaccination administration.

With the creation of the Lumen Unified Command, FAS has activated the department's operations center to plan and execute a high volume vaccination site at Lumen Field with partners at Swedish, Lumen, and other city departments.

At maximum capacity, the high volume vaccination site is projected to be able to provide up to 10,000 doses of the vaccine daily and the high volume vaccination site is scheduled for a soft opening in early March.

FAS is leading the development of the medically qualified interpretation contract with the intention of having it in place for the Lumen Field high volume vaccination launch.

Also, the Memorandum of Agreement between King County and Public Health and FAS to assist King County residents with vaccination related questions is in its final development.

So great work and partnership from our friends at FAS.

In other events, I also want to thank our legislative partners.

I've had the chance to talk to quite a few of the legislators who are working in the halls of Olympia virtually this year as they work to advance progressive revenue.

Really excited to see, as we heard this morning, capital gains continue to see momentum on that piece of legislation.

Colleagues, this is a year when we've seen record numbers of legislation introduced to address progressive revenue, including capital gains.

to address the regressive nature of our upside down tax system.

Many of us in this council are already on record have repeatedly said our concern with preemption and our opposition to preemption.

wanting to make sure that we lift up the letter that we sent last year as well and lifting that up in recognition that we want to also continue to be good partners with our state legislative partners who are trying to advance progressive revenue.

These are folks who have been leading the effort in a very tough year in the wake of a COVID recession and impact on health and well-being of our community and our economy.

towards trying to step up and make sure that we see progressive revenue bills passed.

I'm very excited about the momentum that we see in front of us.

And I'm looking forward to continuing to build on that relationship, that partnership that we have with our legislative partners who are championing these progressive revenue proposals to get bills passed this year.

I want to reemphasize what I think the council president has already mentioned this morning, a deep appreciation because we are all in this together.

Every piece of progressive revenue that can pass at the state level only helps our residents here in Seattle.

We know that the issues that we're facing are far bigger than our borders and we all are working in this together.

So I want to thank them for their continued work on addressing progressive revenue needs across our state and really look forward to working with them in partnership to help make sure items pass this year and thank them for their work.

I also want to thank and congratulate King County Council Members Azaheli and McDermott, who are working to introduce hazard pay legislation at the county level, recognizing that PCC, Trader Joe's, Burien, Seattle, all within this region are moving forward with implementing hazard pay.

It's, again, a policy that we've seen replicated across the West Coast, up and down the West Coast.

And Seattle was not alone in doing this.

And now with King County stepping forward, I'm very optimistic that many of the workers in our region who are offering their services daily during this hazard will be able to receive hazard pay.

So congratulations to them and thank them for introducing that legislation.

Second to last item, I want to note that anybody who needs health insurance, please note that the Biden administration has been working with states across the country to make sure that we are opening open enrollment for exchange programs.

If you need health insurance, this is a chance for you to go to the health insurance website and sign up for health care.

It will also be an opportunity for you to see if you qualify for Apple Health.

A lot of people who think that they may qualify for the exchange or an exchange plan on the marketplace actually find out that they're eligible for Apple Health, which is Medicaid, Medicaid expansion in our state, which offers free and very low cost health coverage for kiddos and for families across the state.

So please do go and sign up for healthcare.

You can go to Washington Health Plan Finder, or it's called healthplanfinder.org, and click on Apply Now.

That button is, again, wahealthplanfinder.org.

Click on Apply Now.

You'll see two options.

You can first see if you qualify for Apple Health.

This is a year-round opportunity to sign up for health care.

And then the special window for open enrollment just opened yesterday.

So if you have applied in the past for healthcare, please try and go and sign up again.

If circumstances especially have changed, you may find yourself eligible.

This is really important that we're taking care of folks' health year round as we also fight to make sure that there's equitable access to vaccines.

I also wanna thank the incredible community that came together for Tony Lee's Memorial last Friday, resolution that we all passed last Monday was read in full at the memorial and Angie, Tony's wife, his son, and the community at large really did a tremendous job of honoring his life and his legacy.

And while we could not be there in person, you really could feel the love from the presentation that Angie and Tony's friends and family offered from afar.

Really well done and a tremendous we are so proud of him and we want to pay tribute to his incredible accomplishments in his life and the work that he still does for each of us who have had the privilege and honor to work with him and we will keep fighting in Tony's name to create a more affordable, accessible and equitable community for all.

Hearing none, we're almost done here folks we let me, I'm going to go ahead and conclude our agenda for today by giving my report and I will endeavor to make it as quick as I can because I know we've been at it for quite some time here.

Colleagues, I did want to share a recap of the important conversation I hosted during last week's Governance and Education Committee.

Several council members have touched on this issue already.

We had an opportunity to hear a powerful community panel with leaders from community health clinics.

that serve much of Seattle's BIPOC communities.

And we also had an opportunity to hear directly from some impacted community members and vaccine rollout thus far.

I know that I'm not alone in being concerned about the seeming lack of equity that has created the vaccine hunger games across the state of Washington, including right here in Seattle.

And it does give me hope to hear from community that it is possible to address needs now to ensure that once we do have more vaccine supply, vaccines can get to everyone equitably.

Three key things identified by our community panelists were that vaccine plans need in order to be equitable are improving data collection so that there is a clear picture of who's being served or not served.

Secondly, trust and follow the leadership of those who know how to serve their communities, such as community health clinics that have successfully delivered care and services to people despite significant barriers.

And third, shifting and prioritizing resources and power to make sure that we're walking the walk of equity, not just paying lip service to equity.

I'm grateful to each of the panelists who joined us last week, who reminded us to name the ways we are shifting power and resources and called on government to not sacrifice fairness and equity in our desire for vaccines to move quickly into our communities.

Again, I want to thank all the panelists again for sharing their time and their testimony with the council members who attended.

And of course, huge thank you to Vy Nguyen in my office, my senior policy advisor, who did an excellent job in pulling together a very diverse panel of community members as well as the government panel to make sure that we had an opportunity to hear as many powerful community voices as we could.

So huge, huge thanks to V for all of her hard work on pulling that together over the last week and a half.

Next, I have one related item on today's introduction and referral calendar for full council action this afternoon.

And that is resolution 31992, which is a resolution identifying the principles and activities characterizing equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, this is a resolution memorializing the city's equitable vaccine delivery goals and principles.

I want to thank Mayor Jenny Durkin for her collaboration and concurrence on this resolution, and I also want to thank Councilmembers Juarez, Herbold, Peterson, and Strauss for their feedback and edits.

I know that there are some additional amendments that will be considered on the resolution, but I do look forward to asking that the full Council adopt this resolution at this afternoon's meeting of the full Council.

The resolution as introduced currently does the following.

First, it outlines the city's commitment to equitable vaccine distribution.

Second, it calls out the barriers and practices that have perpetuated the disparate impacts of COVID-19 and how they have exacerbated inequities, particularly for the hard-hit communities by the pandemic.

Third, it calls for stronger equity in the planning of vaccine distribution, allocation, and supporting community expertise, knowledge, and trust for connecting those eligible for vaccines to the vaccine itself.

Fourth, it creates guiding principles for the city and identifies other potential strategies for how the city will do its part on equitable vaccine delivery.

We heard in committee last week from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, they're thinking already on equitable vaccine delivery.

It is a really informative, tremendously helpful presentation.

So I hope for those of you who weren't able to attend that you will consider looking at that presentation, which was the last item of business on our agenda.

The areas of focus we've identified in the resolution thus far are focus on the highest risk and most impacted, work with community, make registration easy, make vaccine available when and where people are available, address transportation and mobility issues, ensure language access and vaccine regardless of immigration, and vaccinate folks regardless of immigration status.

Lastly, the resolution also identifies concrete ways we will collaborate across community-based organizations, community health clinics, philanthropy, federally qualified health centers, and with the Indian health care system to meet the goals of the resolution and accomplish our goal of equitable vaccine delivery.

As most of you heard during the State of the City speech delivered by Mayor Durkin, yesterday evening, we have a ambitious city goal to vaccinate 70% of our population.

And I believe that with that goal, it is important for us to continue to center an equitable vaccine delivery strategy right at the center of it.

Uh, this resolution does incorporate to the best of our ability what we heard directly from community health providers and individuals who have been impacted by vaccine rollout during my governance and education committee last week.

I look forward to your support on this really important resolution this afternoon.

I am, of course, happy to answer any questions about this resolution and or if your office has any additional concerns or questions about the resolution, you can always contact my senior policy advisor mean win who is available to answer any additional questions that you might have about this.

With that being said, colleagues, I'm going to end my comments there.

I'm happy to take any additional comments about my report.

Any questions, comments?

I know there are some amendments.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

Is this an okay time to just real quickly surface those amendments?

Yep, let's do it.

All right, fantastic.

First of all, thank you, Council President, for bringing this forward.

Really have appreciated working with your office to incorporate assurances that people will be able to access vaccine regardless of immigration status with earlier language offered.

through my office, and of course, providing direction that documentation of immigrant status will not be requested, and all vaccine providers and locations will proactively communicate this policy.

One other item in addition to that one and some others that we had included, there's one other item that we were unable to get We've heard a lot from folks in the public and in particular from Tuesday's panel discussion People are really concerned that there's a need to collect and analyze data about the demographics of people receiving the vaccine.

There's an acknowledgment that there's a dashboard that King County Public Health provides, but there's some fine print included on the dashboard that indicates that not all providers are collecting data.

We've heard that 50% of providers are not including demographic data about the folks who are receiving the vaccine.

County Public Health and Washington State Department of Health data dashboards really rely on this information.

And so I think it's really important that we include that expectation as well.

We have an amendment that adds language, the resolution requiring vaccine providers to collect and report information about the race of people receiving vaccines with categories to define be defined in collaboration with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and to analyze that data, quickly identify and address disparities.

Thank you so much for those Council Member Herbold.

And I do think that those are in my mind considered friendly amendments.

So I just realized that there was a little extra work needed before we had to publish it.

So I appreciate you highlighting those now.

Colleagues, any other comments on this report?

All right.

I am not hearing any additional comments, so I'm going to go ahead and adjourn us for the morning.

There's no more business on this morning's agenda, so I will see you all at 2 o'clock.

Thank you.