Seattle City Council 6/20/23

Thank you, IT.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Tuesday, June 20th.

This is the meeting of the Seattle City Council.

I am now calling it to order.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council President Juarez?

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you.

We have no presentations today, so moving on on our agenda, we'll go right to public comment.

I'll reiterate for the record, we have nine remote speakers and eight in-person speakers.

Pardon me.

Yes.

OK, so we will start with the in-person speakers and everyone has two minutes and now I'm going to hand it over to the clerk for the instructions on public comment.

Madam Clerk.

We are the Emerald City, the city of flowers and the city of goodwill, built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Seattle City Council welcomes remote public comment and is eager to hear from residents of our city.

If you would like to be a speaker and provide a verbal public comment, you may register two hours prior to the meeting via the Seattle City Council website.

Here's some information about the public comment proceedings.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when they registered online and use the meeting ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

A reminder, the speaker meeting ID is different from the general listen line meeting ID provided on the agenda.

Once a speaker's name is called, the speaker's microphone will be unmuted and an automatic prompt will say, the host would like you to unmute your microphone.

That is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

At that time, you must press star six.

You will then hear a prompt of, you are unmuted.

Be sure your phone is unmuted on your end so that you will be heard.

As a speaker, you should begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

A chime will sound when 10 seconds are left in your allotted time.

As a gentle reminder to wrap up your public comments.

At the end of the allotted time, your microphone will be muted, and the next speaker registered will be called.

Once speakers have completed providing public comment, please disconnect from the public comment line and join us by following the meeting via Seattle Channel Broadcast or through the listening line option listed on the agenda.

The council reserves the right to eliminate public comment if the system is being abused or if the process impedes the council's ability to conduct its business on behalf of residents of the city.

Any offensive language that is disruptive to these proceedings or that is not focused on an appropriate topic as specified in council rules may lead to the speaker being muted by the presiding officer.

Our hope is to provide an opportunity for productive discussions that will assist our orderly consideration of issues before the council.

The public comment period is now open.

and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of, you have been unmuted.

Thank you, Seattle.

Our first in-person speaker is Donna Gresk.

Yes.

Yes, Council President.

Yeah.

Ready?

Yes.

Yes.

I have items I'd like to have the council have and then be part of the record.

Hello, my name is Donna Bresky.

What do I do?

Hello, my name is Donna Breske, licensed professional engineer.

I'm a civil engineer.

Thank you, council members for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm a owner of civil engineering land consulting firm.

I've been in the business of designing water systems for infill homes for over 25 years and want to explain how Seattle Public Utilities is crushing permitting outcomes, housing permitting.

Seattle Public Utilities is applying conditions to housing developments that go far beyond the needs of any single project and conditions that go far beyond what the law allows.

SPU will offer that the reason for these requirements is expanding the water system, but the law states that system expansions cannot happen on the backs of individuals.

What SPU is doing is forbidden by the Constitution, forbidden by the Revised Code of Washington, and forbidden by the Seattle Municipal Code.

Also what SPU is doing is not even supported by SPU's own engineering studies, which have stated the city has water supply to meet domestic service and fire flow until 2040. As an engineer I can also say there is no support from an engineering design perspective to require these outlandish expensive and crushing water system upgrades.

Today I'm here with three of my employees and two others who will introduce themselves and provide the details of how SPU's water main installation mandates are crushing permitting outcomes and short the rules SPU uses to to justify its conditions have gone through so many administrative redrafts that they've drifted away from the applicable law.

It is time to place accountability on the actions of permitting staff.

Just as the City of Seattle has an accountability policy for police and staff, all employees of the executive branch of government are required to execute their job in accordance with the limits of the law.

and accountability policy is a start to ensure SPU administers their services in compliance with applicable law.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lindsay Ballas.

Hello, my name is Lindsay Ballas and I'm an employee of Donabreski.

Seattle Public Utilities administrative document referred to as Director's Rule WTR 440 effectively directs the attention of a permit applicant away from the binding language of code.

Director's Rule WTR 440 is an administrative document, not a binding code.

The unknowing person seeking connection for a new water service is led down an administrative document path and is unaware that the direction presented within the director's rule is not supported by Washington state code.

Washington state law allows only two charges when new water service is requested.

First, cities can impose a reasonable connection charge.

Second, a city has the right to charge reasonable installation fees.

Accordingly, the city of Seattle has established the allowed fees.

A one inch water meter connection charge is $3,230.

The installation fee is $4,750.

Housing outcomes are being affected as developer after developer abandons projects during the permitting process due to the inability to absorb unreasonable water system upgrades.

Per Washington state law, there is no legal authority that allows system improvements that are disproportional to the impact of the project.

A public capital system water main improvement is an indirect fee and such fees are prohibited by the revised code of Washington section 820202. Applicable sections of RCWs that limit the authority of SPU are included with the packet of information provided to the council, including RCW 8202050 and 3592025. It is imperative that the limit of authority found within these RCWs are recognized by Seattle Public Utilities if we are to find solutions to the housing crisis.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Matthew Walsh.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk to council today about this topic.

My name is Matt Wallace.

I'm an architect in the city of Seattle with over 20 years experience doing single family, multi-family projects.

I'm part of the group here today talking to you about water main extensions.

I'll be touching on the fire flow or the rate of water at a specific hydrant.

There is no engineering reason to support system improvements from developers while citing fire flow as a criteria.

The city has adequate water supply as documented with an appendix D of the 2019 Seattle Public Utilities Water System Plan.

Section 313 states, the analysis found that the majority of over 190,000 parcels in SPU's retail service area meet or exceed the fire flow performance target.

For the water system plan and based on land use, the fire flow targets for single family residential is 1,000 gallons per minute and 1,500 for multifamily.

Appendix D and figure 1A provide a fire flow performance map of the entire city of Seattle water system.

Not only does the water system provide the required fire flow to support single family and multifamily zones, over half of the area of the city can deliver fire flow of 3000 gallons per minute or greater.

Recall that multifamily only requires 1500. It should also be noted that the fire flow performance map does represent hydraulic calculations available of available maximum daily demand, or MDD.

MDD factors in maximum anticipated domestic use when calculating fire flow rates, put them together.

Additionally, the Seattle Fire Code also sets the minimum fire flow based on a building's occupancy and size.

The Seattle Fire Code mitigates risk from fire with a more focused approach by increasing the structure's resilience to fire, either by the type of construction or the addition of sprinklers.

So by contrast, this limits the impact and scope of any improvements to the demand of a specific department.

There simply is no supporting basis within Seattle Fire Code or based upon engineering analysis that would lead a reasonable person to conclude upgrades to the water distribution system are needed.

Our next speaker is Rachel Allen.

Hello, my name is Rachel Allen, I'm an employee of Donna breski water main extensions which can result in chasing a connection down the street and around the corner are not consistent with the limitation found within Seattle municipal code section 2104061 the code specifically limits.

the installation to only the extent of the property boundary abutting the street.

This is similar to how sidewalk improvements for developments are only limited to the frontage abutting the street.

The verbiage within SMC 2104061 states the standard distribution water main shall be constructed in the abutting street to the extent of the parcel boundary.

Despite the limiting authority within Seattle Municipal Code, the Administrative Document Director's Rule, WTR 440, includes unsubstantiated verbiage that drops the phrasing from abutting the street to the extent of the parcel boundary.

The altered phrasing within Section 8 of the Director's Rule is, water main extensions are required within an existing standard distribution or suitable water main designated to serve the parcel does not extend across the full parcel boundary.

This phrasing within the director's role is significantly different from that in the Seattle Municipal Code and it leads to an absurd outcome.

Mandating water main extensions that cause developers to abandon projects and furthermore cause developers to cease from attempting further development in the city is absurd.

City code and code in general exists to regulate permitting activity not to pressure permit applications with disproportionately costly capital improvement upgrades.

This project crushing and non-code supported mandate for water main extensions must be removed from director's rule, WTR 440.

Next speaker is Edward Sewer.

And just please make sure that you're close to the microphone so we can hear you.

Hi, I'm Edward Sewer.

I'm a friend of Donna Breski.

All right, Seattle Public Utilities administrative documents include water availability certificates, director's rules, client assistant memos, and tip sheets.

The information therein is once removed from the actual verbiage of the codes, both Seattle Code and Washington State Code.

Per the revised code of Washington, section 19-27097, the purpose of the water availability certificate is to confirm evidence of adequate water supply for new building permit applications.

However, SPU water availability certificate has verbiage drift that incorrectly states the objective is to confirm water infrastructure exists.

There is evidence of adequate water supply throughout the city per the 2019 water system plan as noted by my colleague, Matt Wass, The mandate to install infrastructure is an unnecessary requirement.

It's at odds with the intent of the legislature to facilitate construction of all housing types in Seattle.

The project can only be charged proportionate share of the impact of the permit action that has on the system.

The limitation to proportionate or equitable share are included within the state laws RCW 8202050 and RCW 3592025. If an applicant wants to dispute an SPU mandate, the process to do so is defined within yet another director's rule, ENGR 430. Astonishingly though, the director's rule specifically prohibits an applicant from seeking reconsideration based upon proportionality.

Prohibiting a person from asserting their legal right to assert rule of law, proportionate share within director's rule is astounding.

Both documents ENGR 430 and WTR 440 include verbiage not supported by Washington state law and the Seattle Municipal Code.

Both of these documents should be rescinded due to their egregious content.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Nick Bestie, excuse me, Brestie.

Thank you, Council.

The legislative intent of infill projects via the 2019 change to the zoning code allowing ADU-DADU projects is undermined by project crushing mandates from Seattle Public Utilities.

SPU has chewed through developer after developer and now are repeating the dismal outcome.

According to Marco Lowe, chief operating officer in the mayor's office, Seattle may only have 3,500 new dwelling units come online in this year, 2023. Police officers work with the executive branch of government and are required to adhere to a professional accountability standard.

It is past due time for the Seattle Council to create municipal code that requires professional accountability.

to ensure the permit power is not abused.

You can either allow SPU to continue to use WTR 440 and NGR 430 that mandate project crushing capital improvements, or you can require staff and management to adhere to the language of Seattle code and state laws.

The use of director rules has facilitated a method to allow verbiage that is once removed and not consistent with binding language of applicable codes.

Seattle Municipal Code 328850 requires an office of professional accountability for police officers.

A similar office must be created as an office for other complaints for permitting department policies and practices.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kathleen Rose.

Good afternoon, my name is Kathleen bros I am a downtown valor resident and I've lived in Seattle I was born and live here my whole life I attended the rally on Saturday for the pregnant woman who was killed.

How do you not become another San Francisco?

How do we keep our Nordstrom Pacific Place and Westlake shopping malls, restaurants and other small businesses full of shoppers?

How many tax revenue producing conventions are not coming to Seattle out of fear?

We need more law and order to make the public and downtown workers feel safe day and night.

How many more pregnant women and children?

have to be killed before you do something.

The recent majority vote by the Seattle City Council to keep open drug use legal in Seattle indicated that you care more about protecting criminal behavior than preventing it.

We need involuntary treatment centers for the addicted and mentally ill now.

Why can't you set up FEMA like centers to address this need.

The city of Seattle has become more expensive and less safe due to your naive misguided social agenda, your punitive housing regulations against small landlords, and the ever increasing property taxes on those who can least afford it such as families and the elderly is forcing more people into poverty or to leave the city.

The number one job of a government institution is to help keep the public safe and you have failed miserably.

I am hoping that more people with common sense will be elected to this council in November.

Thank you.

Our last in-person speaker is Janice Degucci.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Janice Taguchi, I'm executive director of Neighborhood House.

Neighborhood House employs over 350 individuals that speak 40 different languages.

Our staff are immigrants, refugees, formerly unhoused individuals with education and training both in their home countries and in the US.

They bring lived experience and unique cultural responsiveness to their work.

We operate the Parent Child Plus program, which is a home visiting program that is partially funded by the Families in Education Levy.

Parent Child Plus works with parents and children ages two and three to help to promote kindergarten readiness.

Home visitors bring a book or a toy twice a week.

For three years, our funding did not increase.

and which kept wages low while other costs increased.

From 2014 to 2019, one of our parent child plus managers received a wage increase of only 65 cents an hour from 2014, over five years.

While neighborhood house still subsidized the cost of the program by over $50,000 each year.

Ironically, one of our housing stability coordinators left King County to live with her parents in Georgia because she could no longer afford to live here.

Human Services staff are predominantly BIPOC women.

They work each day to create a vibrant, safe, and welcoming community that we all want.

A vote in favor of this resolution for equitable wages for human service workers is a vote for racial equity and economic justice.

Thank you.

That concludes the in-person.

Is that it, Amelia?

So before we move on to our callers, I should let the public know, as well as the first six speakers, I think their remarks were to item number three.

which was Council Bill 120587. So thank you for giving us your written public comment.

That would be from Donna, Lindsay, Matt, Rachel, Edward, and Nick.

And thank you for attaching the SPU director's rule as well.

So I just wanted to let you know that I have my staff out there and they delivered your public comments to us.

So thank you for putting those together, your written public comments, as well as the attachments.

Okay, with that, Madam Clerk, let's go to our remote callers.

Okay, I'm going to begin with Howard Gale, and as a reminder, please press star six when your name is called to speak.

Our first speaker is Howard Gale.

Good afternoon, Howard Gale with seattlestop.org, commenting on our failed police accountability system.

Last week, a group of us were at the Public Safety Committee meeting to comment in person at the outrageous behavior of the Community Police Commission who, just the week prior, threatened people with made-up laws and even threatened police violence on people exercising the most basic First Amendment rights, simply being present at a public meeting.

To have paid public employees and city commissioners engage in threatening behavior, including threats of police violence directed at a person whose family has experienced the worst of police violence, the murder of a family member by the SPD, is so far beyond any democratic and community norms that immediate public condemnation and an investigation is required.

Silence is consent, and that is all we have heard from council members over the last couple of weeks, especially Public Safety Chair Herbold and Vice Chair Lewis.

Silence.

Sunday marked the sixth anniversary of the SPD murder of Charlene Alliles, a murder that happened just 17 days after Seattle's much-haunted police accountability legislation was signed into law, legislation that both failed to protect and failed to obtain any justice for Charlene Alliles or for the eight people who went on to be killed by the SPD, All people who either were not holding a weapon or were holding a knife while experiencing a severe behavioral health crisis.

The legacy of 2017 is more death, more trauma, no justice, and now an accountability system that can only protect itself, not the community it is supposed to serve.

Indeed, the Community Police Commission has now fully transitioned into the commission that polices the community.

Silence is consent.

Council members, watch the videos of what has happened over the last few months at tinyurl.com forward slash CPC abuse.

That is tinyurl.com forward slash CPC abuse.

Please give us more than your silence and consent to this dangerous and undemocratic behavior.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amy Lee.

Amy.

Amy Lee.

Looks like she's here.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Amy Lee Derenthal, co-chair of the SHSC City Budget Task Force.

And thank you for having me here today.

I'm here in support of the resolution for wage equity for the Seattle Human Service workers.

I'm also the executive director of Senior Center West Seattle.

And we are seeing more and more unhoused people coming to the Senior Center and we're truly struggling to find resources for them to get help.

Wherever we send them for housing or other services, there's a long wait.

This is directly related to low staffing and high turnover at human services agencies.

This legislation is a good first step in addressing the needs of all of our neighbors living in West Seattle and across the city.

Thanks for listening.

Our next speaker is Stacey Crist.

Stacey?

Good afternoon, council members.

Hello?

Yep, go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Okay, great.

Good afternoon.

My name is Stacey Crist, and I'm the Adult Day Health Program Development Director at Full Life Care.

And I'm here today to speak in favor of wage equity for human service workers.

Older adults and their families rely on Full Life Care to provide essential services.

such as home care, caregiver respite, adult day health, care coordination, and housing stabilization services.

Due to chronic underfunding, our agency is unable to attract and retain staff.

And as a result, all of our departments have been able to meet the care need demands in Seattle.

And some of the impacts of this on our community are that residents with supportive housing are going without caregivers.

Individuals living in skilled nursing facilities they're past the time of when they're ready to discharge and unpaid family caregivers are having to resort to more costly care and living options for their loved ones.

I'd like to thank Council Member Herbold for introducing this legislation and encourage the committee members to vote yes.

Thank you for your time.

Our next speaker is Antonio Rodriguez.

Antonio.

Good afternoon, council member.

Hello, good afternoon, council members.

My name is Antonio Rodriguez and I'm the community research specialist at Youth Care.

I'm here today to speak in favor of resolution number 32094 regarding wage equity for non-profit human service workers.

I want to thank council member Lisa Herbal for introducing this legislation, encourage all community members to vote yes.

Low wages are preventing youth care from being able to fulfill our mission.

Youth care is struggling to meet the needs of unhoused youth and young adults because we are not able to meet the needs of our staff.

High turnover makes it difficult to build strong relationships with the youth and young adults we serve.

Our staff are frequently asked to work double shift back to back and often must take a second job just to make ends meet.

We cannot sustain that level of wear and tear on our already overstretched staff.

Low wages for human services workers are impacting everyone who calls Seattle home.

This resolution creates a path forward in building a safe, sustainable community where everyone has an opportunity to survive and thrive.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Colleen Lang, and Colleen will be followed by Marsha Wright-Soyka.

So go ahead, Colleen.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Colleen Lang with United Way of King County.

On behalf of United Way, I'm asking you to pass Resolution 32094, supporting human service contract wage equity.

The proposed resolution recognizes that wages for human service providers, such as home visitors, are suppressed due to historical race and gender biases and it recommends a minimum 7 percent increase based on the University of Washington wage study.

We're grateful to Council Member Herbold for proposing to undo systemic racial and gender pay inequities through the budget process.

It's commendable that the council is considering tackling structural inequities through the budgeting process.

As a longtime partner with the city in funding the Parent Child Plus Home Visiting Program United Way is working with the Seattle Human Service Coalition's funder group including other philanthropies to address wage equity in our own funding.

And we're grateful that the city is considering doing this as well, continuing the council's public sector leadership on equity issues.

I urge the council to include all city human service contracts in budgeted wage increases, regardless of the contracting department.

Home visiting contracts have not been eligible for the city's inflation adjustment, for example.

And in high inflation times, that's like giving home visitors a wage cut All human service wage increases should apply to all city human service contracts.

Please don't leave some providers out as that creates arbitrary classes of human service contracts and complicates agencies contract administration.

Low wages lead to high vacancies, they impair service availability and they harm quality.

Raising wages isn't only the just thing to do, it's essential to keeping the city's human service system functioning.

Please pass resolution 32094. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marsha Wright-Soyka, and Marsha will be followed by Travis Shoemaker.

Marsha, go ahead.

Marsha just muted herself.

Marsha, star six.

There you go.

Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Marsha Wright-Soyka, and I'm the Executive Director of Family Works, which operates food access programs and family resource centers in North Seattle.

I'm here to speak in favor of the resolution regarding wage equity for human service workers and want to thank Councilmember Herbold for introducing this and encourage all Councilmembers to vote in favor.

When parents and caregivers are not sure where to turn for help and find their way to family work, what they find is a welcoming multilingual staff who help them secure critical basic needs resources, opportunities to build social connections and support raising healthy kids.

We have seen an increase in families seeking resources throughout the pandemic and right into this high inflation economy, many of which who have never sought this type of help.

Low wages have prevented family works from keeping talented, compassionate, and knowledgeable staff in critical roles and in the sector overall.

We have vacancies right now.

This puts families who are facing poverty, hunger, and housing instability further at risk.

When we have staff who are compensated justly, and engage in this work for the long term, we can be a more effective force for change for the crises that are facing our community.

Please vote yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Travis Shoemaker, and Travis will be followed by our last remotely present registered speaker of Renata Slack.

Travis?

Travis?

Hello, good afternoon, council members.

My name is Travis Shoemaker.

I am the chief people and culture officer and joined my colleague Antonio Rodriguez today to represent youth care.

I'm here because I want to publicly voice my concern for wage equity among Seattle nonprofit human service workers and support Resolution 32094 introduced by council member Herbold.

I strongly encourage all committee members to vote yes and here's why.

So many youth cares, 192 employees face money challenges as illustrated in the recent UW study quoted by council member Herbold when introducing resolution 32094 last Tuesday.

We can only afford the similar $21 to $23 per hour starting wage that is so common in the Seattle job market.

And this means most of our staff find themselves one, unanticipated money issue like a flat tire or a bank transaction mix up from feeling the need to leave youth care and find another better paying job.

I know of several instances just so far this year where employees here who assist our youth facing housing instability were faced with housing instability themselves when trying to make ends meet and still have enough money left to pay rent.

Like other agencies that have provided testimony today, we have vacancies that are hard to fill and our attrition is higher than we wish it to be.

With your help in passing this legislation, we will move one step closer to a place where we can support our staff with the same great level of care as they provide to the youth of our community.

Thank you so much for your consideration and hopefully for your support in this important matter.

Thank you.

Our last remotely present speaker is Renata Slack.

Renata?

There you go.

Renata?

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Renata.

I am a housing case manager for Compass Housing Alliance.

I'm here to speak in favor of wage equity for human service workers.

I would like to thank council member Lisa Herbert for introducing the legislation to encourage all committee members to vote yes.

Low wages are preventing Compass Housing Alliance for being able to fulfill our mission.

Not only is my location short staffed, but several other programs in my organization as well.

We are currently the lowest paid organization with a very high turnover.

Working in direct services is very challenging, especially when you're not properly compensated.

I have been working in direct services for eight years with Compass, and I have seen over the years many people come and go, like I said before, a really, really high turnover.

The wages really affect families, and mine in particular, being an African-American woman making up 80% the workers that work in human services.

I just would like to say that I would encourage council members to vote yes.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

That completes our remote speakers that are present.

Great.

So with that, we will close public comment.

and move along in our agenda.

There's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing an objection, the introduction referral calendar is adopted.

Let's move on to adoption of the agenda.

There's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Council President.

There you go.

I was waiting for that.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I would like to request to amend the agenda to remove Council Bill 120520, the Home-Based Business Bill, from today and add it to June 27, 2023's full council vote.

I had wanted to connect specifically with you and a couple other council members who have sat on the Land Use Committee while this was originally discussed and are not on that committee any longer because there are two slight differences between this bill and the original bill that we passed.

If there are no objections, I move to amend the agenda by removing item to Council Bill 120520. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the agenda to remove item number two, which is Council Bill 120520. Are there any comments to the amendment?

Jean Gatza, COB Host, She or Her:" not seen any customer stress, I have a quick question is this what I affectionately called the fry bread bill.

Justin Brantley, COB OSMP, COB OPERATORS): Yes, I was going to call you and say we got the fry bread bill coming back.

Justin Brantley, COB OSMP, COB OPERATORS): So we can talk later and at committee last week I had said on the record that it would come to June 27 so I just want to remain consistent on the public record.

Okay, well, that may be my job next year, so I might have to abstain on the vote.

But anyway, so not seeing any objections, I made my comments, he moved it, I seconded it, let's go forward.

Hearing no objection, the amendment is adopted.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

If there's no objection, the amended agenda will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing objection, the amended agenda is indeed adopted.

Let's move on to the consent calendar.

The items on the consent calendar include the minutes from June 13th, council bill, payroll bill, council bill 120603, and two appointments for my committee from the Native Community and Tribal Governance.

I'm sorry, the Governance, Native Community and Tribal Governance Committee.

We did the appointment for Mr. David Perez to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

And we also appointed Ms. Charlene McMillan to the Civil Service Commission.

That being said, are there any items that anyone would like removed from the consent calendar?

All right.

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Can I get a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll and the adoption of the consent calendar?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbal?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar is adopted and will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation of the consent calendar or the items on the consent calendar.

Moving on to committee reports, we had four items.

We removed item number two, I believe that until we removed Yes, yes, item two, we removed.

So now we have three.

So starting with item number one, and I understand we have a guest in the audience.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item one into the record?

The report of the land use committee agenda item one appointment 2302 appointment of Rico curandongo as director of the Office of Planning and Community Development for term to July 1 2027. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I can say this is the day we have been waiting for, pining after, if you will.

I'm excited to bring Acting Director Rico Quirendongo's appointment forward to a full council vote.

His appointment came before our council twice, presented with Deputy Mayor Washington, responded to questions verbally, and 17 won seven pages of responses.

Colleagues, I won't spend the half of an hour I spent with Director Kieran Dongo last week reading his responses back to him because his responses that he had spent writing in these 17 pages spoke directly to the points that are so important to us.

I'll remind colleagues he wrote many of these responses in September of last year and one response that he wrote specifically was talking about how to make our uh communities that are in danger of climate crisis events being more resilient and in the time in between that question being answered and today we had the king tide event in south park this is this is one example of many of director karen dongo's forward thinking i can tell that he This is a special moment in our city today because we have not only a large portion of Office of Planning and Community Development here.

Great to see you all.

We also have SDOT Director, Greg Spatz.

We have Office of Housing Director, Director Winkler-Chin.

And we also have a Deputy Director, Sarah Morningstar from Department of Neighborhoods.

So you are, well, I don't know that I've seen this many directors in the audience at one time.

With that, I have no further remarks other than to say Director Karen Dongo has been doing an amazing job in his two years in the role.

He's exceeded expectations and I'm honored.

It's an honor and a privilege to bring forward this confirmation today.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

At this point, I'm going to open the floor for my colleagues to have any remarks before we move to a vote.

The floor is now open.

I do not see any but I will just say a few things before we move on.

And then I'll let customer stress close this out before we go.

I have had the pleasure of working with Mr. Kirandongo, Rico, for about since I got here, I think.

And I immensely enjoyed working with you, Rico.

I appreciate so much what OPCD has done, particularly also with the Land Use Committee, and evaluating, interpreting, and implementing the issues of land back for tribal communities and tribal governments.

Your agency has been the most responsive, I believe, in making sure that we talk about displacement, land back, right of first refusal to our tribal governments, local governments within King County and beyond.

And I've always appreciated our offline conversations about how we incorporate those principles under federal and state law in the city code.

So with that, I don't know if a lot of people know that about you, you've been amazing.

Sam Asafa was amazing and I'm excited to finish out this year working with you.

So with that, I do not see anyone else.

Is there anything you wanna add Council Member Strauss before we move to the vote?

Just again, it is an honor and privilege to bring this confirmation forward.

Director Kieran Dongo is only the second director ever for the department, which is Office of Planning and Community Development.

And I'm excited to see where you take us next.

Thank you.

So with that, just hold on a minute, let's do the vote and then we'll open the floor again.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The appointment is confirmed.

Congratulations, Director Coronado Rico.

Would you, you are now recognized to share comments with Seattle City Council and the viewing public.

And he's got all of his sticky notes on the 17 pages of responses that have fallen out of his notebook.

I apologize too, I'm used to calling you Rico off the record, not Director Kirandongo, and I will remind myself to do that from this day forward.

So, the floor is yours, sir.

Rico is just fine, Council President.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all.

I am, well, I'm just giddy to be honest.

Thank you to Mayor Harrell for his leadership and vision, to council members for the honor of being able to work with you for these past two years and for the time moving forward.

To my staff for your tireless passion and energy in the work that we do in the Office of Planning and Community Development.

We have work to do to make the city of Seattle more equitable through our comprehensive plan, our one Seattle plan work.

We need to ensure everyone has a voice regardless of where they live in the city, regardless of what level of their income, regardless of the color of their skin or the nature of their heritage.

We need to ensure that anyone that works in the city can earn a living wage.

need to ensure that for anyone that chooses or wants to live in the city of Seattle, that they have access to an affordable place to live, whether they are renting or buying, and regardless of their income.

We need to right the wrongs of our past, including the terrible history of redlining, racial covenants, and other racist land use policies that were built into the regulatory framework for who was allowed to acquire property and who was allowed to own a home in our city.

We must support our tribal partners and our urban indigenous organizations to ensure that the first people of our city are able to be seen and be celebrated and are able to live in the comfort and pride and with the rich cultural traditions that are so grounded in the care of family, community and place.

We must create opportunities for our BIPOC families and business owners across the city to build generational wealth Through our programs at Office of Planning and Community Development, the One Seattle Plan, International Maritime Strategy, Equal Development Initiative, Station Area Planning, and Downtown Subarea Plan work, through our collaborations with our fellow city offices and departments, and through our partnerships with community and leadership of the mayor's office, we are invested in all of these visions and intended outcomes for all Seattle residents.

Leading with equity, We are making certain that whatever policy work and community investments that we make as a department and as a city.

that we do them in such a way that we are raising all boats, improving the places that people live, work and play, and that we are giving voice and power to those who have been traditionally unseen and under supported.

This feels very much like my life's work.

I'm very honored to be in this chair and I really appreciate your support and confidence.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And thank you for being here today.

And thank you for the other city department heads that are there to support your colleague.

So with that, congratulations as well.

Again, let's let's move on in our agenda from the amended agenda.

Well, yes, I I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get ahead of you.

What I was going to say is since item number two is removed, we'll move on into item number three.

From the amended agenda, agenda item number three, Council Bill 120587, relating to environmental review, amending section 25.05.800 of Seattle Municipal Code to update categorical exceptions for infill development consistent with changes to the State Environmental Policy Act.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

This is one of many bills that you will see coming before council that will help revitalize downtown Seattle.

And so I'm gonna go into some technical language.

And before we do that, the shorthand understanding of what this bill does is it reduces time and cost for building or renovating projects downtown so that we can revitalize downtown faster.

Let's go into the technical.

Under this ordinance, residential buildings with up to 200 residential units and buildings with up to 30,000 square feet of non-residential space will be exempted from environmental review.

This legislation works in conjunction with Mayor's Downtown Activation Plan to build more housing and create more jobs in downtown.

These changes are necessary because of the unforeseen Let me take this back a notch.

When we talk about the major update to the comp plan coming in this next year, the last major update to the comp plan underestimated growth in Seattle by twofold.

So we've had twice as much growth as we projected.

When growth targets are met, SEPA has to be conducted.

So until when you are growing up to your growth target, you don't have to do SEPA.

Once you hit your growth target, you do have to do SEPA.

What is SEPA?

It is the State Environmental Protection Act.

It increases time and cost to projects for good reason.

However, we have had twice as much growth downtown as we expected, and we need to revitalize downtown.

And so what this bill does is it brings us back to pre-growth target achievement, SEPA levels.

And so prior to downtown exceeding its growth estimates, SEPA review exemptions were granted to projects with 250 residential units or 30,000 square feet of residential space.

These adjustments are in accordance with recently passed state law.

And I wanna share with you why is this important to me?

I'm district six representative.

I don't represent downtown.

Downtown success is bigger than any of us.

It's bigger than me.

It's bigger than you.

It is bigger than just downtown.

It is our city's success.

It's bigger than the city of Seattle.

Bellevue success, Renton success, Kenmore and Bothell, their success is predicated on downtown having a successful economic engine.

It is the largest city in our state, and I'll go as far as saying Washington's success is dependent on our downtown Seattle success.

Our next closest cities of comparable size are the Twin Cities or Chicago, Salt Lake City or Denver, or Sacramento, San Francisco.

We are the most isolated downtown I will admit Vancouver, British Columbia gives us a run for the money, but they are on the other side of a border.

And so I just, I, why is this bill important to me?

It is because I know that downtown Seattle success is bigger than any of us.

It stretches as far as Salt Lake, Sacramento, Twin Cities.

And I'll go a step further.

This is in conjunction with the mayor's downtown activation plan.

You'll see some more land use legislation from us.

You had Director Greg Spots in here just a minute ago talking and he's talked about the culture connector down through downtown Seattle.

We have more hardscape investments now than we did pre-pandemic.

with the new convention center, with the aquarium, with the waterfront connection between the waterfront and Pike Place Market, with the waterfront redevelopment.

We now have to take care of the soft scape that is downtown, the activation, the more people.

And a lot of this is dependent upon having places for people to come to downtown.

Now, there are uses of downtown buildings that made sense pre-pandemic that don't make sense anymore.

And those revitalizations, those redevelopments, if they were to be done today without this legislation, they would have to go through SEPA, which means that it takes more time and it's more costly.

And that's the benefit of the bill before us today.

It reduces time and cost to revitalize downtown.

This is bigger than any of us and I urge your support.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I see Council Member Lewis has his hand up.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Council Member Strauss, for shepherding these really important reforms through your committee, as you indicated.

In your remarks, a key part of our recovery strategy for downtown is going to be to increase the footprint of residents who can call a downtown Seattle home and to emphasize residential uses.

of parcels and be able to expedite our ability to get more housing online in the city core.

And this legislation moves us very significantly toward that goal.

As we've recently seen office occupancy downtown in May for the first time since COVID exceeded 50%, which is great.

But we know that a big part of our recovery is going to involve increasing the density of residents downtown.

and this legislation will help in that goal.

And I appreciate you alluding to some of the other legislation that's in the pipeline that we've been working on regarding increased zoning capacity to accommodate in the city core more residential housing.

So we look forward to those discussions later this summer and really appreciate this really critical first step to streamline and increase these investments in the core of our downtown.

So thank you so much for your leadership on that.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Are there any other Council Members that have any comments?

All right, I have not seen any.

So Council Member Strauss, do you want to close this out before we go to a vote?

This is just one step in the right direction.

We've got a lot more work to do.

And the vision that I see for downtown is one that is vibrant, that is attractive, that residents from all across our city and our region want to come to because we have amazing amenities, whether it's the Fifth Avenue Theater, the Act Theater.

I want folks to come downtown, have dinner, stroll through the market, experience our amazing amenities.

We have a lot of work to do with public safety that I know is underway right now.

And this is one bill that reduces the amount of time and money it takes to change some of the buildings that their uses have changed during the pandemic.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

And with that, we will go to a vote.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

We'll come back.

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

And one more time, Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

All right, the bill passes and the chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Let's move on into our agenda to item number four.

This is Councilmember Herbold's legislation or resolution.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item number four into the record?

The report of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, agenda item four, resolution 32094 concerning wage equity for nonprofit human services workers, expressing the city council's intent to consider increasing human services contracts to support wage equity in collaboration with our other funders, and requesting information and action from the executive to advance human services workers' wage equity.

The committee recommends the city council adopt their resolution with council members Herbold, Lewis, and Mosqueda in favor, and abstentions from council members Nelson and Peterson.

All right.

Council Member Herbold, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Madam President.

So this resolution is part of a body of work that the council has been undertaking for several years now.

The intent of this body of work is to work to address desperately low wages in the human services sector.

These low wages lead to costly turnover for organizations that we depend on and Even more damaging than the turnover in staff is the instances when critical services simply go unoffered because of low staffing.

Low wages hit BIPOC and women workers especially hard who are overrepresented in this field.

Council provided funding in 2021 for the University of Washington's Wage Equity Study, whose findings and recommendations are recognized in this resolution.

The research was published earlier this year.

And the two prominent findings that this resolution recognizes are, one, that nonprofit human services workers are paid 37% less than workers in what are called non-care industries.

And those who leave care work see a 7% increase in net pay just a year after leaving this life-sustaining work.

The pay penalty persists despite the high level of skill, responsibility, and difficulty required by these jobs.

In fact, our mission critical nonprofit providers have been sounding the alarm about desperately low wages and unsustainable turnover for years.

Throughout my committee's consideration of human services wages this year, and again, this afternoon, we've heard public testimony that cuts to the heart of why we must address worker wages.

For instance, Amaranthia Torres, Co-Executive Director of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence wrote to us today to say, we know that our capacity to support survivors of domestic and social violence could be increased if programs were not faced with multiple unfilled positions at their programs and were faced with losing staff who are worried about how to pay their bills and provide for their families.

Janice Deguchi from Neighborhood House spoke about the unique cultural responsiveness and lived experience of her staff.

whose salaries are unsustainably low.

Amy Lee Durenthal leads a senior center that is increasingly on the front lines of serving folks experiencing homeless.

And she testified that unfilled positions lead to long waits for help, putting the senior center in a difficult position and the seniors it serves in a worse position.

Antonio Rodriguez from Youth Care reports that they struggle to meet the needs of the youth they serve because their nearly 200 staff members are working double shifts and second jobs.

And they are still one unexpected expense away from financial crisis themselves while serving the public.

in deep need.

Colleen Lang from United Way of King County spoke to the need to undo the structural bias and racism that leads to low wages in this particular sector and said that United Way is also committed to increasing worker wages.

Marsha Wright-Soyka, Executive Director of FamilyWorks, said they're seeing more caregivers looking for help and support themselves to address their own financial needs, but that staff vacancies prevent them from fully serving their community.

We know that King County quickly purchased 10 hotels and apartment buildings to house people living unsheltered during the pandemic.

But we also know that they couldn't open half of them due to workforce shortages.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority has repeatedly told us that among its five largest contracted organizations, there are more than 300 vacant positions.

And they worked hard in the past year to address some of the wage equity issues faced by the funding for the regional homelessness authority investments during public comment at the March 14th.

Public safety and human services committee nonprofit leaders testified that multiple child care classrooms, including some desperately needed for infants are going empty because they can't find staff to work for such low wages.

Amanda, a human services worker with 14 years of experience in this work, testified that she still has to take on a second job as a food server to afford to work in the field giving care.

Crisis Connections experiences a 50% staff turnover rate due to low wages, even as they serve on the front line for thousands of people experiencing a behavioral health crisis on their worst day of their lives.

The Hunger Intervention Program can't retain staff for more than a single year in a key leadership position, and they testified that multiple partner organizations in the North End have severely restricted hours or have closed entirely because they can't attract staff for low wages.

I know we can all point to multiple instances in just the past year or two when council has provided funding for essential urgently needed work that we have prioritized, such as responding to people in behavioral health crises or sheltering people living on the streets.

And that these funds have gone unspent because providers were unable to hire staff.

The resolution in front of us today is a careful, measured and responsive next step, which will allow the council in the city to continue our work to address equitable wages for workers who are tackling some of the city's most difficult work.

At the suggestion of City Budget Director Dingley and Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, the resolution itself requests that the executive work together with other public funders and private philanthropy to produce recommendations and strategies to address the pay penalty, and that they do so and provide a report by the end of September.

In doing so, that will help inform the Council's budget deliberations for the next year.

The Human Services Coalition has agreed to lead this work, and they understand that receiving those recommendations is a prerequisite for Council's consideration of increasing wages.

Crucially, this means that the City of Seattle will not be going alone.

We will be working collectively with other levels of government and philanthropists to address and increase sector wages.

I thank Budget Director Dingley for the inclusion of the suggestion, as well as Deputy Mayor Washington for confirming that the mayor has asked that our departments engage with the Human Services Coalition convening in order to respond strategies for addressing wage equity.

Um, just I'll hold some final remarks to the end.

I just wanna again recognize that fixing a 37% pay equity is not easy.

The city can't go it alone.

All public and private funding partners must work in concert to increase wages for these essential workers.

And we're not alone.

We've seen that wage equity efforts are currently underway or proposed by King County.

the State of Washington, the Regional Homelessness Authority, and the Mayor's Office.

As other jurisdictions and levies move forward with increasing wages in the nonprofit services sector, our city's human services department will find itself falling further and further behind because their contracted organizations will be competing to hire the same pool of workers, but offering lower wages.

If we expect our city departments to act robustly and quickly, In response to the city's most urgent crises, we cannot tie their hands by providing the lowest wages in the region.

I really thank you, my colleagues, for your consideration.

I hope you will join me in voting to approve this resolution today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any comments or questions from our colleagues?

Okay, Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold for bringing this resolution.

You referenced the study, the 2022 study from the University of Washington.

And I think it's important, not just that we understand the 37% gap between those who provide care in their professions and other industries, but we know as, was pointed out in public cola this morning or this afternoon.

The report also provides and I'm quoting irrefutable evidence that human service workers who are disproportionately women and people of color are significantly underpaid for the essential work that they perform and quote.

So I think We know that there's essential service, really crucial frontline work that's happening here.

I also think that at its essential elements, this wage gap is about undervaluing the work done by women to take care of people in our society.

As sociologist Jessica Larco has said before, other countries have social safety nets, the US has women.

So as we start to move out of the pandemic, as we look to revitalizing our economy, as we debate, this body debates solutions to our homeless crisis, our childcare crisis, our Fenton Holt crisis, our crucial violence interruption work that happens in the city, we have to acknowledge that frontline workers who we entrust with caring for our most vulnerable are themselves vulnerable because of their financial insecurity that they experienced due to this wage gap.

Seattle's losing workers in every industry because people can't afford to live here.

Just this morning, there was reporting about how the cost of living in Seattle has increased 20% in the last three years.

So we know that this is a problem that we have to work to resolve.

And we know that this resolution is not the end of the conversation.

This isn't a budget allocation.

It's not a promise to close the gap, even, although I wish it was, but it is at least an acknowledgement that the only real solution to our overlapping crises in the city.

is to pay for the services we need, and that means paying frontline workers.

So I look forward to working with my colleagues, with the executive, with our public and private partners, to really collaborate on figuring out how we close this gap for the crucial human service workers that we have in the city to address both the service needs that we have and also to make sure that our workers are being compensated for the very important work that we entrust with them.

to do to take care of our most vulnerable.

I look forward to supporting this resolution and look forward to continuing the conversation and getting to some action on behalf of these workers.

Thank you.

Hold on, hold up one second here.

I'm trying to find something.

Nope.

Thank you Councillor Morales.

I looked at the agenda, and I know we've been referring to this, and we probably should have attached it.

Maybe we will.

I know we did a summary and fiscal note for the resolution, but my understanding is that the report from the UW, University of Washington, was not part of the record.

So for those people who hadn't seen it, perhaps we can make that part of, or people can have access to the University of Washington.

Was it September 2022 that we did that?

I believe that's when we voted on the funding for it, but you are absolutely correct.

It would have been great to include it as an attachment to the resolution.

It is included in a previous committee report attached to an agenda from previous committee meeting, and maybe we could figure out a way to uplift that more.

Thank you.

Let's make sure we get that posted online because obviously we've had access to that and have some understanding of the background on that.

So thank you.

Councilor Morales, thank you Councilor Herbal.

I'll come back to you Councilor Herbal, but I see that Councilor Nelson has her hand up.

Councilor Nelson.

Thank you very much.

So, I struggle with chair herbal chair of the committee that is, and other council members who insist that passing this resolution doesn't constitute a commitment.

I believe that you don't spend a $600,000 on a so-called wage equity study unless there's really strong political will to to pay for the recommendations.

And secondly, obviously, resolutions don't carry the force of law.

So this is not committing us or allocated to allocating right now to any budget item, but we know that resolutions are statements of policy intent, and advocates and sponsoring council members will hold us to account based on this vote today when these discussions come up later.

And since I have been in office many times, Resolution 31916, which commits council to ensuring that the LEAD program is funded to capacity has been invoked when we've considered the funding requests to expand LEAD.

So I believe that when I read, well, in the resolution it says, recognizing the short and long-term recommendations in the UW wage equity study, I think that that is the first step toward funding them.

And just to mention that I did say so called wage study wage equity study before because typically such studies compare the wages of workers with similar skills experience and education, doing similar work.

But the study compares the wages of non-profit human service workers with workers in all other employment sectors at both for-profit and non-profit jobs.

And there's nothing really similar about the skills or experience of those workers, and they are not doing comparable work.

I wasn't here in 1920 in 2021 when this, when this budget item for this study was approved but if I were I probably would have said that I think it's unrealistic that the city take on filling the wage gap between nonprofit service providers and, and that in.

people working for profit jobs in more profitable sectors like tech or whatever.

So that is what I'm struggling with right now.

Section four of the resolution says, the council intends to consider recommendations to increase funding for contracts administered by the human services department by 7% by 2025. And the price tag for that is $7.34 million in 2024 and $15.54 million in 2025. And that's on top of the 7.6, I think it was, inflationary adjustment that we made in the 2023 budget and the additional 6.2% inflationary adjustment in the endorsed 2024 budget.

And remember, these are not city employees.

So we don't have authority over the nonprofit organizations that we are talking about here.

And meanwhile, our own employees are, I don't know what phase the negotiations are in right now, but I do know that they have been working hard for a cost of living increase on their own.

So we won't know if the previous inflationary adjustments have been effective in retaining workers or even raising this worker wages because that report, which is a year late, is not due until June 20th, which is today.

So we're going to be voting on something without with information, you know, without really reading that information.

And then in addition, many of our providers have multiple sources of funding and I appreciate that that has been recognized.

And we're voting for this $23 million budget increase commitment before the roundtable process even determined Seattle share of the cost to address wage equity relative to other jurisdictions and given the additional revenue that's coming in from voter approved property tax measures, and that will be significant revenue as well and it's outlined in the recitals of the of the resolution.

And then finally, just last thing which I mentioned often there's no mention of any performance standards by which we can measure if this significant investment is producing the intended outcome for the people served by these very valuable, yes, human service workers.

And I do want to dwell on that point a little bit because I want to be absolutely clear that I believe that human service work is undervalued and underpaid, and that's partly because it's performed by women and people of color.

So I recognize the inherent sexism and racism that's reflected in these lower wages.

But this resolution puts just too many.

It just puts too many things in question it puts the heart, the cart before the horse etc whatever analogy one uses I, I am.

I just feel that we have to be honest, that it puts us on a glide path to a major budget increase during a deficit.

Without knowing where that money is going to be coming from.

And, you know, so what are we going to do just get another source of revenue.

There aren't any cuts identified either I must add, in fairness, so I think that this is irresponsible and it's unfortunate that the executive hasn't weighed in.

or remains neutral because we're both gonna be around to deal with the unfunded mandate when most of my colleagues will not be here in future budget, in out years of this budget.

So anyway, I realized that my no vote today will be, or may be portrayed as anti-worker and anti-equity.

And there's nothing I can do about that.

All I can do is think about the, what this vote will mean for budget discussions coming forward.

And I just think that another way of looking at my no vote will be that it's just a vote for trying to be accountable and responsible come budget season.

That's it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, counselor Nelson, I do have a few comments to make and then I'm going to let Councilmember herbal close this out.

I had a chance to obviously speak to some of the executive folks offline and as well as Councilmember Nelson, you and I had a great conversation about the resolution, and the vehicle that's used the resolution to indicate intent, or what we are resolved to do.

And we talked about the concerns of an unfunded mandate and what that means.

So I just want to share I will be voting yes but let me, I don't want.

I don't want people to peg you or anybody who votes no that because you vote no on this that obviously you don't believe in parody or any of those things you raise some really good issues and I'm hoping that when we have the stakeholder group with the executive, a lot of that will be addressed.

The components of the resolution does recognize the UW wage equity study and the recommendations without committing to all of them.

It does recognize that it collaborates with private and public funders to make joint progress on wage equity.

Um, and of course it considers increases to human services, the human services department for the administrative contracts for purposes of wage equity, including a 7% increase by 2025, to the extent sufficient revenues are available, which is of course what we're looking at, like to the extent sufficient revenues are available.

Cause I know at this juncture with a resolution, I don't know what sufficient revenues would be available.

I think Councilor Mosqueda has been very clear about where jumpstart money goes.

And it does request a plan from HSD to ensure that human services contract increases are used to increase worker wages.

And this is the part that I was hung up on a little bit, and then I made a few phone calls just to get some clarification.

that a request that the executive consider wage equity increases for human service contracts administered by departments outside of HSD, that is, of course, our third party providers, and provide a report with information on those contracts.

So I was very curious to hear, like, from the executive and Julie Dingley and all those folks, like, what would you envision that report?

to be.

And again, that's additional information that will help us get beyond a resolution.

I don't think by signaling, there's been times that I have voted yes on a resolution, but no of the byproduct of the resolution, if indeed an ordinance came from it.

But recognizing what you said, Council Member Nelson, I don't think that if you voted no or abstained, it means that you're, you know, if you believe in sexism and unequal pay and all of the things that people bring up, we all do.

We want people to be paid and we all understand and we have forever that the caring professions don't get paid what other people get paid.

And we know that a lot of that is based, that there are women that do those jobs, whether it's a teacher, a nurse, a social worker, we know that.

A lot of us have done those jobs.

And I think this is a way that, at least for me, is that we got to start somewhere.

And if this starts the conversation with customer herbal working with the University of Washington and the executive, and now the legislative branch.

If we got to start somewhere, because a 37% pay gap.

That's unconscionable.

But the other side of it too is, I don't want to raise expectations.

And that's always concerns me because I think you create more trauma.

when you raise expectations that somehow this resolution is going to make it happen.

I think this is just one of many steps in a process.

And you also raise up another good point is that many of us will not be here next year and for that next budget cycle.

And many of us will not be here to make and have policy discussions about a progressive revenue source.

I still don't really know what that means, except it may mean another tax.

I don't know.

I won't be here.

And I haven't heard anything more about that.

But everything that Councilor Herboldt said is correct and everything that you said is correct and both can be true.

So that being said, I will be supporting this resolution because I truly believe as policy makers, we have to start somewhere.

And so for me today is that day.

So with that, I'm gonna hand it off to Councilor Sawant and then I'm gonna let Council Member Herboldt close this out.

Councilor Sawant.

Thank you, President Juarez.

I wasn't planning to speak on this, on this agenda item.

The truth is that it is simply a resolution.

It is not going to solve the problem.

In fact, this same council, many of the same council members who are here today have voted against the people's budget attempt to actually increase the funding for the nonprofit service sector for exactly this purpose, you know, for increasing the wages of the workers there so that they themselves are not at the level where they would actually be eligible for some of the services that they provide.

And that has not happened because of opposition from the Democrats on the council.

And it's deeply unfortunate.

And I hope that the council members are voting yes today.

I mean, I support this resolution, obviously, and I'm going to be voting yes.

I appreciate Council Member Herbold bringing this forward.

But at the same time, It's just, it remains to be said that it's, that's not enough.

And I hope that the council members are voting yes, and are speaking to this, talking about the cost of living increases, which absolutely has spiraled in this city.

And the data is showing that inflation rate here is actually greater than the national average.

I hope that these council members will be voting yes on the rent control bill that my office is bringing forward.

without introducing loopholes that serve landlord greed.

And I also wanted to add that I find it pretty stunning, not surprising, but pretty remarkable that Council Member Nelson talks about performance standards for the sector where workers are working so hard and are facing real challenges.

languishing living standards in order to do what they are dedicated to do, which is provide services for the most vulnerable people at their most difficult moments.

This is pretty rich for a council member who is gung-ho to keep increasing funding for a bloated police budget.

What performance standards do we use for the police who have been complicit in all kinds of violence and predominantly racially motivated, but in general against poor people and working people.

And the record of the police department is pretty abysmal when it comes to extreme violence as well.

So yes, voting no on this resolution is an anti-worker position because it's a question of accountability to whom?

Accountability to working people or accountability to the corporations that control the Chamber of Commerce.

And also it should be mentioned that the reason the comparison is being made to other jobs, not just in that same sector, is because the point that is being made here in this study is how far behind the pay is languishing in this sector compared to the standard of living, I mean, the cost of living.

And so if you look at that, it is pretty shocking how badly these workers are being paid.

And I also think it needs to be mentioned that in order to actually keep the promise from this resolution, and I see this as a promise, and I think Council Member Nelson ironically has a point there, that actually it does require elected officials to keep the promise, and in order to keep the promise, We need to increase the Amazon tax and we need to fight, we meaning those of us who have the ability to do it.

And we need working people to build movements to fight for state level taxes on the wealthy and on big business.

And none of that is going to happen in one day, certainly, but it needs leaders to actually show accountability to working people.

And I don't think it's good enough for elected officials to say, well, we understand this is a problem, but what can we do?

No, you have the power as an elected representative to take the correct position on an issue that is affecting some of the most marginalized and vulnerable working people.

And when you are not willing to even vote yes on resolution, I think that says something about your position.

I hope that council members will be voting yes on the rent control bill that my office is bringing forward.

Thank you.

Thank you customers want, I should add that I heard from the clerks customer herbal that they will be posting and updating the agenda with the University of Washington study so that will be available to the public.

So, got that done, because we're herbal Do you want to close this out so we can go to a vote.

Thank you so much, yes.

Just to address some earlier remarks first, before I close out on previous resolutions, I think the resolution noted was the lead resolution that was passed four years ago.

In the four years since the passage of that resolution, the goals of the resolution have not been fulfilled.

Instead, the resolution has been invoked to stop budget reductions to that particular program.

And just like Council President Juarez states, resolutions are often the start of the conversation.

So I just wanted to be real clear about what the resolution does do.

It recognizes the recommendations of the wage equity study without committing us to any of them.

It acknowledges the council's responsibility to work toward wage equity for nonprofits, human services providers.

It states the council's intent to consider increasing contractor wages by 7% by 2025. Intent to consider, yes.

Resolutions are policy statements of intent and the intent of this resolution is an intent to consider increasing HSD contracted worker wages.

This is a conversation to be had during budget deliberations moving forward as it relates to whether we can do so and the amount and the funding that we may need to do so.

It also requests a plan from the Human Services Department to incorporate wage equity into the evaluation of requests for proposals received by the department, the executed contracts, the reporting and annual contract monitoring, to ensure funds are used for worker wages.

So this is to address the concern that we might not know if increased funds will result in actual increased wages.

This expectation is built into this resolution with reporting on it.

and then lastly it asks the executive to consider whether human services workers contracted in other city departments should also be included in future budget deliberations.

I want to thank central staff Jen Labreck, Karina Bull and Christina Kotsubos from my office.

Karina and Christina both served on the steering committee for the wage equity study.

I want to thank the human services coalition especially Jason Austin tree Willard and Julius Dukovsky, as well as the University of Washington research team, led by Jenny Romick Amiko Kajima and Shannon Harper.

Thanks to the Human Services Department who helped with the analysis, Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington and Budget Director Julie Dingley, Councilmember Peterson who offered really helpful edits and feedback which I believe made this resolution stronger and much more clear.

Councilor Mosqueda, who not only offered edits that we incorporated, but also for her longtime leadership on inflationary increases for nonprofit workers, specifically Council Bill 1195-42, which required that the Human Services Department provide annual inflation adjustments for renewing contracts.

and thank you as well to everybody who called into public testimony this afternoon and previously to share the real-life impacts of the paid penalty because I think those are the stories that really make the case.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I apologize, I was getting ahead of myself.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Nay.

Excuse me?

Nay.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Thank you.

Your volume is very low there in chambers.

Council members Sawant?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Thank you.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

Thank you.

Let's move on in our agenda.

There were no items removed from the consent calendar.

Council President Juarez, before you move forward, can you- Oh, I gotta say the magic words.

Thank you.

The resolution passes.

And Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the resolution.

Are we good?

Thank you.

Thank you.

So as I shared, moving on to our agenda, there are no items removed from the consent calendar.

And if we move on to the adoption of the resolutions, we do not have any.

So is there any other business to come before council before I move to adjourn?

Okay, I'm not seeing anyone raise their hand about any other business to come before city council.

So this is the end of our items of business on today's agenda.

And we will meet again on Tuesday, June 27. And again, thank you all for your robust comments.

And I hope you have a great day and we are adjourned.

Yeah.