Seattle City Council 2/4/2025

Well, hello everyone.

The February 4th, 2025 meeting of the Seattle city council will come to order and it is 202. I'm Sarah Nelson, council president.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Moore.

Present.

Council member Rink.

Present.

Council member Rivera.

Present.

Council member Saka.

Here.

Council Member Solomon.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Eight, present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, Council Member Hollingsworth will be excused from today's meeting.

Hearing no objection, Council Member Hollingsworth is excused from today's meeting, and we do have Council Member Saka joining us remotely.

All right, there are no presentations today, so at this time we'll open the hybrid public comment period.

And please note that we do also have a public hearing on Council Bill 120937, which is listed as item G right after we approve the agenda.

So if anyone is here to comment on that, please hold your comments until the public hearing and make sure you're signed up for the record on that.

All right, moving right along.

Public comment is limited to items on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar and the council work program.

Clerk, how many people are signed up to speak today?

We have two in person and three remote.

All right, we will start with the in-person commenters and everyone gets two minutes.

Please go ahead.

Speakers will be called.

Yes, thank you.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speaker's mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

We'll start with Howard Gale.

Following Howard Gale is Alex Zimmerman.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gale, District 7. Two weeks ago, at the King County Courthouse, two of six jurors in a King County inquest found that SPD officer Jared Keller's use of deadly force in the 2018 killing of Iseo Faletogo was not legally justified and was criminal.

The inquest was only the second in history where more than a single juror found a police officer acted criminally in a death.

and the only inquest involving an SPD officer where any jurors found an officer's actions were criminal.

In fact, based on the jurors' comments, at least five and possibly all six jurors found that either Officer Keller, the SPD policies, and or all the officers' actions on scene caused the unnecessary killing of Fala Tyro.

Yet our much celebrated police accountability system across all entities found that the killing was, in fact, quote, lawful and proper, unquote.

Just as when SPD went on to kill Danny Rodriguez, Ryan Smith, Sean Lee Furr, Terry Caver, Derek Hayden, and Rigoberto Barbilla-Pallejo.

When killed by the SPD, all these people were holding no weapon and or were experiencing a severe behavioral health crisis while holding a knife.

Today, you will appoint or reappoint four people to the Community Police Commission.

The CPC stands out among over 80 city commissions and being one of the very few that prohibits public comment, especially ironic given that it claims to represent the community.

What we discovered two weeks ago and also discovered, well, we discovered from random King County jurors who are far more capable of representing facts and representing the community than the CPC has been, calling an SPD murder exactly what it is.

And in my last 22 seconds, I'll mention, think about next week the less lethal weapons ban and crowd control.

Your actions are historic in that they will pierce your quality of immunity.

and result in probably direct liability for the inevitable harms.

Thank you.

Hi.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I'm a Trump supporter and MAGA member for 10 years.

You have today too many appointments, and I want to speak about something that is very important for appointments.

Number one, I'm very happy.

So we have right now three black consul in this chamber.

It's very important for everybody.

I always support Black Lives Matter.

When I'm a young man, I support black partner.

Yes, exactly.

I always support.

Angela Davis, too.

It's not a point.

So what is I want to speak right now about appointment people is very important.

I always support people who fighting for freedom and black doing this for a long time.

I always support people who fighting for freedom like American 250 years ago.

And what is Trump in MAGA fight right now is for freedom.

Why?

Because I am a Jew.

A Jew fighting for freedom for a few thousand years.

It's very important when everybody have voice, have right for speak.

Not everybody want to kill one another.

Because voice, your tongue, sometimes more dangerous than dynamite.

This is exactly what they want talking about this.

But I don't see this from Sarah Nelson.

Consul, you know what this means?

You always give us one minute.

Why you always give us one minute?

You're not so busy or too much busy.

and I'm talking for many times, 100 times for many years, open better room in City Hall so everybody can go one day per week and speak for three minutes without your censorship, without your control.

It's very important.

We never will become a free government, a democratic government when we don't have a freedom of speech.

Viva Trump, viva New American Revolution, and viva right for people to speak three minutes.

Can I move on to remote speakers?

Our first remote speaker will be David Haynes for general comment, followed by Alberto Alvarez.

And I want to remind our remote speakers to press star six after you have heard the message that you have been unmuted.

Go ahead, David.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

It's time to put a federal injunction on the court authorities and demand that President Trump take the tariffs that he's going to be applying and reimburse the property taxes for King County that keep getting squandered, welfare-subsidizing offshore infrastructure that turns over our poor sovereignty to foreign corporations who water down the integrity of the customs inspections that bring contraband and drugs that act like an open border here in Seattle offering free container offloads.

Anyway, I wanted to address something that I heard from city council yesterday because I'm concerned about the ignorant idea that DEI is a priority.

If you take a look at the accident that took place in Washington, D.C., where the plane and the helicopter crashed, there was one person doing two people's job because the FAA is short-staffed.

And there's lawsuits about these white applicants who were qualified, who were purposely denied because of DEI, an affirmative action infraction international that puts a purposeful discrimination against meritocracy slash qualified individuals regardless of their skin color.

And it seems to me that people need to focus on the problems of public safety, homeless crisis, and housing crisis that have been exacerbated by the race-baiting, button-pushing, bottom of the barrel policies that put scorned experiences in charge and then turn against the community with bully tactic, power mongering, hypocrites who want to undermine the integrity of solving the homeless housing and public safety crisis and have a great American housing build out without a bunch of racist hypocrites dumping their trauma on everybody else.

Instead of like treating people like you would want to be treated, They're treating people like they've been treated or somebody else has been treated, and they were miseducated by a hateful person who ignobly implemented some pathetic, racist script.

Our next speaker is Alberto Alvarez, and following Mr. Alvarez will be Jim Williams if he signs in before Mr. Alvarez finishes.

Go ahead, Mr. Alvarez.

Keep density fair.

The comp plan is designed to add density to a vibrant city in an ever-growing state.

Supply is the intent of the comp plan.

Supply to meet demand is the most basic principle of any market.

District 2, which has suffered the most from redlining and divestment by the city, cannot bear the brunt of increasing housing for the entire city.

Queen Anne, Madrona, Green Lake, and yes, even Maple Leaf must provide a fair share to combat the housing affordability crisis.

Sheltering for the poor and those in substance recovery, rentals for the barista, the grocer, and the local line cook, homes for the young family so they don't drive one to two hours in return to office gridlock.

Keep density fair and do not let the wealthiest communities control the needs of the working people.

Thank you and have a good day.

Thank you.

That was our last remote speaker that's present for general public comment.

Thank you very much.

We've reached the end of the list of registered speakers.

So the public comment period is now closed.

Thank you all for your kind comments today.

All right, moving right along.

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

Hearing none, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

And if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

Will the clerk please read the title of the public hearing item into the record.

Council Bill 120937 relating to taxes, creating a new sales and use tax deferral for the conversion of underutilized commercial property to housing and adding a new Chapter 5.75 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

All right.

Thank you very much.

As the current sponsor of this item, I will address it and then turn it over to Council Member Solomon as Chair of the Land Use Committee.

So just a little bit of background here.

I'll detail the reasons for that in a moment, but first I want to provide some context.

This bill is before us today given some unusual circumstances.

As you may recall, the day before we wrapped up budget last year, the mayor's office transmitted Resolution 32156, declaring the city's intention to establish a new sales and use tax deferral for the conversion of underutilized commercial property to housing.

which came in response to a change in state law allowing us to do that.

The resolution's text set a public hearing on this bill that would have been in January before the Land Use Committee and the committee in December unanimously approved the resolution on December 4th.

However, by the time the resolution came before Council on December 17th for a final vote, the then land use chair, former council member Morales, had announced her intention to resign, creating a vacancy affecting the committee's ability to take action until the vacancy was filled.

As we didn't have a land use chair through most of January, and in order to keep action on this important bill from stalling, we decided to move the public hearing from land use committee to full council, and council members amended the resolution to hold the hearing in Council today and passed it unanimously.

The resolution set a public hearing for members of the public to comment on the bill that would actually establish a new sales and use tax deferral, Council Bill 120937. In order to have a live bill for the public to comment on, And to keep things moving, we introduced Council Bill 120937 and referred it directly to Council with my sponsorship.

However, now that we have a land use chair, Council Member Solomon, who has agreed to take up sponsorship and move the bill forward.

So thank you very much.

So after we hold today's public hearing, we'll add his name as a sponsor with myself as co-sponsor.

Also, as this bill from the mayor allows us to implement a change in state policy that is the result of the legislature's passage last year of enrolled second substitute Senate Bill 6175, which was sponsored by Senator Yasmin Trudeau and passed by both chambers almost unanimously, I've agreed to Councilmember Solomon's request to bring the bill before full council for a vote next week with the caveat that it could be delayed or if needed to address any objections or concerns that may be raised during today's public hearing.

So that's the background of this bill and this public hearing.

So with that, I'll turn things over to Council Member Solomon to speak to the bill.

Thank you very much, Council President Nelson.

So the background of Council Bill 120937, it was introduced last week and referred to the Council for February 4th public hearing.

TODAY.

THE INTENT OF THIS BILL IS TO IMPLEMENT A PROGRAM IN SEATTLE THAT WOULD DEFER SALES TAX AND USE TAX FOR PROJECTS BEING CONVERTED FROM COMMERCIAL USES TO RESIDENTIAL ONES WITH AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMPONENT.

COUNCIL MEMBERS PREVIOUSLY VOTED TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 32156 IN DECEMBER 2024, WHICH SIGNALS THE CITY'S INTENT TO ADOPT A SALES USE DEFERRAL PROGRAM FOR THIS PURPOSE.

And I want to thank Council President Nelson for sponsoring this legislation.

I will also co-sponsor this bill.

Our next steps will be for the council to take action on this legislation, Council Bill 120937 at next Tuesday's February 11th full council meeting.

Thank you very much.

As presiding officer, I'm now opening the public hearing on Council Bill 120937. Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have four in person and two remote.

All right, let's give everybody two minutes and start with the in-person commenters.

We'll start with Mark Angelino and then William Ledman and then Raymond Connell.

Just a second.

My name is Mark Angelino and I've been a resident of the city of Seattle for 32 years.

I'm the managing member of Stream Real Estate.

We're a small local real estate development and investment company based in Seattle, commenting in support of proposed Council Bill 120937 concerning office to residential conversion for affordable housing incentives.

As many of you are aware, we are proposing to convert a long vacant 1980s vintage office building to much needed residential and affordable residential units.

The bill proposed under Council Bill 120937 will be the trigger to make our project and many others feasible so that we can move forward from discussions of converting underutilized commercial spaces to actually building them.

In our case, we will be using both the MFTE program and this program to make almost one-third of our project affordable units.

This is a great benefit to the city and the community.

I would like to emphasize the need to move the bill along quickly as possible with no further delays in voting past next week as we are currently in the permitting process in anticipation of this bill passing and we will be ready to start construction very soon but cannot start until this bill passes and we are confirmed as approved by both the city and the state.

There's a long process in this.

Every delay puts our and many other projects at increasing risk of not occurring.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Bill Liedem, and I work at Urban Renaissance Group.

I come before you again today to voice my support for the council to approve council bill 120937 to adopt the proposed residential conversion sales tax initiative.

Urban Renaissance is an owner, manager, and developer over 10 million square feet in the Seattle area.

Many of URG's assets are older office buildings in the Seattle CBD, including the building I work out of called the Joshua Green Building at the corner of 4th and Pike.

Today, URG estimates that the Joshua Green building's value as an office building is down 75% to 85% from peak pricing.

There is very little tenant demand for office suites at the building, with many of those office suites staying vacant for years.

Since the pandemic, conversion of multifamily has been too costly to contemplate older assets.

Council Bill 120937 will improve the feasibility of turning the 120-year-old Joshua Green Building and others into badly needed affordable housing.

A converted Joshua Green building could bring as many as 100 units to an important corner in the CBD and help activate the area around the building with new residents and retail.

We are now five years since the start of the COVID pandemic, and it's time to act to incentivize additional affordable housing in the close-in CBD.

There have been multiple briefings on this topic of conversions, and I would encourage the council to pass this bill as quickly as possible.

Capital is being actively raised to look at conversion opportunities across the United States.

This bill will help make conversions in Seattle a more compelling opportunity, create more, sorry, both construction jobs and more long-term housing options.

But if you delay, that capital could go elsewhere.

For little to no cost, the council could adopt this bill, which will build upon some of the recent successes URG has witnessed downtown, thanks to your leadership.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Ray Connell.

I'm with Holland Partner Group.

We're the owner of several multifamily buildings, but we have four levels of office space that have sat idle for five years.

And we don't anticipate leasing that space up for at least another five years.

With this bill, which we support, we anticipate having residents move in by the end of the year, hopefully.

Depends on how fast that vote happens next week.

If it's next week, yes.

Later on, maybe not, but we hope to have people move in by the end of the year.

So just very supportive.

I think this is a bold step, and I applaud you guys.

Thank you.

Alex Zimmerman is the last in-person speaker.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Alex Zimmerman.

I love you.

I love you guys, all of you, you, yeah.

Typical Nazi mob bandita.

Taxes, taxes, taxes is good for Bill Gates and McCain.

So for 10 year I talking about taxes and I talk stop taxes for first hundred bucks because poor people always pay more.

10 year I talking about this and all my election and now on.

who work for government, no matter elected or not elected, support this.

The situation is absolutely idiotic right now.

You want what is poor people pay more taxes for poor housing.

for poor people housing.

It's idiotic.

You are mentally sick.

You are freaking cretin and psychopath.

Can you do something for poor people?

Little bit more?

So, you want taxes?

No problem.

But no taxes for first hundred bucks.

Inexactly for poor people who are income very low.

Close to thousand dollars.

Thousand and thousand don't have a penny for paying for food or gas.

You want more taxes for poor people?

Who pays these taxes?

You don't understand how stupid you are.

That's exactly what's happened.

So I speak with you right now like I speak before a dozen times.

Stop taxes for first hundred bucks.

Give poor people a little bit of air for breeding.

Stop in this idiotic situation.

We have Amazon, Microsoft, Google.

They are multimillionaires.

Ordinary manager makes half million dollars.

Why don't you touch him?

You know what does mean with taxes.

He can pay one percentage taxes, but this hundred poor people will be paid.

Stand up, America.

I support Donald Trump, who won clean this dirty government totally.

Thank you very much.

Can I move into remote speakers?

Our first remote speaker is David Haynes, followed by Carlin Veazey.

And a reminder to please press star six once you've heard the message that you have been unmuted.

Go ahead, David.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

We need a law that treats the justification for giving the sales tax reprieve to request that the developers, bring full shifts like two full shifts to expedite the projects so they can start work right away because if they're getting a sales tax reprieve if you had double the amount of workers on the job expediting those projects being paid proper that's still part of the tax base that would benefit everybody but if they're going to pad the cost on the bourgeoisie trade chic perception of value that they need to probably noise abate so there's not such a warehouse echo in a ill suited neighborhood that's still unsafe because council's still exempting drug pushers going along with the mayor that i think you all need to realize that the vacant lots that the tax dollars have already financed to tear down those pieces of land need to be turned over to for profit developers to go as high as they possibly can to create as many emergency housing options not necessarily emergency housing but definitely some service providing or affordable housing that would be robust in its build out because relying only on older buildings that the chamber of commerce owns that thinks that they can just pull a fast one and try and force the market to reinvest in the debt service of perceived values where they're bragging about how much more they can make some antiquated, outdated, dilapidated, flawed design floor plan from a hundred years ago that somehow is iconically trade chic enough to historically preserve into forcing people to live in a modern third world slum.

That if you had two shifts, highly motivated, paid proper with the right financing, you could probably make something pretty decent.

But you gotta have some of these buildings turned over right now for shelter because y'all haven't done anything to build the capacity of housing for shelter and homeless.

Our last remote speaker on the public hearing is Carlin Veazey.

Go ahead, Carlin.

Hey, somebody can hear me.

My name is Carlin Veazey.

I'm a Seattle resident and work for a company called Stellar Holdings, which has developed a lot.

office and multifamily in Seattle for a few decades.

Just wanted to highlight some of the risks with office to residential conversions.

They're typically a little bit higher risk than ground up multifamily.

I'd worked for Unico before this and the project in Tacoma, the ASTOR that was redeveloped.

It was not in the floor plans, but there was an interior staircase that was discovered during construction.

The project had to stop.

structural reinforced to have that repurposed as a floor area.

Before Seller, I moved here from Philadelphia and worked for a company called Alterra Property Group, and they have done about six to eight of these kind of Class B office conversions that have completely revitalized Center City, Philadelphia.

So I would encourage you to kind of look at those as examples.

They're you know, beautiful office buildings that are completely different from what the available stock is, and they encourage people to move and kind of repurpose Center City.

So hoping that Seattle could be a trend.

I mean, this is, you know, hugely impactful for looking at converting some of these older office buildings.

You know, I'm also at Fourth and Pike, and, you know, we have an office building here that's also kind of, you know,

severely struggling and um i want to just underscore how impactful this this will be so thank you for your time thank you there are no more remote speakers thank you very much we will now consider the proposed consent calendar items on the consent calendar include the minutes of january 27th and 28th Council Bill 120938, which is the payment of the bills, and four appointments from the Public Safety Committee.

Are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

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

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

Council member Kettle.

Councilmember Moore.

Councilmember Rink.

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar items are adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

All right, committee reports.

The first item on today's agenda is Council Bill 120927 relating to flood insurance.

And normally the land use chair would speak to this bill.

And however, as our new land use chair just got started last week and is still getting up to speed.

And as the bill makes an extension to interim regulations that we've extended a number of times, our land use vice chair, Council Member Strauss has spoken to these issues many times previously and so I asked him to step in and speak today and he has generously agreed to do so.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

The report of the City Council agenda item one, Council Bill 120927 related to flood plains, eighth extension of interim regulations established by Ordinance 126113 and as amended by Ordinance 126536 for an additional six months to allow individuals to rely on updated national flood insurance rate maps to obtain flood insurance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's flood insurance program.

I move to pass Council Bill 120927. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Council Member Strauss, you're recognized in order to address it.

Thank you.

Again, in February of 2020, FEMA required an update to Seattle's floodplain development regulations to reflect FEMA's new flood insurance rate map.

The new flood insurance study, as well as the city's audit, audited the city's floodplain regulations.

Through this audit, FEMA identified several places the Seattle code needed to be amended in order to comply with the minimum standards.

Over the course of the last several years, there have been negotiations between the city and the port regarding this, specifically with SDCI.

Once SDCI issued the State Environmental Policy Act decision on proposed permanent regulations, this decision was again appealed by the port.

SDCI withdrew that SEPA decision and worked with the port staff to resolve the issues raised by the port.

And then that was complete.

And then in August of 2024, SDCI issued a new SEPA decision on updated proposed permanent floodplain development regulations.

That decision was not appealed.

However, the reason for extension is that after the SEPA Decision peer and business owners along the central waterfront came forward with additional concerns.

SDCI and the mayor's office are currently working to resolve these issues and move forward with proposed permanent regulations for the city council consideration prior to the expiration of this current interim regulation in August of 2025. I urge a yes vote.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you very much.

Are there any questions?

Comments?

All right, the bill has been, I moved to pass Council Bill 120927. It's already been, we've already gone through this.

Okay, so there are no comments or questions.

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

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

All right, there were no items removed from the consent calendar today, so will the clerk please read item two into the record under the adoption of other resolutions?

Agenda item 2, resolution 32161, designated the monthly pro tem of the City Council of the City of Seattle for 2025, superseding resolution 32123.

I move to adopt resolution 32161. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

As sponsor of this legislation, I'll address it first and then open the floor to comments from council members.

All right, this is a fairly technical bill, of course.

Resolution 32161 updates the monthly Council President Pro Tem list to include Council Member Solomon in place of former Council Member Morales and sets Council Member Rink as the December President Pro Tem in place of Council Member Wu.

Are there any questions or comments?

All right.

Seeing none, will the clerk please?

Council President.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

Does this resolution not make other changes as well?

No, it does not.

Okay.

Is that coming up next?

We have three resolutions today.

Copy that.

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item three, resolution 32162 relating to committee structure, membership, meeting times and duties of the standing committees of the Seattle City Council for 2025 and superseding resolution 32124. Thank you very much.

I move to adopt resolution 32162. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

As sponsor of this resolution, I'll address it first and then open the floor to comments from council members.

All right.

Resolution 32162 updates the membership of Council's standing committees.

The only slight change to this resolution, and as you are all aware, is that Councilmember Saka will take Councilmember Morales' place on the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

while Councilmember Salomon will then replace Councilmember Saka on the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

As I said yesterday, it is basically a one-to-one switch.

Then Councilmember Salomon will take on the rest of the standing committees once held by Councilmember Morales, including as chair of the Land Use Committee.

Will the clerk, okay.

Are there any comments?

Go ahead.

Council President, I'll be supporting the changes today, and I'm excited to have Council Member Saka join the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

I am also noting for the record that changing committee assignments outside of the standard two-year cycle is out of the ordinary and norm.

I understand that there's been a lot of changes over these last few 13 months, and I'll be supporting the resolution.

Just want to note for the record to reflect I have not seen this type of action take place since coming to City Hall.

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

This, it is also irregular to have a vacancy, but we've already been through that.

Let me tell you why I'm doing this.

When I assumed, when I was going through, as I was going through committee assignments in preparation for the presidency in this term, I gave preference to the senior members of the City Council, you and Council Member Morales, and gave you your pick of committee choices, and you chose finance, and Council Member Morales chose land use.

You also, Council Member Strauss, wanted to be on the Sound Transit Board, and even though Council Member Saka was transportation chair, that went forward.

He very much, Council Member Saka very much wanted to be a, first of all, I'll remind folks, there were four people that wanted to be public safety chair.

and Council Member Saka was one of those people.

He ended up chairing transportation and it would have made sense for him to then go and go ahead.

No, I'm done.

Nope.

It would have made sense for him.

I'm just getting to you my point about why it's so regular.

And so you got finance and sound transit.

He wanted to sound transit and public safety chair.

I felt that it was correct when it was announced that Council Member Morales would be leaving and there would be a spot left, there would be an open spot on the Land Use Committee and he asked for it and I thought it was the right thing to do.

Not only because he had asked last year and hadn't gotten any of his first choices, also because I privileged you and Council Member Morales as the senior members and SACA has a bit more seniority than Council Member Solomon, even though not very much.

And so, as I explained to Council Member Solomon and other applicants to the actual vacancy for District 2, I let people know that this was my intention, was that going to be a problem?

No one, including Council Member Solomon, said it would be a problem to be on my committee instead of the land use.

So that is a long explanation for explaining, I know, for explaining how irregular it is, but I just really, in a collaborative spirit, wanted to uphold well, not uphold, I wanted to grant Council Member Saka's wish and well-reasoned argument to be on the Finance Committee.

Just a second, let me see.

Council Member Saka?

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I tried to interject to just say, you don't need to explain to me your reasoning.

I was just stating for the record.

You'll see tomorrow from myself in the Finance Committee where we'll be talking about the things that we did differently last year, the things that we're looking to do this next year, and just noting that things are when things are out of the norm and standard practice.

Because with so many new folks, I had a conversation with somebody last year about how many things had been different that I hadn't ever seen before.

and they didn't realize that things had changed and been different.

And that's why I'm just noting for the record that this is out of the standard and norm.

That's why I also said that, quote, I understand there's been a lot of change in these few 13 months.

And so that incorporates two different council members coming and going in appointment processes.

I think this is a long way of saying I just wanted it noted for the record.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you very much.

Any other comments?

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Council member Kettle?

Aye.

Council member Moore?

Aye.

Council member Rink?

Yes.

Council member Rivera?

Aye.

Council member Sacca?

Aye.

Council member Strauss?

Yes.

Council member Solomon?

And Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and the resolution is adopted.

Wait, Amelia.

I'm sorry, that's eight in favor.

I'm sorry.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

All right.

The motion carries and the resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Will the clerk please read item four into the agenda?

Agenda 4, resolution 32163, relating to participation for 2025 on King County committees, regional committees, state committees, and city of Seattle committees, and superseding resolution 32157.

All right.

I move to adopt resolution 32163. Is there a second?

Second.

It's moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

As sponsor of the resolution, I will address it first and then open the floor to comments from council members.

All right, Resolution 32163 updates Council's membership on external committees.

The changes there are limited to Council Member Rivera taking Council Member Morales' place as a Seattle representative to the Association of Washington Cities.

Council Member Rink is taking Council Member Saka's place on the PSRC Economic Development District Board, which conflicts with finance, and Council Member Solomon taking the remainder of Council Member Morales' committee assignments.

Any questions or comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Salomon.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

Will the clerk please call the roll on, no, excuse me.

The motion carries and the resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signatures to the legislation on my behalf?

All right, is there any other further business to come before Council?

We've reached the end of today's agenda.

Our next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held on February 11th at 2 p.m.

Hearing no further business, we are adjourned and it is 2.44.

Thank you, everyone.