Seattle City Council Briefing 6/26/23

Other box down there.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Monday, June 26. This is the Council briefing.

I'm calling it to order.

The time is 2.01.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Council President Ores.

Here.

Clerk, I'm also here, Strauss.

Oh, Council Member Strauss, apologies.

No problem.

Seven present.

Thank you.

I should add again for the record that Councilor Mosqueda is excused from today's meeting.

If there's no objection, the minutes from June 5th will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes from June 5th are adopted.

We have no proclamations on today's agenda and today and the council member lineup, we will start with Council Member Herbold.

Following our individual reports, we will then have one 20 minute executive session, possibly 30. If we do, I'll come back on the record.

But for now, we're going to hold 20 minutes for executive session.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include minutes payment of the bills, as well as one appointment to the Climate Pledge Giving Council.

And as you all know, we will take one vote on the consent calendar unless, of course, one of the council members would like something removed to discuss later.

There are 11 items under committee reports on the agenda tomorrow.

The first is an appointment supporting or appointing Shireen Dedman to serve as the Seattle City Clerk.

As you know, Monica retired and then Elizabeth left.

So we have selected Shireen Dedman.

Hopefully you all had a chance to look at her confirmation packet.

in all the material.

In addition, Ms. Deadman made herself available to meet with each council office to answer questions in advance of tomorrow's confirmation vote.

I hope you all had a chance to look at her phenomenal resume, and I'm really excited to introduce her tomorrow for that appointment to get it confirmed.

Following that vote, council will consider a council bill relating to the regulation of home occupations.

As you may recall, this was held from last week at the request of the Land Use Chair, Dan Strauss, and Council Member Strauss will speak to that item.

We will also take up two council bills and two clerk files reviewed and recommended by the Public Assets Committee.

And these include an agreement with Friends of the Waterfront for the operation of Waterfront Park, an agreement with New Rising Sun for the presentation of the annual Bumper Chute Music and Arts Festival, A clerk file approving the development standards for replacement of fire station 31. A clerk file regarding the development standards for the South Park media center and Councilmember Lewis, who is the chair of that committee will be speaking to those items tomorrow, and may address them today.

We'll also be considering five council bills recommended by the transportation in Seattle Public Utilities Committee, including.

A council bill regarding an agreement between Seattle Parks and WSDOT for recreational improvements as mitigation for the 520 bridge project.

A council bill granting granting access to the rights to the state of Washington for access over and under property known as Fire Station 22. A council bill extending block the box in transit only enforcement programs, a council bill allowing limited application of the herbicides to treat invasive, not weed.

That sounds exciting.

And finally, a council bill regarding a stormwater facility agreement with Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority.

And again, Council Member Peterson, as chair of that committee, will be speaking to all five of these recommendations.

All of this information, as you all know, for tomorrow's agenda is available online.

So I'd like to alert everyone that next week City Hall will be open for business on Monday, July 3rd.

So we will not have a council briefing next Monday.

City Hall and council offices will be closed on Tuesday, July 4th.

As you know, it's 4th of July and we will hold the council meeting.

We'll kick that over to Wednesday, July 5th at 2. So instead of Tuesday, we'll do it Wednesday at 2, July 5th.

You will be receiving a memo from me outlining our Council briefing schedule for July, August, and September.

We will again be consolidating Council briefing meetings to two meetings in July and September and one in August.

After today's meeting, our next Council briefing will be Monday, July 10th.

All right.

As I shared, there are no proclamations for me to sign, for us to sign today.

So we will begin our review of city council actions and council briefings.

And we're going to start with council member Herbold today.

And then it will be council member Lewis, Morales, Nelson, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, and Juarez.

Has council member Sawant joined us yet?

Yes, I'm here.

Sorry for being late, President Juarez.

That's fine.

I just want to make sure you were here.

Okay.

Council member Sawant is with us, so you know what the lineup is.

And with that, council member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate the handout.

So the Health Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting tomorrow.

There are three items listed on the agenda.

First is an update on pool dispatch.

This will be our most recent update since the last one that we heard in committee in February.

We will also be having a discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 12-580.

This is an ordinance related to app-based worker standards, establishing labor standards on deactivation for app-based workers.

Substitute incorporating some technical amendments and separate amendments from council members are linked to the agenda.

Some of the proposed amendments are mutually exclusive, so we're working with the clerks on how best to hear those amendments.

We're also hearing from the Human Services Department on age-friendly Seattle, addressing social isolation and promoting anti-ageism.

The agenda was previously scheduled to include an update from the city auditor about the retail theft audit.

We had been prepared to ask council members to be with us until one o'clock p.m.

for our committee meeting to incorporate that update from the city auditor on the council requested myself and Council Member Lewis retail theft audit.

Um, but the eye has been delayed though.

Um, the city auditor has received feedback from external bodies, including the attorney general, the county prosecutor, land security and several business groups.

We've not yet received feedback.

from the executive branch governments and I think folks who are familiar with the city auditor's approach understand that before finalizing an audit, we definitely need to hear back from those executive department participants in the audit.

So I'll hold on that and hopefully we'll be hearing it before too long.

And then a quick update on a bill that we heard in committee last committee meeting.

You may recall that on June 13th, committee members heard legislation proposed by the Community Police Commission regarding Community Police Commission operations.

On June 21, after our committee briefing, the CPC discussed the version heard in committee on the 13th.

And we now now that we've Had that conversation at the CPC, the bill itself will be scheduled at the July 11 committee meeting for a vote with coming central staff absences.

We're asking that committee members.

to contact Greg Ross regarding any amendments by this Friday, June 30th.

Again, that's this Friday, June 30th for the CPC operations.

Just a few additional public safety related updates.

reminding the viewing public with July 4th coming up, fireworks displays are banned in Seattle and in unincorporated county.

As I lifted up in my newsletter last week, we know that in this state last year, we saw 310 fireworks-related fires and 198 fireworks-related injuries last year.

We know this is the busiest day for our emergency responders, and so we ask that, in addition to enjoying professional fireworks displays, like the one over Lake Union this year, that folks stay safe and for making calls.

about fireworks unless there is an injury or a fire in progress, we ask that folks call the non-emergency line because there are so many emergencies over the 4th of July weekend.

I want to also touch on an issue that has been well covered by the media.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Harrell appointed a Fentanyl Systems Work Group.

I know in addition to myself, council members Nelson Strauss and Lewis are represented on these work groups.

I just want to take this opportunity to say how important it is that this work address all subjects, including the potential financial commitment associated with our path forward, and that we really, it's important to get some clarity on finances and costs, regardless of which direction the city takes.

I want to thank the mayor's office for releasing the results of three independent investigations of complaints to the OPA originally that named former police chief.

I thank the mayor for commissioning independent investigations.

after his office was informed about this shortly after taking office.

And after these complaints were languishing on the desk of the prior administration, since they were complaints against the police chief, they weren't being handled by OPA, they'd been sent to Mayor Durkin's office and again many thanks to the mayor's office for addressing the languishing complaints.

Folks remember on a parallel track the council adopted legislation to establish a process for complaints that name the thief moving forward and not only at the mayor's office, but also the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of the Inspector General for aligning their work.

this effort with the legislative process moving forward adopted by the council.

And lastly, just want to, on this particular topic, appreciate that the mayor has set the expectation that not only the chief, but all department heads participate in processes for complaints even after they're gone.

It's, I think, a really important expectation for our mayor in setting expectations for new hires.

And it's unfortunate that this has transpired the way it has, but it's an important statement that the mayor made as it relates to this set of circumstances.

The Office of Inspector General has posted the relevant documents in the report section of the OIG website.

Lastly, on the public safety front, just want to reference information that I have received from the Chief of Police in the announcing of a new task force to address gun violence in the city after the tragic act of incomprehensible gun violence in Belltown on June 13th, recognizing that the police department has already done tremendous work of removing large numbers of guns from the criminal ecosystem over the last year, and that There has been a reduction in serious shooting injuries compared to 2022. Has been increasing.

and our entire nation is still facing an epidemic of gun violence.

I talked to the chief about this task force today.

It was important to confirm.

I am appreciative and supportive of the constant triaging that the chief has to do with limited staff to address emerging needs.

And it was important to confirm that The triaging of officers to participate in this new task force will not result in any reduction to the sexual assault detectives, as had occurred in previous efforts to triage police officers for emerging priorities.

Also on the major events updates, just quickly on last week's events, I attended the Morgan Junction Community Association Festival last weekend.

Last Thursday, I was really pleased to visit Chief Sealth International High School to learn how they're addressing the student mental health needs using 500,000 dollars in city funding that I championed in 2022. Denny Middle School, Rainier Beach, Aki Kurose and Ingram also received funds this year.

Itself is prioritizing Latin next students.

Record reported the highest levels.

And avoidance, which says is 1 of the more obvious ways that mental health issues sent in itself students a, but a 3. approach, including a workshop series focused on ancestral, intergenerational, and interpersonal trauma, healing, joy, and resiliency, including a 16-week after-school program and a new staff member that is working to forge relationships directly with students and families to connect them to self by providing academic support and restorative conversations and supporting attendance goals.

These learnings from this pilot, from this initial $500,000 in those target schools will enforce the very increased city investment in mental health next year, championed by Councilmember Mosqueda, an additional $4 million.

So I'm really, really happy to see some of that.

those learnings and finding out how they're going to be applied.

Also, last week, the alternate response mayoral and council work group met on Friday to discuss the accomplished and yet to be accomplished tasks towards a quarter three launch.

I also had my regular monthly and twice monthly meetings last week with Director Betz, Chair Gonzalez, and Chief Scoggins.

I and Deputy Clerk Emilia Sanchez represented the Legislative Department in the City of Seattle contingent of the Pride Parade.

It was a fantastic city turnout as well as a huge and very joyous spectator turnout as well.

Organizers of the parade say hundreds of thousands of people came downtown to watch in person.

not only to celebrate and make welcome our LGBTQ community, also boosting economies and bringing the parade viewership back to pre-pandemic levels.

Moving towards this week, I had my regular meeting, twice monthly meetings with Chief Diaz today.

I also have the second meeting with the fire department and community stakeholders Um, with concerns about the new obstructions legislation, we've met with, uh, DPD already public defense, and, um, we have included the fire department change team.

And this, that was one of a series of meetings that we're having with concerned stakeholders.

And then lastly, on Friday, I will be pouring the hope and chance addiction center, which serves homeless individuals and those recently released from jails and prisons.

in a system in procuring or reinstating Medicaid and Medicare health benefits, finding housing, and receiving medication for opioid use disorder.

Thank you.

Does anybody have any questions or comments?

Not seeing any.

I will pass it on to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Uh, good to be with you colleagues.

Happy Monday afternoon.

We have 5 items from the public assets and homelessness committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

Those items are the appointment 1st, the appointment of Ashraf to the climate pledge arena giving council for a term to June 30th of 2026. Council Bill 120590, which authorizes the Superintendent of Parks and Recreation and the Director of the Seattle Center to enter into an agreement with friends of the Waterfront Seattle for the operation and maintenance of Waterfront Park and public spaces.

I will just briefly mention we had multiple hearings on this legislation in the committee.

One of the ongoing hurdles that committee members will be aware of, and maybe some other members of the Council, was the ongoing negotiation around a labor harmony agreement with Friends of the Waterfront.

I'm very pleased to announce that Friends of the Waterfront and the various labor unions seeking to bargain with Friends of the Waterfront did reach an accommodation on labor peace.

And with that information, we were happy to move forward with the entire package, and I commend the parties for working in good faith to resolve that potential conflict.

Moving on to the next piece of legislation, Council Bill 120604, which authorizes the Seattle Center to execute an agreement with New Rising Sun for the presentation of Bombershoot, which will be returning to the Seattle Center this fall.

Really looking forward to that and really appreciate Um, the diligence of the Seattle center and really moving forward with those budget ads that the councils put forward to help bring this together and really appreciate the mayor's office and their diligence and working through this as part of our post cobit recovery here in the city.

We also approved a couple or recommended the approval of a couple of clerk files.

First, I'm clerk file 314494 approving the concept for fire station 31 located at 11302 Meridian Avenue North and waiving some development standards.

This is a fire station In District 5 and we had a great very thorough presentation from the Department on the need and the process warranting the waiver of these development standards.

So we look forward to considering that at full Council and appreciate the presentation that we received in the committee.

The next clerk file 314499 modifies some development standards to allow the redevelopment of the South Park Community Center.

and allow for five light poles for the athletic field lighting at that site.

So similarly, we received a thorough presentation and we look forward to confirming the committee's decision.

All of these matters from the committee were unanimously voted out and look forward to consideration of colleagues tomorrow at full count.

Clean city data for Seattle Parks and Recreation June 12th to 16th.

834 recovered needles for that period at 141 different locations, as well as 30,960 pounds of garbage from those 141 locations.

Seattle Public Library updates.

The short story dispensers operated by the Seattle Public Library are moving to a new location.

Two weeks ago, the dispensers moved from the Central Library and the Fremont Library to the Southwest and Capitol Hill branches, respectively.

In honor of Pride Month, a collection of Pride-related stories have been added to the short story dispensers, in addition to featured local writers.

City Hall Park is now open to the public.

It's a little outdated from the recent public announcement, but is our first briefing since the opening of City Hall Park.

It's a great place to stop in downtown.

I was there earlier this afternoon, and it was good to see community members eating lunch at the provided tables.

It was good to talk to McKenna and Jamaica, the park ambassadors who were present managing the park concierge.

and there are going to be all sorts of activities at the park.

People can play chess, they can play Connect Four, and there's going to be music provided by local buskers and other programming.

So I do encourage folks, especially us here in the legislative department so close by, to take full advantage of this newly reinvigorated green space at City Hall Park and huge Congratulations to the mayor's office and our partners at Seattle Parks and Recreation for really putting together a great reactivation of the space that the public has been without for so many years.

So thank you so much.

Seattle Parks and Recreation is offering a summer of safety.

program, which is a free program that provides structured activities and a safe space for young people not connected to other supervised programs.

Summer of Safety will operate on various days at seven different community centers throughout the city.

Additional parks and human services teams are teaming up to provide free summer meals, and you can find out more about all of these programs on the Seattle Parks and Recreation website.

And Council President, those are all of my updates, so I'll give it a second here to see if there's anybody who has any questions.

Okay, seeing no questions, I will pass it on to Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Let's see.

So first, there are no items from the Neighborhood Arts Education Rights Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

We did cancel last week's meeting.

Apologies for the late notice.

I think it was Wednesday.

We will have a meeting on July 14th.

That's the next regularly scheduled meeting.

I wanted to sort of follow up on the comments of Councilmember her bold about the SPD task force, my office will be meeting with them next week to understand more about this task force as well as to cover, or to follow up on several issues that we have been hearing from our constituents.

Other departments.

Arts.

Last week, Mayor Harrell announced that Gulgun Kaim is going to be serving as our next Director for the Office of Arts and Culture.

I'm very excited about this.

Gulgun is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, a former Stanford Arts Institute Creative Fellow.

She's got extensive public arts administration experience and really brings a strong focus on supporting our creative economy.

and revitalizing that.

So I had the pleasure of interviewing her as part of the search committee and I'm excited she'll be joining us starting July 19th.

We will have her in my committee probably a little bit later in the summer, maybe early fall once she's had a chance to settle in, but looking forward to that.

I do want to thank Interim Director Royal Allie Barnes, who has been serving in the position for the last two years, serving in that capacity.

But Royal has actually served the city in many different capacities over 40 years.

So really want to thank her for her deep commitment to public service and wish her the very best.

Last week I attended my first board meeting of the Association of Washington Cities.

Council Member Mosqueda, her term has expired and rolled off so I will be serving as the new representative along with Council Member Strauss.

Last week we elected new officers and reviewed the calendar so I will be attending the board retreat a little bit later this fall.

Last week I met with some residents from Lake Washington Apartments down in the Rainier Beach neighborhood.

They've got lots of concerns about some property management issues that they're having there, so we will be meeting with SEED tomorrow, who is the owner, and my staff is working closely with them to make sure that those issues get resolved.

I do want to thank Councilmember Zahilay and Congresswoman Jayapal, whose offices were also present at the meeting that we had in community last week.

We also had a check-in with REACH about implementation of the funds that we got for the CID Neighborhood Safety Plan in the last budget process.

That is all well underway.

We also had a check-in with the PDA.

They are expanding their services into the Rainier Valley, so wanted to make sure that we had a conversation with them about that implementation and we're looking forward to that continued partnership with our social service providers to make sure that they are getting the resources they need to serve the most vulnerable in our community.

On Friday, I attended the Beacon Hill Elementary International Elementary School Festival at Beacon Playfield.

Lots of kids out just chomping at the bit for the last day of school.

But we had a really sunny afternoon and they were out singing and dancing and sports and snacks.

So really want to thank the principal and the PTSA who helped organize that for the kids out there and glad everybody had a great time.

And then I also attended in the evening, the pride celebration of Somos Seattle, which is a Latinx organization founded by Ray Corona, and had a great time out there meeting with folks, talking to them, folks from the Mexican consulate were there, and really just a great opportunity to see the representation and the great intersectionality of folks in our community.

So thank you to them for that invitation.

This week, my office is continuing to meet with an Othello neighborhood stakeholder group around increasing youth programming in the neighborhood, particularly at the UW Othello Commons.

We have also been meeting with young people from across the district about how we increase the kind of particularly late 19 programming that is available through our community centers.

you know, a lot of resources were sort of taken away during the COVID period and the young people are really hungry for a full rebound of those services.

So we are getting late night basketball, for example, but the snacks that used to be provided aren't there in some cases.

And so there's just a real desire to make sure that the full return of the programming and availability of services and just options for young people to have something to do in the late evening are getting ramped back up.

We're also attending a community visioning session in Beacon Hill with the Beacon Hill Community Council, Beacon Business Alliance, and the arts community.

I want to wish a happy Somali Heritage Week to our Somali neighbors.

There will be celebrations happening all week and then on Saturday I'll be attending a Somali Heritage Independence Day event.

And finally, tomorrow we'll be attending the groundbreaking of a new development in the CID alongside the mayor's office and Office of Housing Director Michael Winkler-Chin.

I'm looking forward to that.

That is all I have, colleagues.

Unless there are questions, I will hand it off to Council Member Nelson.

Well, hello everyone.

The Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee does meet this Wednesday, and I want to note that it is meeting early at nine o'clock, and thank you all for accommodating the early start of this meeting.

There is the DAP announcement, Downtown Activation Plan, that is going to be happening at 10, so I'm starting this meeting early, and we have two very short items on our agenda.

One will be a discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120594, which will give City Light the flexibility on moving forward with overhead electric facilities on streets and alleys in the First Hill neighborhood.

So it's just flexibility around where they must put replacement or new Electric lines basically underground or overhead and we had a briefing and discussion about that at the last meeting and then we have resolution 32095 authorizing the commencement of cable franchise contract renewal proceedings with Comcast cable communications and this will be a briefing discussion and possible vote because this is routine legislation.

All right, so meetings that I took last week, I met with the executive director of Rainier Valley food bank with my staff team in to learn about their expanded operations during the pandemic and also hear about the, their plans for expansion of their.

a fairly new facility and the fundraising they're doing around that.

And speaking of urban agriculture, as we did earlier today, there will be a garden on that site.

So that's exciting.

My chief and I and my chief of staff and I had a meeting with Principal Zach Stoll of Robert Eagle Staff Middle School last week.

And this is something that I initiated after receiving multiple emails from parents following the shooting incident that occurred at the corner of North 90th and Nesbitt Avenue North just before 8 a.m.

Two people were shot and wounded right there right at about eight o'clock when during the transition time when kids are arriving to school either by Metro bus or on foot or by car or whatever.

So, you know, this This sort of might have gotten lost in in some of these events, but it was an active shooter incident right across the street and the principal and his security staff.

were responsible for getting kids safe inside within about a two block radius area of the school and also securing all the buildings etc and this was difficult because in part Robert Eagle Staff has a comprehensive special ed program and a lot of the kids are in wheelchairs or hearing impaired or have other disabilities but I was a impressed and really surprised that they were able to keep people calm and safe, considering that understaffed SPD had their hands full with the situation, and it was, I don't know, it was chaotic and traumatizing for the, for the staff and for the students and, you know, the parents were remarking that their kids shouldn't have to see that, you know, wounded bodies and blood, et cetera.

So, I, I realized that shootings are happening all over the city.

And I'm really glad that the, that the chief's gun task force is going to be focusing on this, this stretch this neighborhood, in part, because, you know, this, this particular this particular incident might have gotten.

sort of drowned in the furor and grief over the the the murder of Inaquan and her unborn child the day before.

But so I'm just mentioning it now and just noting that what the parents heard.

I mean, what I heard from the principal that he heard from the parents is is basically shocked that this area is at the unsafe conditions because Nesbitt Avenue is a safe route to school.

And there is a he showed me photos of a fairly extensive.

Open air drug market that is right along the way as kids are walking to school, and that's where this occurred, so I'm I reached out to the mayor's office about removal priority of this of these unsafe conditions and will see what happens.

Anyway, on that, not on that note, unfortunately, but I do want to say that I was unable to attend the demonstration on Saturday, June 17 in Belltown.

So I asked Tom Graf, who is the president of Belltown United, to give me a tour of the neighborhood.

And so I was joined, well, Tamin and I were joined by other board members of Belltown United, neighborhood residents, and Tim Burgess of the mayor's office, just to look at the hotspots in the neighborhood, particularly the alley that's right around the corner from where that incident took place.

And the mid-ambassador that joined us did relate that there is rampant violence and drug dealing going on in that alley.

And they won't even go in there to clean it or deal with trash because there's no egress, because it's abutting a building site.

So that is problematic.

And it's right across the street from a building where many, many elderly people live and families.

heard from those folks, and we also talked to the general manager of Hatch Cantina, as well as the assistant general manager of the Belltown Inn, as well as the property manager of Ventana at the Market, which is the building where Aburia Bento House is located.

So anyway, I was able to see up close some of the neighborhood concerns, and I am really looking forward to having progress on on public safety issues.

And I know that now is not the time to talk about the severity of our public safety crisis.

It's in the news all the time, but when is the time to voice the outrage of our constituents or our own, what is going on right now?

So hopefully we'll see some improvement soon.

Anyway, the the task force or the fentanyl systems work group that council member Herbold mentioned has four subgroups.

And I joined the first of one of the two subgroups that I'm on, which is the community slash therapeutic court work group last week.

And we had a very rich discussion with lots of varying perspectives.

And it does seem as though folks are willing to jump into that.

And I'm not really sure what our next meeting is, but those talks are underway.

And the other subgroup that I am on is on substance use disorder treatment.

So I look forward to seeing what's going on with that.

throughout the summer.

Anyway, I will end my what happened last week notes by saying that my staff and I met with the organizers of the 2023 Day Trip Festival.

So this is a positive thing to end on.

This is happening on July 16th at Myrtle Edwards Park, and it's being put on by Insomniac, which puts together festivals and concerts all over the country.

And I emphasized that I would really like to see that they serve food and beverage from our local small businesses and they assured me that they will be doing that and that the economic benefit to the cities in which they produce these events is top of mind.

All right, finally, sorry, I thought that was the last thing.

The T-Noble Park community cleanup last night was actually filled with lots of different organizations convened by in part the Mariners and together Seattle.

And I was part of the graffiti painting over crew in Soto.

And it was really great to see so many people come out for that and help the city get ready for the MLB All Star week.

So finally, the meetings I am taking this coming week, I'll be meeting with the Deputy Inspector Scott from OIG for a meet and greet.

And this Friday, I'll be attending the long-awaited grand opening of Harbor Island Studios.

Harbor Island Studios is a key economic development project that will strengthen our creative economy sector, especially film, because it is the first soundstage that will be available for filmmakers and all kinds of creatives since 1996. And if everyone knows that this is an initiative from King County, Dale Constantine, executive, spearheading it.

And I've been wanting to go there for a long time and it will, it has been open, but this is a sort of a rolling public open house, if you will.

And then finally on Saturday, I will be attending the Elliott Bay Book Company 50th anniversary celebration and really excited about that.

So that's all I've got for you.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right, I'm not seeing anyone.

I pass the baton to Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

There are five items from our Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

All five items were approved unanimously by the committee last week.

With Council Bill 120595, Seattle Public Utilities is seeking a routine renewal of its authority for the limited application of an herbicide to treat knotweed at the Cedar River Municipal Watershed.

This renewal has been granted approximately every three years since 2010. As you may know, knotweed is a harmful invasive species that is legally required to be controlled.

The regional office of the Washington State Department of Health confirmed its support for this request from Seattle Public Utilities.

This legislation was recommended unanimously by our committee.

Council 120598 will authorize an agreement between Seattle Public Utilities and Sound Transit for the ownership, operation, and maintenance of stormwater facilities in Northeast Seattle.

The legislation was recommended unanimously by committee Council 120599 is time sensitive legislation that extends our authorization from the state government for the automated traffic enforcement often referred to as block the box.

which is designed to protect pedestrians.

Without this legislation our existing authorization expires at the end of this month.

This council bill is supported by SDOT and was supported by the city approved by the city attorney's office.

I wanna thank Calvin Chow from our council central staff for his work on this.

Calvin circulated the council bill on June 12 to all council members and informed us of the time sensitive nature.

Our committee adopted it unanimously last week on June 20th.

Crafting it as emergency legislation enables it to take effect immediately on the mayor's signature and the mayor's office is standing by for city council votes on it tomorrow afternoon.

As you may recall, the City Council adopted the original lock the box authorization unanimously in 2020 as ordinance 126183. When the state granted new authority recently for additional types of automated enforcement, such as allowing enforcement cameras and designated drag racing zones, SDOT was attempting to incorporate all the new authority and renew existing authority all at once, but that became challenging.

So we split that concept into two bills.

This council one two zero five nine nine that we need to adopt this week to retain our existing block the box authority and the new authority that is contained in a different bill.

Council one two zero six hundred, which we'll hear for a second time on our July 18th committee.

So if you have any questions, please contact Calvin Chow for tomorrow afternoon.

Councils 120596 and 120597 are two council bills that facilitate the completion of the remaining construction for State Route 520, sometimes referred to as the rest of the West project that the city's coordinating with the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Council 120596 authorizes an agreement between WSDOT and Parks and Rec Department for the construction of the Portage Bridge Roanoke Lid over State Route 520. And Council 120597 authorizes an agreement between WSDOT and our city's Financial and Administrative Services Department, FAS, to grant limited access rights to the state over and under a portion of Fire Station 22 which sits adjacent to where 520 meets I-5.

Both council bills were recommended unanimously by our committee last week.

Our next meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, July 18th at 9 30 a.m.

As you know our committee meets on the first and third Tuesdays of each month so next committee meeting would be on the first Tuesday of next month but that's July 4th so we'll see you on July 18th.

A key item at that committee meeting will be amendments to Council 120 600, which is the local authorization ordinance that initiates.

implementation of a new state authority for use of traffic enforcement cameras where there is dangerous drag racing.

If you have drag racing zones in your district that could benefit from camera enforcement under the new state law, or if you have questions about the bill, please confer with Calvin Chow on our city council central staff.

I'm co-sponsoring that with Councilmember Lisa Herbold.

Central staff would like to receive suggested amendments by July 6, if possible, so they can be crafted and approved by the city attorney's office and published prior to our July 18th committee meeting.

Are there no questions?

That concludes my report.

And we'll pass it on to the next person.

Councillor Swann, are you there?

Yes, Councillor Swann.

Yes.

Thank you.

Councilor Peterson and apologies to the council.

I'm not able to be on camera because I'm having very shaky internet access all of today.

But we were hanging on Council Member Peterson's every word.

So they gave you time to get ready.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Tomorrow's introduction and referral calendar includes the legislation from my office to create rent control in Seattle, the Sustainability and Renters Act Committee will hold an initial discussion on the rent control bill at our special committee meeting this Friday, June 30th at 930 a.m.

During the meeting, we will hear from a community panel and then from council central staff who will provide an overview of the rent control policies in the bill.

After this Friday's committee meeting, we have scheduled another special meeting of the committee for Wednesday, July 12th at 6 p.m.

at All Pilgrims Church on Capitol Hill.

The July 7th regularly scheduled meeting time for the committee will be canceled.

The July 12th meeting will be dedicated to a public hearing on the rent control legislation.

It will be held in the evening and the location is accessible by many public transit routes This will allow for more working people to give public testimony.

And Council Members Morales and Nelson have already indicated that they're able to join this committee.

And I have heard from Council Members Juarez and Council Member Lewis that they're not able to, but if you are able to, that would be very much appreciated.

Just like the meetings in City Hall, it will be a hybrid meeting, allowing Council Members and the public to participate in person or remotely over Zoom.

And council members who are not members of the Sustainability and Rent Regents Committee are also welcome to participate in any of these committee meetings.

Please just let my staff know.

The rent control legislation from my office is only the first step in order to protect renters from outrageous rent hikes.

We will not only need to pass rent control in Seattle, we also need to overturn the outrageous state law that prohibits any city or town in Washington state from passing any law regulating rent.

That state law has pestered on the books for the last 42 years since the Democrats and Republicans in Olympia gifted it to the landlord lobby in 1981. To address this, the rent control legislation from my office is essentially a trigger law.

In other words, it becomes effective the moment the state law banning rent control is overturned.

We know that this is a legally feasible approach because We have unfortunately seen the right wing use trigger laws to attack abortion rights around the country, which we have strenuously opposed.

In the case of rent control, I think it is extremely essential that this kind of trigger law be passed in Seattle in order to lend major momentum and much needed momentum for a statewide movement to force the state legislature to repeal the ban on rent control.

The rent control policy my office is proposing has none of the corporate loopholes that the landlord lobby has often used to undermine and nullify rent control protections in cities and states across the world.

I'll go into more detail about each of these during the committee meeting this Friday, and we'll just summarize them now.

The rent control policy from my office caps rent increases at no more than the rate of inflation.

Landlords can choose to raise the rent less than the rate of inflation reduce the rent or keep it the same, but they may not raise it more than inflation.

All the rental housing in Seattle will be protected.

In some cities, rent control only applies to certain rental homes, and you have to be very lucky to get a rent control apartment.

In our policy, all renters will be protected.

There is no vacancy decontrol in this rent control policy.

Some cities have created a loophole where landlords can raise the rent by however much they want anytime a renter moves.

This is what vacancy decontrol is.

This means that the rent control policy becomes far less effective in keeping rents affordable citywide.

It also creates those outrageous situations where an unscrupulous landlord will try and bully a renter out of their apartment in order to raise the rents.

There is one-to-one replacement of affordable units anytime there is new construction in this proposed policy from my office.

So which means that if a developer demolishes a 10 unit building to build a 100 unit building, the new landlords need to maintain the rents of the 10 units they demolished using some of the new units.

There will be a rent control board deal with exceptions.

So if a small landlord faces unforeseen costs like a tree falling on the roof and they really need financial support, There will be a rent control board that can grant exceptions, but those are only for when an exception is really needed.

We will go into more detail about this at the committee on Friday.

And my goal is to bring the bill for a committee board at the regularly scheduled meeting of the committee on July 21st.

But I will, of course, review that timing after the committee meetings on the 30th and the 12th.

And that's my report.

If there are no questions, I can turn it over to Council Member Strauss.

I don't see any, so Council Member Strauss, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Wait, hold up.

It looks like Council Member Nielsen has a question.

I might have, I'm sorry, excuse me.

What is the anticipated vote date on this legislation, Council Member Sawant?

Yeah, no problem.

The schedule, proposed schedule is that the vote could happen at the committee on July 21st.

Thanks.

Looks like Councilor Herbal has a question too, Councilor Sawant.

Just a real quick question.

Councilor Sawant, you invited other council members to attend committee.

When is the first committee meeting when this is being heard?

Friday.

It's this Friday at 9.30.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Of course.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, we'll continue moving on.

Council President, great to see you.

Colleagues, great to see you.

From the Land Use Committee, there is one item on tomorrow's full council agenda, that is Council Bill 120520, Home-Based Businesses.

This is the permanent legislation following up on changes passed during the pandemic, adding flexibility for home-based businesses.

We have seen this already help entrepreneurs take their idea started in their home and move into brick and mortar stores.

This is an economic development bill.

These changes have been well received that were made during the pandemic, well received by Seattleites, and the bill before us tomorrow makes these small changes permanent.

This month out of the Land Use Committee, we also passed the Maritime and Industrial Zoning Changes.

We passed it out of committee.

This represents the final steps in the seven-year process bridging compromise between stakeholders who are typically in direct opposition with each other.

As I stated in March of this year, All council members were welcome to join our committee meetings and add amendments during the committee process.

Amendments at full council are not welcome and we will likely have a substitute bill of technical corrections that are not substantive in nature.

We look forward to final passage of these five bills and a successful resolution to a long road and a process that has brought people together to find common ground.

Just want to stop there, check any questions on Industrial Maritime before I move on.

I'm not seeing any, but raise your hand as we're continuing to go through.

I want to start with just an overview of Land Use Committee in total, just over halfway through this year, through this calendar year.

I want to start with this overview to date and moving forward, because just for reference, we have already had 18 Land Use Committee meetings this year.

Typically, the Land Use Committee would hold a total of 17 meetings in the full year.

Which means just over halfway through this year we've already exceeded the standard number of meetings, this has been due to the additional time that we've taken with the tree protection ordinance and the industrial maritime zoning changes for the remainder of the year.

We will be meeting this coming Wednesday, June 28th, and next Thursday, July 6th.

We will have two meetings in the month of September, two meetings in the month of December.

Our schedule in September is already full.

Council members who have connected with me about their bills are contained within our draft schedule.

December meetings are reserved for any cleanup work from the entirety of this year.

Understanding this, this takes us to having 24 meetings this year as compared to the 17 regularly scheduled meetings and for this reason, we will only hold land use committee meetings as necessary during the months of July and August, because we are all we've already exceeded our scheduled number of meetings and we have many more to come.

bringing us back to this week.

Our next Land Use Committee meeting is the regularly scheduled meeting this Wednesday, June 28th at 2 p.m.

We have four items on the agenda.

Council Bill 120591, the Office of Housing Omnibus Bill.

Council Bill 120581, the Affordable Housing Design Review Amendments.

Council Bill 120592, Pioneer Square Rooftop Clarification.

and a transportation resolution to accompany the maritime and industrial zoning changes.

The Council Bill 120591, the Office of Housing Omnibus is technical cleanup to clarify regulations related to affordable housing.

Council Bill 120581, the Affordable Housing Design Review Amendments Bill.

This legislation is a pilot program to allow mandatory housing affordability on-site performance projects to be exempt from design review and gives all market-rate housing projects the option to choose administrative design review as we pilot improvements to the design review program ahead of taking a top-to-bottom review of how to improve the program.

Council Bill 120592 Pioneer Square Rooftops.

This legislation clarifies 2022 changes to rooftop regulations for buildings in Pioneer Square mixed zones.

The changes before us in committee are clarifications to a bill we passed last year, which had assumed these changes were included, and we now understand further clarification is needed, which is the purpose of this bill.

This bill does help us revitalize Pioneer Square.

Okay.

Moving on.

Summarizing the July 6. Don't worry, 22 of them are appointments.

Council Bill 120588, we are having a public hearing on the moratorium of floating on water residence bill that we passed out of full council on June 13. We have Council Bill 120592, the vote on Pioneer Square rooftops that I just mentioned.

We have the vote on transportation resolution to accompany the maritime and industrial zoning changes and mayoral appointments for the following boards.

We have two appointments for equitable development initiative advisory board.

We have 16 appointments for the design review boards across the city.

There's a number of different boards.

We have one appointment for the Urban Forestry Commission and three appointments for the Seattle Planning Commission.

The public hearing on the moratorium on floating on water residences, this is the public hearing required as part of the moratorium we passed a full Council on June 13, as I mentioned that full Council is moratorium takes limited and meaningful action to protect our environment and our waterways.

while permanent policy is developed.

In short, this legislation reduces the amount of gray water that is discharged into our freshwater bodies as these permanent regulations are finalized.

On July 6th, we are just having the public hearing that is associated with the bill that was passed earlier this month.

In summary, colleagues, we are meeting this Wednesday at 2 p.m., next Thursday at 9.30 a.m., and the Maritime and Industrial Zoning Changes will come to full Council on July 18th.

Thank you, colleagues.

That is the Land Use Committee report.

Are there any questions?

Nope.

Seeing no questions, I will now pass it to Council President Juarez.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

There are no items from the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

However, our next Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee meeting will be Thursday, July 20th at 930 a.m.

So last week, last Monday, as you know, City Hall was closed in observance of federal Juneteenth holiday.

I'd like to mention that Sharon Williams, the voice of Seattle, wrote and performed a Juneteenth poem, which is currently running on the Seattle Channel.

Sharon is a dear friend of our office and, of course, the city of Seattle.

And we hear Sharon every Tuesday, as Sharon is also the voice for our rules and guidelines for public comment, and also the voice for the Seattle Kraken.

So congratulations to Sharon, and we really enjoyed posting her poem in our newsletter.

I hope the rest of you had a chance to do that as well.

Last Tuesday, we met with the Unified Care Team to discuss interdepartmental solutions to help connect unhoused folks in D5 to shelter and services.

On Wednesday, we met with the Low Income Housing Institute, Lehigh, to discuss the new Maple Leaf Tiny House Village that will be, we believe will be, after some community involvement, in District 5 on Lake City Way on 86. We're still working all that out with the community and working with our friends at Lehigh.

We also met with the Regional Homeless Authority regarding homelessness in D5 and citywide.

And let's see.

Let's see what else I got here.

Last Thursday, we attended the Sound Transit Board of Directors meeting where we considered the preferred alternatives for the Everett Link Extension draft environmental impact statement and heard the annual safety report to the board.

On Friday, for the second year in a row, it was very exciting, we attended the Refugee Women's Alliance, REWA, their graduation at the Kraken Community Iceplex.

We are joined by actor Danny Glover, a friend of ours, the CEO Jackie McCormick of Rise Above, the Deal Director Duane Chappell, the Honorable Judge Jones, who is on the One Roof Foundation, State Senator Javier Valdez, and our friend Susan Lee of REWA, Director of Early Learning and Center Operations.

So we now have Pre-K and Beacon Hill, Rainier, one in Lake City, and another one coming up in Lake City at North Haven.

So D5 will have two REWAs, and that was what we worked with.

And I should have put this on here.

It's not on here, but I couldn't make it.

But my staff met last week with the groundbreaking for the second REWA Pre-K Center with North Haven.

So we'll have this intergenerational building.

with elders and children and we've been working on the up zones for North Haven since 2017 or 18. And so now that it's up zoned and the money came in and the loans came in BECU, Amazon and I forgot who else are all lending money to help us reconstruct and Also, the people from North Haven were at the Cracky Community Iceplex Friday as well.

I should have some more information for you on that, because that really is a big deal.

This council and two councils back in 17 or 18 is when we broke ground on the Tony Lee House and put in the pre-K for Rewa.

And now we're having the second one at North Haven.

So I'm really happy about that.

And I cannot thank Susan Lee enough in her attention.

And these are the kids that are in all these pre-Ks.

that every Wednesday they come to the cracking community iceplex they take turns every third week and they ice skate and they send out a bus to go pick them up and it's amazing.

and putting ice skates on 40 children, three and four-year-olds, is quite the task.

I've done it three times, and I don't know if I'm going to do it anymore.

Anyway, coming up this week, this week we'll be meeting with HSD, as we normally do.

I will be attending the South Transit North King Subarea meeting that we do.

And my office will be attending the Low Income Housing Institute Lehigh.

meeting regarding the proposed Maple Leaf Tiny House Village on Lake City Way.

So the meeting will be at 6 p.m.

on Thursday, June 29 at the Faith Lutheran Church and will be hosted by our friend Josh Castle from Lehigh.

So this is a time and an opportunity for community to discuss and have Lehigh answer questions.

We've done this before with Lehigh when we had the house put on.

Where was that up and down on 99?

The Lehigh House of 99. Oh, Friendship Heights.

Friendship Heights and the Nesbitt House, which was a tiny house and now is actual brick and mortar.

So I'm hoping that we have a good turnout and community will be welcoming to this tiny house village.

So with that, I think that's all I got.

Unless anyone has anything else, any questions.

All right, not seeing any questions.

I'm going to move us into executive session, folks.

You should have all gotten notice last week.

So let me read the magic legal words and then I will tell you what we're looking at in a time.

What kind of time we're looking at here.

So if there's no further business, we will move into executive session and not hearing or seeing any further business.

We will now move into executive session.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The Council's executive session is an opportunity for Council to discuss confidential legal matters with the City Attorney's Office as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the City Attorney's Office is always present to ensure that we are not discussing issues of policy, which of course are reserved for open session.

I expect the executive session to last 20 minutes.

So Madam Clerk will let us know when the 20 minutes are up.

And if we need to extend that time, then we'll go back on the record and extend that time.

But we're looking at 20 minutes.

As I shared at the conclusion of the executive session, this council briefing meeting will automatically be adjourned.

The next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is on July 10th.

That's a Monday, right?

July 10th, yes.

July 10th at two o'clock.

And right now council is in executive session.

So please stand by.