Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee - Public Hearing 12/6/22

Councilmember Morales?

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Peterson.

Present.

For present.

Thank you.

And Council Member Herbold is excused.

If there's no objection, today's proposed agenda will be approved.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning, welcome back to the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

On our agenda today, we have nine items, which includes three public hearings.

First on the agenda is Council Bill 120429. This is SDOT-related legislation sponsored by Council Member Strauss that would make permanent the Safe Start Street Eateries program that help restaurants open safely during COVID.

There are a couple of amendments listed on the agenda, the first of which is technical.

agenda items two through six are five pieces of legislation from Seattle Public Utilities including two bills to accept land easements and three bills to relinquish land easements.

The three relinquishments necessitate our three public hearings for this morning.

If there's minimal comment or concern during those three public hearings, I prefer to suspend the committee rules and vote on those three items on the same day as their public hearing.

Item seven, Council Bill 120477 is about a city compost purchasing agreement.

This legislation is required by state law and encourages the purchase of locally sourced compost.

And we'll have a technical amendment on that.

to provide a more thorough definition of compost, which references the Washington Administrative Code.

Item 8, Council 120475 is for the Cedar River Sockeye Hatchery Intergovernmental Agreement.

This authorizes execution of operations of the hatchery with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The ninth and final agenda item is Council Bill 120476. That's the Duwamish Basin Steward Interlocal Agreement sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

That bill would share the costs of a new Duwamish Basin Summon Recovery Steward with King County, Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle.

So at this time, I will go on to the public comment section of the agenda.

First, let me, oh, I've got a note here.

I wanted to, I wanted to express my gratitude to the city's frontline workers, including the crews from our Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Public Utilities, and other city departments for handling the snowy and icy weather from last week.

I connected with our SDOT director, Greg Spatz, both before and after the snow events, and it seems city government's response was proactive and thorough in maximizing safety on our streets.

Yes, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

I was wondering, could we move the SDOT agenda item back one or two spots on the agenda?

Yeah, so if there's no objection, we could amend the agenda to make our agenda item one, move that back a couple places so we would hear items two and three first.

Is that what you're suggesting?

Yes, that'd be great.

Great.

There's no objection.

We'll amend the agenda to handle items two and three.

We'll have those go first.

We'll still call them agenda items two and three, though.

Okay.

Well, let's go ahead and open the general public comment period for the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We have a hybrid process so people can speak here in person or online.

We've got nobody signed up in person yet, and we've got three people signed up online.

So I'll go ahead and read the instructions for this.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner, starting with the speakers who've registered online, and then any speakers who happen to show up in council chambers will come later.

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

We'll give each speaker the traditional two minutes to speak because we do have a full agenda of the nine items and several public hearings.

And this is for the general public comment period, not for the public hearings.

call on two speakers at a time in the order in which they're registered on the council's website.

If you've not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can still sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at seattle.gov slash council or by using the sign-in sheet near the public comment microphone toward the front of this council chamber.

Remote speakers, once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it's their turn to speak and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

for all public commenters.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item which you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or to our committee's oversight responsibilities.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

If you're providing public comment remotely, once you have completed your comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six before speaking.

We've got Steve Hooper followed by Gordon Padelford.

Go ahead, Steve.

Thank you, Chair Peterson, hi, council members, and thank you for your time this morning.

My name is Steve Hooper.

I'm the president of Eaton's Stoll Restaurants and the president of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance.

On behalf of the entire Seattle Restaurant Alliance, all 2,700 members, we want to express our full support for Council Bill 120429 to make Safe Start permits permanent.

And thank you for all the support of the current extension we're operating under of the Safe Start outdoor dining program, giving operators the certainty to make the investments they have in their outdoor dining spaces, both throughout the pandemic and on an ongoing basis.

The street permits, as you know, have been critical in helping neighborhood restaurants throughout our city survive the pandemic and provide much needed rest and relaxation to guests during critical and difficult times.

Making this program permanent with the proposed fees will ensure that it's equitable and accessible across our city, regardless of the size of the business that is applying.

It's been wildly popular with residents, operators, and ensures vibrancy within our city and our neighborhoods.

Finally, there are several amendments today before you, and although the Seattle Restaurant Alliance appreciates Council Member Peterson's sentiment, in Amendment 2. We actually feel the best approach moving forward is a reporting requirement, which is why we are supporting Amendment 3. Thank you again for your consideration.

Thank you so much to SDOT for all of their hard work.

They've been a terrific partner through this entire process, and we've really appreciated all of the hard work of each of you.

And thank you, Council Member Strauss, for your leadership in pulling this all together.

With that, I'll cede the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Gordon Padelford, followed by Taylor McAtee.

Go ahead, Gordon.

Morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Padelford.

I work for Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and I just wanted to go over some rapid-fire Q&A that I've heard from the public on this topic for the Cafe Streets proposed legislation.

First is, has it really been used in Seattle?

And the answer is overwhelmingly yes.

As you heard from Steve, you know, 300 plus small businesses have taken advantage of the program and just made it easier for businesses to all over the city to participate with lower fees, lower barriers, and this permanent program continues with that flexibility and equity built in.

And then the second is, do people like it?

And the answer is overwhelmingly yes.

You know, we did some polling last year with Northwest Progressive Institute that found 84% of Seattle voters really supported this program.

SDOT has found similar levels of support in their surveys.

Third question is, are food trucks bad for brick and mortar businesses?

And according to research we've seen, the answer is no.

It tends to actually be a net positive overall because you sort of create a cluster of opportunities.

And folks, you know, like take Ballard Ave for example, like to go out where there are multiple options in case your first pick is too busy.

And then the fourth is, you know, what's the deal with the rough and ready appearance of some of these structures?

Is that a permanent kind of thing?

And I think the answer for that is, you know, providing this permanent program will allow these restaurants and other businesses to invest in sort of better looking, more permanent structures because they're not worried about it collapsing and going away.

And then in terms of accessibility, you know, we've heard that as a key concern and we're Looking forward to SDOT really making sure that those clear zones are kept free.

That's baked into the legislation, and the challenge is often when it comes to implementation, but we're confident that SDOT will be able to do that.

Another question is around privatization.

Are these taking away public space?

The answer to that is no.

We're talking about parking spaces where you have to be able to own and operate a car.

And lastly, tax revenue, you know, is this reduction in taxes?

What we've seen elsewhere is that actually it's really

Thank you.

Next, we've got Taylor McAtee.

Go ahead, Taylor.

Hi, I'm Taylor McAtee.

I own a small brewery, Snapshot Brewing.

And we have had a safe start, you know, street cafe since the early days of the pandemic.

And, you know, we just want to I just sort of want to show my support and, you know, a lot of the other small business owners that I'll talk to in our own community and Greenwood, I know are in huge favor of making this program permanent.

About halfway through the program, we decided to go ahead and tear down our original Safe Start Cafe and build a new more permanent structure that was better for the surrounding businesses that was, you know, see through so you can still see the storefront.

And, you know, that requires significant investment.

And I mean, if you look around the city, I believe that lots of small business owners have sort of made the same decision we have and you're looking at, you know, iteration to a lot of these safe start cafes, which is just really required.

significant investment on all of our parts, and they're really loved by the community members.

I can't tell you how many people come into our business every day and ask us, the first question out of their mouth is, our first comment is, I hope that the city is gonna let you keep this permanent.

And I mean, ESSA has been a great partner in this throughout the process.

And we look forward to being able to transition these into permanent cafes to better serve, you know, the community, as I do believe that some, you know, people in the community are never really going to feel comfortable coming back into a crowded restaurant and prefer, you know, the health benefits that these street cafes offer.

Additional little quick, and I guess that's my time, but yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes our list of speakers from the general public on this comment period.

Now we'll begin, we'll move to the The item on the agenda we'll move to is agenda item two from Seattle Public Utilities.

I'll speak to this.

The presentations is actually for items two through six, and I think I don't anticipate public, I'm not seeing public commenters for the public hearing, so I think we'll get through those pretty quickly.

So we'll just treat those as a group, two through six, because they're all together with the same presentation.

And the parliamentary procedures already lined up for that and then we'll we'll get back to item one on the agenda.

So will the clerk please read the short title of agenda item two.

Agenda item two, council bill 120470, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, declaring certain real property rights relating to sewer and storm drain easements within Seattle as being surplus to city utility needs, authorizing the general manager slash CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to relinquish such easement rights for public hearing, briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, again, items two through six on the agenda are interrelated, and we have Seattle Public Utilities staff here today to give us one presentation on all five council bills.

Three of these are relinquishing easements and therefore require public hearings.

So after the presentation on all five, we will address each council bill as it appears on the agenda separately for votes.

For each of the three public hearings, we'll use the procedures similar to our regular public comment period.

Again, looking online, we don't have anybody signed up for those three.

If there is minimal discussion in the public hearing or among ourselves, we'll go ahead and attempt to suspend the rules to vote on those councils today, the same day as their public hearings.

Really appreciate the hard work Seattle Public Utilities put into these bills and We're going to go ahead and have them show their presentation, but wanted to first ask Brian.

Good night from our city council central staff.

If you had any opening remarks, maybe confirming that you have no concerns for the committee and improving these easements.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, Council Members, good night, Council Central staff.

Correct.

So yeah, from time to time, in order to properly install and maintain their facilities, SPU does come before the Council to request easement, acceptances or relinquishments.

I don't really have anything to add other than what you've already provided, but I will say that I have reviewed the items and I don't have any issues or concerns to bring to the committee's attention.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Okay, well, let's put up the presentation and get started, and then we'll do the parliamentary procedure after we hear the presentation.

And once you have the presentation up, folks from Seattle Public Utilities, feel free to introduce yourselves.

Hello?

Is my mic live?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to.

So, so my name is Jacques Rodriguez, and I am the SPU's interim real property manager.

So like you heard today we have five ordinances accepting relinquishing easements.

These are bundling ordinances as part of our streamlined easement acceptance process.

These ordinance ratify and confirm property rights between 2019 and 2022. So today we have Jerry Caruso presenting the seat ordinances.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jacques.

And good morning and welcome committee members and transportation and council members.

And thank you for attending this presentation.

My name is Jerry Caruso and I'm a senior real property agent for the real property division of the financial and risk services branch of Seattle Public Utilities.

And I'm here to present five ordinances for Seattle Public Utilities.

Next slide, please.

The five ordinances being presented today are divided by fund source, water line of business, and drainage and wastewater lines of business, and by subject matter, easement acceptances and easement relinquishments.

The easements rights accepted and or relinquished by these ordinances were granted to the city for no monetary consideration as a condition of development.

In addition, the property rights secured and or released by these ordinances are for easement rights only and not full ownership rights.

As non-city owned property is developed, drainage and sewer lines are often relocated or retired to enable full use and development of the site.

And when these pipes are relocated, the easements serving them are no longer needed.

Council Bill 120470 and 472 authorized the release of drainage and wastewater easements for storm and sewer pipes that have been relocated and are no longer needed for the municipal drainage and sewer system.

This map depicts the location of the easements being released by Council Bill 120470. And this map depicts the easements being released by Council Bill 120472. And similar to the drainage relinquishment ordinance, when non-city-owned property is developed, water lines may also be relocated or retired to enable more efficient site development.

And when that occurs, the easements serving those water lines need to be released.

Council Bill 120474 authorizes the relinquishment of a water main easement that was acquired for a private development project that was never initiated.

And the easement is not part of nor needed for the municipal water distribution system.

This is the location of the water main easement being released by Council Bill 120474. Development of non-city-owned property also often includes installing new drainage and sewer pipes to serve the development.

The easements acquired through Council Bill 120471 grant access to the city to operate, maintain, and replace the drainage pipes, valves, and other infrastructure owned by Seattle Public Utilities and installed on non-city-owned property.

This map depicts the location of the easements being accepted by Council Bill 120471. And like the drainage and wastewater acceptance easement ordinance, development of non-city owned property also includes installing water lines, water meters, fire service lines, and other facilities to serve the development.

The easements acquired through Council Bill 120473 authorize the acceptance of easements granted to the city to operate, maintain, and replace pipes, meters, and valves owned by Seattle Public Utilities that have been installed on non-city-owned property.

This map depicts the location of the easements being released by Council Bill 120473. On the next slide is a list of street addresses of the acquired easements.

And this concludes my presentation.

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have on any of these five ordinances.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for putting it all together neatly for us in a single presentation.

And colleagues, like I said, this relates to the five council bills, three of which require a public hearing, still not seeing anybody signed up for the public hearing.

So let me go ahead and open and close the public hearing, and then we'll see if there are any questions from committee members on the first bill, which is Council Bill 120470. Okay, the public hearing on Council Bill 120470 is now open.

Again, I'm not seeing any speakers signed up for this public hearing.

Will our ledge IT folks confirm you're also not seeing any speakers signed up for this?

Yes, nobody signed up, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

So since there are no members of the public registered to speak for this public hearing on Council 120470, this public hearing is now closed.

Colleagues, are there any comments or questions about this council bill?

And again, my hope is to, if there are no major comments or questions, to go ahead and suspend the rule so we can vote on this today.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to thank Jerry for your presentation.

Very clear.

And for me, understanding this, it is we have water lines that need to be moved, and we have sewer and wastewater lines that need to be moved.

We have new lines going in, and we have old lines going out.

And that is the base and summary of all of this legislation.

I have no problem suspending the rules today, and I just really appreciate Jerry and Jack.

Great presentation today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions?

Okay, if there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on a recommendation on Council Bill 120470 on the same day the public hearing was held.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and the committee will vote on the recommendations now.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend the City Council pass Council Bill 120470. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120470, item two on our agenda.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120470 will be sent to the December 13 City Council meeting.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the third agenda item?

Agenda item three, Council Bill 120471, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities accepting easements granted to the City of Seattle for installation, operation, and maintenance of sanitary sewers, storm drains, and appurtenances at various locations in Seattle, placing the real property rights and interests conveyed by the easements under the jurisdiction of Seattle Public Utilities for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

And colleagues, as we discussed before, this is one of the five council bills that SPU staff already addressed in their presentation that's published online with the agenda.

I will not need a public hearing for this item as we're accepting an easement instead of relinquishing it.

Are there any, uh, final comments or questions before I move to vote on this item, agenda item three, council 120471. And again, we appreciate the analysis and comments of our City Council Central staff.

Brian, good night, that there are no issues with these five bills.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend the City Council pass Council Bill 120471. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120471, agenda item three.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120471 will be sent to the December 13 City Council meeting.

Will the clerk please read the short title of agenda item four.

Agenda item four, council bill 120472, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities declaring certain real property rights relating to sewer and storm drain easements within Seattle as being surplus to city utility needs, authorizing the general manager slash CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to relinquish such easement rights for briefing, discussion, possible vote,

Thank you.

And public hearing.

Oh, thank you.

Yes.

We're going to move on to our second public hearing.

This is for Council Bill 120472. The public hearing on Council Bill 120472 is now open.

Not seeing any speakers registered to speak for this council bill at that special public hearing.

So, Will the staff please confirm that you're also not seeing anybody signed up for this public hearing?

Yes, that is correct.

Thanks very much.

So since there's not a member of the public registered to speak for this public hearing on Council Bill 120472, the public hearing is now closed.

and we will ask our colleagues, do you have any questions or comments about this Council Bill 120472, which was already included in our presentation and already analyzed by city council central staff?

Okay.

Again, if there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on a recommendation on Council Bill 120472 on the same day the public hearing was held.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and the committee will vote on the recommendation.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend the city council pass council bill 120472. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this council bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council bill 120472, item four on our agenda.

Council member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120472 will be sent to the December 13th City Council meeting.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the fifth agenda item.

Agenda item five, Council Bill 120473, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities accepting easements granted to the City of Seattle for installation, operation, and maintenance of hydrants, water mains, domestic meter vaults, fire service meters, and appurtenances necessary for water utility purposes at various locations in Seattle, placing the property rights and interests conveyed by the easements under the jurisdiction of Seattle Public Utilities for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Council members.

Um, this again is, is accepting an easement.

So no public hearing on this one.

Uh, we've just got this and one more left and then we'll go back to item one on our agenda.

Uh, council members, um, again, we had a presentation already on this, so I, I'll go ahead and move that the committee recommend the city council pass council bill 1, 2, 0, 4, 7, 3 item five on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this council bill.

Any comments or questions from members?

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120473, item five on our agenda.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Stewart?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120473 will be sent to the December 13 City Council meeting.

And finally, let's go ahead and read the short title of the sixth agenda item.

Agenda item six, Council Bill 120474, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities declaring the real property rights relating to a water utility easement as being surplus to city utility needs, authorizing the general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to relinquish such easement rights.

For public hearing, briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

This will be our third and final public hearing, and it's for this Council Bill 120474, The public hearing is now open on Council Bill 120474. Again, not seeing any speakers on my end.

Can we confirm from Ledge IT that you're not seeing speakers as well?

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and note that there are no speakers for this public hearing on Council Bill 120474. So we'll go ahead and close the public hearing.

And again, colleagues, if there's no objection, we'll go ahead and suspend the council rules to allow the committee to vote on a recommendation on this Council Bill 120474 on the same day the public hearing was held.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended.

The committee will vote on the recommendations.

Council members, any final comments or questions on this last of the SPU easement bills?

All right, council members, I now move that the committee recommend the city council pass Council Bill 120474. Is there a second?

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded and recommended passage of the council bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council bill 120474, item six on our agenda.

Council member Morales.

Yes.

Council member Sawant.

Yes.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120474 will be sent to the December 13 City Council meeting.

Colleagues appreciate your flexibility and working through those items.

And then if there's no objection, we'll go back to agenda item one on our agenda.

Councilmember Strauss is at work as a sponsor of the bill.

Are we ready on the agenda item one?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, great.

All right.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the first agenda item into the record?

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 120429, an ordinance related to street and sidewalk use to make permanent programmatic elements of the Temporary Business Recovery Permit Program that authorized vending, merchandise display, outdoor cafes, and street closures in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

This legislation is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, and I believe we're first going to hear from our Seattle Department of Transportation with a presentation.

We did hear from them several weeks ago, and we're going to hear from Elyse Nelson, Joel Miller from SDOT.

First, I didn't know, we do have our city council central staff here, Calvin Chow.

Calvin, you're welcome to make any you know, set the table or we can we can also open it up to you later in the presentation.

Sure, council members, I'm just a reminder that we did have a presentation on the legislation back in September.

There are a number of amendments that I can speak to at the end of the presentation.

But I think we should just jump into the presentation.

Thank you.

Great.

All right.

All right, hi everyone.

It's great to be here.

Thank you council for the opportunity to talk again.

about our program.

So this PowerPoint is actually the same PowerPoint we gave in our September briefing.

And we thought that this made sense to kind of go over high level.

Just a reminder session, we haven't made any substantive changes to the package since September.

So my name is Elise Nelson.

I'm the street use public space manager.

And Joel Miller is also here on my team today.

We look forward to quickly walking you through this and then digging into any details as you see fit.

Next slide.

This is SDOT's vision, mission, and values slide.

And I'd like to point out how the Safe Start program and this legislative proposal really delivers on our core values, including livability.

And we see that as a really primary one where we're creating great neighborhood spaces that people really enjoy.

but we do have the permitting program.

And part of that is to make sure that we are also considering safety and mobility.

And then equity has really been a core tenant of this work along the way.

Next slide.

So we'll kind of really quickly hit the background, go over the outreach and what we've really seen over the course of putting together this legislative package.

And then if we have our recommendations, we'll again, try to stay high level, but can dig in as you see fit.

Next slide.

So the curb space, this is just a 101 slide to help you understand the different zones that we're talking about.

I'm actually surprised the slides here, because I didn't think this was on our PowerPoint, but I can roll with it.

So you have the three zones here.

The property line is the building frontage zone.

That's number three.

Then the pedestrian clear zone, where it's always kept clear for people walking.

And then the furniture zone is this box two, and then number one is the curb space zone.

That's where you may find parking, but we also allow curb space cafes.

Next slide.

All right, so our timeline from where we've been, you know, we launched the Safe Start program in June 2020, and we've been doing evaluation and engagement ever since.

We came forward with draft long-term programmatic recommendations, and now we're presenting to you.

We started this summer.

We're continuing into this fall and winter, and then the Safe Start program will end in 2023. Next slide.

Okay, I'm just gonna know, I don't know if it matters, but this isn't the right PowerPoint.

I can roll with this one for sure.

I don't know exactly how it's different than the one from September.

At least I can bring up the other one.

Okay.

I'm just worried that there might be things that we've changed if this is our July one.

Yeah, let's take the chair.

If we could just take a moment to get the.

Yeah, no worries.

And we'll switch to the other PowerPoint.

And here, maybe while we're going chair, if you might, I might have a few remarks to share about this legislation.

Please.

Thank you.

So colleagues, I have been waiting for this day since even before I thought that I would run for office because I have wanted to see us have more vibrant street space by using entrepreneurial spirit of our small businesses.

And long ago, I would look at the street cafes that we had available to us, and it was maybe three feet off of the property line, or we had a generalized public space in the curb space that didn't necessarily belong to anyone.

So it really belonged to no one in some ways.

And what we found during the pandemic is that when we give small businesses, making it a reasonable fee, which we have before us today, and making it a reasonable process.

We saw small businesses really adopt this across our city.

And so today, this is our final step in the pathway to permanence for street dining and many other types of street use for small businesses.

This legislation incorporates aspects of the design shreds that I've been holding for Ballard Avenue.

And throughout this process, SDOT and I work to ensure these rules are right sized for Seattle, that there's adequate transition time for businesses, there's flexible options for year-round vibrancy, and that Seattle's businesses are supported as they continue to recover from the pandemic.

This legislation is informed again by the pilot on Ballard Avenue and the design charrettes that we've held.

And one thing that I really want to highlight is that we could have rushed to create this legislation a few years ago, and instead SDOT spent their time making sure that small businesses had SDOT's time to approve these permits, to make sure that businesses weren't waiting in line, that there weren't unnecessary barriers while we took the time to figure out these right-sized regulations for our city.

We've seen our neighboring jurisdictions adopt early and then close early.

I really want to thank Elise, Joel, and Aditi, and everyone else who has participated in this work to get these regulations, both the cost right-sized, but also how much space and where we're using the space right-sized for our city.

Because Really, the reason these outdoor dining spaces and the street cafe in Ballard are successful are because of the small business owners using their entrepreneurial spirit to make our city more vibrant.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And to our team from Estad, are you ready with PowerPoint?

Yes, thank you.

I appreciate the time there.

I just didn't want to have inaccurate information in case that wasn't to date.

So thanks for getting this one up.

All right, so basically, can we go to one slide back, Bill?

So I just want to highlight what types of business uses we're talking about when we say safe start or we talk about these permits.

So outdoor dining, merchandise display that retailers might have, food vending, and then street activation, things like street closures that are small and mid-scale.

Next slide.

So again, this is bringing forward the lessons that we've learned during the pandemic to our permanent programs.

That's the intent of this legislative package.

The program will end in 2023. Next slide, please.

Part of our effort was to look at how our program lines up with citywide policies.

So these screenshots are a few examples of plans we reviewed, and we have found that Our program and this proposal delivers on a lot of policies that are found in city plans.

Next slide.

We've also done quite a bit of outreach.

We're really proud of the outreach we've done and the engagement we've had from the city of Seattle residents and business community and advocates.

So we did a general survey with over 10,000 responses.

It was very positive.

We've also conducted community meetings and met one-on-one with a variety of stakeholders, including BIPOC, organizations and people, community groups, disability rights advocates.

We've done our SIPA checklists and public notification as required, as well as blog posts.

Next slide.

So here's just a graphic to show the support we saw as part of our survey.

So you'll see really high levels of support for everything and kind of off the chart support for cafes and food trucks and street closures in the public realm.

Next slide.

Here's the timeline slide for what's next up.

So we're here, fall, winter, whatever you want to call it.

We hope to have the legislation in effect in mid-January, assuming that we have a vote and it moves to full council.

Our safe start permits for vending will expire as planned on January 31st.

We are working right now to get vendors set up with their new permits and open it up for new vending opportunities We think that we need a little bit more time for the cafes and street closures to get set up for success so that we're looking for an extension until June 30th with this package.

Then cafes can come in starting January, February to get their applications in the door.

We'll work with them to get that new permit issued before June 30th.

And they'll have next summer and fall to get things in order, build any changes that they need to, final compliance for any changes by the end of next year.

Next slide.

So just high level, we're gonna try to stay high level here.

Our overall goals, we see this as delivering on vibrancy and livability and resilience.

We've learned a lot about how the right of way can be a great space to kind of quickly navigate and use.

We wanna lower our barriers for participation, especially for BIPOC owned businesses, including our vendors.

We wanna provide new tools and options for activating Seattle's public space.

and build flexibility into our approach, make sure that we have a way to evaluate and improve and iterate over time.

Next slide.

To dial it in a step deeper, you know, for outdoor dining, we want to make sure that we can plan for longer lasting and sturdy structures that really encourage that year round vibrancy.

And we also want to make sure we're balancing the curve space so that we have adequate space for floating as well as activation.

For merchandise display, we want to simplify our process and actually remove a permit requirement if you're just simply putting up a retail rack in front of your business.

For vending, we want to help some of Seattle's smallest businesses that are often owned by people of color.

We want to also add more opportunities for brick and mortar and food truck partnerships, such as breweries being able to have food trucks nearby.

We want to allow food truck pods where that seems appropriate and just open more opportunities for vending in Seattle.

Street activation, that's our street closures.

We really want to see more public and community use of Seattle streets for some of those fun events that really make Seattle a special place.

Next slide.

So now I'm going to skip these slides, Bill, and go all the way to the last slide.

These are really the dialed in details that we talked about in September and nothing has really changed.

I'm happy to dig in as you see fit, but if not, that ends my presentation.

Thank you.

Council Member, so we'll go to some questions about the base legislation and then we will start the parliamentary procedure to move a couple of the amendments, Amendment 1 and Amendment 3, and we'll explain what happened to Amendment 2. But Council Member Ellis, do you want to?

Have any comments or questions, please.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you to the stop team.

It is exciting to see that we're sort of easing up on some of the restrictions for street vending and street cafes.

I'm excited about this.

I think it helps create vibrant neighborhoods, increases commercial activity.

It's all part of how we grow our local economy.

I am a little bit concerned, I will say, about the fee structure.

The memo we have from central staff indicates it was developed with the goal of full cost recovery, which I totally understand.

You know, I understand the need to support the administration of the program, but that feels a little bit in contradiction to the goal of really supporting small businesses and reducing the barriers to entry for for micro businesses, particularly as it relates to food trucks.

So I'm wondering if it's possible to get a little bit of a breakdown of the cost of program administration.

And I'm also just trying to understand if the goal is to recover costs, what happens if costs go up, or if the number of permits that are anticipated is different?

Sure, and would you like, Council Member Morales, do you like SDOT to answer that, or central staff, or the sponsor?

SDOT, if you've developed this fee structure, that would be great, if you could help answer those.

Yeah, um, I guess what I would say high level is that street use operates as a cost center.

So we do need to recoup the cost of our time we spend reviewing issuing and inspecting our permits and so that's kind of what the basis of our fee schedule is is making sure that we recoup those costs, and we did look at removing.

Sarah Silver, PB): Occupation fees in certain cases, those are, you know, more based on the policy of, you know, use of the right of way.

Sarah Silver, PB): But the the issuance fees are kind of more based on time spent and we do evaluate that on an ongoing basis to see how it's matching up with, you know, our, you know, our resources and and it could go up or down over time based on kind of like you said, the amount of permits we get, the time it's taking us.

We have a lot of lean process improvement champions within our team, and we do look at how we can improve our processes going forward.

So, I mean, I know fees don't usually go down, but we do like to make sure we're keeping our process as lean as we can.

Go ahead, Council Member Morales.

It looks like maybe Councilmember Strauss wants to weigh in on this too and then I just have a follow up.

Thank you Councilmember Morales, I too have some concerns with the permit fee schedule so that's separate so just for colleagues are all general awareness, there is the application and permit for the structure and the space fee.

And that's for cafes, that's $1,222 for your first one.

And then it drops down to, I believe, $650 for renewal fees.

So that for street cafes in particular has gone down from about $3,000.

For each permit down to 1200 and then 600 per permit.

I know that some of the other fees for some of the other types of permits have have gone up just slightly but they're all.

As a grouping, it is lower than it has been before.

What's giving me a bit of pause is the, and I'm just looking down here at my notes, the permit or licensing fees for things that are outside of SDOT's domain.

So think electrical, sewer, water, yeah.

And in some case, whether you have to move a parking meter or if there's something with the street, the power poles, et cetera, This is where the fee becomes, the cost becomes a little bit more inconsistent.

And so I was talking with SDOT just this week about how do we make this more consistent?

So if the SDOT operations crew gets stuck in traffic, that actually increases the amount of time that they are spending on this project, increasing that cost.

And so how do we make this more, more focused so that we are reducing costs for our businesses.

Having a flat fee also gives me pause because then some businesses that need to have work done in front of their business are having a lot of hours for a very low price.

And then some businesses have a very short amount of time for that same price.

And so I just want to take this moment to share with you, Council Member Morales, I share these concerns and I'm going to continue working with SDOT to address this.

And thank you, Council Member Strauss and Council Member Morales.

And I see Calvin Chow from our central staff has his hand up.

Go ahead, Calvin.

Thank you, Council Members.

I just wanted to just highlight that this is getting a little bit beyond the purview of the SDOT street use sort of cost center in general.

A lot of these types of things kind of speak to the challenges that there might be based on location that are not really tied to the SDOT regulatory authority.

They're tied to physical improvements that may be necessary to the site.

You know, this may be getting speaking to kind of a.

a more small business oriented focus in the city in general.

I think there are limits as to how much we can address those types of issues in the S.Street use fee schedule and sort of Elyse's program, Elyse and Joel's program.

And it may require sort of more engagement with OED and sort of a broader understanding of how we're trying to promote these types of businesses.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Calvin.

And I think, you know, when we pass this initial language, and I am speaking specifically about food trucks, I should probably say that, when we pass that initial language in 2011, I was working as a food systems consultant and teaching a workshop at Highline College about how to grow your food-related business.

And I can tell you the cost of operating a food truck does not support the goal of supporting micro enterprises.

And so that is part of where I'm coming from and looking at how this works.

That legislation responded to a lot of worry about the impacts on neighborhoods, on schools, on other businesses.

So there was a lot of restrictions on it.

And I will say to Calvin's point, the cost of The cost of operating these trucks is high in part because of public health permitting and you know the need to produce food at a commissary and, you know, and in part because of city cities restrictions and fees so.

So I know there's been some state level changes that are easing up on this and helping to make it easier to to operate a food truck.

You know, I just as a as a somebody who's been really supportive and trying to encourage particularly small, very small immigrant owned food related businesses.

You know, I am also interested in maybe working with you, Councilmember Strauss, to to help reduce the cost for these micro businesses.

All that said, this really does align with the Seattle Within Reach Coalition that I've been working with for the last couple of years to really move us toward the goal of increasing access to neighborhood goods and services.

So Council Member Strauss, I'd be interested in co-sponsoring if you are looking for co-sponsorship for this.

Thank you.

Yeah, for this bill?

Welcome to it.

Yeah, come on in.

Excellent.

And we've got s dots hand up, please, please.

Yeah, I just thought it might be relevant to know that council has made some changes in the past few years to our vending fee schedule that have lowered the fees.

And so for vending specifically the intent of this current fee schedule in front of you isn't to increase fees for vending.

It's actually providing a little bit more certainty for vendors because we're not charging an hourly review fee any longer.

It's it's part of our issuance fee.

So now new vendors will kind of know what to expect instead of having an issuance fee plus hourly review that public space management is charging.

So I just wanted to provide that context because there's been some great work that you all have done with us to reduce fees for vendors.

We removed a program administration fee and other things that have been done in the past few years.

So just thought that might be useful too.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Elisa.

The hourly review is certainly problematic.

I think what we really should be seeking is a goal of not having SDAW get stuck in traffic for anything too, so.

Thanks.

Thank you, council members for the discussion on the base legislation which which leads us to amendment one, let me go ahead and move the bill and then we can address amendment one which discusses the actually discusses fees, I believe so.

Council members I'll now move the committee recommend passage of the council 120429 is there a second.

Great, it's been moved and seconded and now invite discussion of amendment one, so we can make a motion for that and then second that and we can discuss amendment one, is that how.

Councilmember Strauss, do you want to move Amendment 1?

Sure, happy to.

I now move to amend Council Bill 120492 as presented on Amendment 1.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, it's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120429. We've got one other amendment after this, but let's go ahead and discuss Amendment 1. Councilmember Strauss, if you want to discuss it and or we can turn it over to Calvin Chow from Central Staff.

Calvin, if you want to take it away, just generally, this is a technical amendment updating the fee schedule because we had originally planned to pass this bill earlier this year and due to budget and other scheduling issues, we are here now and so just need to make some updates.

It's technical in nature.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Calvin.

Thank you, council members.

Yes, Amendment 1 is a technical amendment.

It doesn't make any policy changes to the proposed legislation.

Essentially, since the legislation was transmitted.

There was an updated fee schedule filed with the clerks, so this amendment would amend section 44 to change the two attachments to the bill to show the changes to what the current law.

for the fee schedule is, and then have a clean schedule that SDOT can publish.

So this would really just to try to provide better transparency to what the current change is.

It amends section 44, as shown on the screen, to have a new replacement attachment A, which shows the red line changes to the street use fee that's currently on file with the clerk.

And then it has a new attachment B, which is the same fee schedule, but cleaned and ready for publication.

Thank you, Collin.

Colleagues, just for your awareness, this was the fee schedule where I just shared that I have, it's giving me a little bit of pause and some concern.

And I think that this is the best that we have available to us today.

And we should pass this while we try to figure out a better way to both have cost recovery and provide services to our Seattleites.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, and thank you, Calvin Chow.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions about Amendment 1 before we vote on Amendment 1?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120429?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries, and Amendment 1 is adopted.

Okay, so I'll go ahead and move.

So Amendment 2 was put on for discussion purposes, but I'm gonna go ahead and move Amendment 3, and then I'll have some comments about all that.

So I now move to amend Council Bill 120429 as presented on Amendment 3. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 3 to Council Bill 120429. So Amendment 3 is now before us for discussion.

It's a reporting requirement.

So Calvin, if you could go ahead and explain this amendment, then I can speak to it.

Sure.

This amendment requires that SDOT come back to council with a report on how they're implementing legislation.

It asks for a preliminary report due by May 31st in 2024. And that preliminary report would cover sort of how they would evaluate, you know, their approach to evaluating the program and what preliminary findings that they have with a final report due at the end of December 31st, 2024.

Thank you, Calvin.

And I coordinated with SDOT on this amendment language.

Colleagues, originally I had put forward Amendment 2, which was focused on the existing 50-foot rule for food trucks.

Amendment 3 instead simply requires SDOT to report back to the committee in 2024 on the implementation of this legislation, including the impact of removing the food truck distance rule.

I just want to acknowledge some initial concerns that were brought forward several weeks ago from a couple of business improvement areas and some local restaurants regarding SDOT's proposal to remove the 50-foot rule for food trucks.

I want to thank SDOT for meeting with those stakeholders to address their concerns.

Based on that stakeholdering by SDOT and the preponderance of public comment in favor of removing the 50-foot rule, we're just going to vote on this Amendment 3 rather than Amendment 2. for some context, which we discussed a little bit.

Council passed an ordinance back in 2011 to provide some structure around food trucks to enable them to operate on city streets, and then there was this 50-foot rule put in place.

There was a lot of analysis and stakeholdering done at that time to come up with that 50-foot rule to mitigate the potential effects to small existing businesses that take on the risk of additional expenses of commercial building rent, capital improvements, inventory, wages for workers to keep their brick and mortar operations afloat.

So amendment two was brought to the table in response to those initial concerns and to honor that research that was done back in 2011. And so much of the legislation was focused on the exciting elements of the cafe streeteries and the food truck issue was not as, was not highlighted as much.

So this was enabled us to just lift it up and discuss it.

But with the public comment coming in, I'm going to move on to amendment three.

I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point.

is really focused on mobility, safety on streets, infrastructure, climate change, and just want to see how this impacts workload in the future.

I think that there are some economies of scale already built in, so it may not impact workload of SDOT, but that'll be another interesting thing I'm I'm interested in seeing because I believe it sets up a director's role.

And I know our SDOT director needs to be focused on those other things as well.

So we'll learn a lot from this amendment that that's a reporting requirement and I'm excited to move this amendment and ultimately the bill out of committee today.

Any comments or questions on amendment three?

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I am having a little bit of trouble with this amendment.

I fully agree with the notion of needing to evaluate our programs and make sure that they are having success and meeting their intended purposes.

But the presumption with this amendment seems to be that we should protect existing businesses from competition.

And I don't necessarily agree with that.

We hear often that the city should be reducing regulation on businesses.

So it's not clear to me why these businesses, particularly food trucks, many of them owned by immigrant communities of color, should be monitored for their impact on a neighboring business.

We don't ask anything of the corporations in this city that regularly squeeze out independent businesses through mergers and acquisitions.

So I feel like while I support the notion of evaluating our program, the idea of monitoring these particular businesses rather than others for how they impact one another, I don't think is an appropriate policy goal.

So I won't be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

Just looking at the language itself of the amendment, I'm not, I don't, it's really requesting information, so, and I don't think we should be afraid to get the information, so I'm, would need this to support the bill, so I really appreciate SDOT's willingness to report back to us on this.

to check in with us next year, or it's actually, it's not until 2024 that they have to check back with us.

So appreciate the collaboration with SDOT on this.

Colleagues, any more comments or questions?

Okay, let's go ahead and vote on Amendment 3 to this bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3 to Council Bill 120429. Council Member Morales.

No.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Abstain.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Two in favor, one abstention, one opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries with the majority and Amendment 3 is adopted.

Are there any final comments on the amended legislation?

Council Member Strauss, did you want to close us out with anything?

All right, thank you, Chair.

I just again want to thank Elise, Joel, Aditi, everyone else in public space management, and also Angela Steele.

Angela is somebody who has been part of our public space management group for a very long time.

And unfortunately, we, we lost her during the pandemic not related to COVID.

And this was tough.

It was at a moment when these permits needed to be issued, and we needed to create this legislation and a lot of this work.

We are all standing on her shoulders.

And so I'm very excited for this legislation and for our outdoor dining to become a permanent fixture of our city.

And there have just been so many people working to make this happen.

And again, the biggest kudos and compliments to all of our small business owners who got out there with hammers and drills and nail guns.

and made these structures beautiful for our city.

And for those that aren't so beautiful, now you have time to come into compliance and make them beautiful.

So just very excited to add vibrancy to our city in this way.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Colleagues, any final comments or questions before we vote on the amended bill?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120429 as amended?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass.

Council Bill 120429 will be sent to the December 13th City Council meeting.

All right, colleagues.

Thank you, Estat.

Thank you, Cal.

We're gonna go ahead and move, fast forward to agenda item seven on our Yeah, agenda item seven, and then we've got eight and nine.

Will the clerk please read the full title of the seventh agenda item into the record?

Agenda item seven, council bill 120477, an ordinance relating to compost procurement, establishing a compost procurement policy for the city of Seattle and adding a new subchapter four to chapter 2060 of the Seattle Municipal Code for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, Council Bill 120477 encourages the purchase of locally sourced compost and requires the city to conduct educational outreach on composting.

I do have a technical amendment, which I'll introduce after the presentation.

That amendment would revise the definition of compost products to add clarity and to reference the definition relevant in the Washington Administrative Code.

But first, let's welcome our presenters.

And, oh, Brian, good night.

Thank you for being here from our City Council Central staff.

Did you want to set the table with anything or have any opening remarks before the presentation?

Thank you, Chair.

No comments.

I'm happy to turn it over to SPU.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Welcome to Maggie and Presley.

Great.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson and members of the committee.

My name is Maggie Youse and I'm with Seattle Public Utilities Government Relations Office and I'm happy to be co-presenting this citywide compost procurement ordinance with Presley Palmer from Finance and Administrative Services Department.

And we've also got Kate Kurtz on the line from SPU who is our organics program lead and can answer any of your more technical questions.

The purpose of this legislation is to encourage the purchase of locally sourced compost and all applicable city funded projects that includes both in-house and contracted projects across city departments and could be anything from construction projects to landscaping and green infrastructure.

This legislation was required by a 2022 state law that went into effect over the summer.

The ordinance also requires city departments to conduct educational outreach to residents on the value of compost and report back to the state how much compost was purchased.

The benefits of this ordinance are that it's environmentally beneficial to use compost and it helps support local compost markets and keep compost as a viable marketable product.

It also ensures that the city is in compliance with state law.

Thank you, Maggie.

And hello, council members.

My name is Presley Palmer.

I'm the interim division director here in purchasing and contracting, which is a division of the Department of Facilities and Administrative Services or FAS for short.

This slide breaks down the roles and responsibilities between FAS and the departments that purchase and use compost on city projects.

As Maggie mentioned, city departments that use compost will be responsible for two things.

To conduct educational outreach to Seattle residents about the value of using compost, and two, departments will share information with FAS about how much compost they purchase each year.

This information includes total tons of organic material diverted each year, estimated volume and cost of composted materials purchased each year, and source of the composted products purchased.

In turn, FAS will be responsible for compiling the information on purchased compost and submitting a report to the State Department of Ecology every two years beginning December 2024. This will ensure that the city meets its reporting obligations per the compost procurement ordinance.

Next slide, please.

Thank you for your time, and we would like to know if you have any questions for us.

Thank you very much.

Just wanted to give an opportunity again to Brian Goodnight from City Council Central Staff, whether you had any comments on the base legislation.

Otherwise, I can go ahead and move the move the bill and we can discuss the amendment.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

No comments.

Yep, the bill has been reviewed and it is, as as staff has said, it's in compliance with state law.

Thank you.

So Council Members, I'll go ahead and move the bill and then introduce the technical amendment.

Council Members, I now move that the committee recommend the City Council pass Council Bill 120477. Is there a second?

I'll move to amend council bill 120477. Is there a second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to consider Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120477. So let's turn it over to Brian Goodnight to discuss Amendment 1.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Just one moment here while I share my screen.

Hopefully you all can see that amendment.

As you indicated earlier, so the amendment is fairly simple and brief in the sense that it would revise the proposed definition for compost products that's contained in the bill, which would be a new section of our new portion of the code.

So the revised definition refers to makes reference to the Washington Administrative Code, where the term composted material is defined.

So this is the intent of the legislation or the amendment is to just provide clarity around what the definition is and to refer to the state administrative code.

And as indicated earlier, staff from SPU, if you want to get into the details of it could probably provide a better description of the differences.

Thank you.

Yes.

Maggie or Presley, if you have any comments on that, but I think we're just trying to make it more clear and then link back to the actual Washington code.

Since that's the intent of the overall legislation.

Yes, exactly.

It's simply to clarify the definition of compost products so that it couldn't be confused with other products like bark and wood chip mulch.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, if there are no further comments or questions on Amendment 1, I'll go ahead and call for a vote on it.

All right, so the Amendment 1. Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120477?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries and amendment one is adopted.

Any final comments on this bill before we vote on the bill as amended?

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120477 as amended.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120477 as amended will be sent to the December 13th City Council meeting.

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the eighth agenda item into the record?

Agenda Item 8, Council Bill 120475, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, authorizing the General Manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to execute an interagency agreement with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to operate the Cedar River Hatchery.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, this legislation authorizes the execution of the interagency agreement with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for hatchery operations and will continue the operations, I believe, until the summer of 2024. But here to explain the details, I'll turn it over to Carol Wolk at Seattle Public Utilities, and we've got a presentation.

Hi, Carol.

Good morning, council members.

Morning.

Give me a minute to share my screen.

So today we have an ordinance for authorization of an interagency agreement between the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and Seattle Public Utilities.

I'm Carol Volk and I'm in the water resources section of Seattle Public Utilities.

So for a little orientation, the city owns and operates a Sockeye Hatchery out at Landsberg, which is out near Maple Valley.

It's also the location of our Landsberg Diversion Dam, which is used to divert drinking water from the Cedar River.

The Sockeye Hatchery has been in place since about 1991 and operated by the state of Washington since that time.

The hatchery fulfills mitigation for SPU water diversion at Landsberg.

The water diversion for drinking water blocked an adromous salmon passage into the upper Cedar River watershed for many decades, and the city installed a fish ladder at the diversion dam in 2003. that allowed anadromous salmon to pass above the water diversion, but due to water quality concerns about allowing sockeye above the dam, we included clauses to allow blockage of sockeye as needed into the future.

So the hatchery is actually mitigation for the continued sockeye blockage.

We have two legal agreements that this mitigation of the hatchery fulfills.

The first is the Landsberg Mitigation Agreement.

And in this agreement, we specifically have agreed to release fish of similar size to natural fish in the Cedar River.

And this agreement itself was part of the Habitat Conservation Plan that was signed in the early 2000s.

The second agreement is with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and it's for the Muckleshoot Settle Agreement, which was finalized in a similar time period as the Landsberg Mitigation Agreement.

And in this agreement, we committed to operate this hatchery until 2051. And as far as what occurs at the sockeye hatchery operation, it has a variety of activities.

It includes the fish collection of adults.

And this is the trap facility that is put in place down in Renton right under 405. You might have seen that.

It includes spawning of those adult sockeye back at the hatchery, and then incubating the fertilized eggs in the hatchery itself.

and releasing those fry several months after they've been reared at the hatchery.

And those fry are released back into the river and then they complete their life cycle by spending some time in Lake Washington and then migrating out to the Pacific Ocean and returning in about four years.

So the ordinance itself includes authorization to execute this agreement with Department of Fish and Wildlife for hatchery operations.

We previously had a five-year interagency agreement with the state to do this.

But this ordinance and agreement will only last until summer of 2024. The total interagency agreement cost is about 2.14 million.

With that, I'll take any questions.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, any comments or questions about this council bill?

Thank you for that thorough presentation.

We don't have any comments or questions.

Brian, good night.

Anything to add?

Nothing to add, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, council members, I'll go ahead and move that the committee recommend the city council pass Council Bill 120475, item eight on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the council bill.

Any final comments?

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120475.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass.

Council Bill 120475 will be sent to the December 13 city council meeting.

Will the clerk please read?

Thank you very much, Carol.

And thanks Brian on that.

Will the clerk please read the full title of the ninth and final agenda item into the record.

Agenda item nine, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities authorizing the general manager and chief executive officer of Seattle Public Utilities or designee to execute an interlocal agreement with King County, the City of Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle to cost share a Duwamish Basin steward staff position that will provide basin stewardship services in the Duwamish service area for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, Council Bill 120476 is sponsored by Council Member Herbold, and she is excused today.

So just state briefly that this would cost share the new Duwamish patient salmon recovery stored with King County, Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle.

I support this bill as well.

And we are going to have a presentation from Seattle Public Utilities, Martha Newman.

But first, Brian, good night.

Did you have anything you wanted to say in the beginning?

No, Chair.

No introductory comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Martha.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for hearing this today.

And I will go ahead and share my screen.

Hang on.

Let me do it this way.

Okay, so today Let me see, go to the next slide here.

We are seeking approval to authorize execution of a new interlocal agreement to cost share the steward with King County, Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle.

I want to give a little bit of background on the basin stewards and what they are.

Basin stewards, they are housed at King County.

And you can see here on this map, they are in many of the rural basins in our county.

but we do not have one in the Duwamish.

So they work to help advance an on-the-ground implementation of salmon habitat plans.

They're a really good community resource.

They can improve community engagement.

They really help push forward the positive outcomes that we're trying to see for Chinook salmon recovery, leveraging resources, getting projects done.

right, getting grant funding, they work directly with landowners.

And then this is focused on Chinook.

So salmon recovery, you just heard about sockeye, but just salmon recovery in our area is usually focused on Chinook.

These are the species listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. And each of the basins in Puget Sound has a plan and those plans roll up to be the recovery plan for our region.

And you can see here the picture on the left is the long decline, the steep decline of the Chinook runs and kind of where they are today.

The basin that we're talking about, we call it WIRA 9, which stands for Water Resource Inventory Area.

This is the Green Duwamish.

This is the most urbanized basin in Puget Sound.

There are 17 local governments that are working together in this basin.

It is governed, if you will, by the Watershed Ecosystem Forum and Council Member Herbold, who cares very deeply about this issue, and the steward position is the co-chair.

Seattle is a contributing member to the forum.

We pay about 147,000 in 2002 and that's funded through the drainage fund.

So this steward would focus on that in the Duwamish portion of the basin.

And this is a very unique position.

It's, you know, that's a very unique basin that's very different from those other rural basins.

The person will be kind of a point person to help collaborate and push forward projects.

We feel that we have been, we, the WIRA 9, have been missing opportunities to advance projects.

This is a complex basin with social justice issues and the cleanup efforts.

So the position, there's a lot of support, both political and community support for this position, and they will be leveraging and maximizing benefits.

A couple of details about the position.

So there are the four parties that we mentioned.

This is a cost share.

The cost share is advantageous for Seattle.

We do not have basin stewards, and we don't have a program.

So the day-to-day person will be managed by King County with the other basin stewards.

There will be a Duwamish Basin Management Team that SPU will sit on to help guide their work.

The agreement goes through 2026 and can be extended and it does encourage further future cost sharing partners.

So, for example, WIRA 9, which I mentioned, which is the overall salmon recovery group for that basin, has contributed for 2022, and that money is being held.

The position is still being hired.

But for 2023, they're cost-sharing a quarter of the position.

The City of Seattle, we are particularly interested in the Flood Control District becoming a financial partner.

in the future.

These are the cost shares.

For 2022, our share was 66,500, and then the splits were negotiated between the four parties.

Then the priorities for this position and the recovery effort in the Duwamish and the near shore are protecting and restoring marine shorelines, protecting and enhancing the estuarine habitat, improving sediment and water quality, and revegetating riparian corridors.

And that is my short presentation, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Brian, good night.

Anything to add?

Nothing to add.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, colleagues, any comments or questions for Councilmembers, I'll go ahead and move this item then.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120476. Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120476?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass the council bill will be sent to the December 13 City Council meeting.

The December 13 City Council meeting is the last full City Council meeting of the year that's scheduled.

Well, colleagues, the time is 11 a.m.

and this concludes the December 6, 2022 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We will have a special meeting of the committee on Monday, December 12 at 930 in the morning.

Thank you and we are adjourned.