Seattle City Council Briefing 3/8/2021

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back to Council Briefing.

The March 8, 2021 Council Briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez?

I did not know I was first.

Here.

Lewis?

Morales?

Here.

Mosqueda?

Present.

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant.

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Council President Gonzales.

Here.

And Madam Clerk, can you call on Council Member Lewis one more time?

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

Welcome everyone again to this morning's council briefing.

We are going to move right over to the approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of March 1st, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

President's report.

I wanted to start off at the top of the agenda today to just say thank you to Council Member Strauss for covering for me last Monday.

I am sure that you all were in very good hands with Council President Pro Tem Strauss and my sincere thanks to him for stepping in during my preplanned vacation.

It's also been a busy weekend for other legislative bodies, and I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the work of our legislators, especially our Seattle delegation in both the state legislature and in Congress.

There was some transformative legislative efforts that cleared major hurdles over the weekend in both Olympia and Washington, D.C. First, after roughly a decade of advocacy and policy work to pass a capital gains tax in Washington State, the State Senate advanced this landmark legislation out of their chamber on Saturday.

I'm excited and hopeful about the potential for this critical revenue to support essential programs and services, especially services like early learning and childcare, while also being a meaningful step to correct our state's regressive tax structure.

And I know we have our folks from OIR here with us this morning, and I'm excited to hear more details from them about this really important legislative win.

Also on Saturday, the United States Senate passed a major 1.9 trillion, that's with a T, federal stimulus package.

This sorely needed economic relief will support the survival and recovery of working families and small businesses across the county and here in Washington.

The stimulus package is not perfect, but it does provide cities like Seattle meaningful resources as we focus on our economic recovery and revitalizing our cities.

So we've already begun planning on the City Council side for how to prioritize the funds that will come directly to the City of Seattle.

And I want to acknowledge in advance the work of Budget Chair Theresa Mosqueda that is going to in her budget capacity to lead our work in those efforts.

And I also want to thank OIR, who's going to give a quick little introduction to this subject at the beginning of their report today to make sure that we're all aware of what we can anticipate from our federal lobbyists as it relates to getting a better understanding of what is included in the stimulus package and what the city of Seattle can expect from that $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and hand it over to our state legislative session updates team.

And we're going to go ahead and kick it off with Director Lily Wilson-Kodega for introductions on the record, and then we'll dig into the presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning.

For the record, Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing it to Robin.

Robin Kosky, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing to Quinn.

Quinn Majewski, State Relations Director, OIR, passing it to Hannah.

Hannah Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

Thank you, team.

And good morning, Council President, Council members.

For the majority of our briefing today, we will be reviewing the Council's state legislative priorities.

But given, as the Council President alluded to, we expect the American Rescue Plan, the massive $1.9 trillion federal aid package currently being debated and amended in Congress to move through the House next Tuesday.

We have a slight change in our agenda today.

So Robin will start us off with a brief status update on the federal aid package this week before Quinn then begins with our regular state legislative briefing.

We will then work to schedule a full briefing for you all from Sierra Hallett-Brown, our Federal Affairs Director, and Leslie Polner, our lobbyist based in D.C.

That looks like it will likely be either the week of the 15th or the 22nd, and we are finalizing those dates with the Council President's office this week so that we can brief you on final passage of that legislation.

And also, as the Council President alluded to, some incredible work that the legislature has been engaged in throughout the weekend.

At the state level, we are just a little past the halfway mark in the 2021 session at this point, having now passed several major milestones, including House of Origin Policy Committee, the Fiscal and Transportation Committee cutoffs, and the House of Origin floor cutoff, which is tomorrow, Tuesday, March 9th.

In light of tomorrow's cutoff, Legislators have been working overtime on the floor long days late into the evenings and through the weekend with many significant City of Seattle priorities moving out of their respective chambers this week.

Quinn will touch on this in more detail, but I did want to highlight the Worker Protection Act, Act which passed off the House floor 53 to 54 Friday evening, capital gains making it out of the Senate on a razor thin 25 to 24 vote this Saturday, March 6th and representative Macri's just cause eviction bill passing the house on Sunday.

And one final thing before I turn it over to Robin to start us off with a brief update on the American rescue plan.

Recognizing police discipline is a top priority for council as a whole.

I'd like to give a special thanks to council member Herbold for her work on this issue in her capacity as public safety and human services chair.

She is convening a discussion with key labor partners, the mayor's office and the city attorney's office later today.

So we look forward to briefing you all on what progress we are able to make at that meeting when we brief you next week.

Thank you very much.

And turning it over to Robin Kosky, our deputy director.

Good morning, everyone.

So as Lily said, we expect that the final passage of the American Rescue Plan will happen at some point tomorrow.

At this point, we actually don't have the final text as it passed the Senate.

The language is still being worked on, and our federal lobbyist in D.C.

tells us they don't expect to have the final version of the bill until later this evening.

We don't expect to see changes in the House, so what passed the Senate should be what the bill is, so there's that.

We are working on going through all of the details of the bill and I think we should be able to get some summary documents out to you by Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

Of course, we won't have every detail.

We do know that many of the programs are following the exact same methods and formulas that were in previous bills.

So we should be able to figure out with some reasonable certainty how much money will be coming directly to Seattle, and we will certainly work on working through all that and figuring it out and getting that information to you as soon as we possibly can.

Some of the highlights of what's in the bill, it's 600 pages long, there's a lot of stuff in it for sure.

So I won't obviously hit on everything, but some highlights, of course, there are the direct stimulus payments of $2,000.

So we'll receive an additional $1,400, people will receive an additional $1,400.

Supplemental employment benefits settled in at $300 per week, reduced by $100 from what the House had.

There is money for direct funds for state and local governments.

There is money for vaccine distribution at $14 billion.

There's $40 billion in childcare resources.

There's quite a bit in the housing and homelessness field as well, $27.4 billion for various different rental assistance streams, $5 billion for housing vouchers, $5 billion for homelessness assistance, $10 billion for homeowner assistance.

$120 million for housing counseling and fair housing and $5 billion for utility assistance.

We think mostly through the LIHEAP program.

There's also $12 billion in the bill for nutrition.

The bill extends the SNAP increase of 15% through September of 2021. It includes fruit and vegetable outreach and innovation in WIC and ensures that pandemic EBT will be available for the duration of the pandemic, including the summer when children are out of school, which was a very good change.

There's money for small business support that includes $15 billion for economic injury disaster loans, $25 billion for a grant program for restaurants, $7 billion for the PPP, and $1 billion for Save Our Stages for live venues, movie theaters, and cultural institutions.

So that is just kind of the main highlights.

And I certainly could take some questions, but I will qualify it by saying that we definitely don't know all of the details quite yet.

They're still being worked on.

Thanks, Robin.

Okay.

I'm going to encourage us to just sort of hold on questions until we receive that full brief and until we have Leslie and Sierra in front of us to be able to answer those questions.

So let's go ahead and shift over to the state legislative agenda and results.

Good morning everyone, starting off with budget and revenue some very exciting news over the weekend coming out of virtual Olympia for the first time ever.

The capital gains tax proposal has passed the floor of the Washington State Senate.

It was, as Lily alluded to earlier, it was a very close vote, 25 to 24. And a few amendments were made on the floor.

So just to provide an overview of those.

The most prominent amendment is the emergency clause, which would make the legislation go into effect immediately upon its signature from the governor was removed.

beyond sort of the effective date.

This also more or less ensures that there will be the opportunity for opponents to gather signatures and potentially challenge the legislation at the ballot box through a referendum.

So that change was made, and I think there is an anticipation that it may wind up coming up for a public vote.

at some point later this year.

In addition to that change, there were some smaller changes made in terms of the direction of the proceeds.

The first $350 million in revenue from the capital gains tax is still directed to the Education Legacy Trust Fund with the intention of that funding going towards early learning and childcare.

After that, the bill was amended to direct the next 100 million after that first 350 million to the general fund.

And then the remainder of the balance of any revenues from the capital gains tax would still go to a new taxpayer relief account with the intention of providing some relief on More regressive revenue sources or funding programs that provide relief for lower income households such as the working families tax credit.

And then finally, there were some tweaks made to the small business exemption that broaden the eligibility.

primarily raising the threshold from 6 million to 10 million for qualifying small business entities and removing the number of employees, the cap on the number of employees for a small business that was previously set at 50. So now small businesses can qualify as long as they are under 10 million in gross income, and they have been owned and controlled by a member of the family for at least five of the last eight years.

So that exemption was broadened a little bit more.

Otherwise, the bill remains similar to what was passed out of committee, 7% tax over $250,000 per year in capital gains.

with exemptions for retirement, real estate, and a handful of agricultural properties.

So this, again, extremely exciting and positive news coming out of the State Senate, and I think all of our members of our Seattle delegation deserve a lot of credit and plaudits for their work to help get us to this point, along with Senator Robinson from Everett, who really shepherded this proposal and helped make this reality.

So very exciting.

It's headed over to the House now, where it will head to Representative Frame's committee.

And we expect them to take action quickly to move this bill forward.

With that, I will pause for any questions.

Colleagues, any questions or comments for Quinn?

I'm scanning here just to make sure nobody's raised their hand.

I don't see any hands up, so let's keep going.

All right, on to education with Hannah.

Some important goals are following and continue to move forward in education, several of which having votes in the last week.

The Fair Starts for Kids Act, that's the omnibus child care bill, the Senate version passed the Senate 2821 last week.

Senate Bill 5321, expanding the college-bound program, also passed 3118. And Senator Nguyen has a bill that approves bachelor degrees programs in computer science at community and technical colleges.

That bill passed unanimously and is scheduled for hearing in the House.

So some great education bills continuing to move forward.

There, I'll pause for questions.

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

Moving on to environment, the House and Senate have taken action on several key environmental priorities and bills in the past week.

A few updates for you.

House Bill 1099, which would incorporate climate action and greenhouse gas emission reductions into the Growth Management Act and comprehensive planning policies.

That was approved on a largely party-line vote and is going to be up for a hearing in the Senate on Wednesday.

Moving on, Senate Bill 5022, which would create some new statewide requirements for content management and producer responsibility for packaging and plastics, as well as ban polystyrene, more commonly known as styrofoam, throughout the state.

That bill passed by a 31 to 17 margin in the Senate and is now headed to the House Environment Committee, where it will have a hearing on Thursday.

And then finally, the HEAL Act, which passed shortly after last week's briefing on last Monday, passed on a party-line vote out of the Senate and is also headed to the House Environment Committee.

I will pause there for any questions on environment.

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

All right, two bills to highlight that have passed out of their respective chambers in general government.

The first is House Bill 1189. This is the tax increment financing legislation, which would provide local governments in particular cities with a new and expanded public works financing option in tax increments financing.

That passed by a 64 to 33 margin, so got some bipartisan support there.

And that is up for a hearing this Thursday on the Senate side.

And then House Bill 1443, the equity in cannabis industry legislation, that passed by a 60 to 37 margin and is also going to be up for a hearing in the Labor Commerce and Tribal Affairs Committee on Thursday.

pause there for any questions on general government.

Not seeing any hands raised, Quinn, so we can keep going.

OK.

Moving on to health care, Hannah.

Just a couple bills to highlight this week.

Senate Bill 5068, which expands the postpartum Medicaid.

That bill has a hearing in House Health Care and Wellness this week.

There's been discussions about how much that bill will cost, and those continue to be refined as the bill moves forward.

So we'll continue monitoring that.

Senate Bill 5195, which is the opioid reversal medication, was voted out of the Senate on Friday, the vote of 45 to 2. And Senate Bill 5399, which creates the Commission for Universal Health Care, was voted off the Senate floor 2820. Those are the big health care bills that moved in the last week, and I'm happy to take questions.

Any questions?

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

everyone well as lily said the big news uh...

over the weekend was the passage of house bill twelve thirty six just cause eviction bill by representative macri who worked extremely hard on this bill and the debate began and saturday evening when went well into the evening and then continued onto sunday uh...

so it was quite a grueling for debate and and The bill does, there were some bad amendments that would have eliminated the part of the bill that closes the Seattle loophole that applies to fixed term leases, but those were managed to be defeated and so the bill will in fact close our loophole as it is right now.

So it's really quite a momentous passage in the House yesterday.

Also, some of you are interested in House Bill 1070, which would allow King County to acquire buildings with the Health Through Housing Sales Tax.

That has a hearing in the Senate Housing Committee this week.

Foreclosure Assistance also has a hearing in the Senate Business and Financial Services Committee on Thursday.

then we are hoping to see Senate Bill 5428 move off of the Senate floor, which exempts permit actions to site temporary shelter or transitional encampments.

And thanks to Council Member Lewis for doing some engagement on that bill to try and help to make sure that that does make it across the finish line.

If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them on housing.

We have one hand raised, Council Member Herbold.

I just want to underscore how exciting it is that the law that we have had to protect tenants here in Seattle, the death cause eviction ordinance, a law that's been in place here in Seattle since the late 80s, is now a tenant right afforded to tenants throughout the state of Washington.

It is very, very important.

And I really am so proud that Representative Macri is the champion for this bill, but also that she fought so hard for Seattle, whereas we've had just-cause eviction for a very, very long time.

There's actually a loophole, as Robin mentioned, for tenants at the end of their lease agreement.

So tenants at the end of the lease agreement could have performed all of the obligations under their lease agreement perfectly, and they can still be given a no-cause notice at the end of the term.

Um, and, um, Representative Macri not only saw the need to fight for the Just Cause right broadly for residents of Washington state, but she didn't forget her constituents here in Seattle who really need this loophole closed because of the large number of tenants who are displaced at the end of their lease term.

So really, really proud of that work and want to also Thank OIR, in particular, Robin, for keeping me up to speed on it, keeping the need for the closure of the loophole front and center, and just really appreciate her updating me over the weekend and giving me little things I can do.

to help along the way, just along the edges a little bit.

One question, Robin, thank you for letting us all know that the loophole closure language survived despite the amendments to try to remove it.

I did lose track when the preemption amendment came up.

I trust that also failed?

Yes, I believe it did.

There were a couple of amendments to the bill that I haven't had the chance to analyze yet, and I will certainly take a look at those.

Representative Macri said that they did have to take a couple of amendments that they would have preferred not to, but it was what they needed to do to move the bill, so.

And Council Member Herbold, I should also say thank you to you.

I apologize for not saying so, but it was wonderful to have you help out with doing some outreach to legislators over the weekend, so thank you for that.

They didn't do it.

Easy, easy, as I said.

Are there any more questions on housing?

Actually, Council President, I think I have a quick question.

Yeah, go ahead, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, if you talked about this, we're going to get to it.

I was concerned about, I just read about the House Bill 1220 in response to kind of what the city of Renton was up to and some other cities banning, cities from prohibiting homeless shelters and housing.

Yes, that has proved to be quite a controversial bill.

We have been basically supporting it in Seattle, and I'm certainly keeping my eye on it.

It did move out of the House, so it's moving along, but I do understand that negotiations are ongoing on that bill.

So I'll make sure to keep the council updated on what's happening there, Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you for that.

Any other questions in the area of housing?

I'm not seeing any other hands raised.

So let's continue.

Moving on to police reform, again, there are some really historic pieces of legislation moving forward that I'm just astounded by given the virtual nature of the session.

But this continues to be an area of focus for the legislature.

I'm going to skip around a little bit, Hannah, so I'm sorry.

House Bill 1054, the bill that bans chokeholds, no knock warrants, limits the use of tear gas, firing on a moving vehicle, and use of military equipment.

has a hearing on law and justice on Thursday, March 11th.

Then the Law Enforcement Audits Bill that would allow the Washington State Auditor to audit deadly force incidents to see if procedures were followed properly, and also allows the Criminal Justice Training Commission to audit law enforcement agencies is scheduled for executive session on Thursday.

Another big bill over the weekend on Saturday evening, House Bill 1310 regarding use of force passed by a vote of 55 to 42. And then Senator Peterson's Oversight and Accountability of Peace Officers Bill has a hearing in the House Public Safety Committee on Thursday at 1.30, so they're moving that bill along as soon as they could right after cutoff.

on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 5066, the duty to intervene, also has a hearing in the House on this coming up Friday in the Public Safety Committee.

And then finally, Senate Bill 5259 passed the Senate last Monday and has been referred to Public Safety in the House.

And I can't, I'm actually just realizing that my notes are a little bit vague on that bill, but anyway.

So happy to answer any questions in the police reform venue.

I do think that there will potentially be, you know, some opportunities to weigh in on police reform.

And I know that council members have been very interested in doing that now that we're kind of moving from bills being passed to one chamber and that cutoff we're back over on the other side where public hearings are happening and there'll be opportunities again for Weighing in.

Any questions or comments?

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we can continue.

Just one note in public safety for this week, which is that House Bill 1320 passed the House last Monday.

That's the bill that aligns all of the different civil protection orders and was referred to the Senate Committee on Law and Justice.

So that bill seems to be moving along nicely as well.

And that is all I have for this week, if anyone has any questions.

Any questions, colleagues?

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so let's continue to the next.

In the safety net and civil rights area, a big bill that moved last week was House Bill 1073. That's the paid family leave coverage by Representative Berry.

That passed 5640 and is already scheduled for a public hearing in Senate Labor on Thursday.

House Bill 1297, which is the Working Families Tax Credit, has been pulled from rules and is on the floor calendar, but it has been deemed NTIB, so may be able to move, or will be able to move after cutoff.

And another big safety net bill concerning economic assistance by Senator Nguyen passed the Senate 2919 last week.

So a lot of our priorities in civil rights and safety net continue to move forward.

I hope you didn't answer any questions.

Mahana, if you can just scroll back to the top, I'd like to just, here we go.

Yeah.

House Bill 1072, if you could just spend a few moments highlighting that particular legislative effort that the city is supporting in terms of civil legal aid funds and how they can be used, that'd be helpful.

Definitely.

So this bill removes the prohibition of use of civil legal aid funds by the state's Office of Civil Legal Aid, allowing them to represent individuals who are in the US without legal authority.

That bill passed the House in the middle of February 5640, and has now been scheduled for an executive session over in the Senate.

Thank you, and do we expect this bill to be able to be passed this session?

I think it's moving along very well.

I am optimistic.

Okay, great.

Thursday and continue to find opportunities to weigh in.

Awesome.

I was just going to signal my ongoing interest in being supportive of this one.

I just think it's really, really important to both our legal aid service provider community, but obviously to those individuals who really need this important legal representation on the civil side, not just on the criminal defense side.

So I appreciate the opportunity to keep tracking it and continue to signal support.

Thank you.

There are no other questions.

I will catch up on the scrolling and pass it over to Quinn for transportation.

Yeah, it looks like we don't have any other hands raised.

So take it away, Quinn.

All right, rounding it out in the transportation space, House Bill 1301, which would authorize Sound Transit to provide alternative fare enforcement, including the issue of warnings without monetary citations.

That bill passed the House 96 to 1, very strong vote.

So it now heads over to the Senate.

And then House Bill 1304, Representative Hackney, who is the prime sponsor of that bill, has let us know that it is not going to be moving forward this year.

It has some work to be done, further work to be done with other legislators and stakeholders, but he looks forward to working with us to refine and continue working on that proposal in the interim for next session.

Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions, colleagues?

I am not seeing any hands raised so.

No questions.

That concludes our presentation.

Thank you for the time today and we'll get our federal briefing scheduled for you all once we have a final product and really appreciate the time today and we'll see you again next week.

Absolutely look forward to finding a final date for that.

Happy to continue coordination on that colleagues.

Any other questions or comments before we?

say goodbye to our folks in OIR.

Madam President, it's Councilor Mosqueda.

Yes, please.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

Good morning, everyone.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you very much for all of the work that you all have done on behalf of workers across the state to support the bill by Representative Hanson to make sure that workers had protection when they blew the whistle.

You already mentioned it at the top of the presentation, but I'm really excited about all of the work that you have done to make sure that the Worker Protection Act was passed this year.

We all know that the labor laws that we put into place are only as good as the follow-through enforcement and making sure that workers have the right to speak up.

So, very excited that the Worker Protection Act allows workers to blow the whistle when they face discrimination and various forms of illegal treatment.

and that they will be able to have help to improve compliance with the law and ensure that all employers compete on a level playing field.

I just wanted to thank you for your work on that and thank the Washington State Labor Council as well as Representative Hanson for all of the work that they did on House Bill 1076. And I'm also very glad that the AWC at least corrected to a few of the legislative members that they were no longer in opposition, that they were neutral.

to thank the United Labor Lobby for all of their work to get information out to electeds about the incredible need for this legislation and very happy to see that pass.

Congratulations Council Member and I would not minimize the role that you and Council Member Strauss played in your partnership with AWC in helping advance the bill.

It was an honor to work on that so we're very thrilled to see it moving along.

Happy we corrected that position.

Yes, thank you so much and thanks for all of the work OIR did.

We're happy to do it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for making a note of that as well.

Super important.

There's been a lot of really exciting things that we are seeing come out of our state legislature.

It's oftentimes hard for any one person to keep track of all of those things and really appreciate the work that you folks continue to do.

I know we're only 50% of the way through, which is a little remarkable.

But with that being said, we're going to let you all go so you can get back to rolling up your sleeves and back to work on those important issues.

And we're going to go ahead and continue on other items of business on our agenda.

So thank you, folks, for being with us.

Thank you.

We'll see you next week.

Next week.

All right, folks.

Preview of today's City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

We, as a reminder, do have two brief executive sessions at the end of our preview of today's City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

So let's go ahead and dig into that fourth item.

This week's roll call rotation is Council Member Juarez, then Luis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herbold, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion before moving us into executive session.

So first up is Council Member Juarez, and then after Council Member Juarez is Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Council Member Juarez.

Good morning, and happy belated birthday, Council President.

Oh, thank you.

Happy 29th birthday.

In fact, yeah, you know, it's really good.

I've been doing it for 30 years now, so it works for me.

Well, good morning, colleagues and friends.

Let's see.

First of all, happy International Women's Day.

A reminder that here in the United States, we rank 53rd worldwide for gender equity according to the 2019 Global Gender Gap Report.

Thought I'd just share that.

More to come.

Public Assets and Native Communities.

There are no items of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on today's afternoon agenda.

I want to briefly do a quick LID quasi-judicial process so I can bring you up to date up to April 6th.

So last week, the committee held the first of two meetings on the appeals of a hearing examiner's final report of the Waterfront LID final assessment role.

There were 32 appeals.

32 appeals were scheduled for the March 2nd committee meeting and they were all reviewed.

The remaining appeals are scheduled for the April 6th committee meeting.

After the committee has heard all the appeals, the committee will consider and make recommendations regarding each appeal to counsel based on the record from the hearing examiner.

The committee can recommend an action to counsel limited to the options provided in the quasi judicial rules 8.C.

The counsel may approve, approve with conditions, modify, remand, or deny the appeal.

After the committee votes on recommendations of council action for the appeals, central staff will prepare a report to the council per the quasi-judicial rule 7.8.

Let's see.

A reminder to my colleagues that if you have any questions, you have access to each appeal, and you can ask those questions to central staff at any time.

A quick review of parks, just six matters to briefly review.

And if you need more information, myself or Nageen or Dean are more than happy to go through this with you.

Starting with the Clean City Initiative.

During the week of February 22nd to the 28th, the Clean City crews picked up 93,000 pounds of trash and 8,737 needles from 61 encampment locations.

Clean city crews emphasized Brighton, Playfield, and Longfellow Creek for a deep cleaning.

Danny Park.

On February 17th, a large fire at the 16-tent encampment in Danny Park left both the encampment and park with significant damage.

Although the fire was able to respond quickly, the fire destroyed several tents.

After the fire, a small number of people remained in the encampment.

Our tree providers have been at the park almost daily since then performing needs assessment and to encourage any individuals who remain in the park to move to shelter.

On Monday, March 1st, the city posted a 48 hour notice of the encampment removal to allow for removal of remaining debris and to begin park restoration.

Our reach workers made 51 contacts with individuals experiencing homelessness in the park, including the offer of shelter.

The two accepting offers of shelter.

Each person contacted received an offer to move to shelter.

By March 3rd, 10 people had remained on the site.

Now, that's just as of our update from last week.

That may have changed in the interim.

On March 3rd, Parks and Recreation began the work to clear out any remaining debris within the park.

Sections of Denny Park will be fenced off or closed to the public for several months while damage to the park from the fire and the encampment are addressed.

The shower program.

We've served 384 people from February 24th to March 2nd.

Uplift Northwest served 93 individuals at the Green Lake Community Center location.

I really want to thank our community centers for opening up the showers and just, I don't know if you've been noticing, but every month the output has just been increasing and people coming in, people getting out.

And so that's That was a struggle to get there when we first started this with community centers and libraries, but I really want to thank parks and libraries for opening and using the public assets for other needs besides their intended use.

Park usage report these are regarding 5 big parks.

The highest average number of park users were observed and reported at Green Lake.

volunteer park, Seward, Golden Gardens, and Alki Beach.

Second, the Spruce Street mini park play area.

Parks hosted an online meeting on Saturday, February 27th, for the community to learn about the project and meet the design team.

The goal of this project is to renovate the existing play area space.

As part of the play area renovation project, the Parks Department is partnering with the Office of Arts and Culture to collaborate with the community on public art, Parks is also collecting feedback through an online survey for folks who couldn't attend the meeting on Saturday.

And finally, the sixth item under Parks, synthetic turf replacements.

The turf replacement projects at Mickey, Miriam, Playfields, 6, 7, and 9 at Magnuson Park are complete and open.

Did you hear that, Council Member Peterson?

Good.

So now you can have people quit sending me emails.

Man, no one's got a sense of humor this morning.

OK.

I'm laughing.

I'm laughing.

I'm the only one.

I see the council president is on the edge of her seat about these synthetic turf replacements.

Thank you.

OK, G5.

Lake City Community Center, the warming center is currently open three days per week and serving between 50 to 60 people each week.

And we've been down there.

It's doing great.

I want to thank the parks department for getting creative and leasing the space for no cost.

The human service department for finding the funding for staffing and our amazing Lake City community for speaking up in support of this project.

Parks department is reporting that the warming shelter has many neighborhood volunteers.

seeking to help, and there has been a steady stream of donations from local churches, our Mennonite friends, and Kelly Brown at the North Helpline Food Bank.

So thank you very much.

This is such a good example of community coming together, opening up the community center, having volunteers, using community-based organizations to provide food and other items.

So thank you very much.

Native communities.

As you all know, I've been following my friend Deb Holland, Representative Deb Holland, last week.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee voted 11 to 9 in favor of Representative Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo.

Confirmation from the Secretary of the Department of Interior.

The confirmation process now advances to the full Senate for a final vote.

If Representative Haaland is confirmed, she would be the first Native American Cabinet Secretary.

As I shared with you before, the Department of Interior was created around 1849. It is the main department that is a steward of our public lands and natural resources.

And of course, the Department of Indian Affairs is also within Interior, which always makes me scratch my head about that.

And I cannot think of a better person or steward than a Native woman, an indigenous woman attorney who has spent her life understanding public land, public resources, and how to protect.

our great country and our land.

Mayor Durkan and I signed a letter of support to the leaders of the Senate Energy Committee.

Thank you, Mayor Durkan and the executive, stating our full support for this very historic moment.

Big thank you to Senator Maria Cantwell for her unwavering support and powerful words on the Senate floor and to the committee in support of Representative Deb Haaland.

And as you know, for me, this is such a historic moment for all of us.

So I will keep you all tuned in.

On the Indigenous Advisory Council, last budget session, this great council, thank you very much, voted and funded the very first Indigenous Advisory Council.

My office is working with the Department of Neighborhoods to design the staffing position funded by council last year that would support a new Indigenous Advisory Council, the city's first advisory council for government-to-government consultation with tribes, and urban Native communities.

This is may not sound like a big deal, but it really is a big deal.

No other cities.

I think Portland has something similar, but why this is so key is in this state, we have 29 tribes in King County.

We have six tribes.

And more importantly, because tribes are governments, we work with them.

We leverage their services.

They provide San Leon Health Board, United Indians, I could go on and on, provides so much social services.

And they also have a wonderful revenue stream from the federal government that not only services Native folks, but their families and their children and low-income people and immigrants.

And I can't say enough about that.

We are working with central staff, Lish Whitson, thank you, Lish, to introduce the draft legislation creating the Indigenous Advisory Council, and there's more to come on that.

Quickly, last week's highlights, 130th Street Light Rail Station.

Yes, Second Light Rail and D5.

I met with the Office of Planning and Community Development to discuss growth strategies surrounding the 130th Street Light Rail Station.

We've had a lot of success with the Northgate Light Rail Station opening this year, excuse me, with new investments in affordable housing.

Very exciting.

As you also know, we also have the NHLCL headquarters and a new clinic space.

We know that access to opportunity is everything.

My vision for this station is similar, and soon my office will be bringing together leaders in business, recreation, education, and transit to talk about how we can equitably develop the areas surrounding the station.

We're still making our push with North Seattle College and the North Gate Commons for our low-income and affordable housing, for our Longhouse, hopefully a performing arts center.

And we're working with Esther Lozada of the Seattle Indian Health Board calling Echo Hawk and some other folks about getting a clinic and having an indigenous footprint in the North and not only just for healthcare, but for housing as well.

And that's been going well.

I'm happy about that.

The board of directors at Sound Transit is scheduled to make a final decision on whether or not we can open the 130th street station seven years earlier than projected pending a July 2021 realignment decision.

So I feel strongly with all the development coming to the north end, we cannot wait till 2031 for the opening of this light rail station.

The week ahead, I look forward to meeting with Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington and Director Pamela Banks to discuss Seattle's economic recovery.

Back to you, Council President.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we're gonna go ahead and continue down the line.

Next up is Council Member Lewis, and then after Council Member Lewis will be Council Member Morales.

Council Member Lewis, good morning.

Thank you, Madam President.

I don't have much this week, kind of a sleepy week for me relative to the last few.

There are no items on the introduction referral calendar from my office, nor is there anything from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I did just want to briefly highlight a press release that my office received from the city and county of San Francisco dated March 2nd.

that that jurisdiction has added 500 additional hotel rooms in consideration of the Biden administration's 100% FEMA reimbursement policy.

Those 500 hotel rooms to be operational within two months.

and to bring the city and county of San Francisco's total to 2,200 hotel rooms currently being used for homeless individuals to provide shelter during the pandemic.

I raise this just to highlight that we are seeing examples in other jurisdictions and continue to.

of a reliance on the new information from the Biden administration regarding FEMA reimbursement that this council and the city continues to explore as something we should be doing.

I personally believe we should be expanding the scope of the FEMA reimbursements we are already seeking, not to suggest we aren't seeking it.

We know that for tiny house villages and for a lot of other things, the city has been aggressively seeking FEMA reimbursement.

but it is possible we could expand the scope of what we are seeking.

I want to just lift up some of the comments Director Noble made last week in Councilmember Mosqueda's committee regarding pursuing an increase in FEMA reimbursable programming, particularly towards providing more shelter for people experiencing homelessness, that essentially the crux of Director Noble's testimony was that it is certainly possible if we follow the guidelines expressed and itemized in Director Noble's February 23rd email to this council, which has been extensively discussed in public, Just to highlight a couple of those very real barriers that we need to be cognizant of, but that I believe this council can design policy in response to.

The need to give time for pre-approval of certain programmed activities by FEMA to make sure that they're reimbursable.

the running of a competitive procurement process to establish that this city is doing everything that it can to get the best potential deal for vending these services, and making sure that the programming is targeted to people that are at high risk of exposure to COVID, acknowledging that there may be some sheltering programs that won't be FEMA reimbursable, but that there certainly can be some if designed correctly to target specifically folks at high risk of COVID exposure and at high risk of severe complications due to COVID, among other conditions that were highlighted in that email.

Given that it was confirmed by Director Noble that a policy so designed could be pursued, at least technically, by the administration to benefit from the Biden administration's 100% FEMA reimbursement above and beyond what we are already pursuing and applying for.

I'll be working this week with colleagues and stakeholders to bring such proposals forward for the consideration of the council and then ultimately for the consideration of the executive.

So look forward to that and I will hopefully have more to say on that next week when I go first apparently in the rotating order.

So look forward to that.

Finally, I just want to share that last Friday I did have the privilege for the second year in a row of sitting on the selection committee for the final recipients of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

For those who are unfamiliar, The Truman Scholarship is a federal endowment to the legacy of President Truman.

Instead of a statue or a formal memorial to President Truman, there's this endowed scholarship program.

The scholarship is awarded to one college junior in every state in the country, plus 10 at-large scholarships.

college undergrads that show an interest in a career in public service and an interest in attending graduate school to be able to effectuate their commitment to public service with those skills that they learn in graduate school.

I myself was selected in 2011, 10 years ago, as the Washington State Truman Scholar and really appreciate the program.

It is interesting to see on a national level so many Truman scholars that are impacting public policy, most notably recently Stacey Abrams.

Also, Michelle Alexander, the writer of the new Jim Crow, among many other distinguished luminaries and it was really inspiring to interview over zoom this year and not in person.

So many young people who are stepping up in such a turbulent time with.

with interviews attesting that there's really no limitation to what we can accomplish if we really put our mind to it.

And it was just a nice, a nice respite.

Briefly, given the everything that we are working through, not just as a council, but as a nation, and appreciated that opportunity.

I want to give a shout out to Dwight Dively, the Director of Budget and Deputy County Executive for Operations, himself a former or himself a Truman scholar selected previously for chairing that panel and for again inviting me to participate.

With that, Madam President, I don't have any additional comments and looking forward to getting to work this week.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, let's go ahead and continue.

Next up is Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues.

I want to wish everyone, well, I would like to wish the women of Seattle a happy International Women's Day, as well as my colleagues here on the Council.

We know that in Seattle, still, women are making only 76% of what men earn on average.

So it's an important day of the year for us to remember that and continue to work to fix it.

and to celebrate women's achievements, raise awareness about women's equality, lobby for gender parity, including wage parity, and really just support organizations that grow young women leaders.

And we've got many of them here in Seattle, which makes me really happy.

On this afternoon's calendar, there are several appointments from the Community Economic Development Committee.

We have appointments and reappointments for the Women's Commission, LGBTQ Commission, Disability and Human Rights Commissions.

We'll also be reviewing the first set of permanent advisory board members for the new Equitable Development Initiative Advisory Board.

So I'm very excited about that.

Those folks have been working hard for a very long time.

The next meeting of the Community Economic Development Committee will be Tuesday, March 16th at 2 p.m.

I do want to mention that this afternoon I will be walking on an amendment to add the Georgetown to South Park Trail to the watch list.

I want to thank Council Member Mosqueda for agreeing to allow a late addition to that.

This week, I'll be convening with neighbors, small businesses, and various city departments in the Mount Baker neighborhood.

I mentioned last week that we were convening as many departments as we can to come.

Neighbors are really interested to hear from different departments that have assorted an array of development projects in the works, transportation, housing, and others.

as well as to answer questions from neighbors about how our city departments are operating, particularly interested in hearing from SPU and Parks and from HSD.

So that will be later this week on Thursday evening.

Last week, my staff and I visited the Chistie Greenbelt in Beacon Hill.

I want to thank the Parks Department who have been really supporting and doing a lot of work on the Chistie Green space, supporting Friends of Chistie, Bike Works, and the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance.

Permits are imminent for the south portion of a proposed pedestrian and bike trail.

For those of you who don't know, Chistie is one of the only, it is the only green space in Beacon Hill that had been completely unusable because of Blackberry and English ivy invasion.

And over the last several years, neighbors have removed from 80,000 square feet, the Blackberry and the English Ivy.

So they've organized hundreds of work parties.

They've had over 9,000 volunteers and planted over 15,000 plants and trees throughout the area.

On our walk last week, we saw the kind of transformation that they are beginning and really got a chance to see what the future trail space would look like, what the wetland restoration work has accomplished.

And we also saw several neighbors out enjoying the trails that are beginning to be established there.

So I want to thank everybody who's worked so hard to turn that into a usable space for the community.

And I look forward to supporting the Parks Department and our neighbors as they work to complete that project.

Council President, I believe that is all I have today.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, let's go ahead and transition over to Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member Mosqueda will be Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you very much, Council President.

We have two items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full council agenda.

The first is item number 18. Item number 18 is the LTGO Bond Ordinance Revision for the Seattle City Center Signage Project.

This legislation would authorize amending the 2021 Multipurpose Limited Tax General Obligation, or LTGO Bond Ordinance, to include $8 million of financing for the Seattle Center Signage Upgrade Project.

I want to highlight that the Arena Co.

Company will be paying 75% of the project's debt service, while the Seattle Center will be paying 25. I also want to thank our members of the Finance and Housing Committee who included an amendment that we brought forward.

Thanks again to the central staff and Andrew Houston in my office for their work on this amendment.

This amendment helps to make sure that we And I think it's a great example of good governance and making sure that we are taking our responsibility for fiscal stewardship seriously and showing the residents of Seattle that we are being and we are ensuring oversight with their tax dollars.

So thank you very much for including that amendment in the LTGO bill that is in front of us today.

Also, there is amendment, or sorry, item number 19, which is a resolution 31991 related to the capital projects watch list.

There were two amendments that we included in the committee.

Thank you very much, colleagues, for bringing that forward, and it unanimously passed out of committee.

The first amendment was from Councilmember Strauss, adding Smith Co. back to the list, and the second amendment was from Councilmember Herbold, which would request that the executive work with the council's central staff to identify two or more projects to pilot with new reporting format.

And again, Councilmember Morales, thank you for flagging your amendment to the capital projects watch list.

I'm happy to see that amendment come forward, and we'll be supporting that.

Colleagues, related to the Finance and Housing Committee report, I do want to call your attention to a memo that Ali Panucci from Central Staff sent around on Friday.

It was sent around 3.30 p.m.

as a follow-up to our ongoing conversation in the Finance and Housing Committee regarding the anticipated federal funding to support the city's COVID response efforts, both in the near term and in the long term as we look for a more equitable recovery.

Allie sent the promised central staff memo, which she discussed and central staff members discussed in committee.

Thanks as well to Tom Meisel for featuring this as well as Yolanda, who talked about the fact that they were doing ongoing analysis of what they anticipated the federal relief dollars would mean for the city of Seattle.

and they have followed through on that promise.

The memo is 13 pages, and I encourage you to take a second to read it.

Again, this went to all council members because we want to make sure everybody on council has all of the up-to-date information regarding the federal stimulus and relief proposal.

And thanks again to the OIR team for their quick overview this morning and the council president for her comments as well.

It's important to note that in this memo, there is important information about how the council can consider and should consider potential future decisions in anticipation of the additional federal dollars coming our way.

And it outlines important steps for our consideration as we consider how to make sure that the council's priorities are reflected in the deployment and allocation of those federal dollars.

I want to note that there is two items that are underway right now related to the federal stimulus package, the $1.9 trillion package.

First is a resolution.

We discussed this resolution in committee last week, and this resolution helps to identify council priorities and general concepts, categories that we would like to see the city fund as we expect to receive the federal dollars and make sure that we are ready to implement the American Rescue We discussed in the March 2nd meeting that there are general categories like small business support, child care, immigrant and refugee assistance, food assistance.

There was about eight categories that you will see in the resolution that was circulated.

Again, we ask for all council members to take a look at this draft resolution.

and provide us with feedback by Thursday last week.

And you did.

Many of you did provide that.

So we are not putting it on the introduction and referral calendar this week because we are trying to incorporate all of the feedback that we received on this resolution.

With your feedback, we will be incorporating that into a draft resolution that will be on the introduction and referral calendar in the appropriate time.

Folks will be able to see that published in accordance to our council rules.

And we will then have it in front of us on Monday for your consideration.

really appreciate the feedback we've received already and if you haven't had the chance to look yet at that resolution again these sort of council directive lofty goals please do take a look and provide a central staff with any feedback that you'd like to see prior to introduction.

The goal is to get all of that input prior to introduction.

Now, the second thing that we're working on is actual legislation.

The second is a central staff will be working to create legislation to authorize the expenditure of the anticipated direct aid allocated to the city of Seattle from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. So the difference here is that we're going to have actual legislation, a spend directive, if you will, an ordinance that explicitly talks about where we'd like to see those dollars go, different from a resolution.

But the reason that we are not introducing that yet, as you heard this morning, is that there's still details to be worked out.

And we want to make sure that we have the full bill in front of us as signed or as passed out of Congress and anticipated a signature from the president as we think about how we will allocate the dollars.

The anticipated amount, again, is around $221 million as of last week.

We are all still, as Robin mentioned this morning from OIR, still going through the details to make sure that we have all of the information in front of us before we do the legislation drafting to put the fine points in that ordinance.

I appreciate your time as I want to make the distinction between those two, both the resolution that will be finalized and worked on this week for your consideration on Monday and then the actual legislation so that we have an ordinance that will be drafted and we will be working with you that week of the 15th, but we have a longer runway for that.

If you do have specific proposals or ideas that you would like to see that you're already percolating on for the use of that federal stimulus that support for COVID relief, please do let central staff know now because it is really helpful to get any specific ideas for funding in the hopper with central staff now as they draft that ordinance.

Please make sure to email Ali Panucci on central staff as they are beginning to compile a list.

of various priorities from council members and central staff is able to do the review and analysis to make sure that the item can get considered in the legislation.

I also just wanted to provide a little bit of update on the American Rescue Plan Act as discussed this morning again by our OIR team.

This week in the Senate maintained the $350 billion for states, municipalities, counties, tribes, and territories.

This means that $130 billion for local governments is split evenly between municipalities and counties.

This will be released in two trenches.

Half of it will be an enactment, and half of it will be 12 months following the receipt of the first payment.

$65 billion will be allocated to cities, towns, and villages throughout through the modified CDBG formula.

$45.5 billion will be for entitlement for communities with populations over 50,000, and $19.5 billion for non-entitlement communities with less than 5,000 population.

The house is expected to vote on this as early as tomorrow and the president is going to be signing it into law before the unemployment benefits expire on March 14th.

While we are still awaiting final allocation numbers, I want to thank members of our OIR team, all of you, for your detailed reports that you've been sending our way as well.

I want to thank as well the National League of Cities who provided this update that I'm reading from and also note that the Human Development Committee, which I am a member of and it's staffed by Stephanie Martinez-Ruckman, has been providing regular real-time updates while also hosting the National League of Cities I know you all have avenues to get that information.

Our next Finance and Housing Committee will be on Tuesday, March 16th at 9.30 a.m., and we will plan to introduce the spending legislation, again, the ordinance, that same week.

And we will keep you updated if there's any change in the American Recovery Plan Act's passage, but again, that's anticipated to be passed by and before the 14th of March.

appreciate it, colleagues.

I wanted to also, for those who didn't get a chance to join us, we invited the full council, and I want to make sure you all had access to the PowerPoint presentation that central staff provided as an overview of what was discussed from the CBO's office the prior meeting.

Central staff did a great job through their PowerPoint of walking through the various expected dollars and how that could affect our current spending allocation for COVID relief and also into the future years.

If you look at the PowerPoint presentation on slide seven and eight, I think it's an important sort of aha moment.

We did have a chance to look at the analysis that central staff provided on the six-year financial plan.

And in those slides it really illustrates that the ordinances that we have been passing related to specific spend requirements in ordinance 119811 and further detailed in resolution 31957 which related to spending related to the Jumpstart payroll tax revenues, that there is a difference of opinion, if you will, about how those dollars should be allocated in the out years.

And I think it's a really important document to take a look at because it does signal for me an interest in making sure that we put some more firm sideboards around how we anticipated the use of those Jumpstart dollars to be used in the future.

I really understand that we all have to be flexible in this time of COVID and the impacts on our remedy forecast.

But I also think it's important for us to maintain a level of integrity in the conversations that we had with those who supported the passage of Jump Start, including large and small business, labor, housing, transit, and food and community support organizations who help to provide support for the passage of jumpstart and wanting to make sure that that spend plan really adheres to the initial outline that council put forward.

I'm going to be considering something that I wanted to put on your radar.

In addition to the clear directive that we put in ordinance 119811 and resolution 31957, I'm going to be looking to working with all of you and with central staff in anticipation of our budget deliberations this year to make sure that we have developed a strategy to have financial policies and a jumpstart payroll tax fund.

that will ensure the Council's intent is adhered to and that we are able to transparently track revenue sources that are being used for various priorities.

This will include financial policies that will not only allow the use of the payroll jumpstart revenues in 2022 and beyond to support base services due to pandemic-induced revenue losses, base revenue continues to be We want to make sure that if base revenues begin to recover, those resources will be used to support base services, preserving the larger share of the payroll tax for the council's intended use described in the jumpstart plan spending ordinances.

So just a quick heads up on that.

And in terms of updates, in terms of events and on our calendar, I want to thank the folks at the Swedish COVID vaccine clinic and the Seattle University.

I noted before the large number of volunteers, both medical and non-medical volunteers who have provided a tremendous service to our city by signing up to make sure that our most vulnerable had access to COVID vaccines.

Thanks to the Swedish COVID clinic and volunteer crew, they served over 40 They serve folks over 40,000 hours in the clinics.

I want to thank them for all of their work.

They did notify the community that Swedish has fully transitioned the volunteer oversight to the city of Seattle.

And Swedish will not be maintaining their volunteer opportunities list going forward, but those opportunities will continue.

The next vaccination site will be at Lumen Field in mid-March, where Swedish will still have a clinic involvement alongside many other organizations in the Seattle area.

and more information can be found at seattle.gov backslash vaccine.

So I just wanted to thank them for their work and helping to get so many folks trained up to be our volunteer base, our volunteer core as we look to vaccinate more folks.

Last week, I also had the chance to watch the Othello Talks program, and we'll be featuring this on our Teresa Tuesday alert that goes out tomorrow.

This is a series of videos and communication out to the public on specific topics centering centering folks on issues of race and health inequities.

There was an opportunity to hear from residents, professionals, and community organizations, especially who live in the South End, to talk about the issue at hand.

And last week's issue was healthcare and racism.

It featured Dr. Ben Danielson and my old friend, Sybil Hippolyte, who's with the Washington State Labor Council and a healthcare expert.

And it was really incredible.

So I hope that you do get a chance to watch the recorded version that we will put in our Teresa Tuesday Alert tomorrow.

Last week, I also spoke with the Master Builders Association and talked about the need for continued upgrades to make sure that there is more opportunity for density and that we are creating streamlined processes for building housing of all types and all affordability across our city.

And I want to feature that this week, I will be attending the National League of Cities Congressional Conference here and there where we can.

And thanks again to the NLC for their ongoing work to help connect cities across this country.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be helping box groceries with the folks at the Beacon Hill Methodist Church.

This is an opportunity that Uncle Frank Aragon has reached out to me to participate in, to hand out meals to seniors.

If you don't know, Frank, he is a co-founder and frequently wrote in the Asian Family Affairs newspaper during its 14-year run.

He served as the Executive Director of Washington Asian Pacific Islander Families Against Substance Abuse.

And now that he's retired, he continues to fight for social justice.

And he was awarded recently in the last few years by the King County Council for all of his work on education, racial justice and labor activism.

So I'll be joining him tomorrow to box lunches to serve our seniors.

And finally, speaking of Uncle Frank, I wanted to thank Mr. Irvan, I want to thank Michael Winkler-Chin and the folks at SCIPTA and also Michael Iti from the Chinese Information and Services Center who worked with my team, Feride Cuevas, and central staffs, Asha, and to draft the statement that I sent around condemning anti-Asian hate crimes on the rise.

I want to thank Vee Nguyen in the council president's office and the council president for connecting me with the conversations that Vee has been having about the ongoing anti-Asian hate crimes that we're seeing, not just in Seattle, but across this country.

Together, we worked to draft a statement and sent that to you over the weekend to get feedback from all of these wonderful community leaders.

I appreciate your consideration of signing on to this statement.

We will, with your approval for those who are able to sign on, we will include your signature and we will put it on council letterhead and share it with various community members.

While this is not a resolution or a proclamation at the request of many in the API community, This is a statement and a full-throated condemnation of the violence that has escalated against our Asian American community in Seattle and is part, needs to be part, of our ongoing efforts to further invest in upstream investments to reduce violence and racism.

With ongoing escalating violence against Seattle residents of Asian descent, this statement is a message of solidarity and condemnation of these hateful, racist acts.

Auntie Sharon Mayeda also noted over the weekend in a conversation with me that this is unfortunately not new, and she explained the following.

Historically, Seattle participated and even led violent discrimination against Asian communities.

National anti-Chinese sentiment was very mainstream, and Seattle played a pivotal role in escalating the hate 136 years ago.

Seattle leadership at the time, including elected officials and labor leaders, marched hundreds of Chinese immigrants down to the waterfront and shipped them off to San Francisco.

Fast forward in 2010, educator and sister and former Councilman Wing Luke, Betty, sorry, in 2010, educator and sister of former City Councilman Wing Luke, Betty Luke, led a march from Chinatown International District to the dock at the foot of Washington Street in commemoration of what happened.

And this time, elected officials and labor leaders joined in in support and solidarity with the API community.

When President Roosevelt removed 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry to American concentration camps, it was the people of Bainbridge Island and the Quakers who stood up for the Japanese American community, not Seattle, no tomato.

Filipino cannery workers who were dispatched from Seattle to work in the Alaska fish canneries had to form their own union, ILWU Local 34. because of racism in the larger Seattle Union.

That discrimination continued for decades and congressional action required the Civil Rights Act of 1991 was needed to nullify a Supreme Court decision discounting that discrimination.

Maeda notes Seattle had also been part of racial healing After the fall of Saigon, Seattle and Washington State were national leaders in welcoming refugees from Cambodia and Laos, as well as Vietnam.

After I-5 was built, the eastern portion of the CID was cut off from the rest.

and deteriorated until refugees built Little Saigon as the center of their business district.

Donny Chin founded the International District's Emergency Center decades ago to protect the community, especially the safety of elders from the kind of hate crimes that increased over 150% in 2020. The Seattle fallout of the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent demonstrations and occupations across the country hit the CID hard.

Due to racism and hate, restaurants in the CID suffered greatly during the COVID shutdown.

While known for takeouts, pre-COVID, people just stayed away from the CID entirely, says Maeda.

As family-owned restaurants and other small businesses scrambled to protect Their businesses' local support was overwhelming in Seattle.

The Seattle Public Utilities trucks appeared with loads of plywood to help cover windows, and over 100 artists and volunteers from these diverse communities rushed forward to create murals that would bring joy to the pain caused by COVID.

Prominent artists and total novices donned masks and stayed socially distant as they painted quotes and tributes to Black civil rights leaders and icons within the API community as well.

Nearly nine months later, most of these murals remain on the businesses as the businesses are looking forward to opening and still struggling to survive.

So we can't redo history, she says, but Seattle can and must play a key role in stopping the hate crimes against API community and lead the racial healing for our whole community.

And with that, thank you very much, Chair Maeda.

Thank you very much to the folks who worked on this statement of support and provided your input.

Thanks for your consideration today for signing on to this draft statement.

I hope this statement is a show that City Council today will show our solidarity with the API community in Seattle.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda.

Do you understand that you're offering an opportunity for council members to sign on, and we do have to do that in an open session, so would you like that to occur now?

Yes, please, Council President.

Okay, so colleagues, signatures will need to be affixed to the solidarity with the Asian American community letter as described by Council Member Mosqueda.

I will ask the clerk to call the roll to confirm which council member signatures may be affixed to the letter, but before I call for the roll formally, are there any questions about the letter as described.

Hearing no questions, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the solidarity with the Asian American community letter.

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Yes.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez.

Yes.

And Madam Clerk, can you call on Council Member Juarez one more time?

Council Member Juarez.

We're not hearing from Councilmember Juarez.

I'm not sure if there's technical issues or not, but go ahead, Linda.

There's eight in favor.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any questions for, any other questions or comments on Councilmember Mosqueda's report?

Really quickly, Councilmember Mosqueda, on, I sort of, at the very top of your report, you talked about a resolution and legislation related to some of the federal funding issues, and I wasn't quite tracking your timeline for those.

I heard you mention Monday, but I don't know which Monday you're actually looking to have an introduction and referral, and then which sort of Monday would be set for, in your mind, full council action.

I know that you and members of your office are engaging individual council member offices.

But I also think that on this particular issue, it's also important for us to have an equal amount of transparency for the public and members of the public who are interested in weighing in on those pieces of legislation.

So I don't want us to forget that part of the process that does require us to publish these pieces of legislation and in doing so, allowing members of the public to understand, review, and also provide us some of their feedback or reaction or response to those pieces of legislation.

So can you just give me a little bit of clarity in terms of the timeline related to those things?

Yes, thank you, Council President.

So on the resolution, we did discuss the draft on May, I'm sorry, on March 2nd.

It was included in the committee minutes that were circulated and I believe posted as well online.

And it was unfortunate, sorry, that we did not get that on the actual agenda for an updated agenda sent out, but we do have that out in the public domain.

Our hope is to get your feedback, colleagues, this week, early this week, today or tomorrow, and then have that officially introduced according to, I believe, Council President, the timeline for introduction or referral, if I'm not wrong, is usually on Wednesday, so that it can be on the official introduction and referral on Friday.

and then with the resolution, if there is interest by the council president and the council as a whole, we'd love to see that passed on May 15th as a resolution.

And if there is a desire for additional time, I think that, you know, happy to work with you and the full council on the resolution's final passage, but we would be introducing it this week and have it on the official introduction and referral calendar.

As it relates to the ordinance, we would be drafting that and have a draft for consideration at our March 16th meeting with the anticipated passage of the actual ordinance at our first meeting in April.

That's, I believe, the timeline.

And I will double check with central staff and refer back to the memo as well to update my notes.

But that is my anticipated time frame to have two meetings to discuss the actual ordinance before it comes to full council.

OK, on the resolution, I would like to ask that that be introduced and placed on the introduction referral calendar for the 15th But I would like us to hold action until after the 15th.

I'm fine if that's the 22nd.

But I am working, as you heard the folks from OIRs mention, that I'm working on finalizing a date for them to come and brief the full council on what is in that stimulus package.

And I think that briefing is important to council members and the viewing members' public understanding of sort of the fuller context of our consideration of this resolution and eventually the ordinance.

In addition to that, my understanding is that Leslie Polner from our federal lobbying team is actually in the process now of drafting a very detailed memorandum that will not be available to council members until Wednesday this week.

And so I think there may be information in that particular memo that may, again, be informative to individual council members as they are evaluating both language they might want included in the resolution, but may not have enough time to get into it in order for you to comply with the introduction referral calendar referral process, or may also influence and help to inform council members in identifying priorities that they might want to flag for Council Central staff.

For purposes of including in the ordinance, the legislation that you are going to to shopper through your committee starting mid March through beginning of April.

So I just want to slow us down a little bit to allow us an opportunity to get that information.

Not all of us.

are the chair of the budget committee, so that means we have a little bit more of a steeper learning curve than you do in terms of getting up to speed on some of these issues.

So if we could have just a little bit more space to do some of that due diligence, I think that would be helpful both to the full council, but also to me personally as I'm looking to catch up on these issues as well.

Thank you, Council President.

I think that that is a totally reasonable request.

We will still plan to work with all of you to get your edits into the resolution.

Again, high level goals, categories, have that introduced officially.

at the end of this week, and in time for the official publication for the introduction of referral calendar on Friday, so that it will be on the INR calendar for Monday.

And then, Council President, for your request, we will then have a week to sort of consider, discuss, and then mull over the summaries that we received from the federal partners as well.

And then, colleagues, that week we will, as I mentioned, initiate drafting legislation, so we'll have sort of both going at the same time, we'll have a much longer time frame for the actual ordinance, but we would still appreciate your sense of urgency as it sounds like, you know, we want to be quick in getting those dollars out, and the Council President, your suggestion still allows for that sense of urgency.

So I think we'll look forward to working with you for the final passage of the resolution on the 22nd.

Yeah, and the last thing on the ordinance is I understand you want to have a committee hearing on the You have a committee, we have a committee hearing.

I'm on your committee, so we have a meeting of your committee on the 16th.

So I'd like to ask that the draft ordinance again be reflected on the introduction referral calendar on the 15th.

Is that the plan?

I believe that is the plan, yes.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that we don't, that we're not talking about a draft on the 16th.

I want to make sure that we have sort of something introduced, understanding that it's a draft and that it may change.

I just want to make sure that we get that on the introduction with real condor for the 15th.

Great.

I will follow up with central staff and our team, and we will strive to make that.

I want to thank Tom and Yolanda who have been really We will circle back and make sure we get that request followed through on.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has two items on today's full City Council agenda.

Council Bill 120009 allocates the one-time reserve funding left over from the 2014 Transportation Benefit District.

to move ahead with already approved transit-related projects.

The executive announced this proposed spend plan for the revenue from the $60 vehicle license fees back on February 1st, and the plan recently secured the important support of the Transit Advisory Board, which oversees spending of the Transportation Benefit District.

The legislation was recommended unanimously by the committee.

Resolution 31988 grants conceptual approval to create a small public path and plaza, and this partnership among the neighborhood, local business, and city government better identifies the handful of parking spaces in that section of the East Lake neighborhood of District 4, which I represent.

I visited the site recently, and we had a thorough presentation in our committee.

The project is something the neighborhood has been working on with the Department of Neighborhoods and SDOT for several years, and I'm glad to see it finally moving forward.

This legislation, this resolution was recommended unanimously by the committee.

There are central staff memos that accompany both pieces of legislation.

Our next meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, March 17 at 9.30 a.m.

In District 4, over the weekend, I toured the small business district within the University District neighborhood of District 4. And I used to work there for four years.

So I'm, I was great to walk it with the new executive director of the university district partnership.

The U-District partnership is the program manager organization for the Business Improvement Area, BIA.

Recently, we worked hard with local stakeholders in the district and with our Office of Economic Development to renew the BIA for the U-District, and more BIAs will be up for renewal.

The City of Seattle has 10 BIAs throughout our city where neighborhood businesses The district's landowners charge themselves additional fees to provide additional cleaning, security, and marketing as they struggle to prevent displacement of small businesses, many of which are in the middle of multi-year commercial leases and eager to reopen fully and rehire all their workers.

The BIAs have been incredibly important as a backstop and anchor during the COVID pandemic as they assist in the response to unsheltered homelessness, commercial burglaries, and efforts to keep the areas clean in hopes of attracting customers back to their businesses as we emerge from the pandemic.

Within the core of the university district, over 65% of the small businesses are owned by women or people of color.

The executive director and I discussed many issues such as preventing economic displacement, both of struggling small businesses as well as residents and naturally occurring affordable housing.

We also discuss the need for city government to work harder to create an environment that enables existing small businesses to thrive and rehire their workers.

We're also very excited about the forthcoming opening of the Sound Transit light rail station in September at Brooklyn Avenue in the heart of the U District.

and this is in addition to the station at Roosevelt and Northgate that Council Member Horace talked about earlier.

And speaking of transportation, it was great to see Governor Inslee at our District 4 this past Friday.

With the aging University Bridge as a backdrop, A bridge ranked poor by a recent audit of Seattle's bridges.

Our governor spoke about the need to invest in transportation infrastructure.

At the press conference, the governor said, quote, now we need to get our roads, bridges, and ferries.

All these things are necessary for the rebuilding of Washington State's economy.

We need to make the investments first, and I emphasize first, in maintenance of our existing transportation system.

It is woefully underfunded, end quote.

Nationally, the new U.S.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg this week also punctuated preservation.

Secretary Buttigieg said, quote, fix it first is going to be a very important mantra for us.

Doesn't always have the same sizzle as doing something new, but we've got to be doing both.

You just look at the condition of so many roads and bridges in this country, we can't allow that backlog to continue, end quote.

And at the local level, We already have our audit of Seattle's bridges.

We know what to do.

Now I hope we prioritize it and do it, and that means funding.

So I look forward to anything the executive can do now with any updates to the city budget this year or other funding sources.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Councilmember Juarez, please.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

The other thing I want to add, which I'm really excited because I am a board member on Sound Transit, is that Secretary Buttigieg is going to be focusing on improving racial equity in transportation.

which is gonna be one of his platforms, which is very exciting because we all know that transportation, a transportation spine, access is opportunity, opportunity is access to healthcare jobs and everything else.

So I'm really excited about that piece.

I really mean that.

That is actually something I'm having my staff look into.

So thank you for that, Councilor Peterson.

And I wanna thank Councilor Mosqueda for everything all the time.

Thank you, Councilor Mosqueda.

Thank you so much.

All right, I'm trying not to chuckle through what I have to say next, but thank you, Council Member Warren, for making Monday a little lighter for us all.

Appreciate it.

Okay, colleagues, any comments or questions on Council Member Peterson's report?

I do want to note for the record that this time I did not skip over Council Member Peterson inadvertently, so I feel like Monday is off to a good start for me.

I think a much-needed rest has done me well.

OK, colleagues, looks like no one has any questions here.

So we're going to head over to Council Member Sawant.

And then after Council Member Sawant, we'll go to Council Member Strass.

Council Member Sawant, good morning.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

Good morning, everyone.

Last Thursday, the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee met to discuss and vote on the right-to-council legislation from my office and from the renters' rights movement.

Thank you to council members Lewis and Morales for your co-sponsorship.

We also discussed further steps to prevent evictions, including the need to extend the eviction moratorium at least to the end of 2021 and addressing the problem of default evictions.

The committee also voted to recommend confirmation of four reappointments to the Seattle Renters Commission which are on today's City Council agenda.

The right to council bill passed in committee with a 3-1 vote with Council Member Peterson opposing and as a result it will be on next week's City Council agenda on March 15th, not on today's agenda.

City Council Central Staff Member Arsha Venkatraman is compiling answers to further questions and data that were requested by council members during the committee meeting.

And if any other council members have any questions, please do reach out to Ted Verdone in my office and to Arsha Venkatraman.

When the eviction moratorium ends, thousands of people in Seattle could face eviction, and it is essential that renters have legal representation when that happens.

We have seen in some cities like Columbus, Ohio, courts essentially authorizing mass evictions of 100 or more people a day.

It is essential that Mayor Durkin and Governor Inslee immediately extend the eviction moratorium through the end of 2021. The COVID health emergency is far from over.

Now there are predictions that there could be future surges and many people are still out of work.

We are now a terrifying 23 days away from the end of the moratorium if it is not extended.

Last week I shared with council members a petition my office has been circulating demanding that Durkin and Inslee extend the moratorium to the end of 2021. Since then, a public letter signed by dozens of community organizations and labor unions was sent to elected officials making that demand.

I urge Jerkin and Inslee to extend the moratorium today.

It is frankly cruel to make renters wait till the last moment to find out if they're about to be thrown out onto the street, and that has happened again and again for each three-month extension.

My office is drafting a city council resolution supporting this demand.

And if any council members would like to collaborate with us on it, please let me know.

In Seattle, there are legal defenses against addiction, but that is simply not enough because most renters need legal support to be able to use the legal defenses to protect themselves and their families.

Renters need the right to legal representation.

The Housing Justice Project, which, as you know, is a project of the King County Bar Association, has determined that even during the pandemic, landlords have sought more than 300 evictions in Seattle.

To allow people to face eviction, a potential death sentence in this pandemic, without legal counsel, is simply appalling.

The Housing Justice Project reported to the Renters' Rights Committee that prior to the pandemic, landlords in Seattle filed about 1,200 eviction claims a year.

Note, this is an undercount, according to the Housing Justice Project staff.

They say many landlords threaten eviction and get the tenant to move out before any court papers get filed, and that doesn't get captured in the data.

Overwhelmingly, the landlords filing for eviction are the big corporate landlords.

The Housing Justice Project found that seven of the top 10 evicting landlords in 2019 were major regional and national corporate landlords, with the number one evicting landlord being Goodman Real Estate, a huge property management company with $2.5 billion in managed assets in the US and Canada.

Imagine being a tenant facing eviction, perhaps because you lost your job or had a medical emergency, having to go to court alone and facing a high-priced lawyer paid by a corporate landlord.

It's no wonder that so many tenants give up long before that.

According to the ACLU, 90% of landlords go into eviction court with an attorney, while only 10% of tenants have an attorney.

This right-to-counsel legislation will give tenants a fighting chance against landlords.

The vast majority of eviction filings pre-pandemic were for nonpayment of rent, and you may recall from the 2018 report, Losing Home, that the majority of these eviction claims filed by landlords were for one month's rent or less.

The Losing Home report reveals that the renters were women and people of color, especially African-American, are more likely to face eviction.

In fact, last Thursday at the committee, the Housing Justice Project staff presented new data on the racist nature of our eviction system.

In 2019, they found while Black people constituted 8.3% of Seattle's population, they accounted for fully 28% of all tenants served with eviction papers.

Quite simply, the eviction system in our city is racist and sexist, It has been an integral part of the gentrification machine of our city.

That's why I urge all council members to publicly support and vote for our right to council legislation without loopholes when it comes before us next Monday.

Some suggest that tenant access to council should be subject to means testing.

Means testing is often put forward as something to supposedly make sure that those who are financially well off don't skim off public services and public assistance.

We've been hearing this for decades.

But what means testing has actually done, if you look at the data, is prevent those who need the services and are eligible for them from accessing it.

Means testing is what the corporate landlords want, not what renter or tenant advocates want in right to counsel, because means testing would completely undermine the point of having guaranteed right to counsel.

We heard last Thursday from the managing attorney for Housing Justice Project, Edmund Witter, who described how in circumstances where there was means testing, attorneys would end up having to spend a considerable amount of time just to ascertain whether their client was eligible for services or not, instead of actually representing them, and how clients often did not have the paperwork to prove their financial situation.

Imagine especially be for workers in the informal economy or imagine being an immigrant, especially with language barriers, you wouldn't be able to prove your financial eligibility under means testings.

So means testing would revoke your eligibility for eviction defense would be absurd.

Mr. Ritter also noted that in San Francisco where the right to counsel applies to all with no means testing of any kind They found that 94% of tenants getting legal aid were of low to moderate income, not rich people.

Most importantly, no one subjects themselves to the risk of eviction if they can pay.

They will move heaven and earth to pay their rent and avoid eviction.

They are in eviction overwhelmingly represents them having come out of options like being out of options entirely being faced with possible eviction therefore is itself a means test and there should be no barrier to accessing that the right to counsel.

Finally, we heard on Thursday.

about a study in Baltimore that shows that every dollar invested in providing tenants with legal aid saves the city and state about $7 in cost of eviction, just shelter, emergency medical aid, mental health, child care, and so on.

Similar studies in Los Angeles, Boston, and elsewhere have shown demonstrably that giving tenants legal assistance without any kind of barriers reduces the number of evictions and saves governments money.

The Housing Justice Project estimates that with the right to counsel, we could save at least 300 to 400 Seattle households from eviction every year.

And when paired with home case financial assistance, we could save 500 to nearly 700 households from eviction every year.

And even if the welfare of tenants was not at the center, even from a purely economic standpoint, right to counsel is a no brainer.

And we know this is going to be important once the moratoriums get lifted, which of course we want to extend at least to the end of this year.

Some are saying that we should exclude tenants who rent from small landlords.

I would personally think that's an absurd argument, but I also think it's a dangerous loophole that will only lead to more litigation and evasion by the corporate landlord as they try to sneak into the loophole.

First of all, just looking at the data, small landlords are not the major problem here.

But even if a small landlord was involved in eviction, I believe the tenant deserves the same right of representation.

In fact, my office has received supportive messages from a number of small landlords who recognize we do need stronger tenants' rights and they support these tenants' rights.

But also it's discriminatory to argue that some tenants deserve legal representation while others don't simply because of the happenstance of who their landlord is.

And I'd also note that corporate landlords often incorporate individual buildings separately for tax purposes, and creating a loophole for small landlords would only encourage more evasive maneuverings by corporate landlords to escape accountability, and it will tie up the whole eviction process and litigation over whether a tenant has or does not have the right to legal counsel.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Committee of Renters' Rights and Sustainability will be Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021. I have written to the Seattle School Board in solidarity with the Seattle Education Association, SEA, to express outrage at the Seattle Public Schools' blatant disregard for safety and the collective bargaining rights of educators.

Superintendent Juneau's unilateral decision to reopen certain in-person classrooms just weeks before educators are vaccinated shows callous disregard for the lives of educators, students, and their families, and is an attempt to strong-arm the union.

Seattle Public Schools must respect the memorandum of understanding they signed with school unions, committing to a safe reopening of in-person classrooms to be bargained with educators, and I fully support the decision of the SEA to refuse to accept SPS's dictate.

SEA reports that 99% of their elected representative assembly voted to refuse to go along with the school district's plan to forcibly expand the number of educators in the classroom by March 11th under unsafe conditions.

The union also voted overwhelmingly to declare no confidence in Superintendent Juneau's leadership.

And when educators speak with a nearly unanimous voice, the Seattle School Board has a duty to respect the expertise of the teachers, nurses, paraprofessionals, and other school workers.

Obviously, nobody wants the school buildings to remain closed one day longer than is necessary.

This past year has been a trial for the school community.

Families have struggled to make childcare arrangements.

Vulnerable students without reliable internet access have fallen further behind, and educators have struggled to find ways to support students remotely.

However, the return to in-person learning must be done safely, and that means respecting the expertise of the people who work in our schools every day to educate students.

Will Superintendent Juneau spend her days in the classroom she is unilaterally ready to open?

It is galling that Seattle Public Schools executive leadership thinks that they can and should make these decisions without involving school teachers.

Ultimately, the Seattle School Board is the independently elected leadership responsible for ensuring that the district returns to the bargaining table with the SCA.

They are responsible for resolving the union's vote of no confidence.

and unilaterally forcing educators and students back into the classroom without allowing educators and parents to have a say in the decision, putting those who are most vulnerable, especially at risk of catching and spreading COVID, is not how to support working families and our school communities.

In cities across the country, educators and community members are fighting a battle for safe reopening of schools.

As an elected representative of Seattle's working people, I stand in solidarity with the SCA, working-class parents, and community members as they fight for safety in Seattle public schools, and I hope council members will join that demand.

There's also a community sign-on letter being circulated by Kadima Reconstructionist Community of Progressive Jewish community members and other organizations urging Seattle Public Schools to negotiate with the union.

My office has signed this letter last week and I urge all council members to do so if you haven't already and my office will forward you the link to the letter if you don't already have it.

Over the weekend my office sent you all the draft of a proclamation to honor the life of brother Benjamin Shabazz who passed away last year.

He was a profound community leader and courageous fighter for social justice, and he will be dearly missed, including by me personally.

From fighting for the $15 minimum wage and renter's rights and affordable housing, to protesting Amazon's development of law enforcement facial recognition software, to being an outspoken voice against racism and for Black liberation, Brother Benjamin has been a pillar of progressive change for decades.

My office developed the text of the proclamation over the weekend with input from his family and community members, including the community at the Central District Cherry Street Mosque, and I hope all council members will join me in honoring him.

I hope to circulate the proclamation for signatures now and then present it at the city council meeting this afternoon.

Brother Benjamin's son, Jamil Shabazz, will be available to receive it at the meeting.

Today, March 8, is International Women's Day.

This day is especially significant when a new era of women are on the front line of global revolt for justice, and this new era has decidedly begun.

The year 2019 was a year of massive revolt in which women, and particularly young women, and their demands were often at the forefront, creating hope for women and LGBTQ people all over the world.

At the same time, The pandemic and the developing economic crisis that was triggered by it last year pose a real threat to the gains women have made in previous decades through mass movements and could carry long-lasting setbacks.

United Nations women warns that the poverty surge will hit women the hardest, especially women aged 25 to 34. United Nations Women Deputy Executive Director Anita Bhatia says, quote, the coronavirus pandemic could wipe out 25 years of increasing gender equality.

It poses a real risk of reverting to 1950s gender stereotypes.

More alarming is the fact that many women are actually not going back to work.

In the month of September alone in the United States, something like 865,000 women dropped out of the labor force compared to 200,000 men.

And most of that can be explained by the fact there was a care burden and there's nobody else around." The International Labour Office suggests that the equivalent of 140 million full-time jobs may be lost due to COVID-19, with women's employment 19% more at risk than men. The damage is massive in the informal sector globally, in which 58% of women are working. According to the United Nations Women, Informal workers have lost on average 60% of their income. A staggering 72% of domestic workers, of whom 80% are women, have lost their jobs, while these jobs already lack basic worker protections like paid leave, notice period, or severance pay. Bloomberg Online reported on September 30, quote, Even in the formal sector, the virus seems to be widening inequality. According to a census survey, nearly 7 million Americans aren't employed because of childcare. Since women earn less than men on average, it's often the mother who steps back. Women lose valuable skills during the time they aren't working, which can make finding a job in the future harder and damage family finances, according to Center for American Progress analysts. A study in October by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women showed that all types of violence against women and girls have intensified during the pandemic, including cyberstalking. At the same time, however, the women's movement has showed remarkable resilience and the breaks put by the pandemic were very short-lived. At the end of January, activists in Argentina obtained victory in their years-long and phenomenal fight for legal abortion up to 14 weeks. Notwithstanding a high infection risk and lockdown restrictions, Polish women reacted courageously to the new step in the direction of a total ban on abortion, receiving more support from wider layers in society than before. This struggle will continue, and future protests against the right-wing foolish government are assured of the fighting power of women, but this is important for us in the United States as well, because that struggle has inspired women internationally, including in the United States. Teachers and educators unions, healthcare unions, grocery and other frontline essential workers are speaking out against unsafe working conditions and for other needs of the workers. Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama are courageously fighting for a union despite Amazon fighting against the effort tooth and nail and spending $10,000 a day on anti-union consultants. All these labor struggles are important in themselves, but they are also occurring in sectors with majority women and their struggles are being led by women workers. The International Women's Day was, from the very beginning, a working women's day. While its immediate objective at that time was to win universal female suffrage, its aspirations were much grander. the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism, abolishing both the wage slavery of workers and the domestic slavery of women through the socialization of education and care work, and I have no doubt that women will continue that struggle today and onwards. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Salwan.

Are there any other comments or questions on that report?

Okay, Council Member Sawant, I do understand that your office has circulated the proclamation that you just described, and so we're going to go ahead and call for the roll now for folks who want to have their signature added to that proclamation.

Before I officially call the roll, I do want to allow any Council Members who might have questions about the proclamation to ask those questions now before I request the roll.

I'm not seeing any questions, so will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation honoring Imam Benjamin Shabazz.

Torres.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes, Council President Gonzalez.

Yes, 9 in favor.

Thank you so much.

Okay, that concludes that portion of the agenda.

So, we're now going to move over to Councilmember Strauss and then after Councilmember Strauss will be Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning Councilmember Strauss.

Council President, good morning, colleagues.

There are four appointments to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority governing councils on today's introduction and referral calendar.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the full council agenda.

The next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is this Wednesday, March 10th at 9.30 a.m.

There are four items on the agenda.

There's a discussion and vote on Council Bill 120001, bringing business home, a small business flexibility bill.

And I'll just want to briefly speak to this.

As I got to stop by Yonder Cider Company this weekend, they were able to reopen due to this forthcoming legislation.

Just to highlight for colleagues, any business that is open in a home is regulated by every level of government that touches them.

So, for instance, with Yonder, they are regulated by the Department of Public Health, Worker Control Board, and they have to have a city business license.

They have to be regulated with the state.

And you may have heard that they are able to expand to a currently vacant storefront.

Caitlin told me this weekend that this is only due to the fact that they have been able to use the garage set up to springboard in.

into a brick and mortar store.

So this garage setup that they're currently using is the seed funding for their future expansion.

And this just highlights for me our need to support entrepreneurs who use their garages to jumpstart our recovery, to fill those vacant storefronts as we emerge from this pandemic.

And again, this bill is not just about yonder.

It's for all of the businesses that I see as I walk around my neighborhood who are currently operating outside the letter of the code and ensuring that the code is not a barrier to our recovery.

Again, all businesses are regulated by every level of government that touches them.

They have home business regulations and home occupancy businesses are allowed in Seattle.

what this code change would do would allow them to use their garages, provide a little bit of flexibility and more clarity on sign code, and then really gets at the heart of some subjective language about the appearance of a home which is not defined in code.

businesses operating out of home occupancy businesses, even once, if and when this bill is passed, can still be closed for noise, smell, or glare.

And this bill provides modest flexibility for a time-limited duration, one year.

There is a sunset date already included in the bill.

And the ordinance contains a work plan to determine the pathway forward should any of these policy changes become permanent.

so that we can address what worked well, what didn't work well, did we include something that shouldn't have been included, or did we miss something important?

And it's important that we have this work plan from the start so that all stakeholders are able to engage in a meaningful way.

This bill provides needed relief and flexibility.

So this will be in committee this Wednesday.

We had a great discussion last committee, and hopefully we will be bringing it to you next week.

In the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee this week, we also had a briefing from OPCD on their annual report, a briefing from SDCI on their annual report, and a briefing from SDCI on their permit review process in response to a statement of legislative intent we adopted this last year.

Last week, in other business outside the committee, I attended the North Precinct Advisory Council.

Also on Wednesday, my staff attended the Wallingford Community Council.

My staff was planning to attend the Finney Community Council meeting.

However, this month they changed theirs to a closed board meeting.

I got to meet with the William E. Triangle Work Group on Wednesday to discuss next steps on utilizing our right-of-way as public space.

I participated in an interview with Converge Media on Friday.

Thank you, Omari and Trayana, for having me.

As well, I got to meet with the folks from LID I-5, a group of people who are working.

They've already worked with OPCD and a number of different consulting firms in the city to identify how we can LID I-5, how we can reconnect neighborhoods that have been disconnected as we heard earlier in council briefing and how do we create public space in areas that we already own just are under utilizing.

You may know right now Montlake's lid is being built and we are really excited to see that come forward.

This coming week, as I said, we have the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on Wednesday.

I'll be joining the Green Lake Community Council on Wednesday as well.

And I'll be meeting with the Finney Neighborhood Association, Ballard Alliance, Alliance for Pioneer Square, and Visit Seattle throughout the week.

My staff will be attending the Ballard District Council on Wednesday while I'm with the Green Lake Community Council.

And as always, I'll be meeting with District 6 residents on Thursday from 2 to 7 p.m.

Here in District 6, I got to hold District 6 office hours every week, that and last week.

I had great conversations with neighbors from downtown Ballard, East Ballard, Green Lake, Whittier Heights, Finney Ridge, Finney Wood, and Greenwood.

We discussed a couple of discussions on Stay Healthy Streets, what is and isn't working, especially for residents that live along the streets, and what SDOT should consider as they move forward to make Stay Healthy Streets permanent.

We discussed how businesses are failing in Seattle and how to keep supporting them.

the great work of the Seattle Animal Shelter and ensuring adequate funding for that resource.

We had a couple conversations on how to address dumping, litter, and graffiti.

Remember, for everyone listening or watching, using the Find It Fix It app is a great way to do that.

And for District 6 residents, if you want to forward us your reference number, we are happy to keep tabs on the requests that you make.

We also had a couple conversations on homelessness in Green Lake, Greenwood, Finney, Ballard, and across D6.

And we also had a discussion on how to protect our trees.

I, again, just want to thank District 6 residents for taking the time to speak with me.

I look forward to speaking with residents this Thursday, March 11th, between 2 p.m.

and 7 p.m.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

That is my report.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, it looks like I don't see any hands raised.

Council Member Strauss, I do want to thank you for your ongoing partnership on the Bringing Business Home bill.

I know we've all been receiving lots of emails in support of that particular legislation.

I'm looking forward to being a guest, a non-voting guest in your committee meeting this Wednesday, where we'll be and talking about and continuing our discussion of that bill in hopes of getting it at a committee and on to full council.

So I'm looking forward to that ongoing conversation.

Okay, let's go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Herbold.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee has no items on the full Council agenda today.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting this week, tomorrow at 9.30, and on the agenda we have the following items.

We have five appointments to the Community Police Commission.

Three of those appointments are Council appointments.

two of those appointments are CPC appointments.

We also have a reappointment from the mayor.

In addition, we have the confirmation of the Community Police Commission Executive Director.

Finally, we have two other items.

One of these, a voting item, hopefully, that's a presentation from the Human Services Director on the $12 million in community safety, capacity building, RFP, and the spend plan, including voting on legislation to lift the proviso on the funds.

In order to lift the proviso on the funds, the council must approve the spend plan for those dollars.

If you recall, Director Howell and her team from HSD presented on this at the January 26th Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting.

Following that presentation, Director Howe responded more fully to committee member questions in a memo distributed to committee members on February 18th.

The Human Services Department released the RFP on March 1st.

And last Thursday, my office sent to committee members a central staff memo about the legislation and a new memo from Director Howell describing the Human Services Department's committee engagement process, what they've learned through that engagement process, and the proposed we're going to be able to do that.

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We're going to be able to do that.

We're going to be able to do that.

We're going to be able to do that.

We're going to be able to do that.

We're going You may recall I submitted an editorial to the Seattle Times a couple weeks ago uplifting the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice Report.

They issued a report in early February.

These are criminal justice experts throughout the nation.

includes participation of our own Chief Diaz.

And that report was really focused on the fact that we have seen an increase in violent and property offense rates for 39 cities across the nation, including Seattle.

And this report really focused that in order to address this increased violent property offense rates, we need to do three things, work to subdue the pandemic, We need to work to increase confidence in the police and justice system, and we need to implement proven anti-violence strategies.

And the report also underscored the the causes of the increased violence and identified the fact that individuals are under physical, mental, emotional, and financial stress, and that the exact institutions that respond to violent offenses, including community-based groups that proactively and productively engage and depend heavily on proactive research, at-risk people in places that those institutions themselves have been under strain and stress.

So I'm really proud and pleased that the council has awarded these dollars through its budget process, along with the other $4 million that HSD has already awarded through the Seattle Community Safety Initiative, and want to really thank Human Services Department for responding to the council's call to urgently fund these services.

Last thing that we have on our agenda for tomorrow is a presentation from the Seattle Police Department.

You may recall that the Seattle Police Department sent a memo to council central staff back on January 25th.

It was linked to the committee agenda at the time and was previously included in a central staff memo listed on the agenda for both January 26th and February 23rd.

We delayed discussions in January and had an initial discussion at our last committee meeting focused on the proposed bill, Council Bill 119981, reducing the department's budget by $5.4 million.

SPD's memo notes how it could spend $5.4 million, including the use of overtime and separation pay, civilian hires, including four community service officers, two crime prevention coordinators, and reporting-related positions.

SPD has also raised some technology needs.

So the relevant background for this proposal, of course, we all know, is that the mayor's proposed 2021 budget included leaving 4 million in civilian positions vacant during 2021, and the council adopted the mayor's proposal.

So the fact that there was 4 million in civilian positions left vacant in the mayor's proposed budget raises this question of whether or not funding some of these civilian positions might be a good thing to do in light of the limitations on sworn officer hiring.

on the police department.

Of course, the council fully funded the Seattle Police Department's 2021 hiring plan.

This means the council is providing all of the funds that SPD says are necessary to hire a number of officers that SPD believes it can hire in a single year.

in deliberations on Council Bill 119981, making this $5.4 million reduction.

I am interested in addressing the recommendations of the City Auditor, the Auditor's longstanding recommendations regarding staffing and technology needs for public disclosure, and the Inspector General's recommendations, her recommendations regarding evidence storage underscore that an important consideration in these discussions is the consent decree with the U.S.

Department of Justice.

Judge Robart, who oversees the consent decree, has stated that he has concerns about significant cuts to the Seattle Police Department budget and has emphasized the importance of scaling up policing alternatives.

Again, we are hearing ongoing progress reports about this in my committee.

And likewise, Council Member Morales is hearing updates about these scaling up of alternatives in her committee as well regarding the Black Brilliance Project.

city attorney's office has sent a memo to the monitor that clarifies that the cuts proposed by the mayor, that clarifies the cuts that were made by the council, clarifies the budget cuts that were in the adopted budget but not made by the Seattle Police Department, and clarifies the fact that it was also an end-of-year $5.4 million to the Seattle Police Department's budget.

And if you haven't received a copy of that memo from the city attorney's office, I'm happy to send it to you.

Moving on to quick updates from Seattle Fire Department.

Seattle Fire Department COVID-19 tests administered at their four sites is now cumulative up to March 5th.

being delivered at these four sites throughout the city.

And then vaccination teams have administered nearly 15,000 vaccines through March 6th.

Seventy-four percent of those vaccines have been delivered to the arms of members of our BIPOC community.

A quick human services update.

I already mentioned it earlier, but just again to focus No, the community safety capacity building RFP is available as of March 1st.

Of the $12 million that the council made available, $10.4 million will go out to community to expand the capacity of community-led solutions.

that contribute to overall community safety, including ending violence and reducing crime.

The technical assistance for the proposal development is available and priority will be given to agencies led by the RFP's focus populations and organizations with an operating budget under $1 million.

Applications are due on April 9th, and there will be an 18-month contract running through December 31st, 2020. Then, lastly, one other police department-related update before I move on to other updates.

Because I know there's high interest in this related to the less lethal weapons legislation, the Monitor overseeing the consent decree and the U.S.

Department of Justice have reviewed the less lethal weapons bill that the Public Safety and the Human Services Department to be sent to them for their review in line with the consent decree process.

They do have questions about the draft bill, and I will be meeting with them later this week along with the city attorney's office, Council President Gonzalez, and the council's outside legal counsel in an effort to address the questions that they have about the recommended draft bill.

COVID vaccine updates, there are a lot of important announcements last week regarding the vaccine.

Quick roundup is all veterans who are enrolled with the VA regardless of their age are eligible to receive vaccination from the VA, but should contact their primary care team to schedule.

As we all know, President Biden announced that all pre-K through grade 12 educators, school staff, and child care workers are now eligible for vaccination and should receive at least their first dose in March.

Pharmacies that participate in the federal pharmacy partnership program will prioritize these folks during the month of March.

And then, of course, there are still a significant number of people aged 65 and older who are waiting for their first dose.

The Biden administration also announced a new manufacturing partnership that will create enough vaccine doses for every American adult by the end of May.

So if you're eligible and still looking for your first dose, be patient.

More vaccine is on its way soon.

I want to highlight the fact that our own presiding judge, Willie Gregory, has been recognized for creative leadership as part of the Innovating Justice Awards.

This recognition is because of multiple actions taken.

under his leadership to reduce the Seattle municipal jail population when the pandemic hit and working on multiple fronts to engage the community in evaluating disparate impacts of court actions on people of color and in guiding changes to court processes.

When the pandemic hit, Gregory worked to reduce jail population by considering motions to release, continuing out-of-custody appearances, and maintaining the in-custody arraignment calendar to ensure opportunity for release as early as possible.

He signed a general administrative order that ensured people charged with low-level offenses did not have to sit in jail for misdemeanor warrants.

And he also adopted guiding principles promising to engage the community in guiding court programs, encourage court leaderships to build relationships in the community, and view policies through a racial equity lens.

committed to incorporating lessons learned from community surveys and his support of innovative changes such as the elimination of discretionary fines and fees for criminal cases and the launch of a new community court pre-trial program that connects participants with services instead of jail time.

So, yeah, I just want to share my appreciation for presiding Gregory and encourage my colleagues on the council to send their congratulations to him as well.

And then lastly, events coming up this week.

Tomorrow, I have the Domestic Violence Prevention Council quarterly meeting that I'll be attending.

On Wednesday, I'll be attending the Regional Policy Committee meeting.

And also on Wednesday, the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force's meeting.

And then lastly, on Thursday, I will be attending the lead policy coordinating group quarterly meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Lewis, please.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

I just want to take a moment to echo Councilmember Herbold's words of recognition for presiding Judge Gregory as someone who used to appear regularly in Judge Gregory's courtroom and work in the municipal court.

I just think I cannot express enough the profound changes that the municipal court has been undergoing under his leadership based on what I have observed in my personal experience and the really fundamental change that Judge Gregory and Judge Shadid in particular have really been leading on as relates to the community court.

And just want to state that, you know, that it's certainly not something that was for granted.

That's certainly not something that was just going to come as a matter of course, but really is due to their initiative and their leadership and going above and beyond what we've historically expected the bench in the municipal court to do.

And I really look forward post-pandemic to continuing this great work on really fundamentally revisiting a lot of the central concepts of our system of justice here and how we can reorder things and invest heavier in the kind of programming like the new community court to really make a significant difference.

So just echoing those comments.

Thank you, Judge Gregory.

You're doing a great job over there.

Thank you so much.

Also want to echo my congratulations and to presiding judge Willie Gregory.

He's also an alum of Seattle University School of Law, which is where I went to law school as well.

And he is certainly always You know, sort of a highlight of the alumni network for Seattle you law school and this is exactly why I've had an opportunity to work really closely with.

with the judge on issues related to the VR projects review of how they can better center racial equity goals and policies and outcomes in their operations and in their policies.

And I've just been really impressed with his strong commitment to racial equity within the Seattle Municipal Court, but also not just a commitment, but putting those things into action and really changing how they are doing their work over there to reduce the disproportionate impact on communities of color and just deeply appreciate his work and appreciate that others are also recognizing his work and giving him this recognition is really important.

So thank you for highlighting that for us, Council Member Herbold.

Okay, looks like there's no other hands raise your questions on that report.

So I'll go ahead and round out today's Conversation on this aspect just really quickly on this afternoon's agenda.

I have two items, both are appointments to the immigrant refugee commission.

And both of these appointments will be considered during my governance and education committee meeting later this week.

I don't have any other items for action on today's full council agenda.

Again, the Governors and Education Committee meeting will have our regularly scheduled meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, March 9th at 2 o'clock p.m.

We have four items for briefing and discussion only.

The first is, as I just mentioned, the two appointments to the immigrant refugee commission, the, the next item will be a briefing from the office of immigrant refugee affairs regarding their 2020 rapid response work, which was funded by the Seattle City Council through the 2019 budget.

And then lastly, we'll hear from our team over at the Department of Education and Early Learning.

They will be with us to provide us an update on the city's strategies and or recommendations for child care for children between the ages of zero to three, as well as other work that they've been doing in the child care access area for Seattle families.

Looking forward to that really important conversation.

Next, again, I wanted to echo that today is International Women's Day, and it is March, so we are also smack in the middle of Women's Month.

On this International Women's Day, I want to encourage all of us to support at least one woman-owned business today.

You can do that by heading over to The Intentionalist or to Ever Out Seattle to find ideas based on your neighborhood of preference.

So strongly encourage you all to do that.

And I want to also thank our Seattle Office of Economic Development for highlighting those opportunities and for continuing to amplify and support our small businesses.

And lastly, colleagues, I did want to take a moment to acknowledge that this week marks a year since we all started teleworking in anticipation of the statewide mandate to shelter in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It seems longer than a year that we've been physically apart from each other while doing the people's work, but I do want to take a moment to thank each of you and every single person working in the legislative department and throughout the city for Your resilience and your ongoing public service and your flexibility.

I know that someday we'll be able to safely come back together.

But for now, we'll continue to conduct our business remotely and keep complying with our public the public health recommendations.

But.

It seems shocking that it has been one full circle around the sun and here we are still doing our business remotely.

I know it's challenging and I know it's difficult, but folks in the city have really stepped up to that challenge and really appreciate colleagues, your leadership in leading by example and making sure that the telework protocols are being respected and and complied with, so thanks to all of you.

Okay, and then really quickly, I know that Council Member Juarez didn't have an opportunity to signal in open session her interest in adding her signature to the letter described by Council Member Mosqueda in solidarity with the Asian American community, so just wanted to give her an opportunity to state that in open session so that we are in full compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act.

So Council Member Juarez, I understand you did want to add your name, your signature to that letter.

Yes, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I missed the vote.

So yes, I would like to add my name to Council Member Mosqueda's letter in support of the protection and to stop the violence and anticipated violence against our Asian brothers and sisters.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Happy to have you added to the letter.

Okay, colleagues, so that concludes that part of our agenda.

We are now going to shift into executive session, as I mentioned, an open session.

We do have two short executive sessions today, so I'm going to go ahead and move us into those exact sessions.

As providing officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

The purpose of the executive sessions is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation, The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect the time of the executive sessions to end by, let's say, 12.45 p.m.

If the executive sessions are to be extended beyond 12.45 p.m., I will announce the extensions and the expected duration in open session.

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