I just need one moment here, team.
I see that.
Thank you for being here for a regularly scheduled council briefing.
We're joined by council members Bagshaw, Juarez, Mosqueda, and Gonzales.
And if there's no objection, the minutes from our last meeting will be approved.
Hearing no objection, they are approved.
We have an executive session after this, and of course, we will be hearing from the mayor's budget address delivered this morning at Franklin High School and so it would be efficient if we could get through our agenda.
I have from the Governance, Equity and Technology Committee three items up for vote this afternoon.
Two of them we've talked a little bit about are the alignment between some state law changes that were made that we will certainly reconcile with our city law.
And the first one has to do with the sale and use of tobacco and marijuana products to and by minors.
So we'll amend a section in our code and make that consistent with state law.
And similarly, there are crimes and offenses concerning animals, many kinds of animals.
And so we'll amend our municipal code to reflect the state changes.
And last, the surveillance ordinance that we've been working on for many, many months We'll be up for a vote this afternoon as well, and I'll thank all of you for engaging in that.
I think there may be some amendments proposed, and we'll work through some of those, if in fact they are proposed and are successful.
And so I want to thank Council Members for working on that.
So those are three items from the Get Committee, and Council Member Bekshaw, you're on.
Good morning, everybody.
Good to see you.
Today, of course, is the first day of the rest of our lives for budget.
Exactly.
So we have nothing this afternoon from the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee on our agenda.
We do have a special meeting tomorrow after the special meeting that Councilmember Miscadas has.
Ours will start at 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon, and we're going to discuss and vote on the predatory vehicle landlord legislation.
We voted on a group of amendments last week, and it was completely changed from what you all saw originally.
The redlining was very significant.
But the focus now is really on the public health elements of the predatory vehicle landlord legislation and finding options for the individuals that might be moved.
So I think that...
We have done a lot working with the mayor's office.
I want to thank Anthony and Kristen Grove from the mayor's office, Allison in my office, doing a lot of really good work on that.
So if you've not seen what came out of the committee last week, I'd ask you to take a look at it.
I know Allison has gone door to door with your staff to say, here's what we've got now.
Please look at it.
Provide any amendments with Jeff Sims.
And thank you, Jeff Sims, from Council Central staff as well.
So my intention is to move that out of committee tomorrow.
Also, at this last committee, we did hear and review, once again, the ordinance and resolution around the Cannery Building.
And I want to say thank you to all of you for your support and help on that.
It is moved out of committee, but I'm holding it until December 7th.
And I want to acknowledge and say thank you to the landowner.
He came to my office last week.
We had a great conversation.
He brought his architect, as I had hoped, that it is moving forward.
looking at housing down on 2nd and Washington, or 2nd and Main.
So, great opportunities in that area.
We've done a lot, and I want to say thanks to my staff for moving that forward.
Dan and Allison and Lena, in particular, really helping us identify opportunities, and we now have almost done it with the Metropole building.
Thanks to Satterberg Foundation and Forterra, looks like we're taking over the Metropole building to get that resurrected.
Of course, we all know about calling Echo Hawks tomorrow.
Peter Nitze and his wife Lisa were opening at another building, groundbreaking right on 2nd and Main.
So it's pretty impressive, just the work that's gone on and people saying yes and standing up and fixing these buildings and getting housing in them.
So it's going to transform that area.
So, yeah, absolutely.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Just very briefly on that, I wanted to say thank you for your work.
As we know, we need to put every parcel of underutilized property into affordable housing hands or the public use.
And I just wanted to note for the record how important it is that you're moving this forward and the tie-in historically to the worker struggles that Sylmie Domingo and others had when the cannery was the point of contention when labor organizing was met with violence for Cindy Domingo's brother and her colleagues.
So I did reach out to Cindy Domingo and let her know that this is something you're working on.
And she's really excited about that opportunity to take this otherwise dilapidated building and put it into the public use.
So just in case I'm not here in December when you take this issue up again, I would love to continue to elevate the story of Silme Domingo, his colleagues at the cannery work and the cannery organizers as we think about the next iteration for that building.
building.
Thank you for bringing that up.
Every time it's come in front of us we have discussed that.
We have reached out to the leaders in the Filipino community, Cindy obviously one of them, but also there's some new voices.
So Lena in my office is reaching out, we'll have a preliminary conversation about Who would they like to have at the table?
Because clearly we want to do something like what Colleen Echohawk has done to acknowledge the history of the peoples in her building, but I want to do something similar on the inside and the outside of the building potentially, but asking the community what would they like to see?
What would honor the culture and the history?
and what went on with the cannery workers.
So I'm absolutely committed to doing that.
Even though we're doing budget, that's going to be happening behind the scenes.
And the landowner has also agreed to come, which is a big step forward.
So I'm really grateful for that.
So you all know that the mayor's delivering her speech today.
Thank you, Council President, for introducing that.
She's beginning at 11.45, and then she's going to be presenting again this afternoon to us.
We got a lot to do.
Thank you all.
Happy first day of the rest of our lives.
Thank you.
And before Councilmember Juarez goes, just to clarify, the doors will open at Franklin High School.
I don't think we have any Quakers at the table.
But Franklin High School at 1115. The program will start at 1145. And I know many of us are attending that.
So 1145 start.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Juarez.
I am a Quaker, just so you know.
Just kidding.
No, I'm not.
No, I'm not.
I just want to throw that in there.
OK, so I'm going to be Council Member Pacheco first.
So let's start with, there are no PLEZ-related items on the introduction referral calendar today.
At full council, there are four PLEZ-related items on the full council agenda.
Clerk file 314359 and council bill 119651 are the associated clerk file.
Council bills for a contract rezone application for 4730 15th Avenue Northeast from low-rise 3 to neighborhood commercial 2 with a 65 foot height limit and a m1 MHA suffix Second one is council bill one one nine six four nine clerk file three one four three seven eight are the associated clerk file and council bills for a final plat approval for the quote-unquote Raymond Place plat at 5936, 36th Avenue South.
The next plus committee meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, September 24th at noon.
There are four items on the agenda.
Number one, a vote on the resolution updating the council's position on the second vascular, did I say that right?
A skill bridge project?
Vascular bridge.
Yeah, vascular bridge project.
Number two, a briefing and vote on a contract rezone of 5256 Rainier Avenue South from Neighborhood Commercial 2 with a 40-foot height limit to Neighborhood Commercial 2 with a 65-foot height limit.
Third item, a briefing from the Seattle Green Partnership on their work to restore neighborhood forested parks and natural areas.
And last, a briefing on e-scooters and micro-mobility.
And finally, we are circulating for signature A proclamation.
Councilmember Pacheco has a proclamation for Sandy Archibald, who is retiring after 16 years as the Dean of the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.
This was emailed to everyone last week.
I hope you all get a chance to look at it and sign it.
Okay, now we'll talk about the district that really matters.
D5, just kidding.
Okay, so last week we had a Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee.
There were four items that passed out of committee and are up for consideration this afternoon.
Number one is an appointment of Andrea, I like Andrea, Akita, from District 2 and a committed parks volunteer to the Parks District Oversight Committee.
Second, a parks ordinance that authorizes the superintendent to extend the existing 10-year lease with Seattle Children's Playground.
Number three, an ordinance that authorizes SPU to execute a memorandum of agreement between the City of Seattle and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe for the transfer and curation of the Chester Moores collection.
These are tribal artifacts that are being returned back to the tribe.
And lastly, an ordinance that authorized Seattle City, authorized Seattle Center to complete negotiations with the monorail services.
This ordinance would establish the terms under which the monorail services will implement the one regional card for all, ORCA, smart card, is a form of payment.
That is a long way of saying that in October you will be able to use your ORCA card on the monorail.
Yes, the monorail will finally be able to participate in the ORCA program and that has been a long time coming, my understanding, since the mediation issues in 2014. The next Civic Development, Public Assets and Native Communities Committee meeting will be Wednesday, December 4th, and Mr. Nellums will return and give us an update on the amendment to the original contract.
So those of you know, we are having Live at D5, fourth year in a row.
I don't care what happens, we're going to have it.
Wind, rain, or shine, I'm going to be there.
With all the things that we promised last time, our free food, our petting zoo, our live music, booths from local neighborhoods.
Last year, we had over 40 neighborhood booths.
It's all at Hubbard Homestead Park, just north of Target at Northgate.
I hope I see some of you there.
And I'm really happy for the next event we're having up in D5.
On Tuesday, October 1st, the NHL and Simon will host an open house at Northgate Mall for the community to view their latest plans and hear about the collective vision for the future of the area.
As you know, NHL is going to have their training facility at Northgate.
And besides the three sheets of ice and the two hotels and the 1,500 units of market rate housing, we have other things that are going on.
This is an opportunity for NHL and Simon to highlight the growth, the density, what we're going to do with light rail coming online.
As you know, Northgate light rail, we're looking at and we're anticipating ridership between 40,000 and 50,000 people alone at Northgate.
And then, of course, we're working on the second stop This open house will be Tuesday, October 1st from 5 to 7 p.m.
And this is the last point I want to make, and I again want to thank my colleagues.
This is the actual success when we fund feasibility studies, when actually you have an idea and you watch it come to fruition.
Last year, Mayor Durkan, as well as this council, added money to the budget for a feasibility study and a pilot program for a union building and trades apprenticeship program at North Sale College.
And I'm very excited to share that the pilot program is underway with Ironworkers Local 86. I met with the apprentices last week.
That's the first cohort group.
Every group has been filled for one year.
and visited their outdoor classroom and construction site.
It is phenomenal.
It was just a wonderful meeting with all these people that have signed up for this cohort group.
So a big thank you to Seattle City Council, to Mayor Durkin, Dr. Warren Brown, the Dean, John Litter, Chris McLean, and Dale Bright for helping make this program a reality.
We have met with and will be working with OIR to explore other funding opportunities in the state budget to make this a permanent apprenticeship program like the successful apprenticeship program in South Seattle Community College.
And for the North End, this is the first of its kind.
So thank you.
Thank you, Debra Warris.
You're welcome.
Council Member Warris.
Before Council Member Mosqueda proceeds, Council Member Baxter, will you pass my cup down to Council Member Mosqueda?
I see she's giving out coffee this morning.
Oh, I am giving out coffee.
Did you want some down here?
Don't mind my coffee.
Don't look over here.
You don't have enough for everybody.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Well, we're really excited.
We have a few items on today's full council agenda from the Housing Health Energy and Workers' Rights Committee.
The first is the appointment and potential confirmation of Emily Alvarado as the Director of the Office of Housing.
Thanks to our council colleagues for filling out the questionnaire, questions that you would like to see her complete.
She did send those in early last week.
We had a robust conversation with Council Member Bagshaw at the table.
And I think we're really excited to see the principles of this council be lifted up in this individual and her leadership at the Office of Housing to both advance affordable housing and to create more equitable housing as well, both in terms of rental options and first-time home ownership options.
You all, if you haven't had the chance to work directly with her, I know we'll be very impressed by her answers in the questionnaire.
And if you do get a chance to go back and listen to her opening statements in our committee, it was very impressive.
The second item that we have is a combination of five appointments and reappointments to the Seattle Housing Authority.
Andrew Loftin, the Executive Director of the Seattle Housing Authority, came last Thursday to speak on behalf of the appointees.
Mr. President, we had a delay in processing the appointment packets, so we weren't able to vote in committee.
I am going to be including language in my comments today at full council with your approval to see if we can get those five appointments, two reappointments.
And I'm sorry, two new appointments and three reappointments to today's full council agenda as well.
The third thing that we have is a technical item.
And I think while it's technical, we can also continue the celebration of the work that we did to collaboratively work and diligently work with various stakeholders to pass the hotel worker protection legislation.
What we have in front of us today is a technical item, Council Bill 119654, which recognizes that we have Initiative 124 currently on the books and the four pieces of legislation that we just passed related to hotel worker protections, and while in some cases there are conflicting sets of policies, we know that it's important for us to clarify the record and While the protections in 124 are still held up in the court ruling due to a technicality, I think that moving forward with striking the provisions of Initiative 124 really cleans the slate so that our four pieces of legislation when signed into law have no conflict.
And the last item is the Multifamily Housing Property Tax Exemption, MFTE, Council Bill 119615. We did have a robust discussion in our committee last week.
I want to thank Council Member Bagshaw again for her engagement on this issue.
We brought this issue to our committee three times and about two or three weeks ago we did share amendments on some of the bigger pieces of policy with stakeholders and it was published publicly.
But I want to make sure that folks have a sense of what's included in this legislation in case you've received any comments.
Number one, We have included adjustment to the affordability levels for different size units to better collaborate or calibrate what we see in the market.
We've actually heard from builders of small accessory dwelling units that the MFTE requirements may be such that it's not possible to create standalone buildings with 100% of these types of units.
So based on their feedback, we are proposing an adjustment for buildings that are 100% small accessory dwelling units or CDUs to make it easier to build these housing types, recognizing this is an important way to help create affordability for workforce housing in the market.
At the same time, we also found that there's an opportunity to lower the affordability threshold for some unit sizes, such as studios and one bedrooms.
And this wasn't based on just wanting to do it.
We looked at data, thanks to Tracy and Allie from Central Staff, who did a robust data analysis.
The analysis indicates that it would not have a significant impact on participation in the MFT program if we change these affordability thresholds slightly for studios and one bedrooms.
The second thing that we did is we worked with our labor partners on ways to advance labor standards through the MFT program and to really support our ongoing effort to try to infuse higher labor standards every time the public dollar is being used and in this case where we're foregoing public dollars because of the tax incentive.
We have included labor standards trying to replicate what we've, for example, requested in terms of reporting back and requirements at the case site.
We are also indicating that there's a lot more work to be done at the state level, specifically around including prevailing wage and MFTE programs at the state level, but that's state-level policy that we don't have any control over.
And we've also directed the executive to collect data related to labor equity goals from the various participating MFTE projects so we can better understand labor dynamics of the program and to inform any future policy changes.
Thanks again to our long list of labor partners, especially the building construction trades Who helped provide feedback on that and we look forward to hearing how their conversations go in Olympia The last thing is we've updated our annual reporting requirements to include information that will help the city better respond when there are market changes or policy developments and that necessitate quicker action on the MFTE legislation.
We do this every four years and we come back and we renew at Council, but if there's things that we need to respond to quicker, we now have an annual reporting requirement that the Office of Housing will provide, an analysis of market conditions, recommendations for policy change when there's a significant downturn or upturn in the market, any state policy changes that are coming that relate to labor standards, for example, and also getting a better sense of the demographics, who's residing in the MFTE units, and to better understand how this incentive, the foregoing of public dollars, really does align with any race and social justice equity goals that the city continues to have.
We want to make sure that there is a nexus there if we're foregoing public dollars.
I'm excited about that, and I would love to continue to move it forward and have a vote today I really appreciate how thoughtful you've been on this and to Tracy Radcliffe and Ali Panucci for their help, but I also did get in an email from Jack McCullough who has been you know really tied into this program since its Inception and I know he has concerns that things will go down, and it's worked really well I reached out to him to let him know what we've done, but also to acknowledge that if it turns out it's not working as we had hoped, that it can be changed.
And you have written language in to make it very clear.
So I appreciate the fact of what we're doing, what we're trying to do, make things affordable, keep the number of units coming.
And I just want you.
to know how much I appreciate the hard work you've done and the flexibility here.
So we'll see where it goes.
Thank you so much.
And we did put out a call for additional feedback.
I appreciate Mr. McCullough's email as well.
We did hear from a few folks.
Please go forward.
We understand that there's checks and balances in place.
So looking forward to getting that future data, like you said.
And if we need to, we'll be around to make some amendments.
But thank you.
I really appreciate that, Council Member Bagshaw.
Mr. President, just wrapping up here, we, speaking of wrapping up, we will have our final Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee meeting tomorrow.
No more, I promise, guys.
It'll be from 2 to 4 p.m.
That's Tuesday, September 24th, and it's gonna be everything related to City Light.
City Light Review Panel Commission reappointment, Northwest Seattle Property Sale Ordinance, Rate Pilots Authority, Burien and BPA rates, Northern Grid Ordinance, Emergency Low-Income Assistance Program, and continuing the conversation with our friends at Seattle City Light about how we change some of the narrative and dialogue around shut-off notices and even the shut-off policy.
So I think you will all be pleased with some of those conversations and how they've evolved.
Tomorrow, I hope you guys can join.
If you need tickets, let us know.
There's a sold-out town hall event with Naomi Klein.
a renowned author and environmental activist, labor activist.
Her most recent book is called On Fire, and it presents the burning case for the Green New Deal.
Thanks to Councilmember O'Brien for his leadership on the Green New Deal.
I reached out to him and said, does it sound okay if I do this?
And he's like, go for it.
So I'm hoping to bring everything.
I am not going to be a gatekeeper.
You go.
I have been honored to work with you and all of you as we've advanced the Green New Deal principles here at Seattle City Council.
And I look forward to having Naomi Klein in our community again.
It was a real pleasure to meet her a few years ago at the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO with Jeff Johnson.
and Iko Schaefer when she came into town just before initiative 1631 was being rolled out.
So I think a lot has happened and at the same time, a lot hasn't happened and it'll be very interesting to get sort of a status update from her on how we're doing and what they'd like to see more of, especially from local elected.
So that's at Town Hall and it's at 7 p.m.
If you get the chance to tune in or be there, that'd be great.
The last thing that we have is a proclamation.
We have a proclamation today that proclaims September 22nd through September 29th as Seattle Nanny Recognition Week.
We are working with nannies across the city, and this is a proclamation that originated with the executive.
We thank Mayor Durkan and Kelsey Nyland for their work on this proclamation, and specifically want to thank the folks at Working Washington and other worker advocates who worked with us on the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights.
We have put into place some basic rights for domestic workers, including nannies, and this week of recognition is really about making sure that we continue the tradition started 20 years ago, honoring the hard work of nannies and those who are caring for our most precious items, our children, across the country.
So there's a bunch of events going around.
happening around the world, in the US, in Australia, in Europe, and we're really excited to be part of this global effort to recognize those who care for our kiddos.
We want to care for them.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Esqueda.
Council Member Gonzalez.
She paused for a minute, so I just want to make sure she was actually done.
We've got limited time here.
I'm going to get it all in.
I can appreciate that and empathize, Council Member Mosqueda, with that sentiment and ethos.
Okay, so I have one item on the full council agenda related to the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.
That is, last but not least, item number 30 on this afternoon's very full agenda.
It is Council Bill 119560. This is a council bill that would authorize Seattle Fire Department personnel within the fire marshal's office to issue civil citations for noncompliance with the Seattle Fire Code.
So this is really relevant to, for example, fires happening in our high-rise buildings where fire alarms go off or there are false fire alarms.
that are known to be defective or in need of maintenance, but that property owners aren't fulfilling their responsibility to correct those false alarms.
This primarily and almost exclusively impacts our multifamily housing buildings and commercial buildings.
So we're talking about rental units and commercial spaces, places where there are lots of people gathering.
or sleeping and living.
And so it's really important for us to give the Seattle Fire Department alternative tools to garner compliance with the Seattle Fire Code for purposes of saving lives and preserving public safety.
So the Fire Code currently allows a fine of $1,000 a day and criminal prosecution.
That's a pretty punitive tool available to the fire department.
They'd like to have something that is a little bit more gentle, that sort of emphasizes compliance, so that will be a $373 per violation civil penalty.
And the fire department went through a process during committee to explain that they did a racial race and equity toolkit analysis on this particular bill.
They did robust community engagement and feel that the 373, although I think second to the bottom in terms of comparative to other jurisdictions, in terms of amount of the violations of the civil penalty, They feel confident that $373 per violation will be enough to create a disincentive and an incentive to comply with orders to fix these false alarms in these buildings.
So we will consider this bill.
This afternoon, I feel confident that we are not creating a regressive system here, and Chief Scoggins has assured me that they will track the data, monitor the data, and make sure that there aren't any unintended consequences that would create concerns around race and social justice initiative issues.
That is the only item that I have to report on today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Council Member Gonzalez.
Council Member O'Brien.
I have a few items on this afternoon's agenda from the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.
The, let's see, the order of them, the first one is the ordinance around home heating oil, and I'm gonna come back to that at the end, but, so I'll move on to the rest.
There's an ordinance that updates the city's traffic code to make it consistent with state law.
There's an ordinance relating to updating our citations for street and sidewalk code use.
So this is both for construction projects that are in the right of way or sidewalk cafes for folks that are in violation of that, trying to, I believe, have it more scalable.
And also to adjust the penalties, especially on some of the larger construction projects.
The penalties are small enough that it seems we're running into problems where people find that noncompliance is less expensive than compliance.
So trying to adjust that.
We also have an ordinance related to regulations around sidewalk cafes and other things on the sidewalk, so trying to confirm our standards to how much right-of-way space and clearance needs to be left to allow for sidewalk cafes to be put in.
There's also a change, a current law says that where commercial uses are adjacent to residential uses such as low-rise, you're not allowed to have a sidewalk cafe, and this would allow more flexibility.
So in some of those cases, they could go ahead and have sidewalk cafes in those places.
We have an ordinance-related change in the street name.
So folks are familiar with Market Street.
Starts at the locks, kind of wanders north a bit, then heads along the straight path, and then when it gets to the foot of kind of Finney Ridge, it heads diagonally south again.
So there is an intersection of Market and 54th at two different places about a mile and a half away, one near the locks and one as you head up the hill towards UW, which is a point of confusion if someone is in an accident, for instance, hops on the phone, calls 911, says, I'm at the corner of Market and 54th, which one?
Because of that, the first responders have requested a name change.
So on the west end, near the locks, where market turns back south again, this would change the name from Northwest Market Street to Northwest Locks Place.
There's, I believe, only one business with an address there, which is the lock spot, and so we've consulted with them.
They'll have to change their business cards and those types of things, but I think we're okay there.
Then we have a few appointments, one to the Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee, a couple to the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight, and an appointment to the Sweetened Beverage Tax.
Back to the Oil Heating Ordinance, this is work that the Mayor's Office has been doing For a number of months now, I'm sponsoring the legislation here on the council.
We took an extra week in committee to continue to have some conversations.
Passed it out of committee last week.
Have continued to have some robust conversations.
I know all of you may have been involved at various levels.
I know Councilor Herbold has been working somewhat, and then Council Member Mosqueda and I have been having conversations with both the Teamsters and environmental organizations like 350 Seattle.
We have an amendment or maybe a set of amendments that we'll be bringing forward.
We're still refining that language on it.
I'll say that the, I think all of you are aware of the robust crowd outside of City Hall last Friday.
youth and others that were organizing around climate change and the millions of people around the planet that were doing that work.
And we're planning to hold firm on the timeline for the implementation of the heating oil resolution as far as when the tax takes effect and how, you know, the 10 years folks have to phase out the oil tanks.
existing oil tanks, they could either replace them, but the hope would be that they actually would convert off oil heat to electric heat, which is going to be 100% carbon pollution free.
Some of the changes we are proposing making, though, are around one, well, already in committee, we've already expanded the eligibility at income level from 70% of state median income to 80% of area median income that will allow more families, more households to have access to some of the subsidy programs we're setting up to help for conversion.
To have an extremely robust conversion for all those people, we will likely need additional resources beyond just what this tax provides.
But I will say that part of the Green New Deal resolution that the council passed and some of the ongoing work that community members are doing is trying to find additional resources to help fund the transition.
So it'll increase the eligibility.
That will allow more people to get more discounts.
If we want to increase that, we'll probably need to find other resources in the future, but people are working on that.
There's also a lot of language that speaks specifically to really how we track both low-income residents who are using oil and also talking about the workers.
And Council Member Esqueda, I don't know if you want to talk any more about your conversations and the direction we're going there, too.
Thank you Council Member O'Brien and Council Colleagues, I'm handing out a draft of the amendment that Council Member O'Brien and I've had a chance to talk about and appreciate Yolanda's quick work on this and also the analysis from law.
This is really I think an attempt to try to underscore what Council Member O'Brien has been trying to infuse since the beginning, since receiving the legislation.
was making sure that we had the right balance of how do we transition folks off of oil tanks, which we know to be harmful for the individuals and the residents and harmful for the environment.
And yet also, we also recognize there's a lot of people who are renters and low-income workers.
who are currently the residents who have oil tanks.
So there's an equity issue when we think about transition off of these oil tanks, and there's also an equity issue when we think about who the workers are that are currently filling the tanks.
I appreciate the work of the Teamsters to highlight some ways in which we could infuse even more language related to just transition for workers, recognizing we have to get the data, do a risk and sort of assessment of how some of these oil tanks may be contributing to additional pollution in the ground and groundwater and how we can do a better job of transitioning some of the workers into greener energy jobs.
So this is hot off the press and we will be circulating it.
I also recognize that there's ongoing work that the city has done in the past to do a racial equity analysis on similar type efforts.
So this isn't sort of doing this brand new.
We would be building on some of that past work and I just think some of the additional components here help underscore that relationship between moving towards a green energy economy and centering workers as well as those most impacted by policy changes at the core of this.
That's my hope that we've infused a little bit more of that in this language and that our friends both from Teamsters and the environmental community see that reflected in this amendment as well.
I'm looking forward to getting some feedback.
Hopefully momentarily we'll have a copy of the racial equity toolkit that was done on this policy by the Office of Sustainability and Environment and we'll share that with all of you and advocates on both sides so folks have that information that was collected over the course of the past few months.
belabor the point because we've been meeting with labor and constituents and people are concerned about the cost.
Have you had discussions with Seattle City Light about if we go from oil and transition into electricity how they're going to handle that load if it's 18 just because that keeps coming up as well?
Yeah.
So I've talked to the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
They have had those conversations with Seattle City Light and have multiple confirmations that Seattle City Light has enough capacity both in the generation and in the distribution network to meet it.
You know, what I will say is that You know, even today as projects happen on certain streets and a house is torn down and a, you know, a sixplex goes up or whatever it is, there are spots where they may need to add a new transformer as they expand the grid in certain areas.
So that's happening under today's situations, and that may still happen here.
But there is no systemic problem like, oh my gosh, if we convert these, we're going to need to build a new dam or something like that.
There's enough supply in the grid, and the grid's robust enough to handle it.
And other than the spot things that we do in the regular course of business, this should be good.
Thanks for asking that question.
In fact, it might be also interesting to ask for an analysis from Seattle City Light on the more recent reports said that energy consumption had actually been lower than expected, including among some of our larger factories like Nucor.
And so it does seem like we have some surplus energy currently on the market.
If we could do some projections for how this type of conversion could help also stabilize future finance projections, that might be an interesting element as well.
I think there's some great long-term work there.
Seattle City Light has done an amazing job for decades on conservation.
And, you know, the city, you know, back in the 70s when community really pushed City Light to say instead of investing at the time in the whoops nuclear plants, We want to get there by conservation, and they stood up an amazing conservation program that has been growing ever since.
And despite massive growth in our city since the 70s, we continue to meet electric needs largely by our existing resources we have.
One of the challenges for City Light is that we put a lot of pressure, the council puts a lot of pressure on them to do conservation work.
They're very successful at the conservation work.
Their load goes down.
And they're also running a business that needs to be self-sustaining.
And they're like, we haven't sold enough electrons this year.
And so from my perspective, When they have to choose between having someone, me in my home, use a ton more electricity so that they have a customer versus conserving that electricity, I really want people to conserve, and that creates a financial challenge for City Light.
But if we have the opportunity to people conserve and switch off fossil fuels to their 100% clean electricity, whether that's moving your transportation system from gasoline or diesel to electric or moving your heating source or your water heating source to electric.
Those are opportunities where City Light can continue to expand or at least backfill some of the revenues they need to run their system in a way that's actually positive for the environment and not being wasteful.
Their conservation work that they've done to date has large part allowed them to have excess capacity to meet the needs as we make this transition.
Very good.
Great, thank you for explaining all that and doing it.
You're welcome.
I will, just one other thing to note, the original legislation did not distinguish between biodiesel or biofuels and home heating oil.
Biofuels being things that were generated from some sort of plant source as opposed to a fossil fuel.
re-amended in committee an exemption for biofuels.
So, you know, some people will have a 5% mix of biofuels in their tank, and that would mean 5% of the oil that goes in there wouldn't be taxed.
The other 95 would.
Some people have what they call B99, which is, you know, almost 100% biofuels.
those would be almost 100% exempt from this tax.
Biofuels are more expensive than heating oil, but for folks that want to do that more environmentally kind of friendly solution and stay on oil heat for a while, that is a path that won't be taxed.
The biggest concern folks have about biofuels is what's the source of that.
So, you know, if you get the French fry grease from the local grocery store and convert that, that's a very environmentally friendly way to go.
If you're clear-cutting forests in Indonesia to create palm plantations to get palm oil and ship it over here, that's a very environmentally destructive way to go.
And so there's language in there that says that essentially things like palm oil do not count as biofuels.
It has to be the more environmentally sustainable biofuels.
There's not a lot of those in the system right now, but to the extent that some folks want to use that, and that can be a transition for the next few years, there's a path for that where it's not taxed.
Council President, I have a stack of amendments on the surveillance ordinance that we've circulated via email, and folks have seen those.
There's been a couple changes to that.
I'm not sure that it would be helpful at this point for me to walk through 20 different things, and rather just, you know, as they continue to be refined, bring those forward this afternoon, if that's okay with you.
But if you want me to speak to them, I could now.
high level on them first.
And Council Member Mosqueda, I was going to wait toward the end to say that I'm likely, well I will make a motion.
to change the order of the agenda, and at three o'clock I have a conflict, and so Council Member Herbold's not here, so I may need her to chair the second half of the meeting.
Your items are two, three, and four.
Mine are four, five, six, and seven.
I just may switch them, and I hope that that's looked at favorably, just so I can meet my three o'clock obligation.
To Council Member O'Brien's point, you have, I believe, six amendments, correct, was my last tally.
They're numbered 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. I was going to ask why we started at 5. So those are the ones that I'm aware of.
And so if the plan is at this point, we started hearing this legislation I think May of this year, and that should any of these pass, we won't vote on the I think it would be helpful to have amended legislation because central staff will need time to harmonize the attachments with some attachments with the other attachments and what I mean by that is there' s the base of legislation there' s two attachments called serves a surveillance impact report and they' re called there' s two of those and there' s two condensed surveillance impact reports and I think most if not all of And should they pass, we will not have enough time to reconcile them, and they must be all reconciled.
So we would hold it for a week should they pass.
Now, to go to your point directly, he, Council Member O'Brien, has worked with Central Shaft to develop a suite of amendments.
And quite candidly, Council Member O'Brien, I'm just prepared to talk about them this afternoon and sort of give an overview and just talk through the issues.
I'm comfortable with that.
And just to be totally transparent, I'm looking at four of them favorably and two perhaps not, but even the four that I say I'm possibly looking at favorably, one of the reasons why I'm not fully committing to them at this point is that I just don't think they're necessary.
I think we still get there a different way.
And I don't think they're necessary.
I think there's some redundancy.
But in the spirit of collaboration, I may look at those favorably, and you and I perhaps could talk a little bit more.
So that's sort of where we could have a working session, if you will, and see where we fall.
Are you comfortable with that approach?
I appreciate that.
Thanks, Mr. President.
Okay, so I talked about the possible reverse or switch of order.
Council Member Skate, I want to do that.
So that's all I have for this session.
And Council Member Herbold's staff, I'm sure she had a conflict this morning.
She may be pounding the gavel for the second half of the meeting, so she should prepare for that.
And with that, we're going to move into executive session.
And as presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will convene an executive session.
The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.
And this gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our attorneys as authorized by law.
But we always have a monitor from the city attorney's office to make sure that we reserve questions of policy, public policy for our public open sessions.
And I expect this session to last for 40 minutes.
So that will be 1057, 1058 AM.
And hopefully it's before that, because we have a 11-15 door open event we're trying to attend.
And if it goes beyond that, I'll announce its duration and its new time.
With that, we'll move into executive session.