Council Briefing 4/24/23

where it says it's go time.

All right.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Monday, April 24. The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 201. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Solant, my apologies, you're first.

Council Member Solant?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Thank you, Councilmember Nelson present Councilmember Peterson present and Council President hottest present six present.

Great.

If there's an objection the minutes of April 10 will be adopted, not hearing or seeing an objection the minutes are indeed adopted.

Let me go into the president's report.

On today's agenda, we have one proclamation to consider today.

Councilor Herbert will be speaking to it.

However, my understanding is that Council Member Peterson may be speaking to it.

I apologize.

In any event, all of you should have received this proclamation in your inboxes last week for your review.

Following the proclamation, we will have individual reports as usual by each council member.

And today we will start with Council Member Sawant.

Please note, after our meeting today, we have two short executive sessions, a session.

It shouldn't be more than 35, 40 minutes tops.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and payment of bills, as well as two appointments to the Social Housing Developer Board.

I think I got that right, Council Member Morales, and I think you will correct me if I'm wrong.

We will take one vote on all items, of course, and if one council member wants to remove something from the consent calendar they can do that.

There are two items under the committee reports.

The first for tomorrow.

The first is Council Bill 120547, an ordinance relating to Jackson Park, transferring a portion of 130th from SDOT to Seattle Parks, and a portion of 145th from Parks to SDOT for transportation purposes.

The second is Council Bill 120546, authorizing Seattle to enter into an agreement with the Baseball Club of Seattle for the purposes of making improvements to Rainier Playfield.

Both bills were recommended by passage for passage by the Public Assets and Homeless Committee.

And of course, Council Member Lewis will be speaking to those two bills because he is the chair of the Public Assets and Homeless Committee.

Information of all the items on tomorrow's agenda is already available online.

Before we get started today, I would like to remind you again of our spring schedule for council briefings for the months of April, May and June.

Instead of a weekly council briefing meeting, we will have council briefing meetings every other Monday or twice a month.

Again, in May, we will have council briefing on Monday, May 8th and Monday, May 22nd.

In June, we will have council briefing on Monday, May, June 5th, I'm sorry, and Monday, June 26th.

Let's see, please use this revised calendar to plan accordingly for any proclamations or letters you would like signed by the entire body or for any comments you would like to make.

Weekly full council meetings will continue to be every Tuesday, as you know, at two o'clock.

If there is an item that is extremely time sensitive and you would like to include on the council agenda, please coordinate with my office so we can coordinate with the clerks.

This week, we will not have a state legislative update.

The final update by OIR, Office of Intergovernmental Relations, on our state legislative agenda will be will be presented at the council briefing on May 22nd.

So I'm gonna move into our signing of letters and proclamations.

Council Member Peterson, are you gonna be stepping up for Council Member Herbold regarding the proclamation recognizing the month of May to be the Older Americans Month in Seattle for signature?

Is that for you to do?

Yes, Council President, happy to.

Okay, the floor is yours.

Thank you, colleagues, stepping in for customer her bold, who chairs the committee obviously that includes human services department.

Last Wednesday, customer her balls office circulated proclamation drafted by the human services department declaring may as older Americans month in Seattle.

The mayor is concurring the proclamation encourages all Seattle residents to take time this month to connect with older family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues, acknowledge their valuable contributions past, present.

The proclamation will be presented at the May 12 meeting of the aging and disability services Advisory Council.

And the proclamation, one of the key recitals is, whereas the city of Seattle provides services and supports that help older adults experience stable health and live as independently as possible, including those offered through the Seattle Human Services Department's Aging and Disability Services Division, which has served older people, adults with disabilities and caregivers, as the area agency on aging for Seattle and King County since 1973. So therefore the mayor and Seattle City Council proclaim the month of May 2023 to be Older Americans Month in Seattle.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Is there any comments from our colleagues regarding the proclamation on the month of May to be Older Americans Month?

which is anyone over 50, I understand.

So I guess that's our month next month.

Is there any comments from any of my colleagues before I ask the clerk to call the roll on who would like their name affixed to the proclamation?

Council Member Sawant, it looks like you had your hand up.

No?

All right, with that, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on what council members would like their signatures to be affixed to the proclamation?

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

And Council President Juarez.

Sorry about that, yes.

The six signatures will be affixed to the proclamations.

Thank you, and thank you Council Member Peterson for stepping in for Council Member Herbold.

So we're gonna go through our preview of city council actions, council and regional committees.

Let's see, the rotation this week is Council Member Sawant, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Herboldt, Council Member Morales, Council Member Nelson, Council Member Peterson, and then myself.

So with that, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, President Warris, and good afternoon, everyone.

There are no items on tomorrow's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is Friday, May 5th at 9.30 a.m.

Last week, the City Council passed the legislation from my office capping the late rent fees at $10 a month.

To clarify the timeline of the Legislation going into effect for members of the public.

The effective date of legislation is 30 days after it is signed by Mayor Harrell or returned by the mayor without a signature 10 days after the city council vote, which has not happened yet.

So we do not have a precise effective date for the late fees bill yet.

However, it will presumably become effective at the end of May.

However, the COVID related late fee moratorium remains in effect until October 31st of this year.

So in other words, there should be no late fees in any case through the end of October, as long as the moratorium remains in effect.

And then when the moratorium ends, this bill will then go into effect as law capping late fees at $10 a month.

That is all I had from my end.

Unless there are any questions, I will pass it on to Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, colleagues, council president.

Uh, there are no items from the land use committee on tomorrow's full agenda, uh, in the land use committee.

We are in the trees with tree legislation.

We're in the final stretch of the tree legislation hearings with just three scheduled remaining this morning, we had public comment, uh, public hearing and over 50 people attended and provided public hearing.

public comment during the public hearing.

Just as a reminder, there are a couple important upcoming dates.

This Wednesday, April 26, our potential vote on amendments.

If amendments are not ready for voting, we will spend more time reviewing the amendments that are written.

On May 4, we are going to hear and vote on amendments during the morning meeting.

If additional time is needed, we have scheduled the afternoon as well.

And this will be formatted much like a budget meeting that we have.

So you'll have packages of amendments because there are so many.

If needed, we will use that afternoon meeting to vote the bill out of committee.

May 9th should be final passage of the bill as amended by city council.

If we vote the bill out during the afternoon meeting of May 4th, we will either need to suspend the rules or to have it voted on the following Tuesday because it is after the Thursday new deadline, or we will have final action on May 16th.

I want to thank central staff again for all of your hard work colleagues, you may have read esters email today, you may have additional central staff.

Members reaching out to you about your amendments Yolanda will still be reviewing all of them.

and we recognize the need for additional assistance at this time.

Other items in the Land Use Committee this Wednesday is the contract rezone of 2501 Northwest Market Street.

This is a standard contract rezone application that has gone through the hearing examiner's process for us as the Land Use Committee and City Council to consider.

The clerk file is quasi-judicial and members should avoid ex parte communications.

If you have had ex parte communications, please contact Quito today or tomorrow at the latest.

This is bringing it back for a final vote.

It was heard during the March 22nd Land Use Committee for a briefing.

Quito will be present on Wednesday in case you would like a refresher before we vote.

Other items coming up in the land use committee is the maritime and industrial strategies.

This is coming right on the heels of the tree legislation, and we are working to finalize the hearing schedule and send the land use committee members information as soon as possible.

There will be five five bills in this package.

This legislation with maps was introduced 12 days ago on April 12th.

We will be setting an amendment deadline very early in the process to avoid the last minute review issues we are currently experiencing with the tree protection ordinance.

I am asking each of you colleagues to receive a briefing now today from OPCD and the mayor's office to begin thinking about your potential amendments as this will give central staff, the law department and committee adequate time to review the changes.

And again, this amendment deadline will be set early in the process.

And this legislation has already been before you for 12 weeks, 12 days, nearly two weeks.

All committee, all council members will be invited to the land use committee meetings regarding the maritime and industrial strategies, even if you don't sit on the committee.

And if you have an amendment and you don't sit on the committee, please let me know.

I will be happy to help you get your thoughts into the process because with everything going on in the land use committee this year, we will need to move fast.

And this is an incredibly dense subject matter.

For a little bit of background, this process started in 2018. So we have had five years of public process we had Brian Scott consulting, walk us through a process with stakeholders that don't typically agree that process that that four year process.

reached 85% consensus on the package before us.

So while this again may feel fast because this is the first time city council is participating in this process, I've sat on the stakeholder board since being elected in 2020 and there has been just an immense amount of external work to get the product to you today.

That is all for the Land Use Committee.

For the good of the order, tomorrow I will be requesting to be excused from the May 2nd City Council meeting in order to attend the City of Seattle and Tribal Nations Summit to continue to build and strengthen the relationships with our tribal partners.

That's about it.

Thank you, colleagues.

That is my report.

Council President, colleagues, any questions?

Seeing none, I will now pass it to Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I just want to be sure that I'm not missing Council Member Herbold.

Oh, you're good.

Okay, very good.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

There are two appointments on tomorrow's full council agenda from the Neighborhoods, Education, Arts and Rights Committee.

We have the appointment of Julie Howe and Alex Liu for the Social Housing Development Board.

The next committee meeting is this Friday, April 28th at 9.30.

The agenda includes 12 appointments to boards and commissions, including the LGBTQ Commission, ISRD, FEPP Levy Oversight Board, Women's Commission and the Community Involvement Commission.

We will also have an introduction to the Seattle Social Housing Developer Board meeting with all 13 appointees to discuss kind of the immediate next steps for the PDA.

We'll also have two landmarks ordinances on Fairfax condos and on the University of Washington Faculty Club.

Last week, I had a Board of Health meeting.

We were briefed on the dramatic increase in fentanyl overdoses in the county so far this year.

We have seen a significant spike in overdoses.

And so as a Board of Health, we talked about focusing on harm reduction community education and outreach strategies, increasing treatment options, and continued training and support for our local health care system.

I will say there is a recognition that everyone, this is from Dr. Faisal Khan, everyone should be carrying naloxone and be prepared to use it.

That's how we're going to save lives in the city.

But there's also an acknowledgement that the nasal spray, which is the easiest thing to use, is very expensive.

And so there's conversation happening about how we will make sure that proper resources are provided for that.

This week, I will be at a retreat on Thursday for the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee.

And then on Friday, after my own committee meeting, I'll be participating in the mayor's selection committee process for appointing a new director to the Office of Arts and Culture.

I'll also be meeting with the Housing Development Consortium to get briefed on the housing levy proposal.

Last week in district, I had my monthly in-district office hours in the Chinatown International District at Hood Famous Cafe.

I really want to thank co-owners, Shara and Anton, for hosting me and all the folks who came out to meet with my staff and I.

My office newsletter will be coming out later this week with my in-district office hour locations through June.

We are in the process of finalizing all of that.

The same day last week, I also joined Governor Inslee and other neighborhood leaders in the Chinatown International District to discuss the status of a study, a key PPF study that had been done pre-COVID to look at ways to activate space under I-5.

There is a lot of interest among community and different stakeholders in trying to return to that study and understand what we might need to do to implement it.

We also talked a lot about the work of KCRHA, issue of housing availability, and the real question about how we accelerate production so that our very low income and most vulnerable neighbors actually have a place to go.

This weekend I joined Mayor Harrell and Park Superintendent Diaz and other community organizations at the Rainier Beach Community Center for the launch of the Mayor's Swim Seattle program.

The aim here really is to reduce drownings, particularly in communities of color.

Providing free swim lessons for our young people.

It was really great to be out with all the kids.

We handed out some free life jackets.

I got whacked with a couple of beach balls, but it was really great to see lots of different community partners coming together.

to launch this program and really commit now to trying to get more people signed up to be lifeguards this summer, and also to see the different community organizations, including the YMCA and many others, really start to think early about how we make sure that our young people have access to swim lessons so that there's a much greater awareness of water safety.

I was also honored to attend the blessing of the Ng family home that transitions ownership to the Wing Luke Museum.

The Ng family home is the last single family home in the CID.

Family members are still there and they really wanted to make sure that this property is preserved for its history and also as sort of a living museum.

So the property will be transitioned to the Wing Luke.

will be remodeling and restoring it.

I also want to thank the EDI team at the Office of Planning and Community Development.

This is an EDI project, and I think it's another demonstration of how valuable that group of folks is in this city in making sure that our community members who are really interested in anti-displacement and anti-gentrification efforts in cultural and historic preservation of our, particularly of our communities of color, The role of our EDI staff in facilitating that preservation is crucial and I really am happy that they are contributing to this work.

This afternoon I'll be meeting with students at Rainier Beach High School to provide them an update on the implementation of the mental health resources that were committed to school-based health centers in the last budget process.

And then finally I want to take a moment to shout out some great news for District 2 from the state budget.

We saw a number of investments across South Seattle including funding for the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom, the CHAM Refugee Community Organization, the Eritrean Community Center Expansion, Rainier Valley Early Learning Center, South Seattle Community Food Hub, Seattle Indian Health Board, King Street Station's Creative Youth Empowerment Hub, the Neighbor Care Health Dental Capacity Grant.

Lots of really amazing work happening in the South End.

And I want to thank Alexis Turla on my staff, who's been really diligent about helping these organizations connect to our state partners to increase awareness of the work that they're doing.

And much of that has resulted in this funding.

And then last but not least, social housing.

Last night we learned that $200,000 was included in the state budget for the Seattle social housing developer.

I want to thank sponsors representative Frank chop and Senator Rebecca Saldana for working with my office to get this funding in the operating budget.

This is something that we started working on together back in November in anticipation of the passage of Initiative 135. So it's great to see that six months of work come to fruition.

I want to thank Devin Silvernail and my staff who's been instrumental in making that happen.

And also I want to thank Representative Nicole Macri, her leadership on this, as well as Representative Joe Nguyen, Representative Jessica Bateman for their support, Representative Emily Alvarado.

All of them were supportive of this request and supported both on the House and Senate side getting that money into the budget.

I wanna thank the Office of Intergovernmental Relations and the Mayor's Office for their support on this funding as well.

Over the last couple of months, my office has been working with the six appointing entities for the new PDA and the city clerk's office.

So we're excited to say that all of the appointments have been made this week from MLK Labor, the Green New Deal Oversight Board, Seattle Renters Commission, El Centro de la Raza, Mayor's Office, and our two council appointments.

So I really want to thank everybody who's been involved in seating this board.

It's been a real honor to collaborate with all of these organizations to assemble the first board for the nation's first city-level social housing developer.

I'm excited to see what's in store for us.

And colleagues, that is all I have.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Councilmember mosquito Morales mics, excuse me there.

Lots of feet in mouth today apparently.

Unfortunately, I will need to be excused from your committee this Friday I wanted to give you that early heads up as soon as I knew.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I believe I'm handing it to Councilmember Nelson.

I think that's correct.

Thank you very much.

Hello everyone.

There is nothing on tomorrow's agenda from the economic development technology and city light committee but we do have our next meeting this coming Wednesday, April 26, and there are five items on the agenda.

We'll have a briefing discussion and possible vote on three appointments to city lights review panel.

We'll have our second discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120537 reauthorizing the mid for another 10 years, and we'll have a briefing and discussion on Council Bill 120556 transferring funds into city lights rate stabilization account to prevent a rate surcharge on city light rate payers.

So that's what we've got on the docket, and we will not be voting on that last item.

And I believe that people have reached out.

I believe that City Light has reached out in case you would like any more information on that.

Just reach out to Eric McConaghy, and he can set you up.

Okay, last week was a busy week meetings that I took include, I stood with Mayor Harold OED director McIntyre, and the owners of river who are Seattle restored participants to announce the mayor's downtown activation plan, and I spoke specifically in support of his executive order addressing the opioid and synthetic drug crisis which is a major component of the DAP.

I also so also last week I attended the April Board of Health meeting as an alternate and was interested in hearing the overdose trends and analysis presentation that's already been spoken of by Councilmember Morales.

I chatted with Skelcham Kilmendi, Deputy Director of Housing Connector, last week to discuss the housing levy and Housing Connector.

My Chief of Staff, Jeremy, attended the Fremont Chamber of Commerce breakfast to accept the Universal Distinction Certificate of Appreciation Award on my behalf.

I chatted with Enrique Serna and Matt Chan on their Chino y Chicano podcast and that was the first time I'd ever been on, and we had a rambunctious conversation, and I appreciate Councilmember, or Council President Juarez for hooking me up with them.

And then I went to the Seattle Krakens playoff game on Saturday and that was my first time seeing a Kraken game and I very much appreciate the opportunity and look forward to good news perhaps tonight.

All right, this week, I stopped by this morning these first Seattle Film Commission meeting where we had all 10 members present in person, and together with Mayor Harold and and director McIntyre we welcome the new commissioners and.

said how grateful we were for their service.

The commissions selected a chair, vice chair, and set their priority committees for the year.

And I'm looking forward to their work moving forward and advocating for their issues on the council.

Later today, I plan on attending the opening ceremony of the new Alaskan Way, Elliott Way.

And let's see.

Tomorrow or Wednesday.

I, excuse me, I'm okay.

Later this week I will probably have lunch with the executive director of the Pike Place Market PDA.

I'll be attending the Crescent Collaborative Partner Meeting to listen and learn about what the members, what projects the members are most focused on.

right now and the work they've been doing since I met with them last year.

I'll be attending the upcoming Q2 Visit Seattle board meeting and then finally a meeting with HTC Director Patience Malava to discuss the housing levy as I'm sure all my colleagues are.

Thank you very much and I am finished.

If there aren't any questions I'll pass it to Council Member Peterson.

Seeing none, go ahead Council Member Peterson.

Good afternoon colleagues there are no items for our transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

Our next meeting of the transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 2 at 930am.

Our committee on May 2nd is likely to have five items, including four minor items from our Seattle Department of Transportation and one standard item for Seattle Public Utilities.

That standard item regarding SPU is their annual financial audit from the independent firm, Moss Adams.

As I understand it, SPU's annual audit is clean, which means the financial statements comply with accepted accounting practices and there are no material adverse findings.

Our committee will also hear clerk file 314 or 517 which is a request by the developer of Vulcan for the city to extend a conditional approval of a subterranean alley vacation within the so called block 89 and district seven, which was requested originally as part of Clark file 313894. Council Bill 120543 would renew a pipeline term permit enabling Seaport Midstream Partners LLC to maintain and operate a pipeline system in, under, along, and across Southwest Florida Street between 13th Avenue Southwest and 16th Avenue Southwest on Harbor Island.

Council Bill 120544 would renew a utility tunnel permit for a term permit for Quest Corporation across Seneca Street, east of 3rd Avenue, also in District 7. And finally, we'll have a Council Bill regarding SDOT's Hazard Mitigation Program, specifically authorizing the SDOT Director to accept various easements along Rainier Avenue South in District 2 to help prevent erosion.

I believe it'll be on the IRC tomorrow, so it does not have a council meeting yet, but it's TMP 9484. In District 4, I recently joined other volunteers in a Roosevelt Neighborhood cleanup.

Special thanks to neighbor Mike Nash from the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association for organizing this annual event.

Mike complimented the team at Seattle Public Utilities for providing the tools and logistics he needed for this Adopt-A-Street cleanup, which was actually a full-scale neighborhood cleanup with 15 volunteers from I-5 to Callan Park.

If you want SPU to help with your neighborhood cleanup, just contact the Adopt-A-Street team anytime during the year.

I'd like to thank the University of Washington student leaders who organized a safety walk this past week.

I was grateful to the various UW officials and city departments who joined us in responding to the students' call for action.

A Seattle City Light was there for improving street lighting, Seattle Public Utilities for removing illegal dumping, Seattle Police Department for catching bad guys, and the Seattle Department of Transportation for fixing dangerous sidewalks and replacing missing street signs.

We also connected student leaders to other city departments like construction and inspection to site owners of empty buildings that attract illegal behavior.

And of course, the find it fix it app.

That concludes my report.

Any questions before we move over to Councilmember.

Why I think Council President for us.

So is customer herbal if she's not here I'm just going to go ahead and I'm seeing that she's not here so she does pop back up and I will obviously defer to and allow her an opportunity to share.

There are no items from the governance native communities and tribal governments committee and tomorrow's council agenda.

The next governance native communities and tribal governments committee meeting will be a special meeting on Monday, May 15, instead of the regularly scheduled meeting.

Please stay tuned for more information.

So yesterday was a big day.

As you all know, we attended the Road to Healing tour at the Tulalip Tribes Gathering Hall, which is a beautiful, huge hall.

could probably seat 300 people of cedar.

Some of the trees were over a hundred years old that built the hall.

U.S.

Interior Secretary, our friend, Deb Haaland, and Assistant Secretary Interior, Brian Nyland, both came to the gathering, which was the first in Washington State.

Just briefly looking at the agenda on the road to healing, we were there all day.

It opened with I just want to be clear on, I'm trying to get all the information down here.

Before I begin, this was a long time coming on the road to healing.

It's important to note that not only were we guests at this event, we were also witnesses and witnesses to history.

And I am proud and I'm honored that we were invited to meet with Secretary Haaland and Assistant Secretary Brian Newland.

But just as important to be among so many elders, relatives, children, family, who are also witnesses, guests, and gave their stories of boarding school.

A huge thank you to Francesca Merman from Department of Neighborhoods, who's our staffer for the Indigenous Advisory Committee, who was there all day with us, as well as Sarah Mays from my office, and Dana Robitson-Sloat from Communications, We arrived there a little bit before nine and I think we left around six in the evening.

The tribe not only welcomed hundreds of folks and people and dignitaries but also fed us salmon and elk, and as we always do in Indian country we feed our guests and we're kind to our guests and we let our guests speak.

And we have space for grace for everybody to share their stories and their feelings about something horrific that has happened to our people.

It was a respectful, profound moment.

And again, I'm honored to be a part of history and a witness.

Also, a special thank you to Representative Larson, who stayed the whole day.

We also had representatives from Senator Cantwell's office, representative from Marilyn Strickland's office, And also we had greetings that were delivered from our mayor to the Secretary of Interior, Deb Haaland, that I was proud to share with Secretary Haaland and myself.

The Road to Healing agenda was started with the welcome song by the Tulalip Nation and their singers, an opening prayer.

And of course the introduction of Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland.

And then there was the open discussion for survivors of boarding schools, as well as their children and grandchildren and the discussions that happened or the events that happened to their families.

At the break and after lunch, members of the media were allowed to stay.

But after the first break, the media was asked to leave or escorted out for the remainder of the day, because it was incredibly emotional, personal.

There are a lot of stories of physical abuse, sexual abuse, children being taken.

Children being abused or mouth is being washed out with soap and for some reason, the United States government and the Catholic Church felt that our language was a.

a weapon of some kind to hurt our children and our people.

So tribal leadership felt that these stories were very personal and very eloquent and very profound and did not want media reporting or recording that.

And I want to thank the press for honoring that and leaving and note that a court reporter was there to transcribe All of the words and a full transcript of the event will be released if requested under the public records request so we have that information in our office if you want to, if you are of any media is listening and wants to hear what what was actually said.

It was a really emotional day for me since my parents and my grandparents and just about everyone on my Blackfeet side and Yakima side were all sent or taken away to boarding schools.

And it wasn't just here in Washington State.

We heard about the atrocities in boarding schools at Chamao and Oregon, Flandra, Simcoe, Carlisle, Cushman, Chilaco, Haskell, and I could go on and on.

And being a witness to this today and hearing these stories again, but hearing it from other tribal leaders and people that I grew up with and people who were my elders and people who I listened to and learned from was incredibly healing.

And I cannot tell you what it meant to be back in Indian country in a huge public forum with hundreds of people and not hearing any of the things that sometimes we hear in this public space.

I took pages and pages of personal notes and it just, and I'm sharing this for, there's a reason why I'm sharing this.

Besides a sense of loss and pain in the horrific stories, that not only happened to the Native American people in these regions, but other folks, other Native Americans who lived here, from grandparents and elders, hearing the stories of children being physically abused and sexually abused, also hearing the stories of the pain of separation, hearing stories of people who watch their siblings being taken away on a bus or a truck, or themselves being taken away on a bus or a truck, denied food, their hair cut, Their mouth is washed out with soapy on.

I mean, I could go on and on with the stories.

And the reason why I share this with you is that it wasn't until 1975 that the tribes finally had an opportunity to have some control, in some say, and bring some of these stories forward.

It took the act of Congress in 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act, to have the federal government stop taking our children and our babies.

There are a lot of memories there a lot of folks we had elders anywhere between 80 and 99 years old that talked about them being taken their children being taken grace being found children being denied food children running away as long as young as seven.

And this is our history.

This is who we are.

And to some extent, maybe this is maybe who we still are.

But all I know is what I walked away with, besides a sense of resiliency, is understanding that you have to give space for grace.

You have to give people an opportunity to heal.

The stories have to be told.

This isn't about victimization all the time.

It's about strength.

It's about who we are as a people.

So not do we just walk away with hearing and learning what we learned.

And I've always known, but I know that people that came with me, including my husband, learned more.

There's a real sense of humanity in people and kindness.

And we will continue as Indigenous people, and hopefully people will learn after I'm gone, that there is some style of leadership.

that allows us to do good things in a good way with good minds without being disrespectful, name collaring, all the things that we've seen that we can actually go forward and put our minds together and do good things in a good way.

So I'm hoping that you have an opportunity.

I haven't read what the media has written, Quite frankly, I don't care.

I was there, so I know what I saw and what I heard.

As I shared, everyone in my family went to boarding school.

My aunties, my mom, my grandparents.

And we're not allowed to speak their language, but apparently a lot of us still learn from them in their language.

And I really want to thank Deb Parker from the Native American Boarding School and Teresa Shelton from Tulalip, both of them former members of the Tulalip Tribal Council.

There were, I couldn't even count how many tribal leaders were there from both sides of the mountain.

Just about every Coastal Salish tribe was there and leadership was there.

And Secretary Holland was so gracious in meeting with so many people and taking pictures.

But the thing I love about Indian country and what gives me so much hope is that there's still the sense of love and humor and teasing and joking.

We don't all sit around in a circle and cry.

That's not our way.

We're still here.

And I'm very thankful that Dana was there with us today.

Dana was there the whole time.

Like I said, Sarah Mays from my office was there with me the whole time.

And I think people learned a lot.

And I think hopefully I can share with you as my colleagues that that is the way that I learned how to be a leader.

besides what I've learned from other folks saying space for grace.

It was a very healing time and we hope to have more of that.

Our office worked closely with the Native American boarding school folks, the Department of Interior, and all the other tribal leaders that wanted this to happen.

So I'm hoping that we are gonna have a couple more.

They're hoping to have another one in Portland, hopefully in Alaska, because we also are calling on the archdiocese And I'm hoping at some point to meet with our AG to start releasing the names of all the children that were sent to these schools by the Catholic Church and by the federal government to get the names, because we don't have all the names and they're not releasing them.

So I will leave it on that.

I leave it at that.

So I want to thank those that came with me that day, including my husband.

All right, so I also want to remind all of you that coming up next week will be our very first Inaugural Tribal Nations Summit.

Thank you, Tim Raynon.

and folks and Gail Tarlington at OIR for putting this together.

The city of Seattle has never done what the state of Washington has done since the 90s with the Centennial Accord.

Tribal leadership will be here at City Hall, Tuesday, May 2nd.

I will be attending all day long and I can't remember who's pro teming for me that day.

Councilor Muscade will be pro teming for me that day.

Please mark your calendars and if you want more information, you can get it from our office and please join us.

And again, I don't have off the top of my head, but I think we're focusing on homelessness, land use, and public safety.

Thank you, Brindell.

So that should be great.

And I'm hoping this is the first of many, and I'm hoping that the city of Seattle, long after I'm gone, every year we'll have this tribal leadership meeting because it also helps the Indigenous Advisory Council to deal with some of these Indigenous issues Indigenous-led organizations, because after I leave, I don't know who's going to do that stuff.

All right.

So let me tell you what the highlights are from the last two weeks.

We met with the staff at the Human Services Department regarding the impacts, again, related to new encampments and locations in District 5. We met with King County Regional Homeless Authority regarding work underway on both short and long-term plans for those currently sheltered in hotels to be housed or sheltered in Aurora or Lake City and other areas.

We attended the South Transit North King sub area and received updates from Julie Tim, which was great meeting with Julie.

And then I've got a chance to meet with Julie Tim and able to check kind of offline on other sound transit issues.

We also met with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations regarding the Tribal Summit and what will be the run of show.

You will all be getting copies of that, as well as the memo and other additional information and speakers.

Tomorrow, we will be hosting a city hall tour for the class from a class from Seattle University.

Noreen Albert is the Seattle University professor teaching leadership courses.

She will be here with 20 students who will be in chambers as well as using the Sam Smith room for a class.

Murphy from our office, Murphy Bush, on our staff will be leading them on a tour as well.

So if you see those folks, say hello.

The sound transit North King County sub area meeting will be this Wednesday, which I will attend.

And a full sound transit board meeting is scheduled for this Thursday that I attend every other week.

It seems like every week, but there's a lot of them.

Anyway, I'll be doing that on Friday.

We will be participating in the King County Civic Campus Working Group.

This is new.

This relates to the proposal to cite a sound transit light rail station as part of the future King County campus.

Thank you, County Executive Dow for inviting myself and the D5 team and others to participate in this.

What are we calling it?

Working group.

All right.

So with that, that concludes my portion before we slide into executive session.

Wait, did I forget?

Oh, Councilmember Herbold's here.

I'm sorry.

Councilmember Herbold, I was so busy looking at my nose, I didn't see your face, your smiling face.

With that, I am not done.

I will hand it over to Councilmember Herbold, and then we will go into executive session.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate Councilmember Peterson's Stepping in for me and collecting signatures for older Americans month really really appreciate that why attended as an alternate.

The our PC meeting today which I'll report a little bit on that later on, and really appreciate to be the opportunity to be here with all of you this afternoon.

So let's see, there are no items on the full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, but Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting tomorrow.

The agenda has two items on it.

The first is an ordinance regarding obstruction of firefighters, Council Bill 120549 for discussion and possible vote.

appreciate the efforts and support from Madam President and expediting getting this referred to committee in time for tomorrow's committee discussion.

And again, this legislation simply adds firefighters among the other classes of public officials currently in Seattle Municipal Code.

that can have their activities as public officials protected by obstruction charges.

It's an anomaly that firefighters aren't currently included.

Secondly, we're going to be having a briefing discussion on a draft resolution that has not been introduced on wage equity for nonprofit services contractors draft materials for this item to this morning.

We've been in conversations with both advocates and the mayor's office and the city budget office about this resolution and we needed a little bit of additional time to incorporate the suggestions that we received in particular from the mayor's office.

Again, the resolution we'll discuss tomorrow is a draft I think some of you may have noticed that sometimes before items are introduced formally through the IRC process, I like to show my work and allow discussion committee to help shape and refine the final resolution before it's introduced.

I could formally request that my name be affixed to my proclamation for Older Americans Month.

If you're still listening, please do affix my name.

Also want to mention that Thursday is Denim Day.

I hope my colleagues and members of the legislative department will wear denim to call attention to sexual assault.

On April 26, millions of people across the world will wear them jeans with a purpose.

And that purpose is to support survivors and educate themselves and others about all forms of sexual violence.

24 years peace over violence has run its denim day campaign on a Wednesday in April, in honor sexual assault awareness month, and why the denim day campaign began after a ruling of the Italian Supreme Court.

was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans, he must have helped the person who raped her remove her jeans, thus thereby implying consent.

The following day, women in the Italian Parliament came to work wearing jeans in solidarity with the victim.

There's no excuse and never an invitation to rape.

Just a quick update on work being done around fair chance housing.

You may recall that we learned recently about a month ago that a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on the fair chance housing that may impact a portion of the ordinance.

We decided that the portion of the ordinance banning landlords from asking tenants and applicants about criminal history is unconstitutional.

However, the court upheld a portion of the ordinance, bans landlords from taking adverse actions, such as denying housing based on criminal history.

The city attorney's office has asked the full court to re-hear the decision made by the panel.

The timeline is unknown, but until the appeal process concludes, fair chance housing ordinance remains valid.

And we have learned that the Office for Civil Rights will continue to enforce the law.

A quick on health side of things.

Medical abortion has been in the news lately.

Contradictory court orders, leaving many people confused whether medical abortion is available right now.

I want to take this opportunity to be very clear.

Medical abortion is safe, legal, and available here in Seattle and throughout Washington State.

On the public safety side of my update, last week I had my regular meetings with OCA Director Betz.

the CPC leadership, as well as Fire Chief Scoggins and newly appointed HSD, Human Services Director Kim.

And on the fire side of things, I want to point out the fact that the Seattle Fire Department is supporting East Lake Fire and Rescue and the King County Fire Chiefs Association Diversity and Recruitment Workshop.

And that is taking place on Saturday, May 6 in Sammamish.

You can find more information on the Fire Department's website or their Facebook page.

Last Friday we received the fire department's quarterly staffing report as a response to a statement of legislative intent passed by this council in the 2022 budget.

We'll be reviewing the data and I'm hoping to see events like the diversity and recruitment workshops making a positive impact on the department staffing.

on the community safety and communications side of things.

The CSCC is also recruiting and they'll be at Bellevue College's Student Networking and Job Fair on Wednesday, May 10th to talk about what a career in 9-1-1 looks like.

Police Department on Friday, SPD announced that they had recovered 169 firearms in the month of March.

This is the most guns recovered in one calendar month since 2020. In April, SPD worked with federal partners and police departments to conduct An arrest operation to stop the illegal transfer and unlawful possession of guns in the Seattle area.

They removed 23 firearms, hundreds of fentanyl pills, and thousands of rounds of ammunition from being illegally sold and used across the Puget Sound.

Thank you to the Seattle Police Department for both continuing to address gun violence, illegal gun ownership, and tackling the fentanyl crisis by preventing these weapons and drugs from reaching the market.

And then lastly, on my portfolio side of things, the Seattle Office of Emergency Management I presented to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee last month about their engagement plan and so I want to push out something we, we learned in that committee, and that is the opportunity to receive faster skills training for Seattle residents.

Next Thursday, on April 27th, they'll be hosting one of those trainings in District 1 at the Southwest Branch of Seattle Public Library.

The workshop will cover fire extinguisher use, utility control, water storage and purification, and emergency sanitation.

You can find out more on the Office of Emergency Management Facebook page.

Last week at the county regional homelessness authorities governing board.

We reviewed the RHA approach to revising its five year plan, we voted to authorize the RHA leadership to transmit their 2024 budget.

city and county.

And just to clarify, much like we are working hard to stick to a biennium budget process here at the city council so is the RHA and the 2024 budget.

As proposed includes only the city funding that has previously been approved by the council amounting to under $105 million men on the health meeting just reporting quickly last regional committee meeting I went to report out from last week.

We received a briefing from Public Health and the county's Behavioral Health and Recovery Division on our continuing crisis of overdose deaths driven by fentanyl.

I used that opportunity to lift up previous discussions with both Public Health Director Kahn and our Director of Human Services for the city of Seattle that for the for the one settlement that's already resolved that will be, um, seven.

I'm sorry.

14 coming up this week.

Today, I attended the Regional Policy Committee as an alternate, where I was during the beginning of Council briefings.

We did consider revisions to the Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy that were made in King County Council's Budget Committee, which raised the levy from 10 cents to 12 cents.

Many members from Sound City Association today expressed a preference to vote for the Tencent version, but also some folks talked about wanting to hear about the results from tomorrow's election before taking a vote.

Consequently, I proposed a motion to delay the vote until Friday.

That was a successful vote.

And so we'll need our RPC members at that meeting on Friday.

It's very, very important.

Last week, I spoke on a panel about and Health at West Seattle Senior Center, part of the Human Services Department's monthly civic coffee events.

I also had held my regular monthly meeting with HSD Department Director Sim, and we discussed gun violence prevention efforts supported by this council that we're really hoping to expand a really important gun violence prevention program this quarter.

as well as the Human Services Department's work on planning for the opioid settlement dollars and their strategic planning process.

Council Member Lewis and I met with stakeholders on our next step in the pay-up suite of legislation, specifically the App-Based Workers Deactivation Rights Ordinance.

Central staff in our offices have been meeting with app-based workers, platform companies, workers' rights advocates, and business partners towards the legislation that we hope consider next month.

That's all I've got.

Thank you so much for your patience.

Okay, are there any questions before we?

Any final comments before we move into executive session?

All right, not seeing any.

We have two matters.

So let me read into the record what we have to say about executive session.

If there's no further business, we will move into our executive session.

Hearing no further business, we will now move into executive session.

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

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

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorney's office as authorized by law.

And as you all know, a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that Seattle City Council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect, Madam Clerk, that it should go 35 minutes.

So can you tell me what time that would be?

3.35, Council President.

All right, 335. And if you give me a 10 minute warning, that'd be great.

If we go over that time, I will come back on and announce the extension of the expected duration.

At the conclusion of the executive session, this council meeting will be automatically adjourned.

And the next regularly scheduled council meeting is on May 8th at two o'clock.

Council is now in executive session.