Seattle City Council Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development & Arts Committee 9/10/19

Good morning and welcome to the Tuesday, September 10th meeting of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.

My name is Lisa Herbold.

I'm the chair of the committee and I'm also the council member representing District 1, West Seattle, and South Park.

It is 9.33 a.m.

I'm calling the meeting to order.

Without anybody here to object, I will approve the agenda and just real quickly go over the items on today's agenda.

We'll start off with a number of appointments.

Two reappointments to the Museum Development Authority and two reappointments to the Seattle and it looks like four reappointments to the Seattle Women's Commission.

Following that, we have discussion of four pieces of legislation.

One relates to tenant liability for damages.

in those instances that a tenant has experienced domestic violence.

Another is related to rental properties in those instances when a tenant is seeking to have roommates in the rental properties.

The next is also a a piece of renter legislation specifically related to the requirement or a new proposed requirement to provide particular information and resources related to landlord-tenant rights, as well as resources to assist a tenant in the case of an eviction.

And then lastly, there's a bill, actually there's two more.

There's a bill related to the requirement for landlords to accept rent and the lack of ability for landlords to require that that rent be paid only by electronic means.

And then finally, the last bill relates to the compliance with the rental registration and inspection ordinance and the ability to give termination notices if a tenant is, I'm sorry, if a property is not registered with that program.

And then finally, we'll be finishing up the day with a briefing on the solid waste rate path from Seattle Public Utilities.

We've got some good news there about our rates.

And so with that, I'll move right into public comment.

Thank you, Alex.

I'm going to read people's names into the record two at a time.

There's two different places to speak with a choice of three different mics.

So when you hear your name, again, I'm reading them two at a time.

If you can come up to the mic, that'd be great.

Alex will be keeping time.

You each have two minutes to speak, and he'll let you know as the clock runs out at one minute, 30 seconds, and when your time is up.

We'll start off with Gina Owens followed by Joelle Kraft.

Good morning Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning to everyone who came.

My name is Gina Owens.

I'm an 18-year member of Washington Community Action Network.

I'm also a new member of the Renters Commission in Seattle.

Today, though, I'm here as an individual in support of Councilmember Herbold's tenant protection legislation and will address the part of the bill that allows tenants to live with a roommate.

This bill is critical towards preventing housing instability and homelessness, especially for young people like my granddaughter.

My oldest granddaughter, who is 20, is currently college and works part-time.

She couldn't afford to live by herself right now, but by living with me, she's able to focus on her studies without the stress of finding housing and paying bills that she cannot yet afford.

Further, when she does move out, she will likely need to live with roommates since our rentals are so high in Seattle.

Ensuring tenants have the right to live with roommates, protects families, and the working class.

So I'm urging everyone to please support this legislation and keep people housed.

Thank you.

Joelle Craft will be followed by Isaac Organista.

Thank you, Council Member.

My name is Joelle Craft.

I am a Washington State resident my entire life.

And the reason I'm here today because I am also a domestic violence survivor.

In fact, I have a two-year protection order against a person who is very abusive and we live together.

We also had phones together that were in my name and the charges were over $1,700.

However, when talking with T-Mobile, they are, taking the charges away from my responsibility from it because of the domestic violence issue.

They have every opportunity to use their insurance or even to just write it off and probably get, I mean, I don't know about tax credits and stuff, but there are other ways that can happen instead of pushing it onto somebody who's already just barely trying to survive.

And I am asking, it's extremely important for people to be able to find ways out and to not have these kind of horrible things following them, and there's no way I could survive if T-Mobile had taken $1,700 out of my account.

I don't know about anybody else, but I make $10.50 a month on disability, and so that would wipe everything out I had.

this legislation is very important because T-Mobile and anybody has his name and they can go after him.

And in my situation, that's one of the things that I'm doing, but it's not that easy for many other people to do.

And in this case, it gives these renters protections to be able to just survive what happens in any domestic violence situation.

And I think that a lot of people don't understand how terrifying it is.

And then you get bills and and landlords and people coming after you for that stuff is very difficult.

So I please ask that the council not only vote on this, but vote to approve this particular legislation.

Thank you.

Following Isaac Organista will be Aaron Fenner.

Good morning council member.

My name is Isaac from Washington Can.

I'm here to support the part of the bill that is about renters right to live with a roommate.

So I'm here, I'm a renter here in Seattle and I became one while I was a full-time student at the University of Washington and I've recently just graduated.

I'm still living with roommates because that's the only way folks out here can really afford to live in the city.

The cost of living in the city is going up, the cost of living is just going up in general, and the cost of rent is increasing year by year, lease to lease.

So the lease that can be done to protect renters from staying in their housings and preventing folks from having to either leave the city, leave opportunities, and leave neighborhoods that they've stayed in for years is to allow them to live with roommates.

I mean, law and policies need to be in place and in favor of real people living here in the city and those pursuing their dreams and their goals and just trying to make a better life for themselves and for their communities.

It shouldn't be for those who haven't had to worry about making enough to pay for rent, the utilities, or even groceries.

Um to reduce evictions and the numbers of cost per inventors landlords should be required to allow tenants to have roommates or house their immediate families and limit the screening requirements costs associated with adding members to the lease agreement.

So that's why I just strongly encourage and thank you for bringing this up and I hope that the council can pass this and full support.

Thank you.

Following Aaron Fenner is Dave Cook.

Hello, my name is Erin Fenner.

I'm with Washington Community Action Network.

We have 44,000 members across the state and about 20,000 members here in Seattle.

I'm here, I'm a District 3 tenant, and I am in support of Lisa Herbold's bills.

I want to talk specifically to the domestic violence and roommate issues.

Domestic violence survivors are in an inherently precarious situation, and if they don't have stability to be able to, you know, move forward, they are in situations that are super dangerous and precarious.

We need to ensure that they have the stability that they need to, you know, protect their self and their family.

Um, and so one of those things is that, like, they just shouldn't have the liability, um, they shouldn't be, bear the brunt of the liability for damages that their abusers cause.

This is common sense, it's basic decency, and we expect businesses to kind of, um, prepare for, uh, you know, situations like this by getting insurance, by, um, doing the typical things like, uh, Joelle mentioned.

that T-Mobile did to just protect their asset while also doing a good job looking out for their tenants.

So we think this is totally reasonable.

Speaking to the roommate issue, I have roommates, and I would not be able to afford to live in the city if I didn't have roommates.

Moreover, this summer, my cousin, who is a massage therapist and artist, needed a place to stay because she lost her housing.

And I was so grateful that I had the ability to house her for a couple months because now she has this ability that she needs.

And so we all need this to make our community stronger.

Thank you.

Following Dave Cook is Marilyn Yim.

Hello, Councilman.

I am a resident of the city of Seattle since 1979. I live on Beacon Hill.

I'm here today to encourage this committee to adjust its rate structures for the use of water, electricity, and garbage.

The reason I think this is important is not solely about what any of those rates, you know, amount to, but rather that the council as a whole has adopted the new Green Deal And the rate structure isn't really lined up with trying to encourage people to reduce as much as possible their use of water, garbage, and electricity.

Just as an example, I'm somebody who has tried very hard to reduce all of those things.

And so every month I pay $25, the lowest rate for a minican for garbage, but I almost never put any garbage out.

I put out one little grocery bag worth of garbage a month at most.

There's no incentive really for me to have reduced my waste that much.

I have to pay a certain amount no matter what.

So I want to suggest that there be adjustments to the base rates.

An example might be you track homes for garbage When they put in too much garbage, you charge them extra.

It would be very easy to also track homes that don't put out garbage and have a no base rate for somebody that puts out garbage twice in two months.

Or another example might be, I'm running out of time, but another example might be that if somebody uses less than 500 kilowatts of electricity in one of the billing periods, that they don't have a base rate because they're using so little that they're doing exactly what you want them to do.

I gave you my phone number.

I'd like somebody to contact me.

Thank you.

Following Marilyn Yim is Brett Waller.

Good morning.

I'm here to speak about Council Bills 119-598 and 119-606.

Regarding 119-598, the city needs to provide a compensation fund to cover the cost of damages to landlords.

The bill right now does not require any proof, any police report, arrest, or conviction, and the ordinance specifically allows tenants to exempt themselves from liability for damages that are not caused by a domestic violence incident, leaving the door wide open to any kind of damages.

You are now considering amendments that would allow the domestic violence perpetrator's name to remain undisclosed, which further calls for the city to fund this, since no party would even be named as responsible.

The landlord should not be burdened with guessing who caused damages, and no judge would find for a landlord based on conjecture of who this might have been.

This translates to an additional burden on small landlords like myself, the financial burden, and then the trouble that we would go through to be made whole.

Please think about people like me who are trying to maintain affordable housing for both myself and my tenants.

Please help me continue to keep my rents low.

I'm much more concerned, though, about 119-606, which deprives the landlord of the ability to determine who will live on their property in violation of state law.

This is unconstitutional, so this ordinance is fatally flawed because deciding who is allowed to occupy and have possession of property is recognized by state law as a fundamental right of property ownership.

I am also objecting to the requirement that these people can be moved in and don't have to be parties to the lease.

This means they have no contractual relationship with the landlord, so the landlord would not be able to enforce terms of the lease, no way of identifying who they really are, seeing government issued ID, no social security number to track them down later if they cause damages.

I'm not understanding why people could be put into a rental property without requiring that they follow the lease, and the landlord is being prohibited from applying any different criteria with them than a tenant, and yet they would not be, you know, upheld to the same standards.

I'd ask you to please address the issue of tenants moving in a previously kicked out boyfriend or partner.

This is in conjunction with a domestic violence ordinance.

Somebody who already has violated the lease or caused damage.

We've had an issue like this where a tenant had somebody who moved out later and then came back a few years, you know, they hooked up again.

And because we had history with him, we live on the property with my children, that's our home, and we told him that he was not allowed on our property.

So we were able to tell him he was trespassing.

Based on what I'm seeing in these two ordinances, that would not be allowed.

And so I'm just putting that in front of you.

I'd like to kind of hear your response to that if you've considered a tenant maintaining the right to move in a former or new romantic partner who has that history with a landlord, especially in my case where it's actually my residence.

One more thing.

So I would like you to continue to work with landlords because right now the amendments that you're proposing don't really reflect any of our concerns.

So I look forward to that.

Thank you.

Following Brett Waller is Marianne Durand.

Good morning.

Good morning, Chair Herbold.

Thank you for listening and considering our efforts at creating a Landlord Mitigation Fund related to the domestic violence bill that is being proposed.

We believe that this is the best solution to helping survivors of domestic violence escape a situation where domestic violence is occurring without having recreating opportunities to re-victimize that survivor either through a court process where the landlord would try and recover damages from the abuser or create additional opportunities for the abuser to re-victimize and continue to attempt to control that survivor.

So we appreciate you continuing to consider that mitigation fund and hope that we can work together for that to its success.

The second piece I want to touch on is the bill relating to non-electronic forms of payment.

We're supportive of certain non-electronic forms of payment but have huge concerns about the acceptance of cash itself.

Cash creates a big problem with theft both inside and outside of a residential community and creates strong opportunities especially knowing that rent is always paid at the first of the month and that there's always a likelihood of large amounts of cash being stored or kept in a rental property for a short period of time.

As a personal example, my property has been burglarized.

The leasing office has been burglarized a couple times.

And they've just broken in and taken the safe that's out in the back of the leasing office that's bolted to the ground.

And so allowing for cash just creates more opportunities and creates significant safety issues for the on-site teams that manage the residential communities in this city.

Thank you.

Following Marion is Megan, maybe Rigg, somebody whose last name I cannot read.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Harbold.

My name is Marion Durand and I'm the Internal Auditor for Security Properties Residential.

We are a Seattle-based nationwide housing provider.

I'm speaking this morning to share comments about the Council Bill 119620 relating to the acceptance of non-electronic payments, particularly cash.

I am an expert in the field of fraud for property management industry.

I've worked in this industry for over 18 years with 14 of those being as an internal auditor and an investigator and during that time I've acquired a master's degree in economic crime management and I am a certified fraud examiner.

With that, as a company, we do not accept cash for payment for rent because it creates significant liability for the company and it creates problems for our residents.

Having cash on site puts our employees at risk.

We do not have floor safes, just small drop safes.

We often only have one to two people in our leasing offices.

Oftentimes, they're very young people.

That's their first job.

They're 18 years old.

and we do not have security guards.

In the state of Washington, our property sizes range from 74 units to 512 units.

That could result in having tens of thousands of dollars on site at any given time, and our staff is very vulnerable for theft because, like Mr. Waller said, rents due anywhere between the first and the fifth of the month.

In addition, cash is extremely difficult to maintain strict accounting functions because it is difficult to track and trace its movement.

Money orders are a separate, but similarly, issue that we do have a problem with, but we accept money orders.

But cash is easily manipulated, creates opportunity for theft, and the resulting consequences often affect the resident.

In my 14 years experience, I have investigated and worked at multiple property management companies.

One case I have, an on-site team member was lapping payments.

some sort of Ponzi scheme for better understanding, that accepted cash payments pocket a portion of it and create delinquency to tenant ledgers, then doing the same thing to another tenant in future months.

I've also investigated on-site team members telling residents who pay with money orders that they must provide multiple money orders instead of one payment for the amount due.

And I've seen on-site teams flat out alter money orders and steal them.

This, like cash, is easily transferable and difficult to trace.

But we do accept money orders because they do have the traceable component to them.

Often people realize that utilize the multifamily business who want to commit fraud They prey on our vulnerable low-income residents, residents who speak English as a second language, and those residents who place trust in us to have their best interest at heart.

And a lot of times that's not the case.

And in many situations, the residents did not keep their pay stubs from the money orders or the receipts because they're trusting the on-site staff.

Can I say one more thing?

There are alternatives.

We have electronic money order payment right through WAMPA.

We can provide examples of affordable housing and conventional housing with the MFTE unit.

And one last thing, Councilmember, if the Council does consider moving forward with requiring actual cash payments, we would ask that you reconsider it at the site level because of the risk that it puts our site teams at.

Thank you.

And again, the last speaker is somebody, oh, Megan.

Because people who rent are usually the most vulnerable for displacement.

especially victims of domestic violence.

I think it's really important for the resource to be made available that the person who is abusing them is held responsible.

And so then that may free the person up who is abused to find other resources for housing.

And also I think it's important to allow roommates I'm reading a book about gentrification, and usually working-class neighborhoods are the first targets, even though the wealthy neighborhoods could see the transformation from the investment from the public-private relationship, where, of course, the public resources won't see the tax coming back, and so there will be like a shrinkage of public programs.

So they usually target working class neighborhoods for upzoning, or for not upzoning, but for, well, yeah, for upzoning, for getting more wealth into them.

And then it becomes more about real estate as a solid way for people at the top to amass more and more money.

And then, you know, perhaps they're not using it for basic needs, but for just squandering.

Whereas, you know, the general public, if it were organized at more of a public level, could see their housing more sustained and could see that they're housed permanently if that's what they prefer, if there was more of a public decision-making process about drawing up architectural living spaces.

So that's why I think it's important that people at the working class level, we have rent control, and that's why I think Shama Swan is the best candidate so far because she wants strong rent control, which this book reinforces.

Thanks.

And for the record, the public record, that was Megan Murphy.

I didn't say her name in the beginning because I couldn't read it, and she did not state it at the beginning, so just for the record.

Moving right along, I want to recognize that Councilmember O'Brien has joined us.

Thank you, Councilmember O'Brien.

And we're going to start with items one and two, the two reappointments to the Museum Development Authority.

Item Agenda 1, Appointment 01390, Reappointment of Dorothy Holland Mann as Member of Museum Development Authority Governing Council for a Term to July 31, 2022. Agenda Item 2, Appointment 01392, Reappointment of Rosita Romero as Member of Museum Development Authority Governing Council for a Term to July 31, 2022.

Fantastic.

Introductions, please.

Good morning.

Hannah Smith from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Thank you, Hannah.

Can you just real quickly give, for the viewing public, a quick overview of the Museum Development Governing Council?

Sure.

So the Museum Development Authority is one of the city's eight public development authorities.

The MDA's goal is the development of the Downtown Museum and the Olympic Sculpture Park.

They're housed within the Seattle Art Museum.

and own another building downtown.

They're governed by a nine-member governing council with appointees from the Seattle Art Museum, the mayor, and the MDA governing council itself.

Today, I have two reappointments, one from the mayor and one from the MDA governing council.

Fantastic.

Do you want to tell us about those two reappointments?

Sure.

First is Dorothy Mann, appointed by the MDA Governing Council.

Dr. Mann was the first woman and first African-American to head Region 10 of the US Public Health Service, which served Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.

In her public health background, Dr. Mann established the first Office of Women's Health in the Federal Regional Office.

She headed Mayor Norm Rice's Violence Protection Project.

and is a founding member of the Washington Women's Foundation, past chair of the Seattle Arts Commission, and was a member of the board and chair trustee governance committee at Cornish College of the Arts.

With this impressive background, she's been a longtime member of the MDA Governing Council, and this represents her ninth term.

Nine terms, wow, that's dedication.

And then Rosita, please.

Sure.

Rosita Romero is a mayoral appointee with a background as a consultant and community activist.

She's the owner and director of an art gallery, co-founded Mayoras of the Northwest, an organization designed to give voice to Latino, Hispanic, and indigenous women of Washington.

She's involved in several organizations, including Viva La Musica Club and Latinos United por los Ninos.

Ms. Romero currently sits on the board of Artist Trust and was a Washington State's art commissioner from 2006 to 2009. And this represents her fifth term on the MBA.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Hannah.

Council Member Bryan, any thoughts, questions?

Just, that's a lot of terms, that's dedication.

Between the two of them, yeah, that's what, 14 between the two of them.

All right, well, if there are no further questions, I'm going to move appointment 01390 and appointment 01392. I'll second.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposing, none abstaining.

The reappointment will move on to full council on Monday.

Thank you so much.

And then let's move on to items three and four.

Item three, appointment 01397, reappointment of Tyrone Grandison as member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to July 22, 2021. And item four, appointment 01398, reappointment of Erin G. Orovello as member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to July 22, 2021.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Can we have introductions, please?

Good morning.

My name is Marta Itawu.

I'm with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Good morning.

My name is Janet Stafford, and I'm with the Office for Civil Rights Commission Liaison.

Fantastic.

Thank you, and welcome.

If we could start off with, for the viewing public, a quick overview of the commission, what it does, and its purpose.

Okay, so the I manage the Seattle Human Rights Commission and Seattle Women's Commission and just overall the Commission's advised the mayor the City Council on issues that affect their Commission and They go into doing work plans every year.

They do human rights.

Yes.

So just starting with the Seattle Human Rights Commission So that's basically the work that they do is The Seattle Human Rights Commission was established in 1963 to advocate for justice and equal opportunity, to advise the City of Seattle and human rights issues, and to collaborate with the public and private sectors in order to educate them on methods to prevent and eliminate discrimination citywide.

And the Commission's goal is to advocate in the community and be a voice for the community.

talk to elected officials to ensure there is greater public awareness for what the Human Rights Commission does, what their concerns are, and to create actionable objectives for local officials on these issues.

And they look into a lot of policy issues.

things like that, put on a lot of events, Human Rights Day, and different things like that.

Thank you.

And did you want to speak to the two reappointments?

Yes.

So essentially, we have the two, Tyrone Grandinson and Erin Orovillo.

Both of them are fairly new on the commission, so we've kind of had a reappointment several months ago, and now they're not quite two to two years, so they are, because they filled a position of someone who, yeah, filled a vacancy.

So both of them have been very active on the commission and doing the work of the commission.

And one of the things that they've stepped up to do is to help with the planning of a lot of our events that we have.

We have a couple of major events that we're going to be having coming up is Human Rights Day, and that's going to be on the murdered and indigenous women.

And then one of our commissioners, Erin Orovillo, went to a human rights Commission where they have this yearly group of people that do the human rights cities work that states that have that are known to have a human rights city and be known as a human rights city.

They get together and they have a conference and the next year in March where the Human Rights Commission is putting on this event.

and it's gonna be at the African American Museum.

So this is a national convening that the Seattle Human Rights Commission is sponsoring?

Statewide, you know, the 50 states in the United States.

They get together, there's like 12, 14 cities now that are human rights cities.

So he went to one of them last year and so he shared that it would be good and they asked the city of Seattle to put it on and sponsor it.

So he is leading that and we've been having a lot of planning meetings around that.

And are there, is there sort of a certification process to become a human rights city?

Well, it's the Seattle Human Rights Commission, they stated as going to get a resolution to the city, they wrote their resolution and had it go through the proper procedures of coming before the city council to be to become a human rights city.

Interesting.

I was unaware that other cities were doing that as well.

Yes.

That was part of a national effort.

Yes.

I look forward to learning more about that.

Yes, I was really surprised he came back.

I didn't know there was that many that had become human rights cities, but there are.

Well, I certainly appreciate the willingness of both Tyrone and Aaron to continue serving on the Human Rights Commission.

And if there are no questions, I will move appointment 01397 and 01398. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

Those two appointments will move on to full council on Monday.

And then we have four also reappointments to the Seattle Women's Commission.

Yes, so I'm just going to read them into the record real quick.

Agenda item five, appointment 01393, reappointment of Draya Farivara as member of Seattle Women's Commission for a term to July 1, 2021. Agenda item six, appointment 01394, reappointment of Rekia Jones as member of Seattle Women's Commission for a term to July 1, 2021. Agenda item 7, appointment 01395, reappointment of Kay Minpeace as member of Seattle Women's Commission for a term to July 1, 2021. And agenda item number 8, appointment 01396, reappointment of Jamila Williams as member of Seattle Women's Commission for a term to July 1, 2021.

Thank you, Alex.

And again, if you could just tell us a little bit for the viewing public about the Women's Commission and what its purpose is.

OK.

So the Seattle Women's Commission is an appointed advisory body for the city of Seattle who come together as volunteers to research, analyze, and make recommendations to the mayor, the city council, and city departments on issues affecting women in Seattle.

The Seattle Women's Commission has has identified one primary policy area of focus and two primary public awareness issues of focus for 2019. So their primary policy and public awareness issues are promoting stable housing for women and families in Seattle, and their two-year focus is the plan, 2019 to 2020. The next one is driving discourse on the experience of women at work in Seattle.

And three is promoting access to affordable and quality child care for families in Seattle.

And four, driving access to domestic violence protections for women in Seattle.

And the ways that they plan to do this is conduct research on policy options, work collaboratively with community members, city council members, members of other SOCR commissions, and other partners to determine goals and strategy.

They like to pursue communication strategies, both traditional media and social media, to raise public awareness of the issue and organize advocacy efforts, and then also advocate to policymakers through comment letters, in-person testimony, and other avenues, continuously working to dismantle racism and gender norms that perpetuate harm.

And we value and appreciate all of that work.

Now if we could move into just a couple sentences about each of the reappointments.

That'd be great.

Right.

So I kind of just did collaboratively with all of them kind of together.

The people that are the four folks that are coming forward, Men Peace, Jamila Williams, Let's see.

Was it?

Okay, I'm sorry.

Daria Faria, right?

And Rokia Jones, right?

So those three folks are our new co-chairs.

And then Zoe True.

is also committee chair.

I don't have a Zoe True as one of them.

Oh.

I have Daria Farver, Rokia Jones, Cayman Pierce, and Jamila Williams.

Oh, gosh.

I'm sorry.

I had an extra packet in there.

She's moving forward a little bit later.

So Daria Farver, Men Peace, and Jamila Williams, they just became the new co-chairs for the Seattle Women's Commission.

And they've been doing a lot of work in the areas that they are interested in along the lines of the things that I just read.

They are developing policy.

Daria is one of our people who go up to Olympia, look at what's going at the state level, and they come back and report.

issues, Zoe True and her group, which she's, I mean not Zoe True, I'm sorry, I'll keep saying her name, move her packet here, I'm sorry about that.

Yes, so they have been very instrumental in moving policy and moving and making changes.

I don't know if you've, I know you've seen their report.

about the housing and the problems around the, you know, the convictions and different things like that.

So they, those are the type of things they've done.

I kind of just had like, you know, just sharing that they have done a lot of work around the policy stuff.

We're putting on large events.

August 20th we just put on an event at the Riveter on maternal health.

We're going to be having the Jeanette Williams Award coming up on September 26th.

And all of them are like really in helping put this event together collaboratively as a commission.

And so that's pretty much what I wanted to share, that they're all doing their work.

They attend meetings.

They've taken on larger roles on the commission.

really proud of the work that they're doing and continue to do as Women's Commissions.

Thank you for sharing that with us.

We certainly see a lot of evidence of that work, both in the community and in the work that we are moving forward in this committee as it relates specifically to renter protection.

That sounds fantastic.

If there are no...

Can I just say one last thing?

I wanted to.

have Janet Stafford come up because she is taking it out of class to help with our Seattle LGBTQ Commission and Disability Commission.

And so I wanted to just introduce her and let her know that she's going to be doing that role.

We have those appointments before us.

You'll be presenting them?

Yes, I will be presenting them.

Thank you.

So I will move appointment 01393. Appointment 0 1 3 9 4 appointment 0 1 3 9 5 and appointment 0 1 3 9 6 All those in favor vote aye none opposed none abstaining and These appointments will also move to full council on Monday.

Okay, let everybody Know that we extend our thanks and congratulations to them.

Thank you so much.

I sure will all right moving right along to item number 9 a

Agenda Item 9, Council Bill 119-598, an ordinance relating to rental agreements and tenant liability for damages.

relieving a tenant experiencing domestic violence for liability for damage to the landlord's property caused by a perpetrator of domestic violence, and amending section 7.24.020, 7.24.030, and 22.206.170 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

All right, thank you.

Introductions, please, Asha.

Asha Venkatraman, Council Central staff.

Thank you.

So this will be our second time hearing this particular bill, but our third time, I believe, talking about the topic and the policy generally.

Do you want to give us a quick background overview?

Absolutely.

So this is an issue that came up in relation to the losing home report, which was presentation this committee last year in September and one of the items that was slated for the council to consider in resolution passed earlier this year in terms of potential solutions to the issue of tenants being held liable for damage cause to a landlord's property and when it was done by a perpetrator of domestic violence.

And so during last committee meeting, the Council Bill 119598 essentially exempted a tenant from that liability if they provided notification and a report to a landlord that they were a victim of domestic violence and that the damage caused was by the perpetrator of domestic violence.

And so the intent of this bill in a lot of ways is to mirror protections that exist at the state level around relieving a tenant from liability.

from a rental agreement if they are a victim, and those protections would allow a tenant to terminate their rental agreement early without further obligation.

And so that legislation in state law is, it's based on a similar concept.

It's a different type of liability, but there is a financial liability that a tenant has when they break the lease, and under state law, The tenant does not have that financial liability for breaking the lease in the instance that they are fleeing the abuse of somebody who is engaged in domestic violence.

against that person.

And so, again, the idea is that your status as a survivor and a victim of domestic violence should not be a barrier when you're trying to, after fleeing the domestic violence, when you're trying to get new housing.

And having broken a lease is one form of liability that can keep people from getting housing.

Another kind of liability that can keep people from getting housing is an unpaid bill associated with damage to the apartment.

Yes, in a lot of cases that liability can help to keep the survivor in the relationship or linked to the perpetrator of domestic violence and make it harder for them.

Because of fear of what that liability, fear of that liability being a barrier to getting new housing, people choose to stay in the abusive situation.

They can.

Or in addition to that, it can also be because the financial circumstances, which is one of the issues we're trying to address, makes the person dependent on that particular housing or the perpetrator themselves.

Thank you.

So some of the proposed amendments that we're going to discuss today were issues discussed during the last committee meeting.

So there are seven proposed amendments that Council Member Herbold is sponsoring.

And I can go through each amendment and we can vote per amendment or we can do after, however you want to proceed.

Let's see if we can vote as we go.

Is that alright with you?

So this first proposed amendment would align protections to cover crimes that are covered in the state law, which we just discussed.

As originally introduced, the drafting would have covered only crimes of domestic violence, but in the state law, the coverage is domestic violence as well as sexual assault, stalking, and unlawful harassment.

And so in drafting, the assumption was that those things were covered within the narrower definition of domestic violence, but that's not actually the case.

And so to ensure that those crimes are also covered, we would insert those protections into the bill.

And so the definitions of sexual assault and unlawful harassment and stalking are on page two of your memo.

And essentially to insert those into this bill would require a substitute bill because we'd need a title change because the scope of the bill would be a little bit larger.

And so to do that, you'll see in attachment A, those protections, sexual assault, unlawful harassment, and stalking are inserted wherever you see domestic violence.

And so that would require a substitute, like I said, which means we'd need a new bill that would be introduced at some point before the next committee meeting on the 24th.

That's super helpful.

And just for the viewing public and the folks who are here with us today, I think my intention is to vote on the amendments with the assumption that we still have some stuff to work out and we're going to bring it back to committee one more time.

Just so I'm clear, we'll vote on amendments on this bill.

More symbolically than anything because we'll get a new bill introduced, but it will the idea is it will reflect what we've done today That'll be the new working thing that we'll work on in the next committee, that's right

So if you wanted to vote on that first amendment, then we can move into the second one.

So I will move amendment one, aligning protections to cover crimes included in the revised code of Washington by adding in sexual assault, stalking, and unlawful harassment found in attachment A.

Second.

All those in favor of amendment one, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstained.

Amendment number two would is similar to amendment one it just that in it is that excuse me in that it updates the language to align with state law as well.

The difference here is the bill is originally introduced used definitions of domestic violence and family or household members as it was defined in the RCW before this current legislative session.

During the 2019 state legislation Bill 1517 passed, which revised the definition of both domestic violence and family or household members.

The definition of domestic violence was revised to separate out intimate partner versus family or household member.

And so those changes are reflected on page three of the memo in how the state bill changed them.

Similarly, for family or household members, it took out specific descriptions in that definition and changed them to the definition of intimate partner.

And now that I'm saying that, I see that the definition of intimate partner is not included here, and so it may be worth a discussion of whether we should include intimate partner and insert in intimate partner wherever family or household members is defined in the bill.

The remainder of the amendment is on page.

sorry, it is page one of attachment B.

So not only would the definitions of domestic violence and family or household members be changed to reference the definitions in the RCW, the definition of tenant would just be aligned, it's not substantive change, it would just be aligned to reference the RCW as well.

And lastly, because of other changes made at the state level that affect the references made in this bill and in the RCW, It would just be a change from the reference to RCW 2626 to 26A or 2626B.

It's a lot of 26s.

And so those changes are reflected on page two of attachment B.

And so the change that will be needed later is to include the definition of intimate partner, is that correct?

Yes.

So intimate partner is defined, it's essentially all the things that are crossed off here on page three.

Those got transferred into the definition of intimate partner and so it would just be inserting that definition.

Into the bill as well into like the definition section.

Is that okay?

All right.

Perfect.

I understand.

All right, great.

No questions.

I Cuts my right.

Yeah, I'm happy to move amendment to with the understanding that the new bill will also reflect the addition of an intimate partner All those in favor, but I

I'm saying amendment two passes.

Okay.

Amendment number three clarifies the contents of the documentation that is required by the tenant to submit to a landlord.

As originally drafted, the things that would be included in that report were that the tenant or the household member had notified a qualified third party that they were a victim of domestic violence.

They would also have to inform the qualified third party of the time and date, the location, and the description of the acts of domestic violence and property damage, as well as that they had informed the qualified third party of the name of the perpetrator.

The way it was drafted implied that the acts of domestic violence and property damage had to happen at the same time, but because of the way that domestic violence manifests, there are things that can happen outside of the strict legal definition of domestic violence that still fit into a pattern of abuse.

And so because of the intent of the bill was to ensure that damage done by the perpetrator of domestic violence, not necessarily just done in the specific legal incident of domestic violence were covered, the amendment would change to separate out those two things.

And so in attachment B on page three, You'll see that the revision is to cross out the act or acts of domestic violence in subsections B, C, and D.

So it would still describe what the act of property damage was, but the only verification on the domestic violence side would be that it is the person that is perpetrating the domestic violence that has caused the property damage.

Yeah, ideally, it seems that the definition of domestic violence would include actions that constitute a pattern of abuse.

But given that it doesn't appear to encapsulate that type of activity that is a pattern of abuse, I think this is a good way of approaching that issue.

fact that that same sort of damage can have a lasting impact on a tenant if that damage It costs money to fix, and the tenant is, again, trying to get out of that situation.

So I think Amendment 3 is a good one to include, so thank you for catching it.

I will move Amendment 3, clarifying the contents of required documentation in Attachment B, Page 3. Second.

All those in favor of passing Amendment 3, vote aye.

And opposed and abstaining, amendment three passes.

Amendment number four is one that aligns the city regulations again with the state bill.

But this is particularly about identification of the perpetrator in the report made to a qualified third party.

And so as introduced, the prohibition against sharing the name was not included in an effort to balance a landlord's ability to pursue compensation from a perpetrator of domestic violence.

And the initial thought there was how would they be able to figure that out if it wasn't in this particular report.

But after further research, it became clear that there are other ways in which a landlord can find out who the perpetrator was.

And the risks to both the survivor and advocacy organizations that are trying to support survivors in requiring them to report the name sort of outweighed the benefits of having the landlord find out about the perpetrator in that specific mechanism.

And so just in terms of the, In terms of the research that sort of made this clear, survivors make reports to third parties for a variety of reasons.

But in terms of the pattern of abuse, it can be common for abusers to isolate their victims either psychologically, physically.

And so creating a sense of accountability for perpetrators can be dangerous for victims.

because it's in an effort to get out of that relationship.

And so one of the ways that survivors try to deal with the liability that happens or the harm that is being caused to them is through reporting to a qualified third party.

And so in those reports, The name of the perpetrator may be in that report, but if a perpetrator thinks that the survivor is trying to get out or that information is provided to a third party in an effort to go after the perpetrator, there can be really serious retaliation against a survivor.

And so in an effort to protect survivors, those qualified third party reports are both privileged and the protections in the state law prohibit the identity of the perpetrator from being shared more widely either, excuse me, in the report to the qualified third party.

So, in that case, for the same reasons, it would make sense that those protections applied in this circumstance.

The piece around the landlord being able to pursue liability for the perpetrator, even though they can't get the identity of the perpetrator through this specific report.

There are other ways in which the landlord may know who this person is.

They may have been on a lease previously with the tenant.

Other people in the area may know who the perpetrator is.

And more likely than not, if a survivor feels safe enough to be taking advantage of this exemption, it's probable that they feel safe enough to share the identity of the perpetrator.

So this doesn't prohibit landlords in any way from pursuing the perpetrator for purposes of compensation.

It just prohibits it in this particular reporting mechanism.

And so to that end, the protection that is in the state law would be inserted into this bill.

And to make it clear that landlords are able to seek compensation, this proposed amendment would also include language that clearly states that nothing would preclude a landlord from pursuing the perpetrator for compensation for damages caused.

And so that language is reflected on page four of attachment B.

Because amendment one was adopted, the amendment that would be voted on would be for A.

So I've really appreciated learning a lot about this issue and appreciate the domestic

violence advocacy community teaching me about this issue.

And I certainly would not want to increase the likelihood either of retaliation against a tenant using a third party report or to minimize the likelihood that tenants make these reports because, as you mentioned, they're useful for many other reasons associated with preserving the safety of domestic violence survivors.

It's also useful to reference, even though, again, these third-party reports are used for other things, we are mirroring the language in the state law that also requires a third party report to allow a domestic violence survivor to get out of a lease.

So again, we're doing what we can to mirror the protections for the survivor as well as limiting the survivor's liability in this legislation much like they do in state law as well.

So I appreciate having a better understanding of that than when we first drafted this bill.

I also appreciate the work on this and the advice from folks that work in this field to help us get this right.

So if there are no further questions, I will move amendment 4A, aligning city regulations with the prohibition against sharing the name of the alleged perpetrator with the landlord in the RCW and clarifying a landlord's remedies as found on attachment B, pages 4 and 5. I second that.

All those in favor vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

Amendment number five again aligns this laws with the protections for survivors in the RCW.

This one adds in evidentiary protections.

The state law includes provisions that make sure that the privileged nature of reporting between a survivor and a qualified third party stays that way.

even if the report details, the verification is shared with the landlord.

And so without the survivor specifically waiving privilege, providing the details would not otherwise waive privilege in a court proceeding that is initiated against a survivor.

A lot of times it's not always clear because of the pattern of abuse who is a survivor and who is a perpetrator.

And so sometimes cases are taken up against survivors as being the perpetrators of domestic violence.

And so protections around making sure that this reporting isn't used as a way to further victimize survivors, this protection would be mirrored in this current bill as well.

Sorry, and this is reflected on page?

Six, yeah.

Yes, page six, amendment five.

And because, again, amendment one was adopted, it's 5A.

Thank you.

And again, this is important in that we're making sure that in trying to strengthen the rights of tenants, we are not weakening the rights of domestic violence survivors.

So with that, I'll move Amendment 5A, adding in evidentiary protections for survivors, Attachment B, page 6.

I have a second.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstaining?

Amendment six is an easy one.

This just changes the effective date of the bill to January 1st, 2020. Because the Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections is the enforcement body, and there have been a lot of changes to landlord-tenant law, this extension would allow SDCI to figure out their resources, get the appropriate outreach materials out, and analyze any additional needed enforcement capacity.

Great, thank you.

And in our ongoing discussions about this bill, I know there's a lot of interest in talking about some sort of a mitigation fund.

That would very likely be something that we could discuss during the budget process, but I do want to use my committee as a place to talk more about how, if we were to establish a fund like that, how that would be accomplished, whether or not it's necessary.

Frankly, I'm really surprised that we've heard from folks who want the, in reaction to not having the ability to send a bill to a domestic violence survivor, The argument is that the city should be paying for the damage.

I'm surprised by that.

I was surprised when I saw the losing home report and saw the instance of the landlord who sent a domestic violence survivor a bill for blood on the carpet.

But, nevertheless, I'm committed to having the discussion about the cost of damages and what options landlords have available to themselves to make them whole for those damages.

So I think changing the effective date to January 1st, 2020 also aligns with our ability to have those discussions as well.

So with that, I will move Amendment 6, changing the effective date to January 1st, 2020. Opposed?

Not abstaining.

Moving on to the last one, Amendment 7.

So this last amendment is more of a technical one.

We had inserted a code reviser section that would allow a future position to be able to make technical corrections between the time this bill was introduced and now council passed an ordinance that already does that.

And so this would remove that section as unnecessary.

Great.

Easy.

With that, I will move Amendment 7. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, then abstaining.

All right.

Do you want to close us out on this one with next steps?

Sure.

So because Amendment 1 was adopted, this bill will now, all of the amendments will be incorporated into a new council bill that will be introduced between now and the 24th.

And so we'll have a further discussion on the 24th, including potentially any additions around a mitigation fund.

And so if that bill is voted out of committee on the 24th, it will go for a full council vote on September 30th.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

And let's move on to the next item on the agenda, and I've lost track of the number.

10.

I know you have it, Alex.

Agenda item number 10, Council Bill 119606, an ordinance relating to rental properties restricting a landlord's ability to limit the number of persons residing in a rental unit, prohibiting the use of conditions.

that are applied to persons residing in a rental unit who are not tenants and amending sections 7.24.020 and 7.24.030 of and adding a new section 7.24.031 and 7.24.032 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Great, thank you.

And again, this is a recommendation coming out of the Losing Home Report.

It's modeled on similar legislation in New York, and it prohibits the landlord from limiting the number of people residing in a rental unit to fewer than the legal occupancy limit established by local, state, or federal law.

We have a bill and I think we have some issues to talk through as well on this one.

Yes.

And so there, as we discussed at the last committee meeting, there were a variety of issues that came up for potential amendment.

So this, today's discussion deals with those amendments and I'll also talk through some issues for a future amendment that have come up between the last time we discussed this and now.

And so the first amendment, amendment number one, is just changing some terminology.

And you'll see it reflected in attachment A.

Yes, attachment A, pages one and two.

And so the first change would be altering the reference of the term family or household members, because this bill amends the same section of the code as the DV bill we just discussed does using But there are different definitions that we'd want to use for essentially defining family or household members.

Instead of using that term, the term would be changed to immediate family to make clear the distinction in those two.

It would also align the conventions for the use of definitions.

So, rental agreement would be referencing the RCW as amended.

It's not a substantive change.

And then in section two of the bill, you'd just be adding in the term immediate family member to swap out family or household members.

And then making clear that this applies to rental units, not just units generally.

And then changing the language from additional person who's not the tenant to additional residence.

And so that would also be reflected in section three of the bill.

One of the things that came up in public comment that I hadn't thought about as it relates to this particular bill is we have our laws as it relates to the ability to screen out tenants for reasons that we may have other laws that say you're not allowed to screen out tenants for those reasons are different in that instance where somebody rents from a landlord who lives on the property.

And I'm just wondering whether or not we should consider that sort of an exemption for this bill in order to be consistent with our other laws that create that exemption in those instances where a landlord lives on site.

Yeah, so as currently drafted, the only exemption that was included in here was the federal exemption around production of methamphetamines on the property or the lifetime sex offender registration.

The other exclusions that show up in various other parts of the code, excuse me, are what you've just mentioned.

So the shared occupancy where the owner lives on the property and then for accessory dwelling units and detached accessory dwelling units where the owner lives on the premises.

And so both of those could definitely be considered for exclusion from this bill.

It may just require some digging into the implications of those consequences.

All right, well let's put a pin in that and continue talking about it.

Okay.

Right, so that is Amendment 1. I don't know if you wanted to vote as we went or...

Let me just get myself organized here again.

And so for this bill, how many amendments do we have altogether?

There are five amendments.

Five amendments.

And we just went over Amendment 1. And yeah, let's do that again.

Does that work for you, Council Member O'Brien?

All right, fantastic.

I will move Amendment 1, which makes the definition consistent, revises term unit to rental unit, and changes the term additional person to additional resident.

I will second.

All in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

and opposed, none abstaining.

Okay.

Amendment number two amends the definition of family or household members, which would now be immediate family.

But one of the issues that came up while discussing this definition is that in some ways it is extremely broad and could encompass any number of people.

And so to make sure that, because the intent of the bill is specifically to deal with partners and children, And essentially what we would mean traditionally by immediate family, the change would be to take out some of the broader terms here.

So it would remove persons who have a child in common regardless of whether they have been married or lived together at any time.

It would remove adult persons related by blood because it's not entirely clear how far that would go.

how far within a family that would go.

People will be getting those DNA tests to see whether or not it's.

Yep, so it takes out that provision, but it puts in siblings just to make sure that piece is covered.

And then down in a few lines down, the original language had biological or legal parent-child relationship.

And again, because biological parent-child relationship could mean any number of things, instead we've inserted parents in addition to step-parents, step-children, grandparents, and grandchildren.

And then to cover the legal piece, made sure that includes adoptive parents, guardians, foster parents, custodians of minors.

And the last piece that didn't make it into the original language was just defining what dating relationship is, as that is included in the piece around persons 16 years of age or older who are presently residing together.

or have resided together and who have had a dating relationship.

And that definition comes from the same section of the RCW.

So we're being consistent with what courts would otherwise interpret as dating relationship.

Good work finding definitions for all these things.

Yeah, it's always better to not have to make it up as you go.

If we can refer to other jurisdictions, let's do it.

All right, Amendment 2, updating the definition of family or household member.

I move Amendment 2.

Second.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, abstaining.

Amendment number three is, again, something that we had discussed at the last committee meeting.

At the time, there wasn't any provision in the bill that would require a tenant to notify the landlord of who else was living in the unit.

And so what this provision would do would require that a tenant notify the landlord within 30 days of another person occupying the unit of the identity of that person.

And so that would allow landlords to track who's in their unit, how many people are in their unit within a reasonable amount of time after those persons begin to live in the unit.

That is super helpful.

And it is, I think, in some ways, points to addressing one of the questions raised in the prior legislation, is that landlords would In the case that, back to the domestic violence situation, landlords would know who's living in the unit and thus, independent of the tenant, be able to hold perpetrators who live in the unit liable for damages.

Any questions?

I move amendment 3 requiring notice to landlord of who is occupying the unit.

Second.

All those in favor vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed and abstaining.

Amendment 4. Excuse me.

Amendment number 4 just adds a comma.

I can't go for this.

No.

Going too far.

I'm opposed to commas.

Sorry to interrupt.

In section 3, it included a new section 724031 that the intent of which was to say that landlords cannot impose conditions on someone who is not a tenant that are beyond those imposed on a tenant to occupy a unit.

The issue here is that without a comma, it essentially states that landlords cannot impose any conditions on a person other than a tenant.

And so because that is not the intent of this bill, this amendment would insert a comma after the word criteria.

which would then make the language state that they cannot impose conditions on a person other than the tenant beyond those imposed by a tenant, as opposed to no conditions at all.

All right.

That's great.

We have our lawyers here, our English teachers, ninth grade English should be watching this too, how critically important a comma can be.

It really is.

Fantastic.

All right.

With that, I'll move Amendment 4, adding the comment to screening provision, revising section title for accuracy.

Second.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

Let's move on to Amendment 5.

OK.

Amendment 5 is a insertion that would include a severability clause and renumber some sections.

And so, essentially, a severability clause just makes clear that even if some parts of the bill are struck down or held invalid in some way, that other parts of the bill would remain valid.

And so, Amendment 5 would insert that provision as Section 5 and then renumber the existing Sections 5 and 6 as 6 and 7.

I fully support that.

Fantastic.

I lost track.

You want to move it for me?

I'll move amendment number five to add a severability clause and renumbering the subsequent sections.

Fantastic.

All right.

I will second.

All those in favor?

We did kind of change roles, but did you want to fully change?

All those in favor?

All opposed?

All right, great.

So this bill also will be bringing back to committee in, what's the date?

The 24th.

All right, great.

And we've got a few more bills to consider related to tenants' rights, and let's move on to those.

All right, agenda item 11, Council Bill 119619, an ordinance relating to notices to residential rental tenants requiring certain notices to contain a reference to Seattle landlord-tenant information and resources and amending section 22.206.180 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you, Alex.

Hello.

Thanks for joining us.

Start off with some quick introductions, please.

Thank you.

Jeff Talent, SDCI.

I'm the rental programs manager.

I'm the supervisor of the property owner tenant assistance group at the Department of Construction and Inspections.

Thank you.

And so we have three bills.

We have a presentation that sort of covers all three of them.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Do you want to just take it away?

Yeah, and quickly before we start, would you prefer that we pause on each bill for discussion, or do you want us to go through all three and then come back?

I think it might make sense to pause on each bill to see what discussion we have for each, if that's okay.

Great.

We'll start in with a quick introduction here.

So again, thank you very much.

First, just make sure, I don't know if you've met Michelle Hunter before.

She's the new supervisor of our property owner and tenant assistance group.

She comes to us with a background in eviction defense.

She was has been an attorney and in our group She's held several roles frontline customer service on our helpline Staff person in the POTA group and now the supervisor says she's very well-rounded and kind of seen it all I think with respect to landlord-tenant issues So, thank you very much for Your interest in these bills, and we appreciate the mayor's leadership on this as well.

This is the second of a couple rounds here of work that the mayor's office is leading with looking for some opportunities to enhance tenants protections.

And these ones in particular are sort of around improving the business relationship and communication between landlords and tenants.

Yes, go ahead.

We put our purpose and values up there for our department.

I guess a reminder that especially with landlord-tenant issues, we're really focusing on equity and communities in our work.

So boy that I guess Turn that right over to Michelle to jump into the first bill here.

Fantastic.

Thank you Michelle.

Take it away So the first ordinance that we are proposing deals with rent payment issues the state law already requires payment receipts for cash payments and upon request for other types of payments from tenants and But by moving that into Seattle Municipal Code, we would allow our group, the POTA group, to enforce when tenants are not able to get receipts from their landlords.

So essentially, it will give tenants a way to enforce a right that they already have.

All right.

Can we just pause for one quick second?

I think we're...

I'm not trying to be rigid here, but item 11 is, I think, the first bill, which is Council Bill 119619. Can we do that one first?

So we can keep going through the agenda in the order everything is.

I don't have the amendment numbers in front of me.

Sorry.

I've got the agenda here, so.

No, I don't have the agenda here.

Oh, we've got an extra.

So Council Bill 119619, as read into the record by Alex earlier, specifically relates to the notices to rental tenants requiring certain notices to contain reference to the landlord tenant information.

All right.

So we have that, of course, last in our slides.

This ordinance is about being able to provide information on the notice that's given to a tenant that impacts their rights to help them, point them to information at our department that might be able to help them respond to that notice.

So our goal is to, again, help them access those resources in time to respond and in time for the organization to respond by having all notices have a footnote on them that refers tenants to SDCI to get more information about their rights and to ask questions.

There are already a statement required on the notice to increase housing costs under our prohibited acts ordinance.

So this is actually a fairly minor change in practice for landlords with a large impact for tenants because we'll be taking that same practice and applying it to notices to terminate and notices to enter into units.

So, if you could just back up a little bit, you just mentioned that there's already a requirement on which notices to say what?

Notices to increase housing costs already have a requirement inside our prohibited acts ordinance to give tenants a statement about where they can find access or access information about their rights.

Got it.

All right.

Just out of curiosity, does that also include notification of their rights to look to see if the unit, I know this is, we're going to talk about this in another bill, but if the unit is registered?

Well, by pointing them to our organization, we'll be able to help them with questions about registration, questions about the validity of the notice, as well as referrals to other resources like ways to pay their rent.

So in essence, this is the same information that you require on rent increases that you are now requiring on which notices now?

So it would be all notices that what we're saying impact tenants' rights.

So notices to enter their units or ask them to move, those kind of very important notices that are asking a tenant at that time to do something.

So it would give tenants a chance to then check in with the city and make sure whatever they're being asked to do is within the requirements of city law.

And what's the process for, ensuring that notices that are produced at the place of production include all this uniform information?

Well, we are going to be creating a director's rule, or at least that's what we're proposing to do, that would have the specific language that we would like them to put on their notice.

That gives us a little flexibility if our department see changes from Department of Planning and Development to Department of Construction and Inspections, we wouldn't have to rewrite the ordinance.

But we would like a very simple line on there to be, please contact our renting in Seattle resources.

I'm just thinking that a lot of these notices, particularly when you're talking about three-day pay or vacate notices, 10-day notices, they're not actually produced by the city.

They're produced by attorneys.

At this time, tenants can call in and complain that the statement is missing, and we would say that that notice is not valid until it's reproduced with the information on it.

Assuming this passes, we would do a bunch of landlord outreach.

So some of the tools we have, and we're going to touch on this later, is we can email the Rio registered landlord.

So that's about 19,000 contacts.

We have our quarterly landlord training.

So there'll be a chance to get that out there.

We'll work with associations like Washington Multifamily Housing Association and Rental Housing Association of Washington to get the word out.

We always give landlords an opportunity to voluntarily comply before we take any violation action as well.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Council Member Bryant.

All right.

Let's move on to the next bill, which is...

Item number 12, Council Bill 119620, an ordinance relating to residential rent payments requiring receipt and non-electric payment options, and amending Section 7.24.030 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

So we'll return to our first slide and again say that we would like to bring the state's requirement to provide receipts to tenants every time they pay with cash and when a tenant asks for a receipt if they paid with another method.

We would like to take that state law and make it part of city law which would allow POTA to enforce when tenants are not able to get receipts.

So we're giving tenants a way to enforce a right that they have under state law but maybe having difficulty enforcing at this time.

So the right in state law is the right to receive a receipt.

Correct.

We are going with this legislation a step further, which says that is giving tenants an affirmative right to pay in cash.

Is that correct?

Well, our second part of this ordinance is proposing that owners continue to provide tenants a non-electronic means of paying.

It does not have to be cash, cash or money orders.

which is what they have done for many years before online portals became a new practice.

It's convenient for a lot of tenants and many tenants don't have a problem with it, but many tenants do, especially those who don't have traditional banking services.

This online portal system can create a problem where they're having to pay very large convenience fees.

Understood.

Completely supportive.

I just want to understand, part of this bill isn't simply giving the right of a tenant to receive a receipt.

It is also extending the right to a tenant to pay rent, which is not a right that currently exists.

That's correct.

That is a new, right, we would like to add a protection for paying with a non-electronic source.

And if you could talk just a little bit from your experience about the barrier that these kinds of requirements that we heard about in public comment of some property management companies requiring that people pay electronically.

What kind of barrier that provides for tenants?

So many of the concerns that we heard during public comment were about requiring cash payments to be accepted.

Many landlords in our city already have a policy of only taking money orders or traceable funds.

We're not proposing that they change that, just that they allow tenants a way of paying that's not on the internet.

One of our commenters did talk a little bit about some problems with money orders.

There are problems with money orders, sometimes, unfortunately, with different scams that happen.

That is not something that we're looking to fix with this, but those tenants who are using money orders are doing that because they don't have a traditional banking means, and unfortunately, that's the best traceable option we have.

for people without a bank account other than going online.

We are hearing a number of tenants complain that they've been paying rent for 20 years with money orders and now there's suddenly a requirement to pay online.

And they either don't have the ability to use the internet to do that or it's a problem with the convenience fees where they're paying up to 5% sometimes in addition to their rent just for the ability to pay that rent.

So this legislation would not give tenants an absolute right to pay in cash.

No, it doesn't.

Just a non-electronic funds acceptance is what we're asking for.

So the concern that we heard about theft, I would argue, is not as founded given that a bunch of money orders is not as much of an attractive nuisance as a safe full of cash.

We totally agree.

There have always been a lot of problems with lockboxes in our city for collecting rent.

Tenants are aware of those problems as well.

They do their best to try to protect themselves.

But if they have an option to either go online or pay with a money order and they're choosing to take that additional risk, we want them to be able to continue doing that.

They're probably choosing that for a reason.

So putting this another way to address some of the concerns we heard, a property management company could prohibit cash payments, but they would have to accept checks or money orders the way this is written.

Got it.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

That's great.

I appreciate that.

I appreciated the comment I heard from the woman who does fraud investigations for, I think it was security properties or something.

And I appreciate that expertise she brought here.

I don't know if there was a misunderstanding, but what she walked through, she was very explicit.

We accept money orders, so that would be consistent with this law.

So that's great.

Thank you.

All right.

Move on to the next one, Alex.

Agenda Item Number 13, Council Bill 119621, ordinance relating to termination of residential rental tenancies requiring compliance with the rental registration and inspection ordinance before issuing notices to terminate a tenancy, and amending sections 22.206, 160, and 22.214.075 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

And this one.

This ordinance is about requiring landlords already required to be registered with our rental registration inspection ordinance.

We would like them to be registered before they issue an eviction notice.

In our current law, the landlords are required to be registered before they evict a tenant.

But at the current state of our code, they can ask for continuance in the middle of a hearing, get registered, go back in and continue their hearing.

We're asking that we move this requirement earlier in the process and require them to be registered before they issue the notice to terminate tenancy.

This will give us another tool in our enforcement toolkit to make sure we have safe inspected units in our community.

It's also a matter of fairness, we feel, to the tenants.

If the landlord is in court alleging that the tenant is breaking rules, let's make sure that the landlord is in compliance with city rules as well.

It's, yeah, I thought we had addressed that issue with the earlier legislation that prohibits the eviction if not registered, but did not understand that there was an issue as it relates to the timing of the notice.

and the ability of a landlord to ask for the continuance and still move forward with the eviction.

So, I think this, that was an unintended.

loophole, and I'm glad you caught it.

And it shows, I think, you know, one of the things that the council and the executive have been working to do for several years now is to give SDCI the resources necessary to become a more robust enforcement unit.

And one of the great things that happens as a result of that is you have all these sort of on-the-ground experiences the difficulties in enforcing Seattle's laws.

and what the gaps are still to protect tenants.

So thank you for bringing that expertise to us.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you.

All right.

I think our last slide, we already touched on this somewhat, was just what we're doing for implementation.

So like most of this work now, we've got a very robust renting in Seattle outreach program that serves both landlords and tenants.

So one feature is approximately quarterly notices to landlords Electronically, it's about 19,000 people on the email list right now, and we get good feedback that we're getting information that landlords need out there.

So we will, of course, as these changes roll out and other changes, we'll continue to get those into landlords' hands as early as possible.

The materials on our website, and to the extent we need to, print materials would be updated.

and integrate it into our future landlord trainings, which again, these have been very popular.

We're doing it about quarterly.

We do ask for pre-registration and they're all sold out every time.

So it's like a hundred.

It's pretty great.

You're charging a good fee for it.

The classes are free.

We just ask for pre-registration and it's usually around 150 landlords at each event.

All right.

Well, that's great.

So we'll see you again on September 24th and hopefully we'll be moving out all these pieces.

So thanks again.

Thank you very much.

Last item on the agenda.

Agenda item 14. 2020 through 2022 solid rate path briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Alex.

Greetings.

Welcome.

Just this big slide here.

We'll do a quick round of introductions as everybody gets seated.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Mami Hara, Seattle Public Utilities.

Pamela Ashover, CFO of SBU.

public utilities.

Great and we've got some good news that we're gonna hear about today.

We do.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember O'Brien for the opportunity to present Seattle Public Utilities proposed solid waste rates for 2020 through 2022. We are very happy to inform your committee that under this proposal customers will pay six-tenths of a percent less than was proposed in our Strategic Business Plan for the same rate period.

Rate affordability is critical, and because most people aren't thinking about solid waste, you know, facts that much, you know, what kind of generates costs, it's really important for us to have a moment to be able to talk about you know, what are the drivers of cost and how we are aiming to give people the best value possible for the dollars they're spending on their R services.

By way of background, Seattle public utilities solid waste costs are about $195 million per year, and our current collections, processing, and transfer contracts make up about 55% of that solid waste expense.

And the remainder covers the modernization of our transfer stations, paying for operations, environmental activities, customer service, taxes, and other general costs such as planning and recycling program development.

And before we start on the presentation, I'd like to reintroduce Paula Lashober, who has accepted the role of CFO for Seattle Public Utilities.

She's been our interim since April, and she's done an amazing job.

And you probably know her from her 32-year-long career at City Light, where she was in finance and, most recently, their CFO.

Congratulations and thank you.

Thank you.

Shall we move into the proposal?

You have a one pager and what's on the screen is just what's already on the page in case the public wants to see it.

Thank you.

We have on this page noted a variety of factors that have led to the fact that we can charge a little bit less than we had planned when we did the strategic plan.

Notice that the average increase is just around 3% a year.

And the factors leading to the downward trend compared to the strategic plan are the negotiation of a new collections contract, which saved us about $5 million to put toward the new rate period of 2020 to 2022. Second thing is the improved demand, again, over the plan for the strategic plan so that we have realized about $6 million more than expected.

That also contributes to the lower rate increase.

Before moving on, I'm sorry, can you remind us the $5 million in savings under the new contract?

Just get a little bit more detail into why that was, why we were able to realize those savings.

Can I pass that on to Spencer, who's our analyst?

Sure.

So the $5 million is an annual savings for the solid waste collections contract.

Part of that is just the collection savings through negotiations.

And then the part of that is about $3 million a year is savings based off of the containers that Seattle Public Utility, we're no longer paying for.

The contractors are providing the container costs.

Thank you.

Okay, the third thing is financial policy.

I thought you were still in the second thing.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm going to ask you to pause again.

What does improved demand mean?

You expect certain collections of certain sizes of containers and certain haulers dumping their say they're building materials and so on.

Does it mean more demand?

You get more.

It is more demand.

We've been seeing more use of our north transfer station than was previously projected.

So we've had more revenue there than we had anticipated.

So when there is more to do, it drives the costs to everybody down.

So it's not just improved demand, it's increased demand.

Increased.

Okay.

And that has in itself resulted in $6 million in savings.

Right.

And there's a little bit of an offset in terms of the expense, but the net is $6 million, right?

Was there additional?

Yes, that's correct.

And that's over the 2020 to 2022 rate period.

So how does that align with the statistics that we've heard recently in the solid waste report that shows a reduction in solid waste collection?

Are you pointing to other parts of the system, not the residential and commercial use that we think about when we think about solid waste collection?

So yeah, one of the main parts is, as Mami pointed out, the transfer stations, we are seeing a significant increase based on, compared to what we had originally planned before, before North Transfer reopened.

We're seeing, we saw once it reopened, we got around 70% more tonnage than we had expected.

That's incredible.

So 70% more tonnage, even though we've hit a new low in the amount of waste generated per resident.

That's right, but we also have population increase.

So each resident should be applauded, but we do have more people here.

When that north transfer station opened, because that was closed previously, were we seeing customers travel outside the city to other transfer stations?

And so it's not necessarily a system increase, it's just a SPU increase, but not necessarily the individuals were creating 70% more waste now.

No, yeah.

Okay.

Such as the King County transfer station.

Okay, right.

It's a great idea, though.

It's such an attractive transfer station that people just want to throw more away.

That includes construction waste too, you know, lots of construction has been going.

That's what I was thinking.

A lot of it probably is construction waste considering all the development that's happening.

Council Member O'Brien.

Yeah, it's a beautiful facility and I could see how, I mean, well, obviously when the transfer station was closed, some people went to South, but some people went to King County, I assume.

And then of course the population continues to grow while it's gone.

And so that makes, I can see an explanation how, As patterns have changed just in the time it was closed and came back that that and plus this great facility folks might say hey I'm gonna drive a little out of my way to go to Seattle or as I used to go to King County because it's just easier to access so that That can make a lot of sense and we have great stuff there too and great staff Construction waste there's a requirement.

I believe that that anything that's recyclable has to be recycled to their right isn't that?

I know, yeah.

This is tricky.

We both want you to run a successful business, obviously.

And the more volume you do, the more we can amortize overhead.

You get more revenues.

That helps cover the cost.

That means we can have lower rates.

That's great.

And from a policy perspective, we want you to collect no waste.

And so I, you know, and I think there's a bit of an explanation here that it may be that we're stealing some business from King County or recapturing some business from King County and there's more stuff happening in our city.

But I think it's just important to continue to watch that and figure out, you know, if we see continually increasing trends, you know, if we add curbside pickup and, and drop off at the north transfer and south transfer station and like we wouldn't know what is our per capita waste trending to because that's a critically important one.

And you know frankly if there's some reason why people are using the transfer stations instead of curbside, why is that, you know.

People are doing remodels, obviously that might be a big piece of it too, but understanding the dynamics there is going to be really important.

It is.

And we share the goal of zero waste.

That is something that our team is passionately driven towards, and they are working hard from all the way upstream, you know, with producer responsibility, legislation, and other activities, you know, down to working at the customer level, you know, on how to help them, you know, reduce their waste.

So it's something that we all share that interest in.

And ultimately, It can benefit the bottom line of all residents if we just have to design, you know, the dynamic of reduction, you know, and our obligations, you know, in the right way.

Can you speak to that a little bit more?

That was a comment in public comment at the beginning of the meeting before you were here.

A testifier spoke to the interest and desire that our rate path be designed in such a way that incentivizes the behavior with a different base charge for people who, and this testifier was talking about utilities generally, not specifically solid waste.

They're talking about solid waste water as well as electricity, but felt really strongly that the way that the rate path for both utilities is currently designed, it doesn't incentivize a reduction in use of the utilities.

And gave the example of the fact that he pays $25 as his base rate for garbage pickup, regardless of how much garbage he puts out.

And in this example, this gentleman put out one very small bag a month.

Gave examples also for, like I said, CLC Light, which I won't ask you to speak to, but I'm just wondering, are there things that we could be doing to incentivize the kind of waste production behavior that we want to see while also thinking about the rates and not creating a rate path that is really unaffordable for people who, for reasons external to them, have limits on how much they can reduce their production.

It's important for utilities to take the long view and to really look over all of the potential stages of evolution towards both your environmental goals and your financial equity goals, you know, for your customer base.

and to calibrate the approach that you use in the design of rates in order to, you know, meet those needs in the best way possible at any given time within that arc.

And so we do, we are constantly looking at potential alternative mechanisms that we can use in order to incent conservation and better behavior.

That is a fundamental part of rate design.

And so our rate team is always looking at alternatives.

And we also have economists also helping us.

We have in-house economists and consulting ones to help us continually look at rate design.

But it's hard for me just in the abstract to say what's the right thing at any given point.

But there are some really exciting ideas out there right now in our field that we are looking at.

And I would welcome a conversation later on, you know, at some point when we have more to share.

Did you want to add anything to that, Spencer?

No, that's good.

Thank you.

So are we finished with the presentation?

Or I think there's still some more to cover, right?

We were at number two, now we're at number three.

How we're saving money, and then we'll talk about the things that are driving costs up.

Awesome.

All right.

So another driver downward was our financial policy.

We maintain a certain year-end cash balance.

And these have also kind of given us a cash reserve that we can apply to the next rate change.

customer count side of the utility discount program, when we were doing the strategic plan, we had a preponderance of single family over multifamily housing, and now that has switched so that we have a preponderance of multifamily compared to single family housing, and they're cheaper to serve in the multifamily arena, so that also saves almost $8 million in terms of looking at the future rate change.

That's very logical.

We talk about how we live in the city, and oftentimes we talk about density as being a way to reduce people's impact, live closer together, better served by trandes, but it's also easy to serve people for things like garbage pickup, too.

And particularly easier and less expensive for folks who rely on and need a discount.

Yeah.

That's great.

So those are four factors driving rates down, and we have two factors driving rates up, which were on the back of your handout.

One is the capital improvements.

So the South Recycling Center will be built and entered into service in 2021 as compared to the strategic plan where we thought we would be done by 2019. And the other one is about recycling commodity revenues, which, of course, offset the customer rates.

So China's recycling ban has resulted in depressed recycling commodity prices, and we've updated our projections for that.

But that means a $15 million decrease in the expected revenues over the rate study period.

However, we want to make it clear that we're committed to recycling, and we don't send things to landfills.

We've negotiated other contracts.

Can you talk a little bit about the self-recycling center and the construction timeline delay?

Oh, sure.

When the project was originally conceived of, there were some program elements that were included that have now been taken out, but we needed to evaluate whether that was the right business decision.

For example, one of the things that we had been originally thinking about was handling grits and dewatering at the south transfer station.

Therefore, the drainage and wastewater line of business was going to be contributing financially to the project.

using up a significant portion of the site.

But it turned out that that was not necessarily the most cost-effective way or place to, you know, put that facility since we had another place to put it or to do those activities.

And we were able to come up with a much more simple and user-friendly site plan.

And that took time, you know, to come up with, you know, a better flow for the site, you know, with the site designers.

and to make sure that we had a design that eliminated any kinds of danger for those folks who are recycling, driving through a building and recycling at the same time.

So we were doing some refinements like that.

So I'm pretty sure that the overall cost of the facility is less, of the site is less, but that it'll be a much better facility.

So if the cost of the site is less, why is the driver going up?

Oh, because of the time.

Because of the time.

Because of the time.

Got it.

All right.

All right.

That's helpful.

And then finally on the recycling ban, can you just talk a little bit about how our contracts are different than the contracts of some other jurisdictions and why that puts us in a different position as it relates to this recycling ban, but that there is a cost associated with that, but it's a cost worth bearing.

The short of it is that our recycling contracts do not allow the contractors to dispose of the recyclables in landfills and mandates that they have to move the commodities into recycling markets.

And so that allowed us to take a firm line and not provide any exceptions to the contract.

Right, which means we are continuing to recycle, whereas some other jurisdictions are not.

Yes, because they did not necessarily have any stipulations in their contract that had those requirements.

I think people thought that the markets would be open, you know, and that they would always get some kind of money back for the recycling.

And, you know, we were very lucky to have staff that were so appreciate.

Yeah, not having that requirement in the contract with the service providers allows the service providers to take actions that are inconsistent with the city's goals and values.

So again, many thanks to our contract staff who thought ahead and included this language.

Yeah, I really appreciate the, you know, long-term dedication that the utility and the people at the utility have made to this, and it's great to see.

Obviously, what's happening in the kind of global recycling market is a real challenge.

It's a challenge of Seattle, but we've figured out how to navigate that because our commitment But to the overall waste stream, you know, throughout the country, redesign needs to happen.

And I appreciate that folks on your team are actually part of trying to find alternatives and playing that role that Seattle often does is help navigate what a transition looks like so that other jurisdictions that may not have the capacity to do what we're doing can figure out how to get back in the recycling business.

Because even though we're not losing anything, and it's important that our people in Seattle understand when you put stuff in the recycling bin it gets recycled.

But we want everyone in the country to be able to do that and to the extent that we can help develop new markets for things whether they're domestic or international that are living up to the standards we meet.

That's not just good for Seattle, it's good for everyone else too.

We agree, and so developing new markets here locally is critical, but also the role that our community plays in terms of making sure that recyclables are clean, dry, and empty.

cannot be understated because if they were clean and dry and empty, then those markets internationally would also be open to us and we would be able to get a higher price for those commodities.

For example, I don't know, my numbers are going to be wrong because they're, you know, it's a little stale, but I believe that Japan gets somewhere between $90 to $100 for an equivalent amount that we might get $40 for because of the quality of the recycling.

And markets are open to them because people know that they're not going to be receiving contamination that poses a health risk.

or an environmental risk for their countries.

So, you know, that fundamental change at each residence and business can make all the difference in affordability for all of us, and also for environmental quality, regardless of where the recycling is handled.

I remember reading an article a couple years ago now about recycling in Japan, I was talking at least at one site where they had, I think, 30 different bins that they would sort into.

Not at the recycling center, at the residential level.

And that in these multifamily buildings, there were people that would come down and police their neighbors when they got to something in bin 26 that should have been in bin 27. It sounded a little bit like Seattle, but definitely on steroids.

But obviously, you know, it's funny and interesting.

I would argue it's not at all like Seattle because we don't have a requirement for multiple bins on every floor of our buildings.

I would say there are people in Seattle who are very diligent, I'll use the word, to do that.

But the culture clearly that has been established around recycling over there is interesting to read about, but it has significant benefits because the value of those products are really high.

Right, and we don't ask for that even.

We're just saying, please, clean, dry, and empty.

Yeah, and I know that...

I forget what the term, but the wish-fill recycling.

I really want this to be recyclable.

So I'm going to throw that in the recycling bin.

It's like, nope, if you're in doubt, we need to throw it in the trash.

That's right.

When in doubt, throw it out.

That's right.

Thank you.

Thank you for that word.

So this is just a briefing.

We will have a bill that approves the new solid waste rates as part of the budget process.

Is that correct?

That's right.

We have the bill already at council, and it'll be part of the budget legislation.

Great.

And again, the high-level takeaway is an average reduction in solid waste rates over the three years of six-tenths of a percent.

All right.

That is indeed good news.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all.

If that's it, for the good of the order, I will adjourn the meeting.

It is 11.25 a.m.

Thank you, everybody.