Seattle City Council 3/22/22

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is March 22nd, 2022. This is a meeting of the Seattle City Council.

I'm Deborah Juarez.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Present.

Councilmember Sawant?

Present.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

And Council President Juarez.

Here.

Eight, present.

Thank you.

I want to start off by thanking Council Member Mosqueda for being Council President Pro Tem yesterday in my absence.

So thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for stepping up for me when I was out yesterday.

Moving along the agenda to presentations, there are no presentations today.

Moving on to the approval of the consent calendar.

You've all had a copy of the agenda.

So we will now consider the proposed consent calendar.

Are there any items on the consent calendar that my colleagues would like to pull?

Not seeing or hearing any, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

The consent calendar has been moved and seconded.

and it passes.

Will the clerk, I'm sorry, it did not pass.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the consent calendar?

Council Member Pierson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

H in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Sorry, I said present by mistake.

I know.

I know what you meant.

You're here.

I got it.

The consent calendar is adopted.

And will the clerk please affix my signature to the consent calendar on my behalf?

Thank you.

Moving on into the calendar approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing or seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Moving on to public comments, I will read the first set of instructions or directions and then Madam Clerk will take over.

Colleagues, at this time, we will open the remote public comment period for items on the City Council agenda.

introduction and referral calendar, and the council's work program.

It remains the strong intent of Seattle City Council to have remote public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, as a reminder, the City Council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem the system as being abused or is no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

Madam Clerk, how many people do we have signed up?

We have three signed up council president.

Thank you.

So we have three people signed up two minutes each.

Our city clerk will moderate the general public comment period.

And I will now hand it off to her to go ahead and read the instructions, Madam Clerk.

Thank you.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they are registered to provide public comment on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when registered and use the ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

Please note this is different from the general meeting listen line ID listed on the agenda.

If you did not receive an email confirmation please check your spam or junk mail folders.

Once the speaker's name is called, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

And then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

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

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

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

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

Once you have completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star-6 after you hear the prompt if you have been unmuted.

And our first speaker is Howard Gale, followed by Ted Lehman.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gale with seattlestop.org, commenting on our failed police accountability system.

In Nashville, Tennessee, on January 27th, the National Police killed Landon Estep, a man experiencing a behavioral health crisis and wielding an edged weapon.

Within 24 hours, Nashville's Citizen Oversight Board officially released a statement calling the killing, quote, ravely disturbing, and announced an independent investigation.

In Nashville, an independent investigation means exactly that, an investigation that does not involve police officers doing the investigation.

In Seattle, on January 5th, the Seattle police killed a man experiencing a behavioral health crisis and wielding an edge weapon.

Nearly three months later, Seattle's Community Police Commission has released no official statement of any sort.

Nearly three months later, we don't even know the man's name.

His case quickly disappeared from the headlines and from public awareness.

If and when an investigation is done in Seattle, it will be SPD officers investigating other SPD officers.

It is hard to comprehend two such radically different responses to two such similar incidents of unnecessary police killing.

occurring in cities so similar in size and demographics.

It is clear that a proactive and community-involved Citizens Oversight Board in Nashville helps produce a radically different response compared to what happens in Seattle.

In Seattle, the CPC's silence begets everyone's silence.

Nashville has had their Citizen Oversight Board for three years and two months.

It is a system chosen by the people through an initiative.

It works.

On March 27th, the Seattle CPC, part of a dysfunctional oversight system forced on the people of Seattle, will start its 10th year.

It does not work.

Like Nashville, we in Seattle need to build, through a city initiative, a police accountability system that provides full civilian community control over police.

Go to seattlestop.org to find out how.

That's seattlestop.org.

Our next speaker up is Ted Lehman, followed by Alan Jones.

And neither of these speakers are showing as present council president.

And that's the end of the list.

Okay, so I'm guessing we're not expecting anyone else.

So with that, hold on a minute here, sorry about that.

I was expecting our other two speakers, but so with that, we've reached the end of our speakers.

We had three, one person showed up.

So we will close public comment right now.

Is that right, Madam Clerk?

Yes, Council President.

Sorry about that.

I was just trying to get through the calendar here.

So moving on, or the agenda, moving on into the agenda, we'll go to committee reports.

And I understand that we have one item from the Transportation and Sale Public Utilities Committee, which will be Mr. Peterson.

Madam Clerk, can you read that into the record?

Report of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Agenda Item 1. Council Bill 120-271.

Relating to John Lewis Memorial Bridge constructed under the Seattle Department of Transportation's Northgate Bridge and Cycle Track Project.

Accepting the Northgate easement agreement granted by the state of Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges on behalf of North Seattle College dated February 28th 2019. The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

So was I supposed to say read the short title, or did you read the whole thing?

I read the short title.

Good.

Thank you.

Mr. Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

Council Bill 120271 finalizes the various easements and agreements between our Seattle Department of Transportation and the Washington State Department of Transportation, North Seattle College, and Sound Transit for the maintenance of the John Lewis Memorial Bridge.

As we know, that new bridge enables bikes and pedestrians to safely cross over I-5 to connect with the Northgate Transit Hub in District 5. Our committee unanimously recommended approval of this council bill.

Thank you.

So, is there anything anyone would like to say in regards to Council Bill 120271 to Council Member Peterson?

Well, I have a few things to say, just briefly, without going into too much detail.

Just an update.

I know I don't sit in your committee, Council Member Peterson, but this has been a long time coming, getting this done, I think since like 2016. And right now we're right in the end, the tail end of getting four major signs put up on the bridge for the John Lewis Bridge.

And they'll be interpreted with phenomenal quotes of Congressman Lewis.

And we're working with WSDOT to get a actual sign on the road where people can look up and see the brown historical sign that says John Lewis Bridge, so that it's its official title.

I wanna thank Parks and also North Sale College and WSDOT because they've been working with us on this for a long time and Sound Transit.

So we could have the bridge, we could name the bridge, but more importantly that we could have something to recognize Congressman Lewis.

And it really was a testament of parks coming through to take over that land and make sure they maintain the wetlands and the marshlands and redesigning the project and the bridge so it had a better arc to it and more wide.

walk more widened so we could have strollers and runners and bikes and baby strollers or more people walking not not just bikes nothing against bikes but everybody's bridge so that's what we wanted it to be so i'm glad this is finally done so thank you anyone else okay so um will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill council member peterson yes council member salaj

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Eight in favor and none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation or the ordinance on my behalf?

Thank you.

Moving on to the, what else we have here?

Adoption of other resolutions.

There are no other resolutions for introduction or the adoption today.

Other business, is there any other business to come before CLC to council today?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I request to be excused on April 11th.

That is April 12th, Tuesday, April 12th.

All right, Council Member, I have Council Member Sawant on here.

as well.

For the 12th?

Anyway, does anyone have any objection to Council Member Strauss being excused from April, March 29th or April?

April 12th.

April 12th.

All right.

Not seeing and hearing or seeing an objection, Council Member Strauss is indeed excused from the meeting on that date.

Thank you.

So before we adjourn, this does conclude our items of business.

Sorry, Council Member, President Juarez, I... Yeah, that's what I thought.

Don't you have one?

I do, but it's different dates.

Okay.

So I asked the council to excuse me from March 29th and April 5th council meetings.

Okay, I have one of them on here.

That's what I thought.

Okay, well, let me do this then.

There is no objection, Council Member Sawant, well, is there, Council Member Sawant has just moved that she be excused on March 29th in April, what was it Council Member Sawant?

April 5th.

April 5th, that's not on my thing, April 5th.

There's no objection, Council Member Sawant will indeed be excused on March 29th in April 5th from the Seattle City Council meeting.

All right, so this does conclude our items of business on today's agenda.

And our next meeting is on March 29th at 2 o'clock.

Have a wonderful afternoon.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.