Seattle City Council Finance & Housing Committee 2/6/20

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you all for being here.

Sorry for the slight delay.

Today is Thursday, February 6, and it is 2020, the first meeting of the Finance and Housing Committee.

Today is a special committee meeting.

The committee will come to order.

It is 2.09.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee, and I am joined by Vice Chair Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Lewis, Councilmember Strauss, and soon I believe we will be joined by Councilmember Tammy Morales.

Very excited to have all of you as part of this committee.

I want to give a special thanks to our Council President who is not here and is home with her new one.

We are going to be very excited to have her as a member of this committee as well.

And welcome Councilmember Morales as the designee for the individuals who are not able to come to committee.

We're really excited to have you in Councilmember Gonzalez's place.

The Finance and Housing Committee will meet every first and third Tuesday of the month, with some exceptions, because we're going to have special committee meetings like we are today.

As of now, we are scheduled to have 18 meetings for this year, and we may have a few additional meetings that we will try to work in before the full budget discussion.

We have a packed agenda already in front of us in terms of our work plan.

For example, with our friends from labor sitting in the audience, we know that we want to look at the future of work, workforce development and technology, and looking at how the intersection between technology and workforce development has changed the nature of work.

We'll be taking up issues like how do we make sure that those drivers from TNCs have an adequate and fair living wage.

Very excited to work with you all on that.

For our folks in housing, I see some people here from the transit and housing world.

We're going to be looking at issues around ending exclusionary zoning.

Over the last two years, we've talked a lot in my previous committee about how we lay the groundwork for updating our outdated, racist, and inequitable covenants that are really leading to exclusionary zoning and pushing more people out of the city.

So let's take another look at how we can create more equitable systems of growth and creating density in our city.

We have a few things that are cleanup, like the MHA cleanup bill to make some minor common sense changes, and rent bidding legislation, which was one of our first pieces of legislation that we would want to take some next steps on.

And lastly, we have some work that follows up on our commitment to make sure that people have what they need.

Domestic Workers Bill of Rights cleanup, where we made sure that everybody had Minimum wage and sick leave and protection from retaliation is a great common-sense issue today We're going to be hearing from folks from orca for all which is another great common-sense issue making sure that everybody has access to transit passes And I look forward to working with all of you.

I know that our work agenda our Council agenda will be circulated to you very soon.

And so we're going to think about including your edits as well, but this is all a lead up to the big budget discussions that will happen this fall.

Very excited about that, and we'll have more information to come soon about our community budgeting discussions so that we get out in community early, and frankly, that we get out in community in all of your districts to make sure that we have a conversation.

directly with community impacted by the budget.

More to come on that.

Today we have four agenda items, the appointments to the Seattle City Employees Retirement System Board of Administration, the appointment to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission, a briefing and discussion on ORCA for All, and a briefing and discussion on the capital projects watch list for the year.

With the committee's consideration, I would love for us to consider taking items one, two, and four, and then going back to item number three, because I understand our central staff has to leave at 3 p.m., and we want to make sure that we get his presentation on the Capital Improvement Project's watch list, which Councilmember Herbold, as a champion of that watch list over the last few years, has been working on.

So if hearing no objection, we will adopt today's agenda, and we will also go one, two, four, and then come back to item number three.

With that in mind, we have a few folks that have signed up specifically for Orca for All, so I'm going to hold those folks, if that's okay with you, until we get through those three agenda items.

If you really need to leave early, let me know.

We have a few folks who have desired to speak about Orca for All but can't stay that late, so I'm going to call you up at this first go-around, but then we'll ask the rest of the folks to speak in just a minute.

So at this point, we're going to move into public comment.

We'll start with Matthew Lang, Nicole Grant, and Jess Wallen.

And I believe we have two minutes on the timer.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Matthew Lang, and I'm the lead organizer at the Transit Riders Union.

I'm here to read a statement from our fellow rider, Isaac Miller, who works in the vaccines division of PATH, which is a global health nonprofit based in Seattle.

A huge portion of my life has been spent isolated, not being able to move from one place to another, and having relationships with fewer and fewer neighbors as my time was swept in other obligations became a problem that was so universal that it was difficult to name.

Transit was $5 out of my pocket every time I wanted to see someone.

And while it is seemingly a small amount of money, it is also a large barrier.

When you know you could save $5 by slowly cutting yourself off socially, that choice seems logical fairly often.

In a city like Seattle, this turns many of us into shut-ins.

It wasn't until very recently that I got a job that pays for a transit pass.

The result is exhilarating.

I see so many people.

I don't worry and limit myself.

And on top of that, all that $95 to $110 a month commute fee that I was paying is gone.

So much of my time and my money has been freed up.

If this means so much to me, a young professional with an education, I can't even begin to fathom what it could mean for someone who works in the service industry, someone with kids.

This could be huge.

Thank you.

And, Nicole, I understand you have a group.

Do you need more than two minutes?

Could we do five?

Sure.

Yes, we can.

Good to see you.

Yes, you too.

Thank you.

Council members, my name is Nicole Grant from MLK Labor, and we're here together to speak in favor of Worker for All.

This is a central policy priority for the Labor Council in 2020 because transit is an issue that touches every worker and the support amongst the different unions for this policy has been powerful and unanimous.

Hi, thank you for letting me have a moment to speak.

My name is Lorelei Burns.

I am the Senior Scheduling Project Coordinator for Access Transportation and a member of Teamsters 117. This past November, due to a new contract, our office of approximately 100 employees and nine parking spaces, first come, first parked, lost the company-provided ORCA cards we'd had for at least the previous 10 years.

We all know the housing and rental prices have soared in King County.

The wages offered for new employees range from $15.50 to $18 an hour.

Most employees, especially those with families, cannot afford to live in the county, let alone in the city.

They commute from Pierce to Kitsap counties, relying on sound transit.

and using Sound Transit buses over Metro adds $2 a day for $3,750 a week or $150 a month for a five-day work week.

This adds up to $1,188 a year for a Metro ORCA monthly pass.

It's $1,836 a year for an inner county monthly ORCA pass, and using the Sounder train, The regional monthly ORCA passes range from $180 to $207 a month for $2,160 to $2,484 a year, depending on the station used.

And that is not a supportable situation, especially without warning.

Many people choose to drive.

They're already paying for their cars, but now they have the added costs of gas, maintenance, good-to-go passes, and street parking.

Our office is not in the best neighborhood with open drug use and car prowls, which are constant.

In the last three weeks, four of my co-workers have had their cars broken into and their windows smashed out.

Street parking fares have increased and cost more as the day goes on.

In addition, there are game days when almost no parking can be found and prices soar.

We've had people too frightened to go to their cars parked blocks away, alone in the dark after their shifts, waiting for others to go in pairs.

Our office is about 85% female.

or a 24-7 operation.

This also requires employees to leave their stations and go move their cars every two hours.

This is not good for our teams, and it's not good for our clients, but there aren't any alternatives.

I've canceled every non-essential service in order to put the cost of ORCA into my budget.

This rebudgeting has been difficult for so many of us, especially if, like me, you have a disability, which inevitably means a lot of medical debt to pay off.

We've had highly skilled, tenured employees who love their job with a wealth of knowledge leave.

It's emotionally exhausting to scramble for change when your bank account balance is too low to purchase a mobile ticket or the money that you have in your ORCA card is yet to appear.

I often wonder what the driver would think when I eventually have to pay with pennies.

But aside from that, to operate an extension of public transportation service in a heavily priced downtown location with limited street parking, even more limited parking garages or lots, and with one parking spot per nine employees, To refuse to support public transportation for your own employees shows a blatant disregard for their welfare, the environment, and retention of skilled workers.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councilmembers.

My name is Annie Wise, and I am the Operations Director at MLK Labor.

We represent over 100,000 union workers in King County.

MLK Labor supports ORCA for All, which aims to connect people to housing, jobs, food, health care, and education via an employer-subsidized transit system for workers, whether they be high or low wage.

The climate crisis necessitates that we take action, which includes a shift to using low-carbon methods of transportation and resisting the urge to drive solo whenever possible.

This can happen by ensuring that public transit is reliable, frequent, and incentivized.

As a former employee of a number of downtown hotels and restaurants, I have personally relied on public transit to get to and from work for over eight years.

I'm proud to stand with the Transit Riders Union and Orca for All campaign to ensure that folks like myself can continue to work and thrive in this city.

Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Welcome.

Great.

I don't need five minutes.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Jess Wallach, and I'm with 350 Seattle, and I'm here today in support of the Orca for All campaign.

I'm here representing 350 Seattle because we believe that mobility is a human right and that everyone should be able to get safely around our city, regardless of what neighborhood they live in or how much money they make.

I'm here in support of Orca for All along with 350 Seattle because we imagine that Seattle's healthy future is one where all neighborhoods are connected by free, 100% clean transit, our streets are safe for walking and biking, and our neighborhoods are more vibrant because people are busing, walking, and biking, and that means they're connecting with each other.

And we believe that in that future our people are healthier and happier because there's less pollution, there's less time stuck in traffic, and more options for how they get around.

We see Orca4All as a critical and common sense first step towards realizing that healthy future.

And I'm also here because we know that we're facing a climate emergency and that we're in a critical window of time to act and ensure that future generations have a healthy planet.

Seattle's climate pollution is still going up.

It's 2020. Seattle's climate pollution is still going up.

And of that new climate pollution, over half of it is from passenger vehicles.

We know that it's time to act.

And I just want to add something that's really important to me personally when I say it's time to act, because it's not just about climate pollution or parts per million or talking about climate science abstractly.

When it's raining here right now, it's easy not to think about fire.

We haven't had fire in our city.

We haven't had smoke in our city for a few months.

But I have family in Australia.

Some of my cousins are in the hospital right now because of smoke.

My family's lost their homes.

The world's on fire.

Here in Seattle, we are so much prepared to act, so much more so than many places around the world.

We have a responsibility to lead on climate, and we have an opportunity with ORCA for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mariah Mitchell, Mary Luchessi, and Leif Glenning.

I'm sorry about mispronunciation.

Do we have Mariah?

Wonderful.

Hi, Mariah.

Then Mary, then Leif.

Okay, hello.

So my name's Maria Mitchell and I've been a gig worker for about five years.

I work for Uber Eats and Postmates and I'm a mother of three children and I started working with gig work part time.

I was working a nine to five and found it very difficult to find the flexibility to drop off and pick up my children.

and I graduated from the University of Washington in 2005. I have two bachelor's degrees and I'm just basically working part-time to pay my bills and survive and it's just not enough money and I really appreciate that the city council is holding these meetings to let people come and explain that and uh I was laid off by the restaurant industry and had to turn to gig work pretty much full time.

I'm still pulling about 32 to 40 hours per week.

And I work at nights when my children are asleep.

It's very important to me because if it wasn't for the gig work, I would not be able to have any money, probably be homeless, living in a tent underneath the bridge.

But with that, I'm only making about $3 to $4 per delivery with Postmates.

and you need five to cash out, which means I have to do two orders with them before I can even make any money.

Put that back in the gas tank just so I could keep going and do another two orders.

Put that money back in the gas tank, do another two orders.

So to make any money, I have to work when they offer the bonuses, during the time that they offer it, and it's just not enough.

So I just wanted to say that customers are willing to pay workers enough for it to be worth it for us and raising standards in the gig economy will benefit families like mine and our economy as a whole.

I'm looking forward to our campaign working with City Council to make these changes.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Mary?

Go ahead, Mary.

Hi, my name is Jacqueline, and this is Mary, and she's going to be signing, so I'm going to...

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Mary Lucchese.

Could you pull the microphone a little closer to you?

Thank you.

Sorry.

Hello, my name is Mary Lou Casey, and I started working for Instacart in 2015. At the time, I was working with deafblind clients, helping with shopping.

It was a nonprofit organization, and I didn't work full time.

I had difficulty finding jobs, and I saw an advertisement about working for Instacart and shopping for groceries for customers.

It seemed like something I could do to make extra income.

I believe grocery shopping for customers is a great industry.

There is a lot of goodness in helping customers get healthy food.

I also noticed there are a lot of deaf workers on Instacart.

The app technology enables them.

The gig economy is good because it provides income, including for deaf individuals who are probably trying to find work.

Working for Instacart was a supplemental income source for me.

I worked four-hour shifts in the afternoon and made about 66 per shift.

But then the average pay decreased, so I wondered if I work more hours if I could start earning more.

I realized that the amount Instacart offered for each batch was random.

Sometimes I was asked to go a long way to deliver a batch that didn't pay very well.

So I tried to choose which batches had good pay or not, but I had difficulty in deciding which batches were good pay.

I was driving between 30 and 50 miles per shift, and as gig workers, we have to cover all of those expenses for our cars.

All the miles meant I needed more body repairs, and my tires wore out faster.

I also got into an accident in the early days of driving for Instacar, and I had to be careful while multitasking.

I decided I didn't like what Instacart has been doing.

It seems they're playing with me, trying to trick me into accepting batches.

For me, I was able to get more hours at my other job and lean it towards more, but I see other shoppers who are still struggling financially.

I'm here because I think we should get fair pay, decent pay, real pay.

We are working to pay groceries, rent, and other bills.

We need minimum wage with tips on top and transparency for companies.

Thank you for listening.

I appreciate it.

I hope the City Council will make changes to improve gig workers' pay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Mary, sorry, that was Mary.

Leigh?

My name is Leif Gearing.

I worked in the gig economy from mid-2017 to the end of 2018. I worked for a handful of apps, including Uber and Lyft, but more importantly right now, Uber Eats and Dolly.

I got into the gig economy business because I needed a flexible schedule as a young adult and a student.

And for a while it worked, but Unfortunately, especially in the courier services like Uber Eats, I realized before very long that the entire point is kind of self-defeating because on a typical delivery, I might drive 10 miles total round trip, get paid 450, And even in the modest economy car that I was driving, I might spend half of that on gas.

And in addition to that, tips and other wages aren't really shown.

There's speculation that tips aren't even being completely diverted to the drivers.

And we need to have app transparency in terms of how much we're getting paid in addition to receiving more pay so that our work isn't ultimately meaningless.

It wasn't even unheard of where I would have a net gain of zero because a delivery might include, and I'm not exaggerating, 20, 25 miles of driving but because they only pay you based on the distance between the restaurant and the customer, even if most of the driving was between your starting location and the restaurant, then it ends up being nothing.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for sharing your story.

If it's okay with the rest of the folks who are here, if you can stay a little bit, we'll get to the rest of public comment on Orca for All in about a half an hour, if that's okay.

If there's anybody who needs to leave, please raise your hand right now.

Okay, go ahead and come on up.

And please state your name for the record.

Yes.

Mary Kylie Cranford.

I'm here.

I'm a D6 consistent.

So I'm here to speak about Worker for All.

I moved to Seattle less than three years ago and got a minimum wage job, which was wonderful.

I was so happy I got one so quickly.

Then realized I had to take the bus every day.

And from a state that doesn't have as good of transportation, immediately calculating $100 each month out of my paycheck made me a little worried.

quickly found out that the contractor I worked for, who's a contractor through Amazon, did offer that benefit.

I later moved and worked for commuter benefits for Amazon, so I was helping other employees get their worker cards and things that they needed.

But just looking at that location, there was a lot of discrepancy in between contracted employees, and a lot of those employers are big companies.

So while Amazon may give their corporate employees ORCA benefits, a lot of people that are working there may not be getting them.

And those are the people that often need it the most.

So I would really encourage you guys to look at this.

bill and this resolution so that we can have this equity across all of the people working here in Seattle.

It really makes a huge difference for a lot of people that are working side by side, taking the same commutes, doing the same, spending that same money, but it would mean so much more for a lot of the people that aren't currently getting that benefit.

So thank you for the time and thank you for letting me go now.

Thank you very much.

And I'm going to have you put your name on this sheet, if Farideh, if you could help out.

and we will keep public comment open for just a moment.

Thank you for bearing with me, folks, as we have a hard deadline for our central staff at 3 p.m.

We're going to get through these first few appointments, which we're really excited about, and we're going to keep public comment open.

So if we can have our first item read into the agenda, and as Farideh is doing that, if we could be joined at the table by Jeff Davis, the executive director for CIRS, and Judith Blinder, the appointee for our consideration.

Welcome, Judith.

Agenda item number one, appointment of Judith Belanger as a member of the Seattle City Employees Retirement System Board of Administration for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Wonderful.

Welcome.

So, Jeff, thank you very much.

I should say Executive Director Davis, thank you for joining us at the table.

We're really excited to have you.

And we know that the Seattle City Employees Retirement System Board of Administration is a sort of unique board in that some of the positions are self-appointing.

So can you talk a little bit about the unique situation that we find ourselves in with some folks having transitioned off and the temporary nature of this and the makeup of the board and what you've been up to lately?

And then, Ms. Bliner, we're going to ask you to talk a little bit about yourself, the work that you've done.

We have your packet with us, so we know of your comprehensive work.

We have your resume and all that.

and would love to hear more about what your interests are on the board.

Go ahead, John.

Great.

So the retirement system is governed by a seven-member board.

The municipal code spells out the membership of that board, and three of the positions are elected by members.

Two of those board member positions are active city employees.

So last summer, we had an election for one of those active city employee board members, and select then the membership voted on a new board member.

That board member served for a number of months but then left at the end of the year.

The municipal code actually spells out what should happen when that circumstance happens.

And until the retirement system holds another election, which we will this coming summer, city council appoints an interim board member.

So we are here today to talk about that.

The municipal code also spells out that the interim member has to be from the same department that employed the previous board member.

So another fortunate circumstance, last summer all three nominees, all three candidates were from Seattle City Light.

Judith Blinder, who's with us here today, was the second place finisher.

And so we are putting forward her name for consideration for council to appoint on an interim basis until we hold elections next summer.

What luck.

That's great.

Thank you.

Hi, Judith.

Welcome.

Thanks.

So why am I interested in doing this?

Let me look at my notes.

Oh, no problem.

I don't do a lot of public speaking, so this is to help me get through this without panic.

We're excited to have you.

Just pull your microphone a little closer to you.

Okay.

I'm also soft spoken.

So since you have my resume, it does a pretty good job of summarizing what my work experience is. my educational background, but for those who haven't read it, basically, I guess I could just summarize by saying I worked in finance for many, many years.

I started out at First Interstate Bank of Washington when First Interstate Bank of Washington existed.

And when it went out of existence, I transitioned over to working for Kibble & Prentiss in their investments department and decided at that point that it would be interesting to pursue a CFA.

So I am a chartered financial analyst.

And while I was working at Kibble & Prentiss for a couple of years, I did work that's very similar to what the Retirement Board of Administration does.

I reviewed performance, fund performance, I made of fund managers.

I used a variety of software to analyze and screen who I thought would be the best choice.

I helped draft investment policy statements for clients to best match their needs, many of which were retirement plans, actually, made educational I didn't make them, the advisors that I was the analyst for made them, but I helped draft and did the analysis for presentations to employees to show them what their benefits would be and what their returns would be from the fund choices that they'd made and so forth.

So this is, you know, there's a lot of commonality there, and I'm interested in this kind of work.

Working at City Light, where I've been for quite a long time, I mainly work in forecasting, financial analysis, and rate design.

I'm very involved in the rate process.

That's much of what I do.

So it's a little bit different.

It's more like doing corporate finance.

But I still have a strong interest in investments, and that's what led me to apply for this.

I also really like being part of team efforts.

I wanted to mention a little bit my voluntary experience.

I served on the board of a, what's the word, a charitable, funds established by a charitable bequest at the Audubon Society that was mainly invested in fixed income.

Actually, we expanded into equities.

I was part of that policy decision, but the person who made the bequest was very conservative and loved birds, so basically that fund was used to acquire mainly wetlands.

So anyway, so that bit of background, and I've served on a variety of other boards of various organizations I won't name, but I enjoy teamwork, I enjoy serving on boards, it's something that I like doing.

We're very excited to have you and it's quite lucky that we have you teed up for this position.

Colleagues, you have the resume in front of you and the credentials.

Any questions for the nominee?

Just to say it was a real pleasure to get to meet you last year.

It's nice to see you back here at the table, so.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Any other comments?

Just curious, are you planning on running for the seat when it becomes open?

Yes.

And there's an election?

You do?

Great.

That's exciting to hear and exciting that you'll be bringing your sort of getting your feet wet experience to that election later in June, you said?

As it relates to fiduciary responsibility, I think it's an area of evolving thinking and would just love to hear a little bit about your thoughts around fiduciary responsibility as it relates specifically to the fact that people are moving away from investments in or moving away from use of fossil fuels and that has an impact on the sort of the bottom line of portfolios that include fossil fuel investments.

Just would really welcome to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I would say philosophically I'm in favor of that movement away from fossil fuels.

I'm also well aware of our need to abide by our fiduciary responsibilities, so it has to be done in a way that isn't at odds.

with giving our bright retirees, present and future, a fair return on their investments.

I think there's a balance to be struck.

And if we can do it in a way that is responsible, then yes.

And I would broaden that a little bit and say that I think it's great that the board now has ESG standard that it is pursuing, implementing through its policy decisions, and I look forward to being part of that process.

Any other questions?

Well, on a personal note, as being the former chair of Seattle City Light, thank you for your work on rate and redesign.

We know that that was a lot of work as well, and you guys have been doing a tremendous amount of work on that just for the city and taking on this new role on behalf of both the current employees and retirees.

We really appreciate it and thank you for stepping in to this position.

So, great nominee.

Colleagues, I'd like to go ahead and move the committee recommends passage of the appointment of Judith Blinder as the member of the Seattle City Employees Retirement Systems Board of Administration.

Second.

Are there any additional further comments?

Seeing none, all those in favor of recommending passage of the appointee and appointment, vote aye and raise your hand.

Aye.

No nos and no abstentions.

So it's unanimous from this committee.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation will be sent to the full council, which we will take up on February 10th.

You do not have to be there, but you are welcome to be there in person.

We will send a strong recommendation and I don't see any problems.

So thanks so much for stepping forward.

And we'll talk about you on Monday and sing your praises.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much.

Farideh, if you could read into the record item number two.

Agenda item number two, appointment of Betsy McFeely as member of the Labor Standards Advisory Commission for a briefing discussion and possible votes.

Wonderful.

And if I could be joined at the table by Janae Jan, the Interim Director from the Office of Labor Standards.

Congratulations again.

and Betsy McFeely, the appointee that we're going to consider.

Hello, welcome.

In order to consider this, I'd love for Director Jan, if you could please give us a short update on what the Labor Standards Advisory Commission is working on.

And then Ms. McFeely, thanks again for joining us today.

If you could give us a little bit of your background.

We also have your materials in front of us and I look forward to hearing more about what your interests are on the board.

All right, thank you again for having us here this afternoon.

The Labor Standards Advisory Commission, as you all know, helps advise our office as well as the mayor's office and the city council on working conditions.

It's comprised of about, right now, 13, but there's 15 slots of folks from the employer and business community, from labor and workers as well, worker community.

This year, they had their first quarterly meeting yesterday.

They are gearing up for a very active 2020. Their retreat, I think, will occur in about May.

So they're planning to have a fun retreat in May to get a lot of work done.

They have two active subcommittees.

One is on outreach.

So they advise us on how better we can reach the worker and employer communities.

So we'll see more.

That's a recently new, I think, developed subcommittee.

And then the second subcommittee is one that was formed out of Resolution 31863, which is a subcommittee that works on, independent contractors and misclassification.

So we'll see more from them this year.

So stay tuned.

Wonderful, thank you, welcome.

Hi, my name is Betsy McFeely.

I am, well I've been on the commission actually for a little bit over a year or so, so I think somehow we missed the original swearing in.

I work for Seattle Goodwill.

I've been there for 20 years as the Senior Director of Community and Government Relations and spent a lot of time in marketing communications and now I'm in the community relations side.

I was actually asked to join the commission to represent the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, so I would be representing them, although I do feel like being an employee of a nonprofit would be useful, a useful perspective to bring to the commission from what I've seen so far.

I also have been very involved in the community.

I live in South Park in a council member, Herbold's district, and have been involved on the South Park Neighborhood Association.

I'm also on the board of Via Comunitaria, one of the local organizations that provide services for the Hispanic community.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions for the appointee or for the interim director?

Thank you for your willingness to continue to serve.

We know there's also a lot of new labor standards that have been sent from this council to the committee for your consideration as you think about how we both do education, outreach, and enforcement.

Looking forward to hearing the regular report backs.

We also know Council Member Herbold was part of an effort to make sure that we'd get regular report backs to this committee, specifically on kind of the future of work, I believe, and misclassification.

So there's a lot to do.

Very excited that you're working with us.

Thank you again for your work.

Other comments?

Okay, seeing none, I'd like to move the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 01150. Wonderful.

It's been moved and seconded that the appointment be confirmed.

We are really thankful for all of your work here.

The, just, sorry, I do have one comment.

So this is in the comment section before we do the final votes.

The appointment of the term that expired in April, is really, I think, a critical.

How many folks do you have on your full team?

There's a total of 15 open spots and we have a couple of folks who are coming up for either reappointment or we need to fill.

Okay, great.

So, I wanted to note for folks that this will be one of many to come.

So, if you do have folks that you'd like to see there, both from the employer community or from the worker side of the community, please let us know because it's going to be impact here for all of the work to come before us.

Colleagues, all those in favor of voting to substitute, sorry, do I have to read this specific language here because of the change in the appointment number?

Okay.

I move the appointment.

I have to move to amend appointment 01150 by substituting appointment packet to reflect the updated term of office.

So that's what the information that you've received in front of you has a new date that's been included so that we have the updated appointment packet that goes with this nominee.

We have to amend the appointment in front of us.

So I'd like to move to amend appointment.

01150 by substituting the appointment packet to reflect the updated term of office.

Second.

Any other comments?

None.

All those in favor of the substitute vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

The motion carries as substituted and the appointment is amended.

Are there any other comments on this appointee?

Sorry for the formality.

Wonderful.

All those in favor of the appointment as amended vote aye.

Aye.

No opposed.

No abstentions.

The motion carries.

The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed and the appointment will be sent to full council for final consideration on Monday.

And again, welcome you to join us, but you are not required to be there.

Would love to see you, but otherwise we will definitely bring this in front of the full council on Monday, February 10th.

What we'll have to do, council members, due to the meeting occurring afternoon on a Thursday, is that I'm going to be proposing that we suspend the rules to allow the appointment we just considered to be referred to this Monday's council committee versus needing to have to wait another week.

Any objection to that?

Seeing none, the council rules allow relating to the referring of the legislation, I'm sorry, the council rule relating to referring legislation considered at a meeting after 12 on noon will be suspended so that we can allow this appointment to be considered on Monday, February 10th.

Wonderful.

Sounds like there's no objection.

We'll see you in the audience or we'll just send you the good news via email and looking forward to having you on the committee.

Thank you.

Thank you, Interim Director.

Wonderful.

Okay.

Let's, Farideh, if you could read into the record item number four, that would be great.

And as we are doing so, thank you for joining us.

Dan Eater from Central Staff.

And anybody else?

Hello.

We have not seen you yet this year.

Welcome, Director Noble.

And I'm not sure if I know your name.

Welcome.

Why don't we have you guys introduce yourself, and we will go from there.

Agenda item number four, capital projects, capital project watch list for briefing and discussion.

And you must be Caleb, is that correct?

Okay, Caleb, why don't we start with you for the introductions?

Caleb Wagoner, City Budget Office.

Ben Noble, City Budget Office.

Dan Eder, Council of Central Staff.

Hello, thank you.

So this is a conversation that could go deep into the weeds, but I really appreciate central staff and Director Noble, your memos that help us stay high level on the importance of looking at certain projects that need maybe additional oversight.

Again, thanks to Council Member Herbold for her work in the last few years to make sure that we have additional opportunities to provide evaluation input and public transparency, especially on some large capital projects.

This is about us being good stewards of the city's public funds for these large projects.

And I'd love to have Dan walk us through the memo that we've received from you.

I think all of our council colleagues should have received that.

If not, we can get copies for you.

And then, Director Noble, perhaps we could turn it over to you and Caleb.

I'd be happy to do that, Council Member.

This item on your agenda concerns a resolution that is up for discussion only at this point because it hasn't been through the formal introduction or referral process.

My understanding is that's queued up for this coming Monday, so it'll come back to this committee for action in the future.

In brief, the resolution would establish an annual watch list of selected capital projects.

For each of the projects that end up on the final version of the 2020 watch list, the executive will provide enhanced reports on a quarterly basis, providing information about the project's scope, schedule, and budget, and identify how things are going for those complex projects.

Generally speaking, I'm sorry, I should say that the proposed watch list is included in both the resolution and in the staff report labeled as table number one, and I have put it up on the screen.

The overall goal of the watch list is for council to get regular updates about these projects.

and have forward-looking information about the potential risks and the mitigation strategies that are envisioned for addressing these risks before problems occur.

In terms of just very brief background, in 2018, the Council and the Executive worked cooperatively on Resolution 31853. That established a process for determining which projects go on a watch list and what happens when the projects go on the watch list.

In terms of the process, the executive at the beginning of the year by January 15th will propose a list of items that meet whatever criteria the executive uses to come up with its proposal.

The council will review that proposal and I should say that the executive did indeed by January 15th this year give us their proposal and that's what this list is comprised of.

The process calls for the council to review that and make a determination by resolution of a final list, and that can certainly be exactly the list that is on your screen, or you can decide you may want to add projects to that list or otherwise change the list.

And then through the year, each quarter you'll get information that is in the form of a report that's attached to the staff report and that was also an attachment to Resolution 31853. You will also, for projects that are not on the watch list, you will also get information quarterly, but it'll be at a higher summary level, providing information about the lifetime budget for the capital project and how life-to-date actuals are measuring up against that lifetime budget.

You'll also have information, similar summary level information about schedule status.

I want to point out that there were a couple of projects that were included in the 2019 list that were not carried forward onto the 2020 list.

That was not done as a purposeful decision.

And in fact, after a discussion between central staff and CBO staff, we are both in agreement that those projects should be added to this list.

It's obviously your decision, but it would be a joint staff recommendation that they be added.

Those projects are the Lake City Community Center Project and the Center City Gateway and Michigan Street Intelligent Information Systems Project in SDOT.

With that, I will turn it over to CBO if you all have anything that you wanted to add.

Just before you do that, Council Member Herbold, as vice chair and also the prime person who brought this before council, any other overview comments before we get into this year's presentation on sort of the background?

Thank you.

Actually, I do have a couple of questions.

I remember in previous committee meetings, we had discussed that the watch list does not need to only be comprised of distinct capital projects, but that it could also include programmatic projects, for instance, the asphalt repaving program or any number of sort of programmatic projects within the CIP.

Does the review of the watch list for 2020 include the potential for those kinds of programmatic projects as well?

I think you're right for sure that any project in the CIP is eligible to be put on the watch list.

I will say that the format of the report seems most of the sections lend themselves to a discrete project, a project that has a beginning and an end, and therefore has a finite lifetime budget and an accomplishment schedule.

That said, the executive this time around on this proposed list, let's see where it is, number four, the Seattle City Light Pole Replacements Project, is an example of a programmatic project because of issues that arose in the last year or so, the executive has proposed be added to this year's watch list so we can get quarterly reports on it.

And as you've mentioned, this is a programmatic project.

And given the fact that some programmatic projects are derived from finite funding sources via property tax levies, they might in some ways still lend themselves to the same or similar review as we do for capital projects, because we might not ever stop repaving asphalt, but we have a six-year funding window because of a particular levy.

Yeah, Ben, if you want to answer, I was just going to say, this is one of the oversight tools that is at your disposal.

It is certainly not the only tool.

And the, I think it's called the Move Seattle Levy Oversight at this point, gets regular updates from SDOT and provides periodic feedback to the council.

So that's another way that you would get that kind of information.

I'll just echo, we're not, we will report in whatever detail, anything you want, and I mean that very sincerely.

I mean, as Dan has pointed out, the pole replacement project is here because of the attention around pole replacement at the moment.

And we've actually are debating whether or not there might, for next year, be a separate CIP project that's really focused on this kind of core pole replacement issue.

With respect to paving as an example, just to give you a sense, there are examples in the Parks Department about trail maintenance and the like.

Not unusual of those, typical of those things is that there are multiple funding sources flowing in, which doesn't make them unripe, if you will, for review exactly.

But, you know, I just echo what Dan said.

You know, this is really all about accountability, which is why I'm here to tell you we will deliver whatever you need.

There is, you know, with respect to Move Seattle, there is a separate set of reporting about that.

But if you want the overall picture, happy to provide it.

And another thing that- My question is just simply whether or not we looked at programmatic projects and did the same sort of risk screen.

We have, which is why the polls are there.

But our criteria and yours might not be the same.

I'm not advocating for any particular programmatic element to be added.

I just want to make sure that we are thinking expansively in a way.

And I'm not trying to be defensive, but point well taken.

And yeah, we did.

And then my other question is just how are we finding the adequacy of the reports from central staff's perspective at really identifying risk and the ability for not just central staff and the executive, but also policymakers to not just anticipate or see risk when it is evident, but also to respond to it when it becomes evident, when something moves from, for instance, green to yellow.

You know, we, as you know, there are central staff analysts who are assigned to the, to staff the council on individual I don't pretend to be one with all of the information.

But what I've heard from the analysts who are working with the departments and what I have observed in terms of interactions with council members when the information comes to this floor is that it's a useful starting place for conversations.

It is not an encyclopedic dump of information, but it does provide very useful information and a check-in on projects that sunlight is a good thing.

I would echo the same and I'm glad to hear it in the sense that The reports aren't designed as much to answer the questions as to have you and us want to pose more.

And it creates an affirmative obligation on the part of the departments to inform us both in places where there are issues or where they're anticipating there could be issues that gives us both a chance to then follow up.

And almost invariably it's follow up that's required, but those aren't questions that would have been asked without the information put forward in the report.

Chairman, Director Dan, Caleb, great to see you all.

I actually have to leave at 3, it is now 3. I do have one question regarding the memo that we received from you, Director Noble, had 617...

Yeah, 17 items and the memo that we received from Mr. Eder included 14 items and that is due to the recommendations that a few of the projects be removed from the watch list.

One of those projects is a Smith Cove Park development and I raise concerns with it being removed from the watch list as it has not been completed as a park.

I submit for the record and will share with the clerks This photograph from the times of Councilmember Sally Bagshaw.

I would like to note in this photo we have Mayor McGinn, we have Gail Tarleton as a Port Commissioner, Larry Phillips as a County Councilmember, all celebrating the opening of the park and yet We have not broken ground.

And so this raises concerns for me as it, for it to be removed from the list.

I know that there were several issues in the last few years regarding King County Metro, wastewaters, tunnels and pipes to the waste treatment plant.

And I understand that there are reasonable variables that have delayed this project.

just do not feel that it should be removed from the list since it has not broken ground?

Happy to include it.

From our end, from where it stands to where it needs to move forward now, it's relatively uncomplicated, so not worth it.

It wasn't a complex one with risk, but again, we are happy to include it and understand that It has been slow in delivery, and keeping it on the watch list raises, if it helps create some pressure to deliver, and I can see that from your perspective, it could, that makes all the sense in the world.

Thank you very much.

And I fully support that as well.

Thank you for bringing for the historical record that document.

And it would be really helpful when it gets complete for us to have a similar photo to show the completion and the timeframe.

I also would like to signal an interest in hearing more about where we stand on the stage of the use of the funds that were originally allocated for 35th.

and creating safe bike lanes.

I don't know if this has already been brought up with you or central staff, Dan, if you've had a chance to look into this, but prior to us bringing this back for the committee's consideration, it would be helpful for me to understand more about what stage we are at, given that the completion of a protected bike lane on 35th was opted out of, and how much money we have remaining in that effort.

Looking forward to working with the council members on that as well.

Council Member Lewis, did you have a comment?

Oh, no, no questions.

Wonderful.

I just want to thank you, Chair.

I do have to be excused.

Thursday afternoons are the district hours, so I have to, and I just want to also signal my support for the ORCA for All proposal as transit benefits are much needed to navigate our city.

Absolutely.

Thank you for joining us, and we will resume our committee meetings on our usual time so that you can be there for the full time very soon.

Thank you so much.

Council colleagues, sorry for the interruption.

I just thought it was important to tack on to that as well.

Please continue.

Yes, so we'll get back to you on 35th.

I'll work through Dan ahead of this coming back.

Procedurally, Council Member Strauss just mentioned a memo from the Budget Office to you recommending projects and not all of them made it onto the list.

Is that accurate?

The memo includes the list from, it intended to include the list from 2019 and to essentially trace through any projects that were not recommended to remain on the list in 2020. As I mentioned in my opening comments, there were a couple of projects that were erroneously excluded from the what was assumed to be the 2019 list that staff was recommending, in fact, move forward to the 2020 list.

Then there are also a few projects that were on the 2019 list that the executive described why they proposed to remove from the 2020 proposed list.

Okay, so this, the memo that Council Member Strauss was referencing is a January 15th memo to you.

That's correct.

And so that crosswalk that you just verbally described is replicated here?

That's correct.

There was an oversight on two of them.

Super, thank you.

If there are no comments, please continue.

Now, that's, I mean, we just wanted you to know that consistent with the cooperative effort that started this a couple years ago, we find this actually useful on our side as well.

It creates, again, this affirmative responsibility for the departments.

So we're all on board.

We do think, you know, a highlighted list to help focus attention is useful and appreciate being able to work with you on that list.

So our intent, Council Colleagues, did you have another question?

Not a question, but a hope for another addition.

Reviewing the 2020 work plan items for my committee, the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, I've asked that central staff review one of the projects on that work plan, and that's the Criminal Justice Information System projects.

It is in the CIP, the 2020-2025 CIP, and in that document it's called MCIS 2.2 Replacement Project.

And then based on that review, central staff is recommending that we add this project to the watch list because, one, it's, Among the risk factors that they use, one of them is the size of the project.

And so in this instance, the price tag is significant.

It's $41 million.

There is potential for scope creep.

Prior to 2018, the project was named the Municipal Court Information System Replacement Project, but then was renamed Criminal Justice Information System Project since 2018 to more accurately reflect efforts beyond MCIS replacement.

The project is showing as yellow on the project status report.

And then inter-branch coordination with the court adds a level of complexity to the project.

And finally, criminal justice is one of this council's priorities.

And so for these reasons, I would appreciate the opportunity to add it to the watch list as well.

I know that project well.

I happen to be on the steering committee, so I think it is a complex project with risk.

So in that context, a worthy addition.

We had generally focused on what I would describe as physical capital projects rather than information technology ones.

And I think we should add this one, and then we should spend a little more, and pass this resolution.

And then we, on this side of the table, should spend a little more time going forward for the rest of this year, thinking about how to do, how to track IT projects.

I'm only thinking that the format might not really match up in just the right way.

The reports.

Exactly.

But the costs and risks are there and it is part of the capital program.

In a way you can obviously appreciate the IT ones and the physical ones are sort of fundamentally different, but the accountability and the transparency issues are identical.

Wonderful.

Anything else, Dan?

I was just going to say that I've heard several potential amendments to the current iteration of the list, and I'd be happy to work with individual council members on both those and any others that you might have in mind before this is queued up for action at the next committee meeting.

Thank you, Dan, for that segue, because our next meeting is planned for Wednesday, February 19th, another special time due to President's Day.

Dan, if it's okay with you, I'm going to put a deadline there, and you tell me if this is workable for you.

Ideally, Wednesday, close of business next week.

That gives you two full business days.

Actually, three.

And hopefully, that'll give us time to take a look at some language and put that into an amendment format.

So Wednesday close of business colleagues if you have additional questions, amendment ideas, please let Dan know and we'll work with his office to finalize for the committee's consideration.

Additional comments on the CIP?

Okay again I think this is a really important element of our budgeting process given some of the historic overruns, especially when we look at some of the Seattle City Light projects, which I had the purview of chairing last two years.

It was pretty surprising to see some of those dollar figures.

So I think this is a great way for us to be really transparent with the public about the issues that are coming forward and for us to use stage-based budgeting if necessary.

Thank you for being here.

Great to see you and meet you, Caleb.

And good to see you again, Dan.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Let's go ahead and move back into public comment, because we have our third item on the agenda that is still yet to be discussed, and that is the concept of ORCA for All, or transit benefits for more workers throughout Seattle.

At this point, I'd like to invite up the next three speakers, which would be Laura Lowe Bernstein, Mariana Hunter, and Marla Vanderwater.

You can correct me if I said that wrong.

Hello, Laura.

Good to see you again.

Yeah, you're back.

My name is Laura Lowe Bernstein, and I'm a District 7 renter.

And I'm here today to support Orca for All, not just for me, but on behalf of all the wonderful people that I organize with with Share the Cities and All Volunteer Organizing Collective.

A lot of folks are at home right now or at work watching.

They couldn't be here.

A couple of feedback that we've heard.

Justin has a subsidized ORCA card that literally helped him sell his car in January 2018, living in Capitol Hill and commuting to Bellevue at the time.

The employer didn't have a program for it, but told me that $117 were cheaper for them than a parking space, and so paid for their card.

Elizabeth said, I can tell you we haven't had a car for years, and the subsidized pass helps so much.

My mental health is way better taking the monorail and light rail than sitting for an hour and a half in traffic.

Another person said, I moved to Seattle from Redmond, but had to drive there to work.

I've since changed jobs, and my new workplace gives me an ORCA pass.

We're almost entirely car-free now.

We love taking the bus and train.

Molly said, I had a subsidized pass and changed jobs to a place with terrible bus service and no subsidy, so I bought a car for the first time in 18 years.

I'm still sad about it.

Steve said I bought a new car shortly after getting a new job, but then moved to Capitol Hill and got a subsidized pass.

And now my six-year-old car has 12,000 miles, which includes two round trips to Los Angeles.

And the battery is always dead because I never drive anywhere.

So those are just a few of the stories we've been collecting.

And it's amazing how behavior changes when people get that subsidized pass and feel really, like, excited to not waste it and, like, take the bus and get around the city.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Laura.

Miranda?

Mariana?

I'm sorry.

Thank you for correcting me.

It's all good.

Hello.

My name is Miranda Hunter, and I'm very glad to be here with you today.

It is a blessed day.

I came to support ORCA for all as well.

I feel that in the future, though, we should be working towards free transportation for everyone just because I'm coming out of a place of homelessness.

And for me, one of the most difficult things was making sure I could get to work.

I had two jobs and was working volunteer and was still riding around trying to get transit and things like that.

So it was just very hard for me at the time.

I am thankful now that I'm getting into resources in our community that actually help me get free passes.

So I'm thankful for that.

But like I said, we should be working towards making sure it's free transportation for all.

Thank you very much.

Marla, followed by Jessica Skoslo.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Marla Vandywater.

I'm a member of the Transit Riders Union.

I am here to speak in favor of ORCA for All as a first step towards also free transit for everyone.

It will get people out of their cars, making the streets safer for everyone who walks, bikes, and for drivers.

It's better for our burning planet and better for all low-income workers who are forced out of our very expensive city to have reliable transportation everywhere to and from work and every place else they need to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jessica.

Jessica will be followed by Scott Alspach.

Hi, my name is Jessica and I work at Trader Joe's on Capitol Hill.

We do not have a subsidized ORCA pass.

What we have is a pre-tax write-off and I know that barely anybody uses it because it's quite confusing to figure out.

I have recently had a lot of injuries and so found myself having to take the bus a lot after using my bike or my legs for most of my transportation.

And I found that I was spending at least $175 more per month than what I had been previously, which was definitely an added expense.

I did recently figure out that I could buy a pass that was about $100 a month, but it definitely is an added expense.

I also am quite surprised by the discrepancy as far as 85% of people making $100,000 or more receive subsidized transit, while those of us making $50,000 or less, maybe half of us do.

So I definitely find that to be an issue of concern.

And just yesterday, speaking with a coworker, he has a car and he was telling me about deciding between driving a car or taking a bus.

And he was talking about working out the numbers, you know, which one was more affordable.

And in his opinion, because his car was paid off, that was more affordable.

And, you know, disappointing, but that's the truth.

But also even the fact that running the numbers, you have to decide like which one is closer.

I feel that it would be great to make it just completely obvious that transit is heads above everything else as the least expensive option.

And with climate change, I think it's absolutely necessary that we move in the direction of free transit for all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Scott, followed by Bobby, Gryll, and then Billy.

Good to see you, Billy.

Hi.

Welcome, Scott.

My name's Scott Alsvaugh.

I'm the chair of the 43rd District Democrats here to represent our support for the Orca for All campaign.

In November of last year, our membership voted to support the Orca for All campaign because we believe that mobility is a human right.

one that is currently inequitably distributed throughout our city and also that the climate crisis demands urgent action to increase the usage of public transportation and away from single occupancy vehicle trips.

Personally, having a fully subsidized employer provided transit pass was the reason that I began taking the bus to work every day.

I live in Capitol Hill and I work in Redmond and in the middle of 2012 when it So the tolls went in on the bridge and it cost me $5 to drive to work every day.

I said, oh, I have this transit pass.

Maybe I should start using it.

So that has brought me a lot of benefits.

I walk to the bus stop.

I get some exercise.

I can scroll through Twitter on my phone when I'm on the bus rather than sitting in traffic.

Unfortunately, right now, many lower income Seattleites don't have the option to make the same choice I did because their employers don't provide them with subsidized transit passes.

When my wife switched jobs and had to purchase her own bus pass, it was really confusing and expensive to understand what the options were and which was the right choice.

Frankly, it makes no sense that a well-paid tech employee like me is able to ride transit for free while I watch other people scrounge around for quarters in their pockets or ask the bus driver to let them ride the bus just because they need to get to where they're going.

I and the 43rd District Democrats urge you to pass ORCA for All legislation and to investigate other options for reducing or eliminating transit fares for everyone.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And we have Bobby and Billy.

Hi, Bobby.

Hi there.

Both of these work?

Yes, they do.

Okay.

Yeah, my name is Bobby.

I'm actually from Olympia, where we have free transit.

I can verify that it's pretty epic.

But right now I'm going to pretend to be Brenna Straup, who wrote this statement.

So here goes.

My name is Brenna Straup, and I'm the executive director of the University of Washington House Staff Association, the labor union that represents resident and fellow physicians at UW.

We represent over 1,400 doctors in training at UW, which amounts to 20% of the doctors in King County.

We fully support the Orca for All movement, and we are here to express our support today.

We feel particularly strongly about the need for subsidized transit, not only for our members, but for the patients we serve.

As physicians, our members have a deeply personal interest in all factors which influence the health of the people of King County and the State of Washington.

At the local level, higher asthma rates in cities directly follow pollution, particularly vehicle exhaust.

At the highest level, the warming of the planet in intensely smoky skies of many recent summers are driven in part by vehicle emissions.

Reducing the number of cars on the road is very much a public health and medical need.

More people on buses means fewer in cars, and fewer cars means less driving asthma, global warming, and the many ill health effects thereof.

Even supposing that public health is not a concern for you, as it is for the members of UWHA, the need for and benefits to our city and country are significant.

Leaders in this city have a responsibility to remove all barriers to public transportation to achieve the goal we all share, reducing the number of drivers on our roads and making transit accessible to all those who need.

And the most stubborn barrier remaining is the cost of transit on citizens.

UWHA members care for patients at hospitals across King County from Northgate to the VA.

Often, we are called upon to provide care at multiple hospitals on any given day, requiring travel between sites.

Our members are an ideal group to utilize public transportation more broadly, but cost is a barrier.

While we may be physicians, we are resident physicians, paid less than minimum wage per hour, and the current cost of public transportation is a barrier to use, prompting many residents and fellows to drive alone to and from work sites.

Worker for All will greatly increase the number of UWH members who utilize public transit to travel to and between hospitals.

Thank you so much.

We're going to take the rest in writing if that's okay with you.

Appreciate you being here.

Billy, welcome from Labors 242. Thanks for waiting.

Hello, my name is Billy Hetherington, Political Director here at Labor's Local 242 and MLK Delegate.

First of all, everybody from Local 242 wants to welcome Councilmember Mosqueda back.

Thank you.

And just here to speak in favor of the worker for all and just want to briefly just echo the words of everybody that came before me from the Transit Riders Union.

and my brothers and sisters from MLK Labor and Teamsters 117 earlier, and just say we're in favor of it.

Thank you.

Amazing.

Well, thank you very much.

Thanks for waiting to participate.

I know you've been here since the beginning, as many of you have been for this item.

Anybody else who didn't get a chance to sign up that would like to say something?

Going once, twice, okay, without further ado, let's get to item number three on our agenda.

Farideh, could you read into the record item number three?

And as you do that, can we be joined at the table by Katie Wilson and Ty Reed from Transit Writers Union, Jessica Skoslow, grocery worker, and Brittany Bollet.

Hey, Brittany from Sierra Club, hi there.

And then Tobias, do we have Tobias Grohl from LGBTQ Allyship.

Please go ahead and join us at the table.

Agenda item number three, ORCA for All for briefing and discussion.

Well, really excited to have this conversation.

I know that council member, oh, hello.

Yes, anybody from central staff is welcome as well.

Thanks.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Come on up.

Council member Morales, I know this is something that you have been interested in and are excited to work with us as well as we think about how we can move forward on the ORCA for All.

If you have any comments, welcome those as well.

And for me, I think that this is a really exciting way for us to talk about everything that's been discussed today from protecting the environment to reducing carbon emissions.

We know that this is the biggest emitter of carbon pollution and for us to help workers.

Workers get in and around the city and hopefully face less economic hardship.

The story that was shared about the trade-off between whether you drive or whether you take the bus as a great example.

We don't want people to be in a situation where either is a financial hardship and to make the decision that's better for the environment is where we hope to incentivize the conversation.

So I'm really excited about this discussion.

Council Member Morales, I think I'll hold my comments and see if you have anything else that you'd like to add from the conversations that you've had with folks as I know this is an area of interest of yours too.

Thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Hi, everybody.

Glad to see you all here.

I just want to share that I'm excited to be working with you on this.

I know we've talked a little bit about how we're going to share this information, educate folks across the city about what this campaign is about.

And so I'm looking forward to working with you on that, particularly in District 2 to help folks come to understand why this is so important and to make sure that we're advocating for a cleaner way to get folks around the city and a way that is much more affordable and more equitable.

So thank you for being here.

Excellent.

And I think the timing is really important, as folks may have seen in our Teresa Tuesday updates.

February 4th on Tuesday was Transit Equity Day.

Yeah.

And this is a day of action in cities across the country to make public transit accessible and affordable to all.

So we're excited to continue that day's celebration throughout the week here as we talk about Worker for All.

We're going to hear experiences from individual workers and possible strategies, policy ideas that I know the coalition's been working on, because you've been engaged with the community for a very long time on thinking through this concept.

And then for us, council colleagues, over the next few months, I'd like to have a few more conversations at the table here as we think through policy concepts, both with workers, advocates, local businesses, and any ideas that you all have for who needs to be at the table, we'd welcome that as well.

to make sure that we're thinking through what it looks like to get more transit passes into more workers' hands.

And in our upcoming committee meetings, we will have a conversation with some of the business folks who have also been, I think, providing a valuable perspective on how to make this apply more equitably.

We do know that there's some businesses who do provide ORCA passes, which we appreciate.

But, for example, it's challenging when those orga passes are offered in an executive building but then not offered to the service workers from that same company.

So that's a great example of the type of equity that we're interested in looking at.

At this point, it is open-ended in terms of what the policy conversation could be.

So I want to make sure folks know your ideas, input, direction is very much appreciated both from the community and from our colleagues.

And with that, I will turn it over to anybody who'd like to start us off from the panel for some opening comments and introduction.

Council Member Hurdle, do you have something before that?

I just want to make one note of a budget action that we all collectively took that I sponsored related specifically to the reality that the city has made a choice rather than to provide, Rather than providing human services in-house with our own city staff, we contract out for those services.

So this is really, I think, an important example of the reason why we often hear from brothers and sisters in the labor movement their concerns about contracting out city work.

Because city workers get transit passes.

but when we contract out for human services provision, those workers don't necessarily get transit passes.

So we passed a statement of legislative intent and have requested a report from the human services department about this question of the city sort of acting in many ways as an employer providing transit.

passes for employees of HSD contracted service providers.

There was an internal to the city meeting on this obligation that HSD has recently.

They believe that they can provide a report to us.

by June 30th, and the questions are questions such as, you know, who currently has access to transit passes at human services provided contracts, what the cost would be for the city to provide these services to those who don't, whether or not there are opportunities for collaboration with King County to develop a joint program that also covers the Department of Community and Human Services contracts and what are the potential funding sources existing or new that could subsidize.

I think if we are going to be talking about large employers in the city providing this as a labor standard, as a benefit, we need to do more as an employer by proxy.

by the fact that we are contracting these services as well.

And I think it's going to be an important conversation to bringing on large employers in support of this campaign.

So I don't know how best to sequence that work with the work that this committee is going to be doing on the campaign.

Maybe we can think about having a joint committee briefing in June or something like that.

Yes, thank you for bringing that up and I will definitely work with your office to sequence those discussions.

Okay, let's go ahead and kick off the panel.

Great, well, thank you for having this discussion in your committee.

And maybe we'll start with some quick introductions for the folks up here who are not council members, although you can introduce yourselves if you want to.

So I was thinking we could each say kind of our name and who we are and then anything about your own experience with transit benefits at current or past jobs as kind of a little So I'll start.

So my name is Katie Wilson.

I'm the General Secretary of the Transit Riders Union.

And I guess the Transit Riders Union kind of pays me something for transportation.

I've never had a job in the past where I got any kind of transit benefit.

And I've been organizing with the Transit Riders Union for some years now, and really part of the kind of impetus to start the organization was that there was a space of a few years starting in kind of 2008 with the recession where fares went up like four times in the course of a few years and just like basically doubled.

And we did a calculation at that point about like if you're a minimum wage worker going to work, Like how much of your time are you actually spending just to pay for your bus commute to and from work?

And it was like 40 minutes or something like that.

So you just imagine like going to work in your first 40 minutes, you're just covering your bus ride to and from work.

So that's the kind of thing where, you know, you can really see the impact that that has.

And especially if you're having to commute a long distance.

So you're like spending even more of your time as well.

So anyway, that's my introduction and I'll pass it to whoever wants to go next.

Hi.

Thank you all, Council Members, for being here.

My name is Brittany Bush-Bolay.

She, her pronouns, I'm the chair of Sierra Club Seattle Group.

I was just thinking this morning, actually, about when I had my own newborn kiddo, and he hated the car.

He hated the car so much, he would scream in his car seat so loud that it wasn't safe for me to drive.

Like, I couldn't concentrate on the road, not to mention his own misery.

So we took the bus all the time.

And so for me, in that moment, it really made me realize that transit is freedom.

It let me get out of my house and still be out and about in the world with my kiddo.

As a new mom, when you're one of the most vulnerable and isolating times of your life, it can be.

So yeah, I had a transit pass.

I could get on the bus.

I could go places and still be a person in the world.

And so could my kiddo.

And so I want everyone to have that freedom, regardless of who you work for and what your type of employment status is.

I think it's important.

Okay, I'll go.

As I said earlier, my name is Jessica, and I work at Trader Joe's.

I've worked there for 12 years, and we don't have transit passes, and I would definitely like Trader Joe's to provide transit passes to all of its employees.

I think a lot of us do take the pass.

I haven't taken a poll, but I know that most people have not done the pre-tax thing that is offered to us.

And yeah, as a citizen, I don't have a car.

I've chosen not to for many reasons, and I like taking the bus, and because of recent injuries, I've had to take it more, and it definitely has increased my costs.

And I think that...

Like I said, with my coworker, having to decide which one is more equitable instead of making it heads above that, the public transit is the way to go, definitely says where we are as a society, and I think Seattle can lead the way and show a different way of doing things that is the way of the future.

So thank you.

Hello, my name is Ty.

I'm the field organizer for the Transit Riders Union.

Last year, I used to work for a terrible company.

I hated it.

But they were a contractor of Amtrak, which moves billions of people around the country all the time.

But even Amtrak workers don't get a transit pass, even though they're in that kind of quasi-governmental space that companies love to be in.

And as a contractor for them, I definitely didn't get a pass, and I worked overnight.

So would a pass really have helped with the way that our bus systems are?

Now I work for a human service provider, and I love the work.

I actually get paid $1.50 more, but I pay for health care now.

Plus, I pay contribute to my 403B, so I actually took a pay cut to do this work, and I didn't realize that until my first paycheck, but I still really love the work.

And I think that it's just been really bothering me the way that the legislation, and we'll talk about it later, what it could look like, but this idea that it could be anything less than 100%.

I just think that Going forward, if this isn't 100%, then it's useless, then it's pointless.

Because I was thinking about how wages have not kept up with inflation or price of anything for decades, decades, decades.

And we think that 50% is going to change something.

We have to start giving out this free stuff that we've already paid toward.

Otherwise, we're just setting ourselves up for another failed piece of legislation that leaves too many people in the gaps.

And so I think that we don't know quite what this will look like, but if it's anything less than as many people as we can get, we know, you talked about contract work.

We have to respond to the advent and influx of contract work because that is an economic trend.

And if we don't respond to the economic trend of wage stagnation by addressing that with 100% subsidy, then we're failing the constituents and the legislation will be another piece of lip service to what we can actually do with what the money that we have and so I don't know I just I'm really emotional about this because I just feel that like now's the time to do something that's meaningful now's the time to capture people's imaginations with what Seattle can do and what we can be And if it isn't everything, then I think that we shouldn't even bother doing it.

And so I think that there's a lot of council members at the table, a lot more than it's been in the past, and a lot of new faces.

And I just want you all to know that this is really serious for a lot of folks, and this is going to meet a lot of life-changing moments.

For me in particular, $100 is a lot a month.

I'm happy to pay it.

I'm so happy I can pay it.

But if I didn't have to, I do wonder what that money would go towards as well.

Would it go towards saving?

Would it go towards the health care that I kind of don't take care of?

So please consider that when you're thinking about what slashes to start making, what people to start excluding when we think about what the legislation looks like.

Hi, I'm Tobias Girl, he, him pronouns.

I am the economic program coordinator at LGBTQ Allyship.

We're a workers' rights organization.

We also do work around housing.

We contract through the OLS.

In terms of my personal experience, I've only had a transit pass once in my life.

That was when I worked in Olympia before the free transit.

Yes, Olympia.

And it was a game changer.

I wasn't making very much money working for the city.

The bus fare was steep.

And having that free pass allowed me a lot of flexibility.

I didn't have to nickel and dime with my change.

I didn't have to stress about making it to the transit center on time to pick up a new transit pass for that month.

Right now, in my job, I do a fair amount of travel around the city multiple times a day.

It's not just a simple one destination to another destination.

I'm someone who would fall in the hole of a commute in the morning, and then a commute in the afternoon, and then a commute later.

And that adds up very, very quickly for workers who don't make their transfer times.

It is not technically cheaper.

for me to drive my car if you go by the federal reimbursement rates.

But with my wages and what happens when you're a relatively low-wage worker, the gas costs alone, which are the immediate costs I see up front, are cheaper to drive than it is to take the bus all of those times during the day.

So on a purely personal level, leaving aside my clients and community members, I would greatly appreciate a subsidized transit pass.

Great.

Thank you, everyone.

So I think what we're going to do next is walk through a fairly short slide presentation, which will give us a little context for kind of why we're thinking about this issue and where we're at.

And if you were paying attention last year, some of this might look very familiar because we're kind of just updated one that we did in the fall.

Here we go.

So first, as a little background, here in Seattle, we're already, in many ways, a national leader on transit.

Our transit ridership has been rising in general over the years, while many cities nationwide have been experiencing declines in transit ridership.

And that's largely due to major investments that we all have made in our regional transit system, both light rail and our bus system, transit service and infrastructure over the past years.

We also are a national leader in free and reduced fare programs, the OrcaLift program, which the Transit Riders Union and many others were involved in getting.

implemented some years ago is a program that many cities around the country have looked to and tried to copy.

And there's a number of other reduced fare programs that we have, which are great.

And we also have several programs and laws that encourage employers to reduce drive-alone commuting.

So we're starting with the positive here.

This is like, we're good.

And I'm going to pause at each slide in case people have things that they want to add or any discussion.

One thing I will say about this is that the transit ridership rising here has actually kind of plateaued.

This news came out, I think, in December.

So we're actually no longer transit ridership rising.

And when we look at our carbon reduction goals, this is something that we need to kind of get back on track.

So we're doing well in many ways.

However, Seattle is still a very car-dominated city, as you'll know if you spend any time getting around the city.

And this has a lot of really negative impacts.

Our greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise.

We're not on track to meet Seattle's climate goals.

Passenger vehicles are the largest contributor to our city's emissions.

Over half of our emissions come from passenger vehicles.

And the pollutants from cars harm health, especially in communities of color that are more likely to live near busy roads.

And people of color, seniors, and people with disabilities are more likely to be killed by traffic violence in our city.

I'm just going to run through this.

So we also have some of the worst traffic congestion in the nation, and that has impacts on people's time, people spending hours on the road, and also has impacts on our economy, right?

You know, businesses need things to move.

And lower wage workers are most likely to have very long commutes, largely due to housing costs and displacement, and also to spend a large part of their income on transportation.

Can I say something real quick?

Go for it.

Yeah, whenever we meet with community members looking for their input on their needs for housing and employment, one thing that consistently comes up is their long commutes and their reliance on public transit.

Queer workers are more likely to be in shift work, restaurant industry, hotel industry, general low-wage jobs with irregular hours.

So we're among those disproportionately affected by those long and expensive commutes.

Totally.

OK, and trans benefits, which is what we're here to talk about today, are effective.

So multiple studies have shown that employer-provided transit passes are effective in shifting commuters toward public transit.

This is just one example from the Atlanta Regional Household Travel Survey that found employees who were provided free or subsidized transit pass had 156% higher odds to commute on transit, all else equal, compared to their counterparts.

And I think, you know, that's really significant, especially like one of the things that, you know, we found as last year, you know, our organizers did a whole bunch of outreach to workers in Seattle.

And, you know, a lot of people are kind of like cobbling together their commutes day by day.

It's not like they do the same thing every day.

And having that transit pass in hand just really tips the balance over to transit really frequently.

And I'll add, as a student, I went to UWB.

Go what are we?

Bulldogs?

Something like that.

Huskies.

So I'm sorry.

I have terrible school pride.

I like the learning part more than the thing.

But I went to UWB, and so I had a transit pass already.

I used it so much.

I used it to go down the street, because it's like, there's always a bus going, and you just hop on, and it's nothing.

And I think that one of the things that really encouraged me when I was doing outreach We went down to Westlake, and there's a lot of folks working at retail stores, a lot of queer young kids, and a lot of them are UW students, and so they have this free pass, but if they were not students and they were still working at that job, which at some point they will be, then they're going to have to get a car or start paying for this all of a sudden, and I think that if we really want to start affecting a culture, then we can start affecting college-age kids who are lucky enough to have a free pass, so that they can transition into, obviously, I mean, let's be honest, a lot of college age kids do work.

But when they work full time without a pass, then they're just like, they've already got one.

It's assumed, it's just like this seamless transition.

And so, because honestly, it's not hard, it's really hard to not have a car.

As much as I do take the bus, I also do own a car just because it's also handy when you have to drive other places.

And I came to the city needing a car because I had to drive up to Everett all the time.

So if I had to come here with a pass already, Who knows what jobs I would have taken, what opportunities would have been obvious, but I kind of came here and decided I live far away from my job, I need to get a car.

And so that's what I did within a few months of living here.

So if there had been a different kind of path forward for me, I think that a lot of folks would be able to take that and we should definitely make that available for them.

OK, and we did a commute survey last year and asked people who already have transit benefits through an employer kind of what that means for them.

And it turns out people love transit benefits.

So here's just a few quotes from our survey.

It means the world for me and my commute.

It's fantastic.

It means there's no second thought about grabbing a bus or train, no scrounging for change or hunting for an orca machine.

In all honesty, it's in your necessity for me.

There isn't really an excuse for employers in this region to not offer it.

And it's a fantastic relief and makes me feel like I'm making great pay since I don't have to spend a large portion on transit fares.

The illusion of a raise.

I would just like to add real quick, a couple of colleagues and I spent Tuesday afternoon on Transit Equity Day actually canvassing up and down Third Ave during the evening commute going to all the bus stops and just talking to people.

And that echoes exactly what I heard.

A small portion of people said, oh yeah, I already have a transit pass for my job.

It's amazing and like their faces would light up and they were so excited and everyone else who didn't have one were like, oh my gosh, yeah, that would be great.

Yeah, sign me up.

I would love to have that and you know, yeah, I'll reach out to my council member.

So it's an incredibly popular proposal.

Yeah, I would second that too.

Consider me reached out to.

Yeah, and so then this next slide, actually, Jessica kind of already walked us through this in her public comment, but according to our survey, yeah, we found that workers making $100,000 or more, vast majority of them get some kind of transportation benefits, and workers making $50,000 or less, only about half report getting any transportation benefits.

Katie, you mentioned that this is a non-scientific survey of folks that it sounds like you guys have canvassed, but do we have a better sense of where we can get that data from?

And for folks that don't know Karina Bull, she is central staff and she staffs us on issues related to labor as well.

I don't know if that's a report that exists that we've seen or if you've done this because there is a lack of such data.

Well, the next slide is, oh, there was an error.

Yeah, the next slide is a graph.

It's OK, we have it in front of us.

There should be a graph there from the Puget Sound Regional Council, which is more of like a regional travel survey.

And so they find it's not as stark a difference as what we found in the folks that we surveyed, which kind of makes sense because I think regionally just fewer people are getting transit benefits full stop, regardless of their income.

But it was a similar situation in this regional survey where higher paid workers are more likely to get.

get benefits.

But I don't know that we have kind of like a representative sample survey of Seattle specifically.

Maybe that data exists somewhere and could be put together, but I'm not aware of it.

I would like to jump in real quick on the 50,000 number.

In a different presentation earlier today, a sound transit fare enforcement presentation at another meeting, They mentioned that the $50,000 income line was a very clear divider actually within fare enforcement.

People making $50,000 or less were far more likely to be involved in the fare enforcement system.

They were far more likely to have not actually paid their fare because they were unable as opposed to forgetting to tap or leaving their work card at home.

And a large portion of those people who do have income and employment, but just not high-paying income, are in the gap area where the subsidies that we have available for transit cards don't apply to them.

So they're clearly using transit because they need it, and they're just gambling, I suppose, on the fact that they're hopefully not going to get caught not paying, and that is not equitable at all.

Thanks.

question.

So you know one thing that stands out to me that I find odd with the data is the the offered but I don't use and the offered and I use that for folks under $25,000 the offered and I use is 7% which is just a strange statistic to me.

I mean I you know it's it's not a survey that Transit Riders Union conducted but I don't know if any organizing or anecdotal information could glean on why a considerable number.

There seems to be some employers that are offering and folks that are under $25,000 are not taking advantage of it.

is my read of that statistic.

I can speak to that, unless you want to, Katie?

You go first.

Yeah, I was going to say, well, first off, there's kind of what Jessica alluded to is this idea that there are folks out there who cannot navigate or don't understand the programs that their jobs offer.

Honestly, the outreach for these kinds of things within businesses is like terrible.

Sometimes it's really good.

If people are proud of it, they really advertise it.

But it's not like somebody can sign you up.

Sometimes you have to do it yourself and there's taxes involved and numbers you don't really understand.

So a lot of folks might have it and don't use it.

And I would say, if you make under $25,000, I promise you, you live very far from your job.

And so that's, like for me, I worked overnight and I was reading an article about how overnight people almost always have to have cars just because transit doesn't, you know, I have to show up either an hour early or seven minutes late and then you're screwed.

and then just working those times.

So I can see for me, you know, I don't have any proof of that or what the reasons are, but when I see that number, that's when I kind of see it.

When you're making under $25,000, that point you're probably getting a limit of a car and just driving it as much as you can.

Yeah, with the potential, that's great context.

Would some of those scenarios fall more under the I don't know category, like the navigation issues?

Because, I mean, that's a category as well where I could, I mean, if it's sort of a particular Byzantine or convoluted system, maybe some folks would respond under that.

I guess you could put them in both because it could be, you know, the system's so complicated you don't know as an employee, or it could be the system's so complicated and I know it's complicated so I don't even bother with it.

Right, so there could be some overlap between those, I guess.

I can imagine that there are other kinds of scenarios with somebody whose job provides subsidized transit, doesn't take it because of maybe a complex life responsibilities that make taking transit difficult.

For instance, you know, maybe you work in a place that would require, in order for you to get to childcare, require a transfer, which would mean you'd show up to childcare to pick up your kiddo late, and it's a dollar a minute for every minute you're late.

So, I mean, and, you know, doctor's appointments.

And, I mean, there are the types of things that people have in their day-to-day lives.

that can make transit difficult, but happily we're all here working to try to make it less difficult.

Well, and I think, if I can, I think that the really important statistic here is that 56% of the folks who were surveyed just said that it's not offered at all, right?

And so that's the number that we're trying to change.

Okay, we have about 10 more minutes.

Okay.

Thanks, Katie.

Great, well I will zoom through this then.

So, wow, we're not getting pictures anymore.

So, partly this disparity is an outcome of policy, right?

There's a lot of reasons for it, but city policy plays a role.

And one of the things to note about Seattle's policy is that we have a Yeah, sure.

We have a commute trip reduction program that doesn't require transit benefits, but does require employers with large work sites to do certain things to try to reduce their drive alone commute rates.

And that program really focuses on large work sites like corporate headquarters, which tend to be higher paid workers, 9 to 5 kind of work sites.

And so that program doesn't touch kind of the retail, hospitality, grocery industries that we're talking about, where lower wage workers are tending not to get this benefit.

So let me just see what our next slide is going to be.

Limbo.

Okay, so yeah, so city policy is kind of part of the reason why we're in the situation we're in, and also city policy, can fix it, partly.

And Seattle's really already begun this work by passing a commuter benefits ordinance in 2018, which just went into effect this January.

And that ordinance requires businesses with 20 or more employees to offer their employees the opportunity to do the pre-tax payroll deduction that Jessica was referring to that Trader Joe's already does and many businesses already do.

to pay for transit or vanpool expenses.

So that's the employee paying their own money for transit, but it is less expensive because they're not having to pay taxes, basically, on those wages.

So what we're proposing here this year is to really strengthen that ordinance by adding a requirement that large employers subsidize transit for all their employees.

Did I hear correctly that there was some change to the tax code as it relates to our community benefits ordinance that makes it more onerous?

for employers to adhere to the requirements.

I thought I remembered seeing that there was some math on how it all worked out so that it didn't actually cost employers anything to make this offer.

And then I thought I saw something very recently about a tax code change.

So in 2017, the Trump tax plan, I think, made it so that employers could not deduct contributions toward transportation expenses from their corporate income tax, I believe was the change.

And it hit nonprofits especially hard because it actually required nonprofits to pay unrelated business income tax on any subsidies they put toward their employees' transportation.

Now what's happened in this past December is that that part has been repealed.

So now it should, and I think nonprofits can actually apply for a rebate for any money that they had to pay over the last couple of years for that.

So that's good.

But yeah, there's still like a little bit less of an incentive across the board for employers, for private employers to pay for transit.

But I think, yeah.

Thank you.

And at the same time, so last thing is just that we know that this legislation, increasing worker access to transit passes is great and needed.

It's not going to solve all of our problems.

So at the same time, we need to be supporting and expanding programs that provide free or deeply affordable transit access for low income and very low income riders, youth, seniors, people who wouldn't be getting a transit pass through a job.

And then we also need to expand and improve service, including late night and off-peak service for workers and residents who ride transit at all times of the day and night so that people, it's actually a viable option for people.

And decriminalize fair non-payment and chart a path to free transit for all, as some of our public commenters mentioned.

Excellent.

This is great.

On that last point, are you also engaged with folks at the King County level about enforcement issues that you have both heard about anecdotally as you've been surveying folks and the data that you share, which is really compelling from an equity perspective?

Yeah, Transit Riders Union and a number of other organizations have been engaging over the last couple of years, both with King County Metro and with Sound Transit on making some pretty major reforms to their fare enforcement policies, and that work is ongoing.

Excellent.

That's wonderful to hear.

And I know a lot of that work was led by many in the community and from the organization as it related to folks who are dealing with fare enforcement, especially during the coldest days in Seattle.

Comments?

Council Member Morales.

Well, just on that note, I would ask or offer that if we can be helpful in the conversations with Sound Transit, which I know has been a little more reticent to make some fair enforcement changes, we can have that conversation.

Other comments?

Council Member Lewis.

Yeah, so I had a great meeting earlier today with some folks from the Pike Place Market who, you know, amalgamation of a lot of very small vendors.

And one of their ongoing concerns is being in a position where they can somehow offer to their employees some kind of subsidized or lower barrier ORCA kind of program.

I'm a huge supporter of Worker for All, and I really want to see this work.

I think a mandate on big employers makes a lot of sense, and I want to work on the details of that.

What I'd also like to do is try to figure out strategies.

where we can work with small businesses and sort of these amalgamations of small businesses through a lot of these PDAs or like business development or business improvement areas, business improvement districts that want to try to figure some similar schemes out, but the individual businesses themselves might not have the resources.

And we're in this kind of awkward space where they're not quite big enough where we feel comfortable mandating that they do this.

We're also not really in a position where we can kind of give them a gift of public funds to do it necessarily.

And I'd really be interested in meeting and taking advantage of the creativity of this group here to figure out ways we can have that intervention.

Because, you know, it's a the market employs a lot of folks.

And there's a lot of similarly situated groups.

And I think that there could be some room for some partnerships there and some other kinds of interventions.

Great point.

That's a wonderful point.

Did you have a second item?

Did I cut you off?

No, no.

Thank you.

I mean, that's absolutely, we'd love to meet and talk about that.

I think there's, well, first of all, there is actually a pilot program that the state has been funding, which provides a match for smaller employers that want to provide a transit benefit.

I think it provides a match up to $10,000.

And it's not terribly widely publicized, but it has been continued for another year, so that's something to be aware of.

But I do think there's this whole question of work sites where there's a number of employers, a number of smaller employers there.

And I know the University Village, we heard actually from some of our volunteers who are doing outreach there, the University Village has kind of a comprehensive program, and so it'd be interesting to know how they've done that.

But that's definitely something we'd be interested in helping to figure out.

Do passes have a variable cost to the employer, depending on how many passes they are providing?

So do you get cheaper passes if you have more employees?

So there's a number of ways that employers can provide transit benefits.

And the most simple and efficient, in a way, is the ORCA Business Passport Program that Metro offers.

If you have more than 500 employees on your passport program, then Metro actually does custom pricing where essentially each employee gets an unlimited transit pass.

And then Metro is adjusting your cost per pass year by year based on the actual usage of those employees.

And so it ends up being cheaper per pass than like a retail unlimited pass.

If you have fewer than 500 employees, you can sign up for the passport program and the cost per pass is still cheaper than retail because it's based on kind of the usage in your zone across the passport programs.

So for example, I think for downtown, it's like maybe $800 a year per employee for an unlimited card under the passport program.

So maybe some sort of pass buying co-op.

Yeah, well, that's what I was wondering, like if these BIAs could be purchaser of the passport program and collection of BIAs or something like that so that they get the high employee discount.

And I think that the challenge is to some extent mostly administrative.

Like there needs to be an entity in these multi-employer sites that's actually going to like just handle the account and like distribute the passes to everyone.

But it doesn't seem like it should be an insurmountable challenge.

So, as we continue the conversation, it would be also great to hear of any other cities that you think have good models for us to look at or if they haven't been enacted, what they are considering.

Love, Olympia, that's my hometown.

And when I was asking about which cities have free transit, I understand that the number of residents in many of those cities is much smaller.

But if we could look at comparable city sizes and sort of what other cities are doing, that'd be great.

And if, like usual, we're sort of on the cutting edge, that's also exciting.

And I love these ideas that have already been brainstormed today.

Any other comments?

So just to reiterate, this is the beginning of the discussion.

We really wanted to have this from the get-go in this committee for us to get going.

I know, as I mentioned at the beginning, there's a number of council members who have both had past fingerprints associated with helping to expand access to ORCA cards.

and new council members who have been a long time advocates of these efforts.

So thanks to our past and new council members for their ongoing interest in this.

And we will be in touch with you all about when this will come back to our committee.

And I'm sure we will see you in the meantime as we brainstorm ideas.

And I think to Council Member Lewis's point too, this is really, I think, an economic benefit to many of the business entities, the downtown core, making sure workers can show up for the health and welfare families who need to get to childcare on time and to reduce overall stress in our community, which we know is actually has physical consequences on our health by not having reliable and affordable transit options.

We increase stress and cortisol levels in much of our community and we can help address that from a health equity perspective as well.

So I'm excited about that.

I'm going to go ahead and wrap up this item, which is the last item on our agenda, by saying thank you all.

I want to also make sure that we give a shout out to Freddy de Cuevas, who is the staff for our committee here and will be with us all year long.

So as you need information from our committee, we will be sharing that around and we'll be sharing our work plan very soon so people can provide us with input.

And again, our next committee will be another special meeting on Wednesday, February 19th at 2 p.m.

We'll be taking a vote on the capital projects resolution as we discussed today, ideally amendments by next Wednesday, close of business, confirming council and mayoral appointments to the Domestic Standards Board, and potentially having a discussion on the future of work, which we began to hear about today with some of our friends who came from the gig economy and the app-based work.

So thank you all, and today's meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.