Seattle City Council Briefing 2/3/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

The day is February 3rd, 2025, and the council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.04.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Solomon?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Here.

And Council President Nelson?

Present.

Hey, present.

Thank you very much.

And Council Member Strauss's excuse for today.

All right.

If there's no objection, the minutes of January 6th and 13th, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

All right, we don't have or executive sessions today, but we will resume our weekly practice of hearing from our OIR state team, thank you very much for being here today, and also folks down there in Olympia, about developments in Olympia.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are six items on the introduction and referral calendar.

The weekly bill payment ordinance, three resolutions making changes to previous resolutions on the president pro tem list and committee memberships, which I'll talk about a little bit more in just a moment.

Council Bill 120939 authorizing Seattle Center to enter into a new agreement to let Theater Puget Sound use space in the Seattle Center Armory and then an appointment to the International Special Review District Board.

The consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance and four appointments and reappointments to the Community Police Commission.

And we'll start tomorrow's meeting following public comment with a public hearing on Council Bill 120937 which would create a new sales and use tax deferral to convert an underutilized commercial property into housing.

And we scheduled the public hearing when we passed resolution 32156 late last year.

So although this is a land use bill, we agreed to hold this public hearing in council in order to meet our 30 day notice period to hold a public hearing.

and to make sure the bill didn't stall while we had a vacancy that affected the Land Use Committee.

So this was already in process before Council Member Morales announced that she, well, vacated the position on January 6th.

So, now that we have a new council member and land use chair, the plan, which council member Solomon has agreed to, thank you very much, is to hold the public hearing tomorrow in council and then re-refer the bill to land use to go through the normal committee process under his sponsorship.

Beyond that, on tomorrow's agenda, there is one item under committee reports, which is a vote on council bill 120927, which extends, again, interim regulations to allow people to get flood insurance through FEMA's flood insurance program.

We had some information presented about that by Councilmember Strauss.

At the close of the agenda, we'll also be voting on three resolutions making changes to previous resolutions that need updating now that we've filled the District 2 vacancy.

So resolution 32161 updates the monthly council president pro tem list to include council member Solomon in place of council member Morales and sets council member Rink as the December president pro tem in place of council member Wu.

Resolution 32162 updates the membership of Council's standing committees.

The only slight change to this resolution, and as you're all aware, is that Council Member Sacco will take Council Member Morales' place on the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

while Council Member Salomon will then replace Council Member Saka on the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

So it's basically a one-to-one switch.

In Resolution 32163 updates Council's membership on external committees.

The changes there are limited to Council Member Rivera taking Council Member Morales' place as the saddle representative to the Association of Washington Cities Board.

and Council Member Rink taking Council Member Saka's place on the PSRC Economic Development District Board, which conflicts with finance, and Council Member Solomon taking the remainder of Council Member Morales' committees.

So that's what we're doing in that resolution.

So colleagues, we set these resolutions at the beginning of every two year period, and it's really not common to revisit these as many times as we have, and of course it's not common to have two, two vacancies necessitating these changes, but due to conflicting schedules among many internal and external committees, one change can have a ricochet effect, as you can see, on everything else, which is why I've endeavored to make as few changes as possible.

And I just remember when I was first making these committee assignments, it really is quite a puzzle to make sure that external committee membership does not conflict with standing committee membership.

All right, so with that, let's move on to the state legislative session agenda update.

Welcome Director Hashemi and the OIR team.

Why don't you come on up to the table and introduce yourselves and then you can get started with your presentation.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

Hello.

Thank you, Council President Nelson and Council Members, and welcome.

It's nice to see you, Council Member Salomon.

I'm Meena Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by my colleagues virtually from our state relations team, Sameer Janejo and Anna Johnson, who you will hear from momentarily.

We are now in week four of the 2025 legislative session.

As of last Friday, 1,442 bills have been introduced and legislative business is moving quickly.

This month, we'll see major milestones as key dates.

pass and as policies move through the process or die.

And as you know, Seattle has a number of priorities working their way through the process, some in committee, some in rules, and some are already on their way to the other chamber.

With that, I will turn it over to the team who can share an update on our priorities and what's been happening since we last briefed you.

Thank you.

All right, good afternoon, counsel.

My name is Anna Johnson.

I'm the state legislative affairs director for OIR.

Our plan today is to first give you an update on all of our Seattle priorities, which you'll recall from the legislative agenda that we created back in December.

And then the second half of the presentation, we're just gonna give you an update of the major committee action that happened the first three weeks of session since we haven't been able to brief you in a few weeks.

um we don't have time to go over all of the bills and you'll notice in the council bulletin there is a lot of bills we're tracking um and so today we choose the bills that we bring up in this presentation one because they have a big impact on the city of seattle or they're just hot topics down in olympia and we want you to be aware of what's going on what's taking up the conversation Or they're bills that we think maybe weren't on our two-page agenda, but they have come up from many of you or from our departments as things that are important to us.

So we'll start with a status report of our Seattle priorities.

Starting with the public safety section, Senate Bill 5098, this bill creates a restriction for weapons in certain locations.

Some of those locations are city parks where children are going to be present, are community centers and public buildings.

This bill had a hearing and has already been voted out of the policy committee, and so now it's in the Ways and Means Committee waiting for a hearing in that step.

Senate or House Bill 1112. This bill is specific for Seattle Municipal Court to be able to hire our pro tem judges that give the give the option to us to hire those pro tem judges that reside without outside of the city limits.

This bill actually has already passed the entire House of Representatives with nearly unanimous success.

And so now it's already making its way over to the Senate, which we'll wait and see when it gets scheduled for a hearing in the policy committee over there.

House Bill 1228, this bill creates an option for us to send our toxicology evidence for DUIs to either certified or accredited labs other than the Washington State Patrol toxicology lab.

This bill had a hearing in committee and we're waiting for executive action on this one.

Senate Bill 5060, this bill creates a law enforcement co-response, behavioral health response, and peer response grant program for local government, $100 million grant program.

This bill had a hearing in the policy committee where we signed in pro, and then this week it actually is in the Ways and Means Committee where we're also signing in pro on the record.

house bill 1428 this bill has a hearing this week this bill increases the amount of funding that local governments receive both counties cities through the state criminal justice assistance account so this would be a new revenue source coming to the city Senate Bill 5052, this bill had a hearing the first week of session, and we are waiting for executive action on this bill, which is scheduled for this week.

This bill clarifies the law enforcement ability to question juveniles who are witnesses or victims of crimes and clarifies the youth access to counsel law.

How spill 1772 and Senate bill 5595 are new bills that have been introduced that are awaiting committee hearings this these bills were essentially to help city of Seattle clarify pedestrian safe systems legislation to keep folks safe in our neighborhoods.

Moving on to some paper health bills to the next two bills Senate bill 5126 and 5369 are both those related to youth mental health and received hearings.

The first bill is by Senator Nobles as OSPI request legislation establishing a statewide network for student mental and behavioral health.

And that second bill by Senator Orwell and Representative Ruhl enhances youth mental health and well-being through training and expansion of the workforce in schools.

Both bills are a way for committee action.

On economic development and small business, House Bill 1515 sponsored by Representative Reed city priority that changes some of the outdoor dining rules from the LCV and also allows walk around alcohol service during special events at Seattle Center that Bill had a hearing in committee last weekend as awaiting committee action to get it out of committee.

Housing and homelessness, there's a couple of bills that were introduced.

One that had a hearing last week related to condo liability reform.

That's House Bill 1403. It reforms some of the legal liability that condo developers have when they build condos and then face potential lawsuits for defects.

And then similarly, House Bill 1516 studies insurance options for condo development.

In the climate and environment space, our recycling reform legislation, House Bill 1150 and Senate Bill 5284, both received hearings in the first few weeks of session, and we're just waiting for those to move out of the policy committee.

House Bill 1253, sponsored by Representative Ybarra, is a bill for Seattle City Light and other consumer-owned utilities to enter joint use agreements for energy generation, transmission, battery storage, THINGS TO HELP US WITH OUR ENERGY DEMAND COMING IN THE FUTURE.

THIS BILL WAS VOTED OUT OF COMMITTEE AND IS MOVING ON.

I THINK IT'S IN HOUSE RULES NOW READY FOR FLOOR ACTION.

AND THEN HOUSE BILL 1409, THIS IS A NEW BILL, ALSO A CITY LIGHT REQUEST BILL THAT IS MAKING IMPROVEMENTS TO THE CLEAN FUELS PROGRAM THAT WE'RE A CREDIT GENERATOR FOR THROUGH S-DOT, SPU, AND CITY LIGHT AND FAS.

This bill had a hearing and is waiting for action to move it out of the committee.

In terms of our priorities in the adequate funding for services and local government section, there is a House bill related to revising the property tax cap for 3% tied with inflation.

This bill hasn't received a hearing yet, but it has been introduced.

House bill 1212, this is a bill around increasing siting capacity for childcare.

City of Seattle is already in compliance with this bill, but we're largely supportive of it because it helps increase childcare throughout the region.

House Bill 1350, this is a bill that improves the childcare rates in which providers are paid through from state subsidization.

This helps the workforce and the slots that exist throughout our communities.

And then in terms of building new early learning in child care centers, there's a bill here, House Bill 1314 and Senate Bill 5297 that make improvements to the state's early learning facilities grant and loan program that will help hopefully build more child care centers.

I won't go into all the bills here related to K through 12 funding.

This is a big topic of conversation this year in the legislature.

These are just some of the ones we're tracking that are important to Seattle Public Schools and here locally and to our constituents and students.

And then one of our favorite bills, free school meals, universal free school meals, both of these bills have hearings this week.

This is House Bill 1404 and Senate Bill 5352. And this is Governor Ferguson requests legislation.

Now we'll move on to kind of just the general update of the first three weeks of session and just give you an update on some of the high profile bills, bills that are impacting us as a city or other good little bills that we thought you would wanna be aware of.

So in the climate and environment space, there was House Bill 1018 that had a hearing.

This bill just clarifies that fusion energy facilities have to go through the Energy Siting Council at the Energy State Siting Council like every other energy facility.

House Bill 1329, this bill is important to Seattle City Light, helps clarify the Clean Energy Transition Act.

This applies to wholesale power purchases like Seattle City Light has with Bonneville Power.

House Bill 1208 is extending a grant and expedited permitting process for salmon recovery projects.

And House Bill 1388 is a good food access related bill, which I know is important to a number of the council members.

It essentially establishes that if your area doesn't have a farmer's market, you can establish a mobile market program that also can accept SNAP and EBT.

House Bill 1483, this bill is also known as the Right to Repair Act.

This is creating kind of consumer protection options for those of us who need to repair our digital electronics so we can avoid them in the waste stream.

Moving on to general government, this first bill, House Bill 1256, creates a requirement for any public works projects that we're seeing a certain amount of money, a certain amount of state funding that their manufacture of certain products is manufactured in the United States.

There's a similar requirement for federal projects and this translates gives that to create the state requirement for those projects as well.

House Bill 1339 ships general elections for local governments to even numbered years or provides an option at least to do so.

House Bill 1576 changes a number of rules and regulations on how and when cities and towns can designate historic landmarks.

In healthcare and behavioral health, Senate Bill 5121 requires health plan coverage of fertility related services.

And Senate Bill 5229 changes in civil commitment rules to also allow folks who have had an opioid overdose recently to also be eligible for a civil commitment.

Moving to housing and homelessness, House Bill 1380 changes some, creates some requirements for city regulation of folks who are sleeping outside.

So this only allows objectively reasonable regulation of utilization of public property.

The city expressed some concerns because it would potentially create some new city liability.

House Bill 1096 allows lot splitting and requires cities to allow lot splitting.

So one particular lot of a person's house can be then split to two lots, creating more housing options.

House Bill 1491 creates density requirements around transit.

Senate Bill 5148 creates some rules around sending a city's housing element of a comprehensive plan and other development regulations to the state for approval.

The city expressed some concerns with the process that the bill envisioned in terms of the scope and the breadth of what a city must submit to commerce for approval.

On labor and commerce bills, House Bill 1245 is a bill that would actually create a new statewide office of entrepreneurship, creating a place for small businesses that are new to find some technical assistance with dealing with state agencies, the city signed in pro.

And House Bill 1203 prohibits the sale of flavored vapor products in Washington State.

In the public safety and criminal justice space, we saw Senate Bill 5027 get a hearing.

This bill creates a law school loan repayment program for those in municipal prosecution or public defense.

Senate Bill 5099 from Senator Levick creates additional restrictions or additional accountability for firearm dealers.

it things that they have to ensure with their employees things the rules and regulation they have to follow at their kind of location and store house bill 1163 is our is the permit to purchase a firearm bill this bill creates a permit system for those who have to go through the background check um system and training and waiting period before you can purchase a firearm And then House Bill 1132, this bill is creating bulk purchase restrictions for both firearms and ammunition.

House Bill 1152, this bill creates more requirements for firearm storage, both within your vehicle and within your house.

and creates a civil penalty for those who improperly store their firearm.

House Bill 1423 is a bill that establishes vehicle noise camera authorization for local government.

So this is another type of automated enforcement camera that detects vehicle noise.

And the city signed in pro on that one.

And then just one good kind of human services bill that we were tracking in the first couple weeks, House Bill 1263 from Representative Cortez and then also the Senate Companion had a hearing.

This bill is DSHS request legislation and it approves the housing and essential needs program that they administer, makes it easier for seniors who are transitioning from social security to ensure that they still have their benefits and also makes the hen benefits eligible to use just for general cash assistance for things that these folks need.

Transportation and on extension 1423 city sign in pro and the hospital 1240 concerns vehicle impoundments.

So this is not this is vehicle impoundments of vehicles that are also residences.

So it creates some procedures and requirements for when and how anyone can tow including a city can tow a vehicle residence and the city did express some concern with that bill.

And that's our recap of what happened.

Here's some bills that we're watching this week related to the crime victim services.

There's free school meals bill that we just mentioned earlier, and then some child care qualification bill, and then the Washington 13 free guarantee bill.

Again, these are bills that we'll cover at future presentations in more detail.

And that is our presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

I have a general question and then I'll open the floor for my colleagues and then I might have some more specifics.

But I just wanted to When you present this information, I really appreciate that now we have a shorter legislative agenda so that we can identify which section of our legislative agenda the individual bills come in.

So I really like that part.

Should we assume, or should I assume, that if the bills are not under the Seattle priorities update, or rather in weeks one through three, that Well, why are they separate, I guess, is what I would say, because there are some health care and behavioral health that you mentioned and some public safety bills that you mentioned in the one to three week update that were not under the priorities.

And so I'm just trying to get a sense of when I read this going forward, what should I What should I take away from that separation?

And then also, final question is that should we assume that under the priorities update, for example, public and behavioral health, did you sign in pro for all of them or testify in favor?

Because you mentioned that in a couple of them but not others, and so I'm just wondering if that was just, what should we assume if you don't mention that you have expressed the city's position?

I can take a response at that first, and then my colleagues can supplement if I miss anything.

We wanted to highlight at the front end of the presentation kind of all the bills that really neatly address the bullet points that were in our legislative agenda, which we passed in December.

We understand and we shared in December that there are other things outside of that two-page document that we might support.

So we just wanted to make sure at the front end of the presentation, you know what bills are associated with our priorities.

And then you can assume that we either signed in pro on those bills or testified.

And we can speak to the more specifics if you have a question for all the bills that are listed under our Seattle priorities update.

But Samir, Amina, if there's anything else you want to add, go ahead.

I would just mention that, yeah, I think in the, in the weeks one to three, the bills that are, that we're just kind of going over, we, we did kind of mark on the presentation for when, uh, we did express concern or if we, uh, signed in in some way, uh, if we didn't, um, if we didn't say anything, then, um, that means that we didn't take any action.

We're just monitoring a number of those bills.

We're just monitoring for city impact, but didn't take a position on.

Got it.

Thank you.

And I do also recognize that sometimes, um, things are in process and you can't say anything definite at the table because things are happening now.

So I will then now open it up to questions from my colleagues.

Okay, Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And thank you, Director Hashimi, Ana, Samir, for your expert guidance here and update on the latest and greatest in Olympia.

And also appreciate you know, the work of Director Hashimi and Ana for your help in helping me in my office testify in favor of Senate Bill 5052, the law enforcement juvenile contact legislation.

Colleagues will recall that item is one that we added to our priority list in December.

And it is a very nitty gritty specific technical clarification that we as a city are seeking.

And I was able to, with the help of our OIR partners, was able to personally testify in favor of that.

Technically, it was probably other, because I think the bill as originally presented still needed a little work.

But, and also the family of Mubarak Adam, who was Seattle's first homicide victim, 15-year-old, Chief South International High School student, High Point resident, immigrant and refugee family last January.

Their family, a representative from their family, was able to join me in testifying in favor of that.

And so, very powerful comments, by the way, from Layla Adam.

As I understand it, this bill is currently an executive session, something to that effect.

And at some point this week, we expect to learn more about the pendency and next steps of that particular bill.

So I would, I guess, Appreciate the proactive outreach and communication with my office as soon as we learn more about that.

That is an item that, in particular, I'll be keenly paying attention to next week as well and tracking along with a few other kind of our priorities.

But on that bill, I know there is obviously a Senate bill.

Can you help me better understand if there is a companion House bill currently?

If not, what does that generally or historically portend?

What does that mean?

What are the implications of that?

Thank you.

Thanks for that question.

There is no exact companion of that Senate bill in the House right now.

And it could mean a variety of things.

Sometimes folks like to show that there is kind of support in both chambers.

It gives it a little more momentum.

But I really would say like each bill has its own journey and viability on its own.

So it's positive that this bill had a hearing and it is already scheduled for executive action.

And then we'll track the bill once it moves.

If there's a companion, both don't end up moving just to save time in the legislature.

And because we know the deadlines come up on us quick and things move fast.

So usually they end up picking one as the mover, as they call it.

So we'll be keeping our eye on 5052 as the primary driver on this issue.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

I put my hand down.

OK, excuse me.

Councilmember Kettle.

Yes, thank you, Chair, Council President, and Director Shami and team.

Thank you very much for coming.

Really appreciate particularly the public safety elements here.

I had a question.

Can you go further on House Bill 1228 submitted by Representative Hackney?

Do you have any further details on that one?

Sure, sure.

So this bill was introduced at the request of Seattle and our prosecutors and city attorney's office.

This bill essentially allows, if we wanted to, send our toxicology evidence for DUIs to an alternative testing facility that's accredited federally instead of the Washington State Patrol Lab, which we observed to have lots of backlog and causing issues in our criminal justice system.

um so we there was a hearing on this bill and the city attorney's office um had some great testimony to describe the problem um we're just waiting to make sure that this bill is scheduled for executive action out of the committee to move on to the next step of the process okay great any specific questions i'm happy to answer or we could chat offline too okay great thank you um separately i note um it's not on our priorities list but h um

HB 1423 noise enforcement cameras that my colleague at the other end of the dais is very intently interested in, I should say, from a public safety perspective as well, and I would say as representing downtown, particularly downtown and Belltown, this is very important because it has been a a big problem for our neighborhoods and we have our own legislation like street racing that ties into this so you know having the multiple prongs is very important so i'm very interested in house bill 1423. um a new one that i have and i know are you going to move on public safety no i'm saying on public safety go ahead no no i i wanted to

I'll talk after you on public safety before we move on to a different.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Well, this is public safety in the sense of the, as I've often said, public safety, public health, two sides of the same coin point is, and as was reported in Seattle Times today, House Bill 1218. I'm concerned about this mainly from the perspective of like, where's the coordination?

Where is the outreach to the cities and the counties?

And I say this because Olympia is coming forward with this bill without that coordination, but then there's also the issue of You know, the state has not really been doing what it needs to be doing with respect to mental health for decades, really.

But, you know, not long ago, we were 46 out of 50 states in terms of mental health spending.

And I talked to our local representatives.

They say, we've been increasing it this session with a B.

You know, so there's definitely been progress, but we're still, like, 32nd.

you know, approximately.

And you would think here, particularly here in Puget Sound, that we would be in the top 10, top 20, but we're not even in the top half of 50 states.

So the state is not doing its job as a respect to mental health, but then they're coming in with this bill that could essentially upset that apple core.

It's like, oh, we're not doing our job, but we're going to restrict you, or we're not going to allow you to do, in terms of the quota bit, you know, to participate.

And there's a lot of second and thorough effects to this that impact public safety.

And this is something that really should be engaging with the cities.

You know, this is, you know, a great topic of discussion, but they seem to be running ahead without the city and county coordination, from my view.

And I was just wondering if you had anything to add regarding 1218, House Bill 1218.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Appreciate the question.

I will look to my team, who's probably more familiar with the actual legislation than I am, but we do appreciate your guidance here and your sort of feedback, and we'll see if my team has the latest on the outreach to the cities, but regardless, we can come back to you next week with more or follow up offline as well.

Yeah, I'll just share Councilmember Kettle.

This bill had a hearing the first week of session, and there was a resounding amount of feedback in that hearing, including from the Association of Counties and Association of Cities.

And this bill has not been scheduled for executive action and hasn't moved out of committee, which you can probably conjure is because there's a lot of kind of disagreement on how this would work and the different types of compromises and negotiations that would need to go on between all the groups that are involved.

This is DSHS request legislation and it is related to the state's ongoing requirements with the true blood lawsuit.

So more to come.

But I think the bill was introduced and I would expect maybe changes if it is going to move forward in the process and we can keep you updated.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And as I turn it back to the chair, I would also say House Bill 1339 should be a priority and we should be maintaining our odd number.

But with that little note thrown in, I'll pass it back to Council President for Public Safety.

Well, I was going to move on to Council Member Moore if you have any other items.

Okay, Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Lana and Samir.

I had a question about three bills, HB 1165 and HB 1214. So one is relating to expanding access to the property tax exemption program for seniors, people retired due to disability and veterans with disabilities.

and the other was expanding eligibility for the working families tax credit.

Those seem like really important bills that the city should be behind, and I'm wondering if we're taking a position or what's happening with those.

I can start with the working families tax credit bill.

That bill, I think, has a hearing this week, and we will be supporting that one.

1165 um i'll have to get back to you on that i think we we're trying to get more information as to uh get more information from the reviews from the city before we decide next steps but we can keep you on the loop on that

Okay, that'd be great, because I know we just had a presentation last week about some of our anti-displacement strategies, and one was relating to expanding property tax exemption.

So to the extent that we can get that at the state level, that'd be great.

And then my last one was SB 5497, which...

concerns compliance with siting development permit processes and standards for permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, emergency housing and emergency shelters.

Just can you give us a little bit of information about this and is the city taking any kind of position on this?

This is, to me, this is a critical issue that we need to be looking at when we're doing our comp plan analysis.

The bill that came uh was first dropped last year and has been reintroduced this year um that uh we did take a close look at we don't have a position on the bill um i know a lot of other cities do have pretty strong strong opposition to the bill um we don't have a position i think i understand there's a number of city uh the city has some similar uh citing rules that this bill proposes uh within the city so it seemed to have less of an impact on us than um some other cities but um i can you know i think so that's kind of where we're at right now i know the bill is moving moving forward and we'll see as it changes we'll kind of monitoring it to see what kind of impact it has as it changes throughout the process okay well is this something that you can maybe talk to me about offline um in the city perhaps might need to should perhaps take a position thank you yeah happy to do that

I'm looking for the number, so one moment, please.

Let's see.

Back to HB 1228 on permitting municipalities to use the toxicology private toxicology labs given that we've got such a long backup.

And I think that the average length of time it takes to get results is in the, or at least for Seattle around 400 days or something like that.

So this kind of, this is one of those bills that you talked about, but then you didn't say if you signed in pro, but it's under our priorities.

So did you, are we on the record as supporting this thing?

Yes, we signed in pro and we had city attorney, there was a city attorney who testified for the city too.

Great, thank you very much for that.

I just want to, I would like to know when there will, let me know when there will be a hearing because I might even want to call in because I am strongly in support of this and several council members did express desire to have this added to our legislative agenda having heard from our own city attorney and and many other people in law enforcement why it's why it's so important because it's very difficult to prosecutions just take so long and it's because we're waiting for the results of toxicology labs in Washington State The increase in road fatalities rose 94% in the last 10 years.

And this is something that the public is very focused on as well, is why is it so difficult to get people who might have had previous, not necessarily convictions, but they might have had run-ins or they might have gotten one citation for potentially...

DUI driving and then they get another one in the meantime.

But the point is that this is an option that would go a long way toward making sure that we can process these complaints, not complaints, these stops vary a lot more quickly.

And even if I understand there's talk about a pilot project that would apply to only a few cities, then at least if Seattle, if all of our if all of our samples or tests are taken out of the queue, that would open up room and speed for the other jurisdictions of the other municipalities.

So really hope that this moves forward with a lot of support from the cities in the state.

And I understand that the, let's see, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys is weighed in neutral.

That surprises me, but in any case, this would make for safer roads.

Just a plug for that.

Let's see, and then the other question I had, if I'm not mistaken, House Bill 1018 is being, that is about allowing for fusion facilities to get licensed.

That is consistent with what has been stated in the past as a desire to make it a little bit easier to do some research and development in that alternative energy field, is that correct?

Can you just tell me a little bit more about that bill, please?

Yeah, yeah, correct.

So that bill is essentially making sure fusion energy facilities go through the Energy Facility Siting Council, and that's consistent with other energy sources within that have to have siting review by the state.

It's the state agency that oversees those facilities.

So just bringing consistency to all types of energy sources.

And right now, though, currently, what kind of process do they go through?

I feel like it's unclear, and so I can get you more detail of kind of what's going on on the ground right now.

Okay.

My final comment is, with all due respect to the sponsors of 1339, if you've never run for local office, people might not realize how difficult it is to get to find, for example, campaign managers to find time on the airwaves to discuss your opinion on things.

And so just gonna make a plug that it's very difficult to get any, well, it's hard to get public attention and also the actual workforce for when you are competing against state and presidential candidates.

So again, to repeat what Councilmember Kettle noted.

Anybody else?

Go ahead, Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for Director Hashemi for being here, and to Ana and Samir.

I want to thank Ana and Samir for answering a lot of questions my team had last week on my behalf.

So thank you for engaging with us.

Really appreciate it as we're going through the various, um, bills in a very compressed amount of time.

I do have a question in general.

We have our list of priorities that we all worked on together and council weighed in on, um, and you started with those.

And then the second half, um, of the presentation where it's bills that were outside of that three page list.

I'm wondering when it says city signed, um, in support of, um, Who do you mean by the city because I don't think that we've all weighed in in support of those as a council I don't know whether some of us individually have weighed in or not and so I'm trying to get to when it says city signed pro who's who's the city and How do we make sure that we are also?

You know weighing into these ones that are outside of the list that I know we supported Collectively

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

I'm happy to sort of start there and then if my team wants to add anything.

So generally when some of these bills are introduced and we see that they have a nexus to city business or Samir mentioned a couple of places where there might be liability or they are related to our priorities in some way, but we didn't explicitly list it sometimes because we just didn't know the legislation was coming.

What we do is we first go to our departments to do a review and the subject matter experts usually look at it and there's a review that also goes, that law does to sort of look at it.

And then usually depending how much time we have, if we have 48 hours notice, we kind of huddle together and make a decision.

Sometimes there's more notice and in those cases, we take sort of guidance from all of you in these briefings as well as the ones that we do weekly with our departments and then separately with the mayor's office.

So it's a little, there's not an exact science here when it comes to the ones that are moving really quickly.

But with that said, we're always open to your feedback.

So I think that with the questions that the council president asked earlier too, we can also try to make it a little more clear in these briefings.

Team, would you add anything there or edit?

I'll just add that we also have pretty regular check-ins with council offices.

So if you have a bill you're specifically concerned about or a bill you're specifically in support of, that's a good place to raise it for us too for future hearings.

And then we're taking input from all avenues, mayor's office, council members, council offices, the departments to kind of just come to our best judgment with the information we have and what we know about what all of us are interested in supporting and that's what leads us to our decisions.

But like Mina's mentioned, we're always open to feedback and you're more than welcome to share anything specific with us in these briefings or outside of them.

Thank you and I very much appreciate that and my experience with you all is that you are welcome to feedback.

I would somehow like to request and we can take this offline to figure it out but I do feel last year similarly to this year is that these bills move very quickly and we don't always know and so If I'm hearing you, I get you reach out to the department, because they're working on these things every day, and you're reaching out to law, because the legal eye is really critical.

But it doesn't always get back to us, and then it limits our ability to weigh in on these things.

I would like to figure out a way where we're making sure that whoever the committee chair is also has an ability to weigh in because if we don't know And we rely on you all who are tracking this on a day-to-day basis because this is all moving so quickly.

And we're here in Seattle doing the local things.

But the state things are very important because they have such a huge impact on the local.

And so I would love to figure out with you all And director, you're new.

So from last year anyway.

And so would love to figure out how we can better work together to make sure that council isn't missing something that we really would want to have weighed in on on the front end and not feel like, oh, I didn't know that's how where that was or it's so far along or, you know, that we didn't have an ability to weigh in.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Is that a new hand there, Councilmember Kettle?

Okay, or a still hand?

Okay.

Just I will weigh in on that.

I understand that it's difficult.

You've got nine clients here in addition to all the departments, so I totally get it.

And I also know that probably you wouldn't have to do as much touch points during the week because you're hearing questions from council members that what's this and when can I lay in or whatever.

So to the extent that we can have information earlier rather than later, that would be appreciated.

So also just one thing is either in our briefings with you one-on-one before you present on the status of the priority bills, if there are bills that go in exact contradiction to a priority, also please let us know.

It doesn't have to be at the table, but, you know, so that we can be aware.

Okay.

Looking to see if there's anybody else that would like to make a question or comment.

All right.

I'm just watching, I'll just say for the record, I am watching HB 1113. I know that there have been some concerns expressed about that, so please keep me informed on that one about judicial review that some are concerned that could really, There's a question of separation, well, not separation of powers, but just a diversion of judicial, I mean, diversion of prosecutorial authority, that is what I've heard, but perhaps there are good sides that I also haven't heard.

Okay, before we move on or close this section, I just want to, is there anything else?

Nope.

All right, I would like to congratulate our very own Brianna Thomas, who is now down there in Olympia, having been appointed to the legislature for the 34th district.

So if you're watching here on the award-winning Seattle channel, congratulations.

Good luck this session.

Thank you very much for your presentation and for your hard work down there on our behalf.

Thank you so much.

All right, we have, let's see, we have no, there are no letters or proclamations, so let's move on to the round robin section.

And we will begin the roll call with council member Hollingsworth.

Go ahead, please.

Yay.

Thank you, council president.

And if it's okay, I also have notes from council member Strauss that he would like me to read for his update.

So if that's okay, I can read his first and then go into mine.

If there's no.

The first one in.

He is not, but I'm more than happy to do it during roll call as well.

Let's go in order and then you can do it when he comes in his.

You know what?

you probably want to just rest.

You have your mask on once to go ahead and present both, please.

Thanks.

All right.

Thank you, council president.

This is from council member Strauss, the finance native communities and tribal governments committee will have a meeting on this Wednesday.

It will be short.

They're scheduled to end at 1030 to make space for the select committee on the comprehensive plan.

They will be discussing a select budget draft, a work plan for next year.

External committees, Graham Street infill station workshop tonight is from 5 PM to 7 PM.

There's gonna be a workshop for Graham Street community to review potential station locations and share their feedback.

His team and him will attend and they will endeavor to give earlier notice to sound transit events in our communities.

Second district six council member Strauss held office hours last week at D six office and we'll have office hours next week.

Like he does every single week.

This week he will not have office hours as he will be having the all night public hearing on the comprehensive plan, which is this Wednesday, February 5th.

And thank you to his colleagues.

And that is his report, pretty simple.

And then now for mine.

Parks Utilities Technology Committee will be February 12th at 2 p.m.

next Wednesday.

We have a couple appointments and a licensing agreement from Seattle Center.

The meeting should be fairly short and simple.

There will be a couple votes, but those are all technical regarding the appointments.

We also will have a comprehensive plan meeting this Wednesday at 11 a.m.

February 5th.

That will entail the public engagement that OPCD did and the mayor's office as well.

And we are only taking written public comments during that time.

And that's because we're having a public hearing.

So we wanna be able to do the work at 11 AM.

And then at 5 PM, we'll be having the public hearing that starts at five.

We will be recognizing in-person only from five to 730. And then we will move to a hybrid public comment at 730 will bounce back and forth until every speaker is heard.

Everyone will get two minutes.

We also have childcare that will be available as well in the birth of Knights Landing area.

So we will be here till we listen to everyone.

Everyone will get two minutes and we're looking forward to the public hearing and we're inviting everyone to come down and speak.

Last but not least in the community, I want to recognize, and I also know I have other council members who will probably recognize it too.

It is Black History Month.

Black History Month is American history.

And in Seattle, we will always celebrate Black History Month, no matter what is going on.

There have been phenomenal contributions by African-Americans here in Seattle that have contributed amounts, amount of opportunities for folks.

And a lot of people ask, sometimes they hear black histories, political stuff always, but that's because it's always been political.

We've always been striving for civil rights and for equal opportunity.

That's why I think it's important to know your history, to know your greatness.

And so I just wanted to point that out that we'll be celebrating all month for the full 28 days for black history.

But I think every day should be black history month, but that might just be me.

I think my colleagues agree as well.

Also, thank you.

Also wanted to point out and thank O'Day High School and Lakeside High School for the opportunity to go and speak to their classes, their full assemblies.

That was really fun.

And also there are more events that we'll be attending this week in the community.

And that is the end of my report.

So thank you, council president.

And I will pass this off to council member Kettle.

No questions?

Okay, thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

I want to start off with the Public Safety Committee.

Our next committee meeting will be 11 February.

It's going to be focusing on the criminal justice side of things, and the agenda will be put out next week.

Also related to the Public Safety Committee, our less lethal weapons legislation will be voted in full council on the 11th of February.

As you know, there's a lot of moving pieces with this bill to include with the federal monitor, you know, and the whole piece related to the consent decree.

And so there's a lot of aspects with legal to work through all the various amendments.

And to do so, we need to do it right.

So trying to jam it for tomorrow was not going to be the right way of doing that.

So we're gonna move that to the 11th of February with the amendments that we now have.

This week, want to give a shout out to what's happening in D7 on Bell Street.

We're going to have a ceremony tomorrow, and it's really about connecting the waterfront to Belltown and beyond.

I recently, not long ago, did a Market to Mohai walk that walks through this area of improving Bell Street as part of that connection in our city, so I look forward to that.

Neighboring neighborhoods, South Lake Union is having a South Lake Union Community Council meeting on tomorrow night as well.

In the next week, we have a Seattle City Light Tour, looking at Denny and Broad, which I'm looking forward to.

And kind of going back, I just want to thank all those who participated.

I had office hours at KXP's gathering space.

I'd like to thank Ethan and the team at KXP.

I really appreciate the ability to go there to meet with constituents with great input.

And I was really excited on the next day as well to have our latest District 7 Neighborhood Council meeting.

And the District 7 Neighborhood Council is basically the Council of Councils.

So we had representation from the Queen Anne Community Council, South Lake Union Community Council, Belltown version of that.

And across the board, include our new, I like to report it here, our new downtown community council.

So finally, downtown, capital D downtown, has its own community council for residents.

I think this is important too, because as you know, we have an increasing number of residents in downtown.

And I think it's important to have their voice heard just like those in Belltown and Uptown and Queen Anne and Magnolia, Inner Bay, Eastlake, Westlake, Denny Triangle, and these parts of District 7. First Hill, I want to give a shout out.

They were represented on Friday as well.

And so thank you.

And we had the discussion on the Com Plan.

It was a fantastic discussion.

I'm sure it may show up because the Urbanist was there.

Ryan Packer was there.

So it may show up.

We'll see.

But it's important to have that community engagement on the Comprehensive Plan and to do that through these neighborhood organizations, which is a great way to reach out.

to the various parts of District 7. And I just wanted to close by saying that I think it's important for people like me to say this as well, that Black History Month is American history, and we need a full history in our understanding in our country, and I think that would help us move so much further if we did have that comprehensive understanding of history.

So thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for that reminder to us all.

Any questions?

Council Member Moore, who's now on the other side of the dais.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Now I get the pleasure of being over here.

Let's see.

I just wanted to give a little bit of information about D5.

So I wanted to...

I know...

Many of you are familiar with the sort of rash and escalating gun violence that we had happening along Aurora, largely related to commercial sexual exploitation and just the lucrativeness of that trade.

And I wanted to point out that SPD has done phenomenal work over the past month and has made a number of very important and high-profile arrests.

And I wanted to call them out for their extraordinary investigative work, both in making arrests in the Maserati shooting, also making an arrest in the Dodge Durango shooting, which was a shooting amongst pimps up and down Aurora, where people were taking cover.

And then our most recent arrests were nine individuals who were engaged in loitering and purchasing of commercial sex were recently arrested.

So we are SPD, even though they are under-resourced, are making a valiant effort to really address the human misery and the brazen gun violence that is putting all of our residents and businesses at imminent risk.

They're doing a great job.

So thank you to SPD for that.

Continue to want to support their efforts.

I also wanted to note that on Saturday I held district hours and all of the comments related to the comp plan.

So I got to hear differing points of view about whether we should have a neighborhood center in Maple Leaf, what kind of upzoning we should have.

So I really want to express my appreciation to all of the people who feel welcome to come and talk to me and express their points of view.

I appreciate that.

I also noted that it would be helpful if we could have people who are not necessarily on the same side of the issue find a venue in which they could thoughtfully and carefully debate this issue and I offered to help facilitate that so I'm just making that extending that offer again relating to Maple Leaf any other neighborhood center and I know there's some concerns about Haller Lake so I'm wanting to make sure that people are aware that we're my office happy to facilitate these sort of broader conversations.

Then, let's see, we will not be having a Housing and Human Services Committee this week.

It will be next week on the 12th.

We will have commission appointments for a possible vote, and we will also have a presentation from the Office for Civil Rights, all of the various commissions that will be introducing themselves and their work to the committee.

For external committees this week, I will be attending the Seattle caucus meeting for KCRHA on Tuesday.

We are working on finalizing the bylaws for KCRHA so we can begin actually getting to work.

And then on Thursday, we'll be attending the Affordable Housing Committee of King County.

And there are no other questions.

That's my report, and I will turn it over to Council Member Rink.

Questions?

Okay, go ahead, Council Member Rink.

Wonderful.

Happy Black History Month, everyone.

And welcome to Council Member Salomon.

Welcome to your first council briefing.

We're very excited to have you and excited to be doing this work with you in District 2. I'm gonna start first with the Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee.

We will be having our meeting this week.

We just have an appointment on the agenda, and so it'll be likely to be a very, very quick meeting.

And to that end, we will also be, my team has been meeting with our various departments, working on our committee work plan for the year.

Further, our working community, we as a citywide office try to be everywhere, do everything and do it all at once.

And so I'm just gonna go district by district about where we've been.

Starting off actually with this past weekend at the Vietnamese Cultural Center for Lunar New Year, being a part of their celebration in District 1. For District 2, we were able to join at the Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church and present the proclamation honoring their 120 years of service and honoring their history, standing by and supporting Japanese Americans throughout the period of interment, a real dark part of American history.

And so thank you again, colleagues, for making that proclamation possible.

It was well received by community and it was just a really fabulous event.

For District 3, I was able to join the Nicholsville Tiny Home Village Community, a highly successful self-contained tiny house village established in 2008 for single adults and couples.

Additionally, I'm joining two community councils within District 3, the newly revived Capitol Hill Community Council, and then joining also the Squire Park Community Council over the weekend.

District 4 was able to visit Roots Youth Adult, Young Adult Shelter, pardon me, but located in District 4 and had an amazing visit with their team.

They're doing really phenomenal work.

And then in District 5, joining for the Idris Mosque dinner and then visiting with the Refugee Artisan Initiative within Lake City.

This is an incredible organization supporting immigrant and refugee women integrating into our community, and creating a safe space to learn artisan textile skills and micro-business development.

Additionally, they're very focused on establishing community partnerships, focused on sustainability by diverting and upcycling thousands of pounds of textiles and other donated materials.

So really incredible work and would encourage you to check them out in Lake City.

And then apologies to District Six.

I didn't have a reason.

I didn't have an invitation or an event there.

So apologies in advance to anyone in District Sense.

We're coming to you.

I know it's embarrassing, but going to District Seven, joined alongside the Soapbox Project in Belltown.

This is a group that meets biweekly and creates a space for folks who have climate anxiety to come together, mobilize and do crafts, learn and bring educational speakers in, a really phenomenal space, and then got to join Council President Nelson and Council Member Kettle at the Dunkirk Town Community Council as well.

So we are everywhere and trying to be everything all at once.

I also want to publicly thank Council President Nelson for confirming recommendation for a new select committee on federal administration and policy changes on Friday.

My office continues to hear from residents about the deep concern they have about how changes will impact our community.

We know that many organizations, programs, and people within Seattle rely on federal funding to carry out their work and live healthy lives.

And what is clear is that major changes are underway and we as local leaders should be tuned in.

So with this select committee, this council will work to identify strong local responses to changes in the federal government, which could threaten funding direct to city of Seattle in areas including, but not limited to housing, transportation, public safety, emergency and disaster response, public health, social and human services, small business and economic development and the environment.

And I also want to thank council member Moore for acting as vice chair on this committee.

And we will be working with mayor's office and the departments.

We know there's already been a lot of work underway to prepare for these times and certainly wanna recognize that and there will be continued work throughout this month to make sure that that first committee meeting is robust and fruitful.

I'll just close on this note just because the Grammys happened last night and I wanna take a moment to echo Lady Gaga and some words that she shared in her acceptance speech.

Trans people are not invisible.

Trans people deserve love.

The queer community deserves love and to be lifted up.

Thank you all.

Any questions?

I want to say thank you very much for acknowledging the formation of the select committee.

and also just note that we will, we are very, I am very aware and I believe that my colleagues are too that we certainly don't want to jeopardize existing resources or do anything to raise undue attention to some of our very vulnerable communities right now and I have expressed those concerns beforehand and I will continue to be monitoring how how we proceed with getting our questions answered without basically showing our hand for perhaps use that is unintended by other levels of government.

And this is a concern that has been raised by people that are in the trenches all the time on some of these issues.

And so it'll be a delicate balance to make sure that people can be informed.

The other option was to talk about them on Mondays or perhaps an executive session if there's information that could be, that could increase risk for any of the vulnerable populations that we have.

So we'll try to do so carefully.

Anybody else?

Okay, Councilmember Rivera.

Yes, thank you, Council President.

On this last point, actually, I want to say that I had the opportunity to, well, Mayor Harrell, I want to thank the mayor and his team for including me in various meetings in the last three weeks, one of which was a meeting with some immigrant rights groups to talk about many different things and just the importance of showing our support, but also I heard very clearly about the how do I, the, you know, we want to express our support without causing undue stress to community.

And I will say that in the last few weeks and expressing in a very well-intentioned way, my support for community, you know, what I said got picked up in the national news.

So I see why folks are reticent to really have us be very public with certain of our support.

Um, and so I appreciate, um, council president, your remarks, um, because I think we, we are all supportive.

And then we also know that as people that have, um, uh, the attention broadly, not just in the city, but nationally, sometimes, um, in our best efforts to support and want to be supportive, sometimes there are unintended consequences.

So I appreciate you being mindful of balancing those two things to make sure that we are supporting and also, you know, protecting the folks that we serve here in Seattle.

So wanted to say that.

The other things I got invited to with the mayor in the last couple of weeks that I very much appreciate is last week he had an event.

I got sick and couldn't attend the day of the event, but there was an announcement you may have seen on the mental youth.

The youth mental health investments, it was announcing the recipients of the $7 million investment.

It will provide both in-person and telehealth mental health services for students.

You all know about these initiatives as this was part of our budget process, but I wanted to say that those recipients were announced.

And the thing of note here and to remind us all is that one important piece of this is to ensure this particular investment ensures that students have access to folks that look like them because we know that students who are seeking out mental health support, it does matter who they're seeing and they're more likely to talk to someone who is familiar with their cultural backgrounds and who look like them.

So this is something that was, I say this to say the city gave particular focus to this in support of the students.

And so I wanted to reiterate that.

The other pieces the mayor attended, he came to the district.

I was very grateful to meet with just a few small businesses, both in Sandpoint and in Wedgwood, who've been struggling with public safety concerns, just to hear from them and to talk a little bit about the work that the mayor's office and SPD and the care department have been doing in support of small businesses and residents in the district where you've heard me and Council Member Moore talk about and she just talked about the public safety concerns in both her district and mine, the districts that we represent.

And I will say that last week I also had a meeting with CARE chief, Amy Barden, to talk about care expansion on the north end.

I learned that as of two weeks ago, there is a MOU that was signed with the UW PD for CARE to have an office there where they'll have two of their folks stationed there.

to do a lot of work particularly.

It's not a surprise that in the U District there are a lot of folks that have needs and hopefully CARE will be able to then work from the district there directly in the district to help service some of these folks that have mental health and substance abuse needs and then they'll also be operating out of the North Precinct.

So that is has started, and I was very happy to hear.

I was not aware until I met with her last week, so I was happy to hear that that got going.

And then also wanted to say that last week I met with SDOT, as probably you all have met as well, but wanted to see it for folks watching that we're talking about.

the SDOT levy delivery plan.

Councilmember Saka, you may talk about this perhaps when you do your report out, but wanted to say that SDOT reached out to me as well as they were trying to figure out and they're seeking input on how to administer that district-specific investment.

And so I was glad to hear that they're doing outreach to all of us.

on that particular investment that you were the lead on Councilmember Saka and I very much appreciate because I know we all hear, I know I hear from my constituents as well about a lot of transportation needs in the district and it's really good that we have this particular investment that is specific to each of our districts and that our constituents in the districts have a hand in identifying projects for use of those funds.

So glad that I was able to have that conversation with SDOT on that, appreciated them reaching out.

And then the last thing I'll say, I mean, there was, seems like there's been a lot for me in the last couple of weeks, but the last thing I'll talk about is Related to immigration, I did have a meeting with Director Hamdi Mohammed, with Awaira.

As you know, Awaira sits in the committee that I chair for us here at the council.

let me know.

She and I are in ongoing communications as I've reported in the past.

She let me know that OIRA hosted a session for providers on how to support community members who have had concerns and have had questions.

You'll be happy to, well, this is not a happy thing, but there were a thousand attendees that attended that meeting that OIRA put together, I think the good part about that is that people are reaching out.

So I guess that's why I say it in terms of you would be happy to know people are reaching out because that's what we want, obviously.

And so OIRA had this session And also OIRA was able to share other resources for these providers.

There'll be other webinars and trainings by other community organizations such as Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

And OIRA was able to share other resources.

including there is a hotline that the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network sponsors where folks can call with any information.

you know, requests for information, anything, any legal concerns, any, you know, to just get information or to share concerns, this hotline is staffed from Monday through Friday from 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m., and they have interpretation services in 300 languages.

So I say this to say that there is a lot happening in this space, and as you've heard me say this before, but Director Mohammed is, quite very much not just in the middle of it, she's just very proactive in her work, and I say this to assure you that I said this before, she has my confidence and continues to have my confidence, and we will be in continued communication, and we will, on Mondays, I will give an update that I get from Director Muhammad as we get going.

If there are any updates to share, I will share them then.

Right now, it's You know, the need is for information, and that is the need that Director Muhammad and her team, and shout out to her team at OIRA, is filling at the moment.

And then it doesn't just stop there.

She's continuing to work with our partners at the county and the state level and all the external community-based organizations as we get going here on how to provide information and how to best identify supports in community.

So open to, you know, if you have questions, please see me after our meeting and I am definitely happy to provide more information and take your feedback for that matter so that I can give that back to Director Muhammad.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Thank you very much for that.

I have a question.

Didn't you have a visit with the mayor in your district with the businesses last week?

Yes, sorry.

Can you tell a little bit more about that?

Yes, sorry.

That's what I was saying earlier.

He came to the district.

I attended, it was with small businesses in Wedgwood and also in Sandpoint Way, and it was to get feedback from the small businesses and just talk in general about the public safety pieces and give information about the hiring and retention of police officers, seeing what ways the North Precinct can continue to support those businesses.

We introduced the New North uh, precinct captain, George Davison.

Um, as we all know, our, uh, beloved Lori Agard is now, um, uh, uh, gotten a promotion at SPD.

And so now we have a new captain, George, uh, Davison, whom I've met with, um, and will be continuing to meet with.

Um, he was there as well, as was our new deputy chief, um, Yvonne Underwood.

Um, and that, um, uh, That's also, I actually met with the deputy chief this morning, and I'm just grateful for her being there and grateful that Chief Rahr selected both Deputy Chief Underwood now and Lori Agard for promotions in the department.

Very well deserved that.

Yeah, and I think, too, you've been doing a lot of work around Magnuson and addressing the public safety challenges there as well.

And I know as North End representatives, we've had a lot of discussions about what the public safety needs are in the north and viewing it as a part of the city that could benefit from attention.

And so to the extent that you can talk about all the work that you've been doing up there, I think would be helpful.

Yeah, thank you for the prompt.

I didn't want to go on and on.

I know I've taken up some time, but yes, have been meeting with the mayor's office and the North Precinct and some of the community-based groups and even with Mercy Housing at the park to determine, I mean, look, one thing that I've realized is that people don't always understand our role in these things.

Our role is to pass laws and to ensure that the money is there to be able to address these concerns.

And then it's the executive's responsibility to implement the laws that we pass and to make sure we've given the money to do so.

So one thing that came out of those meetings actually with small businesses is, you know, there seem to, people seem to think that we didn't have money to hire officers or that that was the issue.

So I could assure people, no, actually, we have money to hire officers.

It takes time to hire officers.

And also the laws that we put in place in terms of retention and recruitment, including money for advertising, has resulted in 4,000 applications, more applications than we've seen since 2013. So really a lot of education to the community, both the small businesses and residents in general.

but have had very many conversations with residents and mainly with the mayor's office on what are next steps for the public safety issues in the D4 and the D5.

And so more to come on that, but thank you council member Moore because for people watching, we're not, we are doing a lot and I know you are doing a lot too in terms of Aurora and we are constantly meeting with SPD, who've been very responsive, but also the mayor's office, who really, you know, we've given tools, and we want to make sure that those tools are utilized.

And if something else is needed, because the mayor has heard me say, as his staff has heard me say, if there is something else needed, let's talk about what that is in terms of a law, because we want to make sure that we have everything in place to be able to tackle these public safety needs.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, if I read between the lines of what Council Member Moore was saying, she was basically indicating that you don't often mention, you don't take credit for the extremely difficult and sustained work that you do in your district, District 4, as well as you do, Council Member Moore in District 5, which is one precinct and that's part of the problem.

But the real problem is I believe that people need to know about the division of powers.

There's the legislative branch and the executive branch and we're doing as much, we're passing the laws and trying to provide for additional tools so that we can address the public safety issues or so that the executive can address the public safety issues with adequate options or with several options.

And I think one thing of note also for constituents is that sometimes we step over even what our responsibility is because we care so deeply and want to make changes as quickly as we can and so We do have so many meetings with the executive NSPD and folks on the ground to make sure that we're making some headway in even ways that aren't necessarily our responsibility, but we do so because we care and we want to make sure that we're being responsive to constituents.

And I do think in that way, We are all aligned in that we want to make the changes and we're, we're going to continue to keep at it.

And I've said, and people who read my newsletter, my number one priority, um, uh, continues to be public safety.

And that is what I've been working on all last year.

And I continue to work on all this year and I appreciate council member Moore, your partnership, um, because many times we're meeting with the mayor and SPD and others together.

because the North End is in need of attention right now.

And like I said earlier, I know that Lori Agard, the former captain of the North Precinct, was a great partner in this, but I know it takes more than that.

And so this is why I say, you know, we do need the partnership, obviously, of the executive and the departments.

And we need to know how the laws that we're passing are being implemented and whether there's anything else needed because there isn't, I know many of us here are happy to continue.

We will keep at it until we make some headway, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

And the wins are very small.

I see the 4,000 applications at SPD as a win, but I know it doesn't take care of what residents are feeling on the ground.

All of us are feeling it too.

And just a few weeks ago there were, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but there were gunshots at the end of my street.

So I know that this is really being felt by everyone across the city, not just in the D4 and 5. It's just that lately with the park, Magnuson Park, we are feeling it even more so.

So we want to make sure.

And actually, I should say that I just talked this morning when I talked to Deputy Chief Underwood about What is underway?

Because before Captain Laurier Gard or former Captain Laurier Gard left, we talked about what are we going to do at the park coming into the summer?

I know that SPD in the past has done other activations like at Golden Gardens leading up to a summer when we know there's more activity to make sure that the park is safe for people to use.

And I will say that I have heard from constituents in the last week where they've seen more police presence and the mobile precinct at the park.

So things are happening.

I know they're not happening as quickly as anyone else would like, including me, because I want everything done yesterday.

If you know me, you know that.

But thank you, Council Member Moore and Council President for your kind words and your remarks.

And I am committed to keeping at it with you all and with the executive to make positive change happen in this regard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Saka.

All right, thank you.

On the Transportation Committee front, first off, colleagues, as Council Member Rivera alluded to earlier in her comments, please do accept and take those meetings and briefings from SDOT on any number of topics, particularly of importance and relevance right now is the department's proposed spending plan on the levy.

I wanna applaud the department for making great efforts to reset relations with this floor and going into great detail with each individual, one of us, or giving us the opportunity to go into great detail about their proposed spending plans and trying to be a little more collaborative, which I really appreciate.

So colleagues, please, please do your part.

and accept those meetings and briefings with SDOT.

And on the transportation committee, in terms of the actual committee business, colleagues, tomorrow's regularly scheduled transportation committee is canceled.

However, we will reconvene at the next regularly scheduled transportation committee meeting on Tuesday, February 18th.

Very, very, very, very important substantive topics that are going to be discussed, two of them.

briefing and discussions.

First and foremost, we're gonna have a transit security regional roundtable of internal and external stakeholders.

We're gonna talk about a lot has happened in the last six to eight weeks in the space of transit security, in large part as a result of the tragic murder of King County Metro bus driver Sean Yim.

There's been a rapidly evolving set of developments.

We're gonna talk about some of those and talk about some next steps potentially from the city's perspective as well.

Great group of stakeholders internally and externally from King County Metro, the city, Invited Sound Transit, as well as members from ATU Local 587 and the DSA as well.

Proud that King County Metro CEO Allison has graciously agreed to join our soon to be new SDOT or interim SDOT director Emory, Chief Public Safety Officer Walton amongst others.

So it'll be a great panel for us to align and talk about some of the shared opportunity that we have.

And again, align on the work that's been done over the last six to eight weeks in particular.

Next, we're also gonna be discussing another really substantive important topic, SDOT's proposed spending plan, which was the department released per our request during budget on Friday, January 31st.

So we're gonna have a briefing and discussion and invite our SDOT partners to talk about that.

Really important topics teed up for that February 18th meeting, and all are welcome to join for any or all portions of that meeting, even if you don't happen to sit on the committee.

To my colleagues that do, that might be a meeting where it doesn't, it goes a little longer than our standard hour, hour and a half, just as a heads up.

for your planning purposes.

All right, moving on to state legislative priorities.

We learned earlier and I shared earlier, actually I just, as I mentioned my prior work and involvement for the Senate bill that would provide a clarification tweak to the youth right to counsel statute.

I realized that we haven't, since I went down to Olympia personally and testified in favor of that or in favor of some change, we haven't had a council briefing where I would have been able to otherwise share that.

So that was the first time.

So I did that.

And later today, actually, I'll be providing virtual testimony later this afternoon for the State Senate Transportation Committee, who will be hearing Senate Bill 5417, which, as we learned earlier today, authorizes the use of automated vehicle noise enforcement cameras in problem vehicle racing areas and zones.

We know that this is a challenge that afflicts all of our districts, for those of us who represent council districts, and there's hotspots in all of our districts.

In mine, for example, Elki and Harbor Avenue, known hotspots.

Councilmember Rivera, I know Magnuson Park is a hotspot of yours.

Councilmember Kettle commented that Belltown and the downtown corridor is another challenge and opportunity we have with problem noise and vehicles.

In Councilmember Strauss' district, Golden Gardens, the city is replete with these known hotspots and we just don't have officers to enforce our existing laws.

And so I will be proudly advocating and testifying in favor of this bill very shortly.

And moving on in the community.

So I had some great office hours.

My constituents last week will be doing that again this week.

Also on Saturday, I was honored to join the ribbon-cutting grand opening event for the Washington State Black Legacy Institute, which is a new organization that I recently purchased a historic landmark building in my district and Admiral district in particular in West Seattle and was really honored to present them with the joint proclamation individually on my behalf as an individual council member and on behalf of the mayor as well to honor their great work.

And shout out again to their executive director, Katisha Atterbury, and Roger Evans, who's their curator and developer.

Great, great occasion.

And we did it on Saturday, February 1st, which is, which was the first day of Black History Month.

And so it had special meaning there as well.

And I said there, I'll say here as well, that amid all the, that's going on nationally, efforts to politicize things that shouldn't be political, particularly with respects to our terrific diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

When people are trying to deprioritize DEI, devalue it, defund it, and de-emphasize it, we in the city of Seattle, certainly from my perspective, are gonna continue to uplift and amplify our DEI efforts because at its core, all it is is a .

It's about celebrating tremendously rich culture.

that we have and also two, acknowledging a fairly complex history that we have.

And all those things are worthwhile endeavors and we're gonna continue to amplify and uplift that work in any way we can and it starts with our wonderful organizations like the Washington State Black Legacy Institute and other partner organizations in the community who are at the tip of the spear and doing this work every single day.

And so, Great event, and now that we're talking about Black History Month as well, I wanna send a special shout out and kudos to our city clerk, city clerk Dedman, and our archivist team.

Jeanne Fisher, who's the interim archivist, they looked up and confirmed that we currently have three black African-American council members, and they are aware of no other time in our city's history when that has been the case, the most that they're aware of is two sitting at any one given time.

And couple that with the fact that we have a black African-American mayor.

I mean, I think this month in particular, our city has a lot to be proud of and celebrate.

And so it's a responsibility of all of us to make sure that we do the work, not just up here enjoying the spoils of our labor on the campaign trail or to get here to get this vacancy, but to do the work that we can make sure that more people are able to achieve their true potential in life and serve at this dais or otherwise.

So in any event, that is all I have, colleagues, a lot of exciting stuff going on.

I welcome any questions or comments from any of you all, and if not, I will pass it on to Council Member Solomon.

Thank you very much.

So in terms of committee works and what's going on in the calendar, as I have been drinking from the fire hydrant, I do have staff that were onboarded today.

So that's a good thing.

So including my onboarding, staff has been onboarded today.

I'll have a fourth person be joining me on Thursday, so I will definitely have a full team.

Again, my intent is to hit the ground running.

We have a limited amount of time, and there's a lot I want to get done, so having a full team is going to allow me to do that.

So with that, due to...

You know, coming on board, the regular scheduled meeting for the land use committee that would have been on the 5th will not happen because, again, I need to have staff to be able to do these things.

So hopefully you're OK with that.

There are some things I do have coming up.

First of all, I've got meetings.

Thursday morning with the head of the Seattle Indian Services Commission to talk about the, they're the ones who own the Navigation Center property at 12th and Weller.

So we're going to be meeting to talk about the future of that property and what's going to happen when operations at the Navigation Center move to the Star Center, I believe it is?

Sorry, okay, yes.

Following that, I'll be meeting with representatives from the CIDBIA and Friends of Little Saigon in the International District again to, you know, as I made clear in seeking this appointment, I was going to prioritize Little Saigon as an issue, and I'm following up with that now.

And I'll also be reaching out to the West Precinct command staff about what they have going on, as well as the in-house teams at SPD, the community liaison, as well as the crime prevention coordinator regarding their efforts and seeing where are their supports that our office can lend to them.

In terms of other upcoming things, I'm trying to flesh out my schedule with what the committee meetings are.

Standing Council meetings as well as the continued onboarding so that I can figure out where we can fit in office hours in district and identifying where in district we're going to be and when.

Again, looking at rotating around to different places throughout so it's easy for people to be able to access me.

One of the things I definitely want to do is get some community meetings scheduled with the Office of Planning and Community Development regarding the anti-displacement strategies that they already have in place to make sure that people in community know about those kind of things and take advantage of them.

There will be a meeting on February 11th of the South Precinct Advisory Council.

I intend to be at that.

That's going to be held at New Holly Gathering Hall at 630. On February the 18th, I will be at the Lakewood-Seward Park Community Club for a community meeting with that, folks.

And I think this coming next Thursday, you and I, Council Member Rink, are going to jump in a car and drive the district and just see what we can see.

Let's see.

So I have on the calendar the housing committee on the 12th, so I'll be there.

Oh, just this past week, on Friday, there was a reception for Chief Barnes at Mount Zion Baptist Church.

Council Member Hollingsworth and I were there to, again, pay our respects and welcome the chief to Seattle.

So I look forward to working with him.

Fun fact, he and I are fraternity brothers.

Okay.

There were jokes about that at the event, just saying.

And I guess in closing, what I'll say is, not too long ago, Council Member Saka, Council Member Hollingsworth and I had the opportunity to stand with the mayor to raise the black liberation flag in honor of Black History Month.

And this is especially, meaningful for me because it's hard not to take it personally when you've got somebody in the other Washington who's trying to erase your history, where the Air Force is saying, oh, we're not going to teach about the Tuskegee Airmen.

We're not going to teach about the WASPs.

who's surrounded himself with people who decry wokeness but don't even know what it means.

To those who say that we shouldn't teach about 1619. Well, 1619 is our history.

We can't do critical race theory because that'll make people feel bad about themselves.

But even also most offensive is blaming DEI for mid-air collision.

I mean, I find that offensive on so many levels.

So I acknowledge that we are a diverse community.

I acknowledge that we are inclusive.

We need to strive to continue to be inclusive.

We need to strive to continue to be equitable.

I will not have my history erased.

I am here.

And I want us to be together.

And regardless of what happens in the other Washington, let's show the rest of the country what vibrancy you have in the community when you come together as opposed to trying to rip everybody apart.

So I'll end on that.

Hear, hear.

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I was going to clap, but I then, good example, et cetera.

Thank you very much for so eloquently breaking it down for us, of course.

Questions, comments?

If not, I'll just go ahead.

Hear, hear.

All right, before I forget, I was at that Wedgwood Public Safety meeting also with, just find a, not my description, anyway.

It's okay, it was, you know, it was, we were learning a lot.

So the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee is going to meet next time on Thursday, February 13th, as I've said before.

We'll be having a roundtable discussion with a panel of respected and experienced architects of commercial, residential, and mixed-use projects of all sizes to discuss persistent issues with our permitting process.

And this was most recently catalyzed by Jim Graham, founder of the world-famous Graham Bhabha architecture firm.

I say most recently because it's been on my mind even before taking office because as a residential and commercial end user, I have experienced some of the issues.

And I do want to say first off, When we say permitting, that covers, that's a big topic.

There's permit review and everything, and then the individual departmental permits, and then it's county, et cetera.

So it is a big issue, and this is by no means, I am not laying fault at our staff at SDCI.

There are some process problems that can, that can be improved, and so I just want to depersonalize anything that I'm saying.

I'm not talking about the individual staff.

I'm talking about some more structural issues, you know, that can easily be approved.

So there will be some suggestions at this committee, and the reason I am mentioning it, this was going to be a couple meetings ago, and now it's back on the agenda.

I know that there's some interest out in communities, so that's why I'm mentioning it here, and I do want to say that I said that I was thinking about it for a long time, but also because it is, After crime, the most frequent complaint I hear from small business owners when it comes to how to start and grow a business and ensure that it thrives.

So crime permitting, and that is before, surprisingly, or maybe not, lack of access to capital and sometimes the difficulty finding affordable commercial space, which is difficult, I will note.

The point is it's a big issue and it's an economic development issue and so that is why we're talking about it in my committee and that is why also Don Blakeney will be one of the participants.

He is the director of the University District Partnership and he is going to be, you know, he will contribute the perspective and experiences of small businesses themselves.

All right, so that'll be a fun thing, an interesting conversation.

more attendees will be, more presenters will be announced.

All right, I'm gonna make this quick.

I joined Council Member Saka last Thursday for the Center of Homeland Defense and Security Active Shooter Tabletop Exercise.

It's always good to be prepared.

Thank you very much for the, I believe it was the mayor's office that organized this training that was attended by people that need to know what to do when that disaster, if that disaster strikes.

And then there's some good general knowledge that can be applied in terms of communications when any crisis or emergency happens.

So thank you very much for that.

And that was in partnership with FEMA.

All right, last Saturday at the invitation, two days ago, but last week, at the invitation of Council Member Moore, I joined other public officials, including King County Prosecutor Mannion, City Attorney Davison, King County Council Member Dembowski, and several, and Council Member Rink, thank you, yep, sorry about that.

and several members of law enforcement agencies at a dinner, of course, that was already mentioned at the Washington Islamic Center at Idris Mosque in Northgate.

And it was really, you know, they used to have, and I thanked Council Member Moore because she was named the host of the event and she was in charge of encouraging local electeds to attend because these dinners had been going on regularly before the pandemic.

And it was a way to just have more familiar and more familiarity between the people in agencies and at various levels of government and the people of this community And it was really interesting to hear the history and just really, I don't know, to take part in a scheduled dinner with amazing food from, where was the food from?

El Turco?

No.

I just, okay.

The point is they will be having these community meals going forward.

I don't know how often.

And it was just, I encouraged folks to go because it was pretty fun.

All right.

And then, so going on.

Monday was the 2025 Invest in India Business Forum at Bell Harbor Conference Center.

I believe it was the first one because we now have a, it was in partnership with the Greater Seattle Partners Consulate General of India in Seattle in the Northwest Seaport Alliance.

And this forum showcased India's commitment to developing key sectors such as tourism to Seattle, And it also provided a platform to showcase items of possible export from India to the greater Seattle area.

Many thanks to Consul General Prakash Gupta for the invitation.

And really what I want to say is that we are so lucky to have the Consulate General in Seattle because they are really bringing people together and opening my eyes, frankly, to the economic development opportunities that we could take advantage of and we could invite here.

Wednesday morning I'll be attending the 2025 Friends of Scouting Breakfast and then finally my staff and I will be joining the CEO of Northwest Seaporn Alliance for a tour and meeting to discuss freight mobility in the industrial lands area and supply chain logistics.

I'm leaving off some stuff just because I want to, for the sake of brevity, any questions or comments?

Councilmember, there's something I want to add, if that's okay, which is something I forgot to mention.

First of all, I really very much appreciate the comments of my colleagues, Councilmember Hollingsworth, Saka, and now Mark Solomon.

I just feel very grateful to serve with all of you on this council.

And also Councilmember Saka, thank you for your comments around DEI initiatives, which I too am very supportive of.

There's so much to be said about that, but just suffice it to say, definitely supportive and thank you for raising those.

And then along those lines, I should have said, University of Washington, as you know, is in the district that I represent.

They're a constituent.

And I just found out this afternoon that they've...

announced their new president.

It is Robert J. Jones.

He was formerly the chancellor of the University of Illinois.

And he will serve as UW's 34th president and the first African American to serve in that role.

He is the son of sharecroppers from Georgia.

He's a distinguished agronomist with a deep scholarly record.

He served, as I said, he was the 10th chancellor of the University of Illinois.

And he also served as, I lost my notes here, but I know he was also the head of University of Albany as well.

very accomplished, and just wanted to let you colleagues know that he is now the new head of the University of Washington.

So that's really exciting for the university.

He follows Ana Mari Cauce, who is a Latina woman.

So, you know, that is really, it's just a...

It really embodies what you were talking about, Council Member Saka, about the DEI initiatives and the importance of that and so many of the contributions.

And just so grateful for both former President Cauza's leadership and now very excited to meet new President Jones.

So wanted to add that.

Thank you.

Looks like you have something to add as well.

May I just say one brief thing, which is thank you to all my colleagues for your comments as well.

And also I just want to say briefly that I'm honoured to serve on such a diverse council and that this council represents a meritocracy.

And it will always represent a meritocracy as long as it looks this way.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate my colleagues mentioning that, starting with Council Member Hollingsworth, I believe, and it is up to white people to also not wait for other people to note the fact that, you know, black history, US history is, you can't separate the two.

And also that, I don't know, we have to do our part also to speak up.

So thank you.

I'll say one more thing about my, did you have something to add?

No, just thank you, Council Member Moore.

You know, DEI initiative is not about a lack of meritocracy.

So that is important to note as well.

Yes.

I would be, and I skipped over a line when I was thanking Council Member Moore for inviting us to this dinner because many thanks to Dr. Hisham Farajala for the invitation and for hosting.

He is the person who is the external relations person or basically the director the leader of the mosque outside of the imam.

So thank you very much for that.

And no, Tony Al, I did not forget that I will be joining you at the Seattle Hopsing Lunar New Year event tonight.

Any other comments?

All right, if there is no further business, hearing no further business, we are adjourned, and it is 3.59.

Thanks, everyone.