Seattle City Council Briefing 6/3/19

My weekend was a blur.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled meeting on June 3rd.

My goodness, June is here already.

So thank you for being here.

I'm going to dispense of the President's Report, just say something very briefly before we go around the table.

Very pleased to have the Small Business Advisory Council here, who will be here for a briefing after we go through and do our preview of today's full council action.

So thank you, all of you, for being here.

And I look forward to that.

And then we do have an executive session right after this that we'll chat about moving to executive session.

And that's all I'm going to say for right now.

So we're just going to go around the room and do hopefully a quick preview of full council actions.

Council members, so on.

Thank you, President Harrell.

Good morning, everyone.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Human Services, Equitable Development and Renter's Rights Committee, and our next meeting will be at the regular time, which is next Tuesday, June 11th at 2 p.m.

in City Council Chambers, and we will be making some appointments to the Renters Commission with the agreement of committee members.

I also wanted to say yesterday was the five-year anniversary of the $15 minimum wage in Seattle.

Seattle became the first major city to win $15 an hour, a victory that went nationwide with many cities and seven entire states following with the passage of 15, and also it's become part of the presidential election conversations, and also led the way to the state, Washington State minimum wage increases.

And of course, we should acknowledge that before Seattle's victory came C-Tax initiative, which was fought for by the labor movement, by many community organizations.

So congratulations to everyone who fought for it.

Thank you, Council Member.

Council Member Wares, let me say one thing before you forgot.

I neglected to do one thing.

Please.

I said please.

Part of the protocol now that's been established is I'm to acknowledge the council members that are here So I must say that we are joined by council members Swann, Juarez, Pacheco, Bagshaw, Mosqueda, Herbold, and Gonzalez.

Oh, you got it right.

I got it right.

And I could have just said everyone except Council Member O'Brien, but that would have been cheating.

And as our rules now suggest, the approval of the minutes, I've been asked to hold off on the approval of the minutes because there is just a clerical error, and we will approve two minutes probably at our next meeting.

So having said that, Council Member Juarez, thank you.

Can I go now?

Yes, you may.

Are you sure?

Yes.

All right.

Because I was on time.

In fact, I was early out there.

Okay, so the next Civic Development, Public Asset, and Native Communities Committee is June 5th.

I'm dedicating this agenda to one item, a briefing and discussion on Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Abigail Elkohok and her team from the Urban Indian Health Institute.

Abigail Elkohok, who is Pawnee, is Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute and authored this report along with Anita Lochisa, who is Southern Cheyenne.

This report sheds light on the following facts.

Some of these facts I shared with you last week, but I'll share quickly, very briefly again.

The decades of an epidemic of violence perpetrated against Native women, how Seattle has the highest number of missing murdered indigenous women among over 70 cities identified in this report, and where the gaping holes in our government when it comes to data collection and law enforcement and reporting.

I am honored to chair this meeting because they will be able to identify where the city lacks in accountability and how we can step up as we move forward to solve this major health crisis.

Abigail's advocacy has gone as far as Washington, D.C., as well as King County Council and the Washington State Legislature.

We had improvements down, excuse me, in Olympia this last legislative session.

I want to thank my colleagues for supporting us on our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women law that came out of Washington State and, of course, the national passage of Savannah's Act.

Representatives Deborah Lakoff and Mosberger sponsored legislation in response to this report, which was House Bill 1713. A bill that, number one, establishes two liaison positions within the Washington State Patrol to build relationships between government and Native communities, which is your longstanding relationship of government to government, requires the Washington State Patrol to develop a best practices protocol for law enforcement response to missing persons reports for indigenous women, and requires the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs to provide the Washington State Patrol with government to government training.

The bill was signed by the governor on April 24th.

While this law isn't perfect, it's a great step and foundation to build from.

I'd like to add and thank Chief Carmen Best, who I've been working with behind the scenes, as well as our mayor, Jenny Durkan, who are working with us to make sure that we can replicate not only what the federal government has done, but what the state has done as we move forward in what we call this data collection, and also what we have coined as the decolonization of data.

I invite my colleagues and others who are interested for this presentation.

Again, it will be June 5th at 2 o'clock in council chambers.

Today, this morning, we issued a media advisory talking about the report, the legislation that we're building on that Council Member Bagshaw and I introduced last year directing the city to review and improve its methodology for collecting data regarding American Indians and Alaska Natives.

So what we have here is a kind of a perennial issue where some of the city departments collected information, but a lot of the departments did not collect information on Native Americans.

And so what we're working with, with the Seattle Police Department, Chief Best, and the mayor's office is strategizing and doing the same thing that the state and the federal government is doing.

So we have more intense, and I know this word gets used a lot, robust data collection, but that's what we need to do to target.

And I think we want to address the issue that Seattle has the highest number of missing and murdered indigenous women across this country.

So I hope you all will join us.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Chico.

Good morning.

Good morning.

There will be no plus related items on the full council agenda today and our next plus committee meeting will be on Wednesday, June 5th.

We will have 11 agenda items, six appointments to the Seattle Design Commission.

A briefing, public hearings, and possible votes on Council Bills 119505 and 119506, the Ballard and the Capitol Hill Design Guidelines.

A public hearing and possible vote on Council Bill 119489, a co-change to the Seattle Pacific University to apply for an expanded major institution master plan.

We also have a land-use decision to allow for the temporary expansion of the north Precinct to add portables in parking and a possible discussion and possible vote on a council bill one one nine four seven one which clarifies the definition of a vessel I'm also excited to announce that I would be opening an office in district 4 at the University Heights Center in the U district We will be opening the district office on Friday and I will be there for the remainder for most Fridays for the remainder of the year and constituents should be able to reach out to my office if they would like to meet with me in-district.

We'll be hosting an open house in that district sometime soon, so stay tuned for the details.

Thank you very much.

Exciting, good stuff.

Thank you and good morning, everybody.

Nice to see your business folks here, too.

I'm looking forward to your presentation.

Council Member Pacheco, congratulations on your office.

Do let us know when your open house will be so we can be there for you.

And I'm really proud.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, the work that you're doing.

Of course, I will be at the committee to hear about the missing women.

And you've done tremendous work and you and Abigail Echo Hawk and Colleen and others.

I'm just really grateful that you're out in front on that.

So thank you.

So we do have five items from the Finance and Neighborhood Committee today.

Fairly easy ones for us.

They're three landmark designations.

Seattle Tower, Mount Baker Community Club, University of Washington's Parrington Hall.

And we also have reappointments of Thais Marbles to the Community Involvement Commission, and also the reappointment of Christopher Maycutt, also of the Community Involvement Commission.

So that's this afternoon.

The next Finance and Neighborhoods Committee will be a week from this Wednesday on June 12. And most of the day, we're going to be focusing on Bobby Humes, who will be our next hopeful director HSD, Human Services Department.

Also, I want to acknowledge and say thank you to, did I get it wrong again?

It's Human Resources Department.

Yes, that's the one.

I've missed it twice now.

That's okay.

So, Human Resources Department, HRD.

So I do want to acknowledge and say thanks to our Queen Anne Community Council and Uptown Alliance, South Lake Union Community Council, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, Susan McLaughlin from SDOT, and everyone who came out and joined us last week looking at Thomas Street.

This is really a big deal to connect South Lake Union make sure that our skate park is premium as we had budgeted for it last budget cycle, to make the safety measures available all the way from South Lake Union at Terry Street up to and across the John Coney Bridge and through the Seattle Center.

And it is something that is coming together, but thanks to the community for all the work that they are doing and for organizing this ride last week.

And also I want to give special thanks to those who have been involved in our City Hall Park work.

Many of you know that last year we budgeted money for the Yesler Crescent, that City Hall Park, and Prefontaine, and Fortson Square, and then down 2nd Avenue.

But I really want to recognize our King County Superior Court judges who have been very involved in this.

Carolyn Whelan from King County Facilities, and then also once again SDOT and Parks, our Public Health Department.

We really are coming together and making big strides just to make it a healthier, safer park.

And a couple of weeks ago, our Pioneer Square preservation board authorizes our parks department to take out the benches, the cement benches that aren't all that comfortable, but add a lot more tables and chairs, making it a welcoming park for everybody.

So you will see continuous changes there with our Art facilities as well, Randy Angstrom thinks from arts and culture, working with Colleen Echo-Hawk on Fortson Square.

Tremendous, I mean, you know, I feel like sometimes we move at glacial speed, but this one over the last year is really moving and I'm very pleased with all the people and people who have been involved and just the economic development opportunities in this neighborhood because of the work they're doing.

That's it.

Thank you very much, Council Member Bakeshaw.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning.

There are no items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's full council agenda.

On Thursday this week, June 6th at 9.30 a.m., we will have an extended committee meeting that will go until noon.

There's a number of items on the full count are on the housing health energy and workers rights committee agenda Including the seattle city light review panel appointment three appointments and one appointment to the joint apprenticeship and training committee the notice of intent to sell briefing and discussion on that legislation a possible vote on the Fort Lawton rezone and redevelopment plan and as a way of reminder this will be the fifth time that this committee has brought this issue up and this comes after 15 years of engagement and hopefully we'll be able to move the ball forward with this council's full approval coming soon.

There will also be a briefing discussion and possible vote on extending the rent-bidding prohibition by one year, a piece of legislation that we passed through my committee last year to help get rid of the eBay-like rent-bidding platforms that were escalating the cost of rental units.

I want to also remind folks that there is a Lunch and learn a little bit after lunch so you can either bring your lunch with you or eat beforehand It will be at 1 30 p.m.

If we are actually hosting this as a special committee So feel free to join us one and all in council chambers here to hear directly from human service providers in the city this is a continuation of our effort from last year as many of you have been involved in and We know that the human service providers are the ones who have direct and meaningful relationships with the residents and who are either homeless on the verge of becoming homeless or within our community-based organizations who provide a vital and wide-ranging set of services.

to the residents in the city, ranging from shelter and legal assistance for survivors of domestic violence to employment and food supports to services for those in Seattle who are experiencing homelessness.

And last year, with this council's support, we were able to put into the budget a across-the-board increase of 2% for all contracts, not just those that are general fund.

This was the first time this incremental inflationary adjustment had occurred in 10 years for all contracts.

This year we're very, very interested in continuing to work with all of you, especially in the budget, to make sure that we continue that momentum and that we apply an inflationary adjustment to all of our contracts.

Given that we know that human service providers are working 100 hours a week, some are eligible for the same food services, housing services, and client services that many of their homeless clients are eligible for, some are living in their cars, some are holding second jobs, and in order for us to stabilize and create greater security for those who are in very vulnerable situations and precarious situations, either homeless themselves, we've got to make sure that we reduce turnover and vacancy rates, which end up in the 30 to 40% range.

in our human service provider organization.

So in an effort to try to create greater stability, not just for that workforce and the organizations, but for the people they serve, we will have a special committee on the Thursday at 1.30, which will hopefully continue to tee off our conversations coming for later this year in budget.

Coming up this week on Thursday, I'll be attending the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center 2019 Legislative Victory Celebration from 430 to 6 at the Davis Wright Tremain Building.

On Friday, I'll be doing a walking tour with some of the members of the Greenwood Finney Greenways and also touring a recent DADU construction and really excited to see what it looks like to have that living space that is in more dense quarters.

be part of our construction, hopefully, knock on wood, coming up soon throughout the city.

I'll also be speaking at the Northwest Health Law Advocates 20-year celebration, which starts at 530 p.m.

at Impact Hub.

You can get tickets online, I think, still.

I don't think they've sold out yet.

Huge congratulations to Janet Varon, the Executive Director of Northwest Health Law Advocates, who I've worked with for, oh my goodness, maybe 15 years now.

Everything from Apple Health for Kids to ACA implementation to the exchange and more.

They've done a tremendous job and she is my go-to health policy guru.

So very excited to celebrate her and all of Northwest Health Law Advocates accomplishments over the last 20 years.

And lastly, very happy birthday to my little sister.

She's turning 35 today and she was diagnosed with MS at 19. So this year is her 16th year anniversary, not just surviving, but thriving.

And she's had a rough, rough beginning part of the year.

So, I know she's not interested in celebrating right now, but we're interested in celebrating her.

So, happy birthday, Tanya Houston, my little sisters, Tanya Sandina, happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday.

And Council Member Skater, just to be clear, your Lunch and Learn is on June 6th at 1.30 this Thursday, correct?

Yes, Thursday at 1.30.

Very good.

Excellent.

Thank you.

All right.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Before I get started, I want to thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for having the foresight to work on the issue of the cost of living adjustments for our human services providers in advance of budget.

It's always a struggle trying to address that issue within the context of budget, but by you leading the council to set the policy in advance of the budget, I think that is Shows great wisdom and foresight.

So I have no items on the full council agenda this week because of last week's holiday.

My committee meeting moved to Friday and council rules are that things that come out of committee on Friday, including our new director's appointment, move to the following Monday.

As far as items on my committee meeting coming up, the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee has a special meeting and public hearing tomorrow evening at 530 on Council Bill 119504. This is a public hearing to extend the effective date of Ordinance 125650 by six months.

This is the ordinance that Council adopted to temporarily extend the boundaries of the Pike Place Market Historic District to include the show box.

And this legislation will allow the Department of Neighborhoods some additional time to continue the work that was described in the ordinance that we passed last year.

The central staff memo, which if you haven't had a chance to review it, I can certainly share it, notes that the Department of Neighborhoods expects their consultant will complete much of the work needed to develop some preliminary recommendations to the council by the end of June.

And if the recommendation of the Department of Neighborhoods is for permanent expansion, CEPA review would follow that recommendation.

This morning, council members received a joint letter of support for this temporary expansion from a coalition including Friends of the Market, Pike Place Market Foundation, Historic Seattle, Friends of the Showbox, Rise Up Belltown, Fisher Studio Building, HOA, Homeowners Association, and Friends of Historic Belltown.

Some of these groups did not take a position on the earlier legislation.

they are at this time supporting the temporary extension.

Some of you may have also read about the efforts of the city in negotiations with the owners' representatives over the last few months.

The owners' representatives approached myself to propose a standstill agreement as it related to the ongoing lawsuit.

And I think it's accurate to say that the negotiations about that standstill agreement are at a standstill.

pieces of, I think, relevant information in this discussion.

Also, folks might be interested to know that there is also this week a separate hearing on a separate effort to actually landmark the property, and that is actually going to be, my public hearing is on Tuesday, the landmark public hearing is on Wednesday.

lots of business related to the show box going this week.

And then lastly, I have regional water quality committee meeting this week, exciting.

And I'll save my remarks to introduce the small business advisory council when appropriate then.

Excellent, thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, good morning.

There are two items on this afternoon's full council agenda.

One is related to the gender equity safe communities New Americans and Education Committee, and the other is with regard to the Select Committee on Mandatory Housing Affordability.

So the first item on this afternoon's agenda is Bees Law.

So this will be an amendment to the City of Seattle's Paid Family Care Leave Program to amend certain sections to provide coverage to city employees who Go through the process of having a child and then have a child pass away shortly after the time of their birth This is not a hypothetical situation.

This is a real-life example of something that happened to one of our own city employees We are doing this as a follow-up to the hard work and the courage of Aaron and Rachel alder who came forward to protect their union and to city leaders to advise us of the fact that there was a gap in our paid family care policies that did not allow them to take paid family leave as a result of the death of their daughter, which occurred 36 hours after her birth.

Obviously this was not something that we took into account when we initially legislated this policy in 2016 and we are now taking this opportunity to correct that gap and to ensure that future employees at the City of Seattle don't have to make the hard choice about coming back to work or or sorting out affairs and grieving as a result of an immediate loss of newborn child.

So really want to thank Councilmember Mosqueda who's been working with us on this issue and with the elders on the issue.

special shout-out also goes to Sejal Parikh in Councilmember Mosqueda's office who's been engaging with the family over a year now doing intensive case management work.

So really looking forward to having the Alders with us this afternoon.

I understand that they will be with us and that they also plan to bring their supporters with us with them to chambers and really excited about being able to take this final action and It's a really good ending to an otherwise tragic set of circumstances, so really appreciate their commitment to allowing us the opportunity to correct this particular gap.

The second issue is from the Select Committee on the citywide mandatory housing affordability program.

Most of you, I think, were in attendance, if not all were in attendance last week during a Select Committee meeting that we had on MHA.

We heard a briefing from Allie Panucci of council central staff providing us an update on various technical amendments that are required to the citywide mandatory housing affordability ordinance to make sure that the maps that are attached to the ordinance align with council's intent in terms of the amount that developers will be required to pay in exchange for additional development capacity.

There's also some technical amendments to the language of the code to, again, accurately reflect the previous policy decisions that the council made when we initially passed this ordinance.

So this ordinance is highly technical in nature in terms of the amendments that were advanced out of the committee and that will be considered at full council this afternoon and excited to put that one to bed, finally.

Next, wanted to just really quickly cover some events that I will be doing later on this week in community.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 4th, I'll be spending most of the day in District 7. I will be doing a tour of the Seattle Repertory Theater.

be touring their really amazing theater and chatting with them about their public works program, which is one of their major community engagement initiatives.

Really excited about learning more about that.

I will then head over to the Sacred Heart Shelter.

Sacred Heart is a temporary shelter operated by the Catholic Community Services.

Staff there works with residents to develop goals, obtain health and dental care, job and parent training, and assistance towards finding stable and permanent housing.

Excited to tour that facility.

I'll then be meeting with the good folks over at Uptown Alliance and Uptown Arts and Culture Coalition at KEXP to chat about new arena construction, transportation, and the Uptown's Art District, and whatever else it is they'd like to talk to me about.

I'll then be doing a tour of the Millionaire Club Charity.

For those of you that don't know, that's a Seattle nonprofit temporary staffing agency that connects people experiencing homelessness and poverty with dignified jobs and supportive services.

I'm really excited about being able to tour their space and learning a little bit more about the work they do, which, of course, includes helping people overcome barriers to employment by providing job training, meals, vision services, career coaching, and more.

All of that on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, June 5th at 6.30 p.m., I'm really excited to head up to District 5 to meet up with a group of Latinx parents from the Northgate Elementary School to chat about education and civic engagement entirely in language.

So we will be convening with monolingual Spanish-speaking Latinx parents to Talk to them about what the city is doing in this space of education to support the education and the thriving of their children in the public school system So I'm very excited about meeting with that group of parents in Northgate District 5 just thought I'd say it again.

She's not she's not listening Thursday, June 6, excited to be heading over to the Fisher Pavilion to join the Children's Alliance for their annual luncheon.

And then later on that afternoon, I will also be at the King County Sexual Assault and Resource Center event that will highlight the 2019 legislative wins.

I'm proud to be on the advisory cabinet for the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, so really excited about doing a review of all of the wonderful things that we were able to accomplish this last 2019 legislative session, including the elimination of the statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes, ensuring better access to sexual assault protection orders and expediting testing of sexual assault kits.

So really excited about joining those folks on Thursday as well.

And then lastly, on Friday, June 7th, just wanted to give folks a reminder that Friday is Gun Violence Awareness Day.

I believe it's the seventh annual Gun Violence Awareness Day.

We are encouraging folks to wear orange to raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives of those lost by and to gun violence.

Of course, we are sitting here today in the aftermath of yet another mass shooting and another series of shootings in our own city as a result of gun violence.

And it seems apropos for hopefully all of us to be able to participate in some gun violence awareness events and in a day of remembrance on Friday, June 7th.

We will also be presenting a proclamation.

I'm going to circulate it to folks.

This was sent out on Friday, and we confirmed with your offices that you all want to sign on to it.

So I'm going to circulate that now.

We're hoping to have some of the advocates in chambers with us this afternoon.

But if not, we'll make sure to deliver the proclamation to those folks in due order.

That is the proclamation that I'm circulating now.

Also wanted to just remind folks with regard to Gun Violence Awareness Day, there's going to be a big day of action this Sunday, June 9th.

It is called Wear Orange Greater Seattle Rally and I-90 Bridge Walk.

It is being organized by many of our good friends, including Moms Demand Action, Zero USA, Everytown Survivor Network, March for a Live Seattle, Students Demand Action, Alliance for Gun Responsibility, Brady Campaign, League of Women Voters, and many, many more.

So for those who are interested, we'll be posting this information on my social media network.

But just wanted to give folks a quick verbal a sense of the details.

So this will be on Sunday, June 9th, 2019. Folks will be meeting at the Sam Smith Park at the Urban Peace Circle at 1400 Martin Luther King Jr.

Way South.

The rally begins at 10 a.m.

near the Urban Peace Circle.

sculpture in Sam Smith Park, and then the walk on the I-90 bridge begins at 11 o'clock a.m.

Again, they are encouraging folks to wear orange on that day if you're participating.

They're expecting hundreds and hundreds of people to show up.

They have a wonderful agenda set up of speakers, including our very own U.S.

Congresswoman, Representative Pramila Jayapal from the 7th, and Representative Dr. Kim Schreier from the 8th Congressional District.

So I really encourage all of you that can go to attend.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to be there on Sunday, much to my regret, but it's for a good reason, and that's because I'm gonna take a point of personal privilege and say congratulations to my nephew who is graduating from high school on Saturday from Grandview High School, my alma mater as well, and heading over to Central Washington to Grandview to both enjoy the sun and the 80 plus degree weather, but more importantly to witness the great occasion of having my a fourth nephew graduate from high school.

So very excited about celebrating that achievement.

As you should be.

Congratulations to you.

Council Member Bryan.

Thank you.

There is nothing on this afternoon's agenda in the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

We do have a committee meeting tomorrow afternoon.

Just two items on that agenda.

One is an appointment to the Pedestrian Advisory Board.

And the second is we will get a briefing on a statement of legislative intent that we put out last year around emerging technology and mobility options.

Just as a reminder, the slide was 35-3-A-1.

And we ask the Department of Transportation to come back with a survey of anticipated new mobility options like scooters, transit pods, and other non-motorized vehicles that may be coming to Seattle in the next three to five years.

We ask them for an evaluation of other cities' efforts to address these emerging private transportation investments and a strategy to integrate these options into the transportation network in a safe and sustainable manner, including the possibility of utilizing bike lanes for these modes of transportation.

So I'm looking forward to that presentation and discussion.

Just want to flag a couple other things.

We are going to have a public hearing a week from tomorrow.

I just want to give a heads up.

That's on the backyard cottage and in-law legislation, or ADUs.

That'll be starting here at 530 in Chambers on Tuesday, June 11th.

So we're expecting a pretty good turnout for that, so I hope some of you can make it and be prepared for probably a couple hours, I'm guessing, of that meeting.

A reminder on that ADU legislation, the goal would be, well, we will be back in committee on June 18th.

My hope is that people will be ready to discuss and vote on amendments on June 18th.

and potentially vote that bill out of committee on the 18th.

If folks continue to hear from constituents and figure out where they're coming down on various aspects of it, love to work with you on making sure we tee up the amendments in the appropriate order.

Obviously, we're kind of waiting to hear what we hear from the community next Tuesday.

But if folks have ideas on what they're thinking based on last week's discussion, I want to continue to work with folks on that.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien, for responding to the issues that I brought up last week.

I'll continue to follow up, but I appreciate your position.

You betcha.

That's it from Sustainability and Transportation.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien.

Okay, thank you for all that.

I did put a note that Council Member Esqueda did advance a athletic analogy when she said, move the ball forward.

So we got that note to sell.

Okay, let's, Council Member Herbold, why don't we have our guests come up for our Small Business Advisory Council briefing.

And we can actually get more chairs if we need to.

That is not a problem.

Okay, we're good?

Okay.

And once everyone gets settled, I'd ask that you Push the gray button such the green light is on and bring the mics a little closer to you.

You don't have to bring it too closely.

And before we do introductions, I'll ask Council Member Herbold to tee the issue up and then we'll start with introductions.

So Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I want to first start off with recognizing the fact that one of the mayor's first actions as mayor of the city was convening the Small Business Advisory Council.

And then the year following that convening, she also signed an executive order identifying what some of her top priorities are.

In addition to the items that the council has identified as their priorities, I really appreciate your work on some of those items, namely creating a welcome packet for both new businesses as well as the welcoming packet is, I think, as I understand it, is useful for existing businesses as well.

You're also working and taking a look at some of our B&O tax struggles.

We often talk about the regressivity of our taxation system and that includes the impacts of taxes on small businesses.

I also want to give a shout out to the mayor for her reconvening of the citywide business Yes, it's a technical IDT that exists to tie the efforts of departments across the city to act as advocates for small business as they try to navigate various city systems.

So that's just a quick overview.

Appreciate the work you're doing.

eager to learn more and expose your efforts both to the council as a whole and generally to the public and business community.

Thank you for that introduction, Councilmember Herbold.

As we do introductions, Mr. Lee, Bobby Lee, I'd ask that you maybe introduce, elaborate a little bit on your introduction.

I don't know, I think you've met with most of the council members, but the public needs to know, and he actually is a former elected himself in another jurisdiction, but maybe you could elaborate a little bit on your background and then tee up the discussion as well, if you don't mind.

Sorry to put you on the spot like that.

Oh, no, I'm used to it.

Okay, all right.

Thank you for allowing me to be here.

Just moved here from the city of Portland.

I served as a director of economic development for Portland.

Prior to that, I served for two governors, Kitzhaber and Kate Brown.

Prior to that, I worked in the private sector in the semiconductor manufacturing field.

A lot of your memory chips on your iPads and your phones probably came from that company.

And then prior to that, I worked for a non-profit that delivered workforce development programs.

And so I started as a case manager and moved on up, but it's similar to the Workforce Development Council here in Seattle.

It's for Portland.

And then prior to that, as Bruce mentioned, I also served on the Eugene City Council, where University of Oregon is located, one of the most progressive cities in Oregon, and had a chance to work in in the field that you're in now and dealing with a lot of public policy issues, very challenging issues that you're all dealing with, I am familiar.

With that introduction, I also want to mention that I am from a different country.

I moved here from Korea when I was 15, and so I bring that immigrant experience as well.

Thank you for allowing me to speak a little bit.

Would you like me to go ahead and proceed from here?

However you'd like to proceed.

Well, I'll go ahead and introduce.

I'm going to keep my comments short because we only have 30 minutes, and there's a lot of questions around small businesses these days, and so I'll keep my comments short.

But I'd like to introduce our pristine three co-chairs who've been leading the Small Business Advisory Committee.

We have Donna Moody, who is with Majority Restaurant, and then Taylor Wong with Taylor Wong Restaurants, and Tracy Taylor, the Elliott Bay Book Company.

We also, of course, have Council Member Herbert of Mosqueda who serves as well as who serves on this committee and been very, very active.

Diversity of issues that small businesses face is just endless.

To have folks who actually live the day-to-day experience lead this charge has just been great for the committee.

I want to thank all three of you.

It's not like they get paid a whole lot to serve in this role.

It's a voluntary position.

But they've taken it very, very seriously.

But not only do they take these issues very, very seriously, but what I found was that they're also very interesting people and very fun folks.

And someday I predict there will be a cable show about these three running these really interesting issues.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Donna, who's going to kick us off.

Is that right?

So I would first like to thank everyone in the council for having us here today.

Over a year ago, the Small Business Advisory Council was formed and as co-chairs with Tracy and Taylor and also Joe Fugere, who's not here today as he's recovering from pneumonia, but he's a key co-chair for us.

He's got some really great opinions and we all kind of come from the standpoint of appreciating the opportunity to give small businesses a voice in the city of Seattle, a greater voice to weigh in on policies and decisions that affect us greatly, and also just to explain to the city how important we are.

It's well known that 95% of Seattle establishments are small businesses employing less than 50 people.

I think a lot of times when people think of Seattle, they think of the big, name brand businesses that kind of dominate the story, but there's actually quite a few smaller businesses that make up the fabric of Seattle, and to find a way to support and keep them sustainable is a key driving force of our existence, and we are very committed to seeing that continue.

I'm going to turn it over to Taylor, who will talk a little bit about the specifics.

Great, thank you, and thank you for having us today.

And just to set the record straight, zero.

We don't get paid zero.

Not even in parking.

We're advocating for parking, but we'll see.

So thank you.

So after the mayor convene there's about 23 of us on the council with representation from different districts and from different segments of the business community and Including to councilmember councilmember herbal.

Thank you for attending our meetings and being there for us and We worked with, over the course of a number of months, we worked with Solite to really define what are the strategies and goals of the Small Business Advisory Council.

And through many months of discussions, working through a lot of different ideas, we narrowed down to three strategies in which we wanted to, the Small Business Advisory Council or SBAC, would be working on and making recommendations to the mayor's office as well as council.

The first, I'll go into a little bit more detail of each strategy, but the first strategy was to study the economic and social impact of city policies on small businesses.

The second was to amplify small business narrative.

And the third was to provide more support to the SBAC and small businesses within the city.

And then we took it further and defined each of the strategies into tasks, and then what do we want or the goals for those tasks were.

So under the first strategy, which is study economic and social impact of the city policies, The first task was to really research and define the criteria for small businesses.

As you may know, we have different policies and regulations, and it define, give different definition for what a small business is.

And that's very confusing, and it doesn't, there's a lot of overlap, but it doesn't allow for a smooth transition into enforcement.

So the goal of that was to recommend a definition and or criteria for small business.

And then the second task was to create a list and review of city policies and taxes for small business recommendation.

And the goal of that was not to change the existing policies or regulations, but to inform and enforce, you know, recommendations, adjustments to city policies and taxes that we can, as small business owner, knows what these policies and regulations, how are they, effective and how are they relevant to how we run our businesses and so make recommendations based on that.

And then the fourth task was to assess and analyze the permitting procedures and processes by various city departments.

So for example, we are meeting with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection.

this coming month and it was the reason for these meeting is to assess the city systems impact on small business and on an ongoing basis and how these permitting and and you know, whether it permitting and Inspection how they affect small business when it comes to construction tenant improvements and so forth strategy to was to amplify small business narrative like Donna shared 95% of our business in Seattle is made up of small businesses.

And so we wanted to amplify and identify messages and key points that we can talk about small businesses and share their contribution to our economy in the city.

And then the third one was really about bringing more support for small businesses.

So, reactivating the city business advocacy team, as Council Member Herbold mentioned, creating and distributing a commercial affordability toolkit, and to help small businesses take a look at how they are able to afford the rising cost in commercial real estate.

And then the fourth task was to create a small business welcoming packet.

And the fifth, fourth one was to create a website for small businesses where we can, you know, bring all of the different permitting questions, taxation information into a collective website that small businesses can go to to obtain their information.

And all of this was with the goal to connect existing and new businesses with ongoing resources within the city.

And then all of this was sent to the mayor's office, I believe, as well as council for recommendation.

And some of these are being worked on right now, and then some of them are ongoing processes that we are working through.

And Tracy can share with you a little bit more.

Hi, thank you.

So out of those recommendations, the mayor put forward an executive order for a small business welcome packet, the CBAT team, city taxes and fees study, and the small workforce development challenges.

So Just a little update, and Taylor talked a little bit about the small business welcome packet update that we're hoping will be both physical and website available in different languages.

There has been a group, and Taylor's been working with the OED to put that forward.

They're in draft process at this point.

We found that a lot of small businesses don't know where to turn when they want to open, they need information, so trying to get all of that information together in one packet is the general idea.

We've also, as a small business advisory council, put together a monthly summary of what we've been doing, the work that has been going on.

what has been happening in our meetings, and we've been pushing that out to the Small Business Advisory Council.

We're also hoping to further put that out into the small business community so they can get updates on what SBAC is doing as well.

We've worked on establishing CBAT, as Councilmember Herbald mentioned, or reestablishing CBAT so that there is one central place you can go to as a small business when you have questions.

Calling a department and not knowing who to reach is extremely overwhelming when you're trying to open a business or run a business.

We had someone presented our last meeting that Councilmember Juarez was at, talking about how his street got shut down.

There was PSC work going on, there was construction work going on, there was a snowstorm, the snow got plowed in, all the street was barricaded, and none of the customers on any of those businesses could get to the businesses.

all done without any notice.

So the question was, who do you call when you have a lot of different departments that are engaged around your business?

So we're doing continued work on that.

There's a city taxes and fees study that we've been working on putting together, working with FAS, SDOT, SCDI, Looking into B&O taxes, street use, and permitting fees, we're drafting a report of those, which we hope to have in mid-July.

And then we've worked on a small business workforce development.

A survey was put out to small businesses about hiring needs, and that survey closed on May 1st.

There were 72 responses, and the OED and SBAC have been reaching out by phone call to talk to other small businesses to sort of further that narrative.

And there will be a draft of recommendations that will move along to SBAC probably within the next month.

So that's where we are on the executive orders.

Thank you.

Very good.

Let me know when we can add Liv.

Is that the close of the formal presentation?

Yes.

So we should just make it up as we go with some Q&A?

Yes.

Okay.

Very good.

I missed the part where, how big is the council and how many members are there?

I know you are the four co-chairs.

About 23 members with four co-chairs and two members from council.

And the small neighbourhood chambers of commerce, how do they get information on what you're doing or you seek their input?

Is there some interplay between the other sort of infrastructure of small businesses?

Can you elaborate?

So, we had actually last week our first meeting with the business community as a whole, including all of the chamber of businesses.

And, you know, we weren't able to have this meeting until about last week because we wanted to make sure we have a lot of our, the first year was just working through a lot of our, you know, structure, goals and strategies, and then as we're, getting the work plan moved along.

We brought in the business community last week, engaged with them, shared with them the same presentation, answered questions, and it will be a process going forward that we will have regular meetings with the neighborhood chambers in order to keep everyone informed, yes.

And just to chime in on that as well, most of the members on SBAC are involved in their BIAs or their local chambers.

So I think the idea in reaching out and looking at the different districts and areas and neighborhoods of the SBAC was to make sure that they're informing their communities as well.

So that information is going out.

So sort of a radioactive question, but what is the the general consensus on how Seattle treats small businesses.

Is small business friendly?

Are we the worst place for a small business?

I mean, what are your constituents saying about small businesses?

Let's just sort of get it out there.

Seattle is kind of recognized as a difficult place to own and operate a small business.

I'm sorry, Donna, what did you say?

I said Seattle is recognized nationally as a difficult place to own and operate a small business.

And we are working really hard to communicate what those difficulties are.

And also to try to engage the city and the business community as well as city government on how to improve that.

And are there some cities that are recognized as being much more small business friendly?

Do we have any models out there that come to mind at least?

Don't say Portland, by the way.

I know that Philadelphia is one that's been getting a lot of attention.

I know that there's some cities in South Carolina that have been getting a lot of attention.

I can't go into the specifics because I didn't come prepared to answer that question.

But nationally speaking, there's a lot of cities where they engage support and kind of lift up a lot of small businesses.

I can chime in on that.

I have a restaurant on the east side that I just opened about a year and a half ago.

And just the response and the engagement that I received from the city of Redmond is very different from the city of Seattle.

You know, the city of Redmond would call me up and talk to me about permitting, licensing issues.

They're the one that's reaching out to me versus me chasing them down to reach out to them.

their processes are much more streamlined, much easier, lower cost.

For example, I just got my patio permit and it was three piece of paper that I sent in to them and the cost was $156.

Seattle is much higher and it was approved within a week and it was the You know, the gal, the lady that was in charge of permitting, she was the one who called me and sent me the paperwork.

And when I didn't get it in in time, she called me again.

And she said, well, you know, I know you're busy, but, you know, we'll be OK.

You know, it's not sunny yet.

We'll be OK.

But just get it in to us when you can.

So, I mean, just in general, the processing, I mean, not talking about regulations or policies, but just the processing of permitting is much easier and at a lower cost to business.

And even trash is cheaper over there.

The contracting, I mean, I have the same cans, trash and recycling and compost cans over there, and it costs half of what I pay in Seattle.

I was just gonna I'm sorry chime in on that that is a hot-button question and I think that we have your stage We have seen a lot of Progressive policies put forward in this city, which most small businesses would get behind But I think that there have been some unintended consequences that have fallen on small business that have have been hard to take and hard on small business.

We get swept up in the concept of business and big business and small business are interrelated, but they're also separate.

But we have had to deal with a lot of unintended consequences of what have been really good and progressive policies.

So it's hard to have to work with that, and we're all feeling it, or most of us are feeling it.

So thank you all so much for being here and I'm excited to hear the report I know our staff has been participating and I'm looking forward to participating in the Zoning and permitting discussion.

That's the issue.

I hear the most about first.

I want to say I'm really excited about the new directors potential to bring to this department and having studied and looked at the Portland Mercado system and seeing how he's created incubators for especially small women and minority-owned businesses to have a place to grow and thrive and then facilitation by the city.

I think that's really great leadership.

Second, I think that there's a distinction, an important distinction to Council President Harrell's question.

Which is how is Seattle being perceived?

I think you know it's important to remember That nationally we do get a national attention for being one of the best places to have a small business in fact just Seven months ago Forbes magazine says the best places for business and careers in 2018 Seattle leads the way and And among the 15 metrics that they look at, Seattle is doing the best except for in the cost of living section.

It is very expensive to live here, mostly because of the cost of property.

And I think that it is very fair to identify policy changes for increased communication, increased ability to reduce costs for permitting, streamlining permitting not just for construction but also for sites.

Those are some of the things that we're looking into working and modeling the Austin example, for example.

And I think that there's an important nexus there between what I'm really interested in as the chair of labor and what I think you all are interested in as small business owners, we need to make it easier for you all to build these new spaces.

And in doing so, that helps our building construction trades get the jobs and have job security that helps those who are in the service sector have access to the good jobs that you're able to provide.

But I do think that there is very fair criticism about how we can streamline the process and make it easier for individual businesses to get a foothold to start up.

And one thing I'm really interested in is delaying fees so that people don't have to start paying any of those fees, especially for the first three years, as you think about incubation of your small businesses.

And separating that out from sort of, I think, a narrative that's been created about Seattle not being a good place to thrive as a business.

Those who are making it over those hard hurdles at the beginning are thriving, at least according to Forbes and some other reports.

But we ought to make it easier for small businesses to get that foothold and stay in this city.

And I look forward to working with all of you on that nexus between what's good for labor, especially around permitting, siting, zoning, and workforce development, which is something that our national partners at the AFL-CIO also recognize.

We have an antiquated workforce development process where dollars don't exactly follow what the need is.

So some of our highest need occupations in retail and service and healthcare are not getting that equal amount of investments and who's mostly in those jobs.

women and people of color.

And with the small business emphasis, especially on women, minority and immigrant run businesses, and our desire to lift up those jobs for those specific sectors, I think there's a good nexus there.

And so I look forward to working with you guys on those issues.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mosqueda raised many of the issues that I'm interested in as well, but I'd love to hear from you as far as streamlining goes.

I can only imagine the frustration of trying to get a business open with all the economic stress that's on your backs to begin with, but then to have the city delay.

or to be perceived that one hand's not shaking hands with the other.

What are you thinking about, either through the business advocacy team or the work that you're doing with your advisory group that could help us respond more quickly to you?

And Bobby, maybe this is something you'd like to weigh in on as well.

Just one one thing I think comes to mind is just having the permitting department visit as SPAC which is something that we have scheduled and as was our experience when the Department of Labor visited as SPAC and kind of heard the specific complaints and And even came to the conclusion that they were unable to answer some of the questions.

Showed to them that if they could not answer the questions, there was clearly a difficulty in us perceiving what the formal compliant way to act is.

So I think having the Department of Permitting visit us and have a conversation and hear a real life story about what that delay caused someone financially.

as an employer, as an employee, as a business, opening delays, etc., might actually help to propel things.

So part of it, in my opinion, is communication, which we've had a challenge with actually just getting a direct contact with some people.

And I feel like SBAC has created a vehicle to facilitate better communication with many of the departments.

And in that way, just to amplify our voice and make our concerns louder.

When you hear it from one person, it's difficult to imagine that all small businesses are experiencing something.

When you hear it from a group that represents small business, it becomes clearer what these difficulties are and how we can possibly overcome them.

Thank you.

And I noticed Michael nodding his head behind you.

This is something that I've heard from small businesses for the decade that I've been on this council.

And I'm surprised that we don't have a single portal at this point where it can be an advocate for small businesses and to help get through the real, it's complex.

I mean, we've got, whether it's street permits or like you were saying about the patio, getting the help that you need to get going financially.

I just think we can do a lot better and I appreciate your highlighting this.

One other thing I wanted to mention is that, you know, the Office of Economic Development is doing a really great job in supporting small business, but there are so many issues that face, small businesses face, and they are so limited in their resources.

And the budget that's allocated towards small business development is very low compared to other metropolitan city.

So I think as council, that's something that could be considered, you know, as part of the holistic approach of how do we support and you know, bring more collaboration, more resources to small business is providing more funding and creative funding and specific funding for small business.

Because right now, if you look at OED's budget for small business support, it's very low.

And you have, you know, if we have 95% of our city's business is small business, that budget doesn't carry much weight in terms of support.

Councilman Brian, but I think Mr. Lee wanted to say something in response?

Okay, by the way, I just got a great plug so I'm gonna let you go So the permitting issue There are many different dimensions to it.

It's not just municipal permitting but there's County and there's state and then there's federal and so In the front line, we have small business owner that are trying to navigate multiple layers of government.

And that's what adds to the complexity, and that is why it's so difficult to create a single portal, because laws are constantly changing from all different levels.

During my private sector experience, I had to comply with Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, NPDES stormwater permitting.

I mean, the list goes on and the list goes on and on.

And just even just a fire marshal permitting, different levels of government are all asking the same information.

It's just formatted differently.

And they have different timelines.

And often you don't even get warning about when those deadlines are.

It's up to you to figure that out under the small business owners.

And so there is a lot of work to be done around this.

But I believe that there are solutions because technology is also evolving where we can allow integration to occur.

But one of the inequities that are unintended is that you can actually pay for navigators to help you with permitting process.

But often it's for if you can afford it.

So if you're medium-sized or large companies, you can actually pay more to navigate your permitting.

But if you're a small business owner who are just starting, you don't have that kind of capacity.

And that's the inequity that we have to address, I believe.

I'll leave it at that at this point.

I can reinforce that, and I want to make a couple points.

I have a family member who's got a small business.

She's in the food industry, and so in addition to all the city permits, there's public health, there's Department of Agriculture she has to go through, organic products, so there's organic certification.

And, you know, it feels, I hear that it feels like, how's your day today?

Oh, I got three more inspections, I got this to do, I got that to do.

In fact, the comment last night was, how's your week look?

It's like it's busy.

It's going to be busy until we take vacation this summer.

And like, what about after that?

And then it's just busy again.

It's just always busy.

That's just the reality of running a small business.

And I want to hold a couple of things I've heard today, at least from my experience in talking to folks who are running small businesses, that it's possible to both be a really great place to run a small business and a really hard place to run a small business.

I think Seattle has a lot of the things that make it really attractive to open businesses here, which is we're a growing population.

That population, a lot of those folks are relatively high income and have disposable income.

They want to support local businesses.

A lot of their values are aligned with values that business owners want to start here.

So there's a lot of good things that can happen in a city like Seattle, but that also at the same time makes it really hard.

The competition for real estate, just to start off, we talked about the cost of housing, but obviously the cost of land for businesses or real estate for businesses is really hard, and navigating those spaces.

The fact that there are lots of people that do want to open up businesses means wait times for permits and those types of things, as you mentioned.

Maybe we don't have the right amount of resources to process it.

Redmond's obviously a much smaller city than Seattle, but if we were to be the same scale and provide those services, how do we do that and how do we prioritize that versus some other things?

So I do believe Seattle is an amazing place to do business, and I believe almost because of that, it makes it a really hard place to do business too.

And once you get beyond all the city things, for instance, if you're in the restaurant business, You got hundreds of new restaurants open competing with you every single week that you have to fight with.

And so even taking the city's permitting and regulatory space out of the way, it's a hard competitive environment.

But when you're successful, it's great.

You all flagged this question that I think continues to come up.

And from a policy perspective, it's something we struggle with, is this question about what is a small business?

And I don't want to pretend that there is a a right or wrong answer.

But we do, you know, there are businesses that are very successful in Seattle.

There are businesses that are going out of business every week because they can't make it.

There are new businesses starting up that are undercapitalized and, you know, are making massive family sacrifices just to get their foot in the door for the first couple years hoping to get going.

There are businesses that on paper may look large as far as volume and sales, but their margin is so thin because of the competitive environment or the industry they're in.

And we elected officials and really the general public are often, depending on the moment, will say, well, look how successful businesses are.

Are they doing their fair share?

Have you come up with some way for us to think about what is a small business or types of businesses or ways to categorize it so we can approach it?

Because it's really hard when we're you know, finite resources, lots of challenges in the city.

And we know some businesses are doing really well and maybe could do a little more.

But when we do a blanket regulation, taxes, whatever, on everyone, it can really be devastating to the smallest businesses.

But it's really hard to draw that line.

I can probably make a comment.

You know, I think, you know, there's different categories of businesses.

And I think, first of all, that's something that we're definitely actively working on in conjunction with OED to look at the research and look at what other cities are doing to define small business.

But in my experience also working as the ED of Ethnic Business Coalition is that, you know, you have what I call micro-businesses.

Very small, less than 10 employees, immigrant-owned, you know, minority-owned, and they are small, local community, one store.

locations.

But, and they experience a whole different set of challenges than, you know, a 10% tech company, which, you know, could be, you know, consider a large business based on their gross revenue.

And so when we as city legislate policy, we lumped everybody as small business versus micro business or, you know, less than 50 or based on gross revenue or what their margins are.

As an industry, it really does have a lot of unintended consequences for these micro businesses.

And they don't have the capital injection.

Access to capital is very limited.

Understanding the regulatory compliances is very complex.

Even some of us in the discussion with the director of labor standard couldn't come to an agreement on the issue of tips.

And they were confused.

We were confused.

So, you know, if the department is confused, how are we as small business owner able to understand what are we to comply with?

And they have very limited resource in terms of, you know, going out and getting that extra help.

you know, Bobby said, because, and it puts them at a further disadvantage, equitable disadvantage, because if, as a small business owner, I'm able to go and hire an attorney or a third party to navigate all of my permitting process, and you have someone else that isn't able to have that capital resource to go and do that, it puts them at a further disadvantage.

And we're not recognizing that.

I don't think we're recognizing that.

I don't think we're providing resources for that.

So, you know, I think part of it is before legislation come out is having a very honest dialogue with the business community, with having folks at the table and talking about the issues and looking at the multiple, you know, challenges that these businesses face.

And taking that, you know, not as someone complaining or making a statement, but taking that as experience and utilizing that experience to help us craft some of the legislation.

I know we can't do one-off legislation, but as a whole, if you talk to the business community, you will find that there are a lot of overlapping comments and challenges that they face.

And I think having that open dialogue would really help.

I've got four people in queue and Council Member Wuerst had her hand up, the strongest, I should say.

First of all, Taylor, Donna and Tracy, thank you.

You guys came up.

We hosted the D5 business coalition.

Our district has a business coalition that we created three years ago and you guys have been very active in the local chamber helped us put that together.

You guys are being very, I had three hours with you, and you were a lot more vocal than you're doing right now, so I was kind of hoping you'd fire up a little bit.

I know that in that three-hour meeting, OED was there, Pedro was there, and OLS, Marty was there, and gave a lot of information, and you had a lot of issues that went beyond just the taxes and policy.

I mean, you were concerned as small businesses.

Well, I should also, let me just add this.

We also had Annetta there who owns the Coffee Clash, who also is in D5, and Shysa, who owns the Nexus Hotel and the Saffron Grill, who actually hosted that, and they are stalwarts in our D5 business coalition.

But I remember distinctly a lot of the issues, and I took really detailed notes, as we all did, Shana and I, But besides the policies and the concerns you had about the business and the taxation, SDCI, OED, OLS, you know, you had concerns about how we are handling the homelessness issue, how we are handling the unsheltered people and how you were trying to react to that and how we were trying to get out there.

when we were working with people who were in tents and living outside, particularly at the Nexus Hotel, the Cloverleafs, the Starbucks, the Corey's Drive, I could go on and on about all those businesses that were there, the Saffron Grill.

And I know that you guys work closely with the NAV team as well.

A lot of you shared that with us at the meeting.

And so I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad you're here with my colleagues to be candid and open about some of the other struggles that you deal with.

I appreciate that you laid out the strategies and goals and when your reports are all coming out.

But I know that you have this frustration, and I try to carry this back to my colleagues as well.

So I was hoping you can touch on, just be candid, and touch on some of the issues that did come up.

Because you were very clear with Marty about some of the issues you had.

You were very clear with OED on some of the issues, and with me, about some of the issues that you had.

And I was hoping you would share some of that with my colleagues as well, since I got an earful for three hours.

Which was fine, because I got to eat great food.

So it was wonderful.

Gave you chocolate.

Yes, and you gave me chocolate.

Thank you.

I would just like to start by saying if there's anything that we've overlooked, it's not from a lack of a willingness to bring it up or a lack of candor.

It's more so from there's such a long list that as we approach discussing it, I don't think, I mean, the three of us have no problem being candid and saying what's on our mind.

And I think that we are coming here today and we're talking to you in general and we've started this or become a part of this aspect because we care so deeply about small business and we care so deeply about its presence in our city and the fact that small business is the fabric of the city.

If we were gone and we just were a city of big corporations, Seattle would not have the personality or the attraction that it does.

We're committed to the city and to what we do as a business.

So for me not to bring up homelessness, it's not because I don't care about it or it's not on my mind, but it's more that I had this list on my mind.

And it is a big issue for us.

It's a big issue because we have a lot of constituents that talk to us about not being able to enter their businesses because first they have to remove some people who are blocking their door.

It's an issue because we've got A lot of people that used to come to our businesses from outside of the city that have stopped coming to our businesses because they don't appear clean anymore.

There's such an issue that it's really large.

It doesn't mean that we lack compassion or that we don't want to do something about it, but we're also struggling as small businesses.

So we're not sure what kind of assistance we're going to get or how these items are being addressed and we've seen some of the same organizations deal with this topic without much success.

So we're concerned about more money going to some of those organizations and seeing the same kind of lack of results.

So as we, can we start doing sort of lightning round questions and answers?

Just, let's just bottom line one another because I want to, because I have a few bottom lines as well.

So, Shorter questions, shorter answers if we can, if I can be so bold to say that.

Council Member Herbold.

We'll do.

Just a follow-up on Council Member Juarez's question.

We did have a really great conversation at a Lunch and Learn last week with the directors of organizations that you support.

The BIA directors came and presented to Council Member Juarez.

Gonzalez and myself, and had a discussion around some of the prolific offenders issues that you raised.

So there are lots of different places to have those conversations, and they need to be happening everywhere.

So thank you.

I had an opportunity over the weekend to talk to A person who considers himself a small business owner, although he is a owner of some restaurants that are also part of a franchise.

But he shared with me an experience that he had.

And now this is a business owner who supported the minimum wage, supported paid sick and safe leave.

support secure scheduling, but he had an experience with the Office of Labor Standards for receiving a pretty big fine after some rule changes.

And I know you had OLS at a recent meeting, and I'm wondering if the topic of notification of businesses of rule changes came up.

It seems like FAS has a database of all the businesses in the city and could be using it when those changes happen.

We did talk about that and that was definitely part of the conversation.

What's the process when a complaint is lodged and what sort of notification does the business receive?

Because I too have heard a horror story from somebody who runs a small business.

that was taken by surprise, and it was pretty awful the way it was handled.

I think also what came out of that OLS conversation is something that we've always known.

The OLS office is in charge of both educating and enforcing, and that is an interesting dilemma.

So they're taking the complaints, they are responsible for educating small businesses, they're responsible for getting the information out to employees, and they're also in charge of starting that process when they receive a complaint.

And that can be a little bit problematic if that path isn't clear.

So that was part of the conversation.

Aren't they, in theory, supposed to be on the business's completely neutral party, OLS?

Is that sort of their rubric?

Yes, and you know, I think we heard that and it was a really good, robust conversation.

We all left that conversation feeling a little bit better, but knowing that we needed to have more communication.

But what I've been told is the practice of the enforcement piece does not seem like it's a neutral party.

Is that consistent with what you're saying?

That is what I've heard, yes.

I saw Council Member Esqueda.

Well, as the Chair of Labor who has oversight over OLS, I'll be following up with you guys on those concerns.

I wanted to just take a quick second to elevate the example I think you gave on tips and service charges in the original minimum wage statute.

I think it's a really great point.

You know, every time legislations pass, there's always a need to go back and make sure that you're fixing tweaks and concerns that come up, unintended consequences.

One really important thing that the small business community did here in Seattle is inform Initiative 1433 at the statewide effort.

Because that tips and service language was pretty ambiguous, it left a lot of people wondering, what do I do?

And even those who were doing the best they could to comply were left in this very interesting gray area.

So what we did with many of the individuals from the small business community in Seattle was to help write in language in initiative 1433 that directly improved the language so that across the board tips and service charges were more equally, or I should say, equitably understood.

And that gave some guidance to small businesses.

However, I worked on that in 2016, right?

We were very happy to have that pass.

It wasn't until this year in March that the final rules came down from labor and industries at the state level.

And so part of my big question to OLS and labor and industries at the state level will be, how are we communicating this back out?

Because now three years later, plus, actually, if you think of it from Seattle's example, now we have information.

In the meantime, as Councilmember Herbold said, I have another friend who owns a number of small businesses here in Seattle.

And she got caught in that gray area, got hit with a fine, a very significant fine, just because the language on her receipt wasn't clear enough.

The workers were actually getting 104% of what they should have been in terms of tips and service charges.

But the language the court decided wasn't clear enough.

That just feels so unfair.

So I just want to emphasize thank you for continuing to bring these issues forward.

Because I do think that if it doesn't work for the smallest business, it will never work for the workers.

And elevating those concerns is something that we have to do through the legislative process.

And then I have one more piece after that.

Was there a question in there?

Don't you think?

Yes, I agree.

Yes, and I also, I mean, to have OLS in the room last time and to have 25 small business owners discussing one small policy issue, which many interpreted different ways, and OLS to not have the hard and fast answer on that was very eye-opening.

So what happens to those businesses that don't have the access and don't have those conversations and aren't getting the information?

I read everything I can on every policy that comes down.

But I know that everyone doesn't have the ability to do that.

I feel good picking up the phone and calling and asking questions when I have them, but I also know that every small business owner does not feel that way.

And it is intimidating to call OLS and say, I don't know if I'm in compliance.

Thank you for saying that.

And then one last item.

I think this is similar to Council Member Juarez's point.

You know, we know the biggest pressing issue for many of our residents here and those who want to visit here and those who want to start a business here is the cost of housing.

And obviously that's connected to the homelessness issue that you all brought up.

One of the issues that I hear as we do our district tours, we go to a different district every month from small businesses is that many of their employees are having to commute two hours in.

Many of their employees have no access to child care, so they're having to have the stress of worrying if they're going to get home on time for their kiddos and their families.

And with that type of cost of housing concern that's happening here, I'm wondering if you can tell us, as you talk about improving standards, which we hear you and want to work with you on for how businesses can operate in the city, is the issue of housing and the need for density in the city, something that the small business community is helping to elevate.

Because I think there's this dichotomy where some of the city believes that we don't need density and that's harmful for, you know, the way things are or the character of our neighborhoods and yet what we hear from small businesses is it is very hard to attract workers and keep workers because the cost of housing is so cumbersome that people are being pushed out of this city.

Has the Small Business Advisory Council had the chance to weigh into the density issues because I think your voice could carry a lot of weight with combating that anti-housing, anti-density message.

I think two things come up from that question.

One is that there's the homeless issue and then there's also the issue of housing for middle income dwellers in the city.

And there is a lot of support, even though there's more needed and there's definitely a need for more effective support for low and no income individuals.

But the mid-income housing gap is what's forcing out of the city our workforce.

So we're having a hard time not just maintaining employees, but keeping business owners in the city who also fit into that middle income bracket as well.

And as we see rising costs, we're seeing basically people and even some businesses, we're going to Tacoma, we're going to Renton, we're going to Burien, even going to the east side, which is considered like a higher income bracket but more affordable living in some ways.

And then I think with homelessness, it's really important to separate people that are on the street because they have a housing issue and people that have mental illness and drug issues.

And I think if that's not a clear way of addressing that issue, there's always going to be confusion about what I think that is key because I think there is a population that needs a different kind of help than what many people in the city are able to offer.

So and I think that's what my colleagues are really trying to get to is just the issues of homelessness, affordability, and so forth.

One of the things I think that what I'm sensing is a big elephant in the room is there's been this acrimonious relationship between a city and some small businesses.

And I think I'm glad that the chair of budget is here as well.

to hear this because I think it's important for us to think about what we can do to streamline as well as create like a navigation or some form of navigation for small businesses to think about during the budget process.

But one of the things that I'm really hopeful that we can kind of focus on at least maybe as just as a moving forward is thinking about, I know during MHA there, It was a requirement for development in pedestrian zones to include small commercial spaces for more affordable businesses to create more spaces, more affordable spaces for small businesses.

I'd be really, I'd be looking forward to just, if SBAC could analyze those outcomes as MHA is implemented so that you can report back to the council so that to see that we're achieving the desired policy outcomes.

Thank you.

We can probably definitely put that as part of the, you know, work plan that we have.

Just a comment and an observation on what Donna has said, what Council Member Mosqueda have said, and also Council Member O'Brien.

I think the bigger picture is that there are overlapping issues.

There's internal, external, and environmental issues that small businesses face.

Yes, it is a great city to have a business because there's a lot of growing city, there's big population, there's a lot of opportunities.

But then all of those opportunities come with a lot of challenges.

Homelessness, public safety, parking, legislation, policy, and environmental issues.

These are all of the things that small businesses also have to face.

And, you know, it's not something that we're going to be able to attack and resolve in one day.

But I think the openness of City Hall to work with the business community to address a lot of these issues, I think the business community can be a huge advocate to making these issues, to bring to light a lot of these issues, and to help City Hall to whether it's to streamline processing, permit processing, or to address homelessness, because we all face that as, you know, residents or business owners or our staff and public safety of our staff, or being able to go downtown to park our car or our customers not coming to the city because they feel it's unsafe.

But, you know, And so I think, you know, the overall comment I would have is that, you know, the willingness to increase resources for small business, the willingness to take a good look at what is working and what is not working, instead of just saying, this is the policy, we're going to enforce it, and have an enforcement mentality versus an education mentality.

providing more resources, whether it's with OED or OLS, to make sure that small business understand a lot of the complex issues.

If the director can't answer the question, how are we supposed to answer the question?

And working with the business community to address housing.

you know, homelessness, public safety, because they are part of the community.

They are part of the larger landscape.

And I think that's what, you know, for my personally, being on here is what I'm looking for.

Can I mention one quick thing, too, just on density?

I think a lot of small businesses would maybe be more supportive of urban density if we saw a willingness of the developers and the building owners to rent to commercial space and to reduce basically the obstacle course that they've created to get a lease in those spaces, to offer a decent lease, to be more open to a small business that is not a chain, that does not already have 10, 12, 15 businesses and to pay that business money to come in but not offer those same basically tenant improvements to a small startup business.

The spaces are so large.

They are We're dealing with landlords and developers that are not compatible or open to inviting small businesses in.

The city seems to accept the vacancy of many of these buildings while they wait for the perfect tenant to come in.

And we're basically seeing a landscape of these dense buildings that are completely filled with residents, or partially filled, they seem active, but have empty storefronts.

And we're just now starting to see some community engagement with the developer when they're building the site to actually discuss with the community what they want to see in their retail spaces.

So that would have to change I think before you could get a force of small businesses to jump on and say we'd like that density because right now we see empty real estate space.

Speaking of lack of communication from us to small businesses, one of the things that maybe we didn't do a good job communicating is in the MHA up zones that we just passed, even though it was only 6% of the land in the city, one of the things that we worked on was an incentive to create more small business retail space on the first and second floor.

So they got additional floor area ratio.

They got additional height bonus.

They got these incentives if they created smaller sites so that there wasn't your next new CVS space, right?

That there was your next new Elliott Bay book company, right?

And that's the type of support that we want to provide.

And I think many of us, and we're all nodding over here, many of us were looking at your new director because this is exactly the type of liaison program that he ran in Portland.

And so I think we have passed the policy.

Now we need the liaison to make those connections happen.

So we've taken the policy step.

I hope that as we create that liaison and true connection, we do continue to hear the voice of small business elevate the need for that density, because I think it could be a real win-win.

And without it, we're just going to keep pushing our small businesses and workers out of this city.

Yeah, if I could just dovetail on that really quickly as you were as you were speaking I was thinking about the fact that We didn't recently make this change around Density and sort of the focus around urban villages in particular.

So even though there's only a 6% Density increase citywide through this new ordinance You know, it is funneled and targeted in a lot of the urban villages which is where a lot of our small businesses are currently located and I think this council was very aware of the development pressures that exist as it relates to commercial affordability and the footprint or the space that are being developed in ordinary course of business by these developers does not and would not meet the needs of a small business.

And that's just something that we were aware of and that we heard through a lot of the feedback as part of the MHA legislative process and I believe that now the legislation that has passed and is now in implementation phase really does take into account in a more deliberate intentional way the retail space needs and restaurant space needs of small businesses throughout the city in those high concentrated growth areas that are urban villages that really are sort of the spine of those urban villages is our neighborhood business districts.

And so hopefully we will begin to see a change in the next couple of years.

It can't ever come fast enough, and I recognize that, right?

We have some grandfathered projects.

in the pipeline that will not be subject to this requirement, but my hope is that in the future as permits begin to come in, there will be a real opportunity to create that pathway and that runway to allow for more accessibility and opportunity to small businesses for that space.

I'm looking at Bobby because I know that when he and I had a meet and greet, I think it was a week ago now, I spent a lot of time talking to him about how we can address commercial affordability for small businesses in particular.

My own husband works in restaurants and just opened up a restaurant with Mike Easton, who is the owner of El Corvo, now of El Nido.

Small little plug.

And I recognize the difficulties around permitting and commercial affordability.

And also, you know, it's not a binary conversation.

We also have to realize that a lot of our small businesses rely on good labor.

And we have one of the, if not the most, the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

That is both good news and also bad news or tough news for employers who are looking for talent.

to deliver the services that you all deliver every day.

And so I think it's important for us to make sure that we're not having the conversation in isolation of all of the various parts of a formula that are really key and critical to a successful business model.

And that includes people, as well as space, and as well as just the general environment to ensure that people are able to enjoy the services that you all offer every single day.

I'm looking forward to continuing to have those conversations as this work plan unfolds.

We live all of that every day.

Yeah.

So we have several takeaways.

This has been very enlightening just to sort of wrap up.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold and Council Member Muscata for bringing this to our attention and having this discussion.

It's really timely because one of my takeaways is as we enter into our budget system, I want to recognize Pedro Gomez here from OED as well that We sort of need ownership of the issue in that we need people and research to make sure that who is responsible for making sure we have this advocate, whether it's a navigator or someone that can ensure us that we have a very strong climate for small businesses.

Who owns it, so to speak?

And so I think we're going to try to come up with some creative ways to make sure we have ownership of the issue.

I can tell you some horror stories on, I have constituents in my district, District 2, on their dealings with OLS.

Years ago, we created a position in the Seattle Office of Civil Rights when we started looking at many of our progressive civil rights legislation that they said, well, can we have someone in there that could sort of help navigate and help with the conversation?

But again, The experiences with OLS is who's supposed to be sort of a neutral party.

That doesn't seem to be what we're hearing in the field.

And so I'm incredibly concerned about that.

So, Trisha.

I would like to say, because I feel like I just threw OLS under the bus.

Marty came to our meeting and just having that conversation cleared the air in a lot of different ways.

So I think that they recognize that and they're striving to do better too.

I just, I wanted to get that in there.

That's fine, but that's inconsistent with what people are telling me.

And I'm just going to be candid with you.

So I only know how to be.

So anyway, so the conversation is really good timing for us to think about how we could be good partners for you.

So I want to thank you again.

By the way, you had a slide thing.

It's not voice activated.

You had to press the button.

But we know it was there with the points you had.

We didn't move from slide one.

So are we OK?

Everybody good?

Any closing comments?

Are we good at least?

Council Member Herbold?

OK, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay as presiding officer I am announcing that the City Council will now convene an executive session and the purpose of this executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation and this executive session gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorneys is authorized by law, and a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that council reserves questions of policy for our public open sessions.

I expect this session to last for 15 minutes, so at 1124, hopefully we will be concluded, and if we are not, I will go into public session and extend its duration.

With that, let's move to executive session.