Council Briefing 11/15/21

Thank you, son.

Good morning, everyone.

The November 15th, 2021 council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9 33 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson here.

So want present Strauss wasn't purpled.

What is here?

Louis present.

What Alice here?

Mosqueda president and Council President Gonzalez here.

Nine present.

Thanks so much.

We will move to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of November 8th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

I do not have a President's Report this morning, so we'll go ahead and move to our third agenda item, which is a preview of today's City Council Actions, Council, and Regional Committees.

Again, as a reminder, the rotation for today's report outs will start with Councilmember Peterson, and then we will hear from Councilmembers Sawant, Straus, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

Also, as a reminder, we do have two executive sessions today.

So please be mindful of that as you are giving your report out this morning.

Again, just to remind you, we have two executive sessions at the end of council briefing today.

That being said, I'm gonna hand it over to Council Member Peterson.

And then after Council Member Peterson will be Council Member Swan.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 a.m., except during our fall budget season.

So our next committee meeting will be Wednesday, December 1, and we'll also have a meeting on December 15. There are two items on today's full city council agenda that I wanted to speak to.

One is the first item is a vote on an alley vacation for the mixed-use, mixed-income transit-oriented development called Grand Street Commons located in District 3 near the boundary with District 2. This appears on today's agenda as clerk file 314459. As you'll recall, we held the required public hearing last Monday.

So today is the actual vote to approve it.

I support approval of this alley vacation.

There are a couple of amendments.

The first amendment would waive the fee.

The project would pay to the city for the city giving up the alley, and that's sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda.

So I'll speak just to amendment number two, which central staff circulated Friday afternoon.

Amendment two was requested last week by the nonprofit Mount Baker Housing Association, and I support that amendment as well.

as described well by central staff at the bottom of the amendment published online, a condition of vacating an alley to facilitate the development of this affordable housing project by Mount Baker Housing Association is to provide 1,500 square feet of space rent-free to the Cultural Space Agency for cultural activities.

The proposed conditions imply that the space would be a condominium However, the Mount Baker Housing Association and Cultural Space Agency are still discussing the best way to transfer that space.

So in addition to creating a condominium, they're also exploring using a structure such as a 99-year lease that would ensure the space would be available for the life of the building.

So this amendment today, Amendment No. 2, provides that flexibility.

If you have any questions about the amendment, or the underlying clerk file for the Allen vacation, you can reach out to Lish Whitson of City Council Central staff before today's 2 p.m.

meeting.

Also on today's agenda is Council Bill 120218, co-sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda and me, to facilitate the production of an additional low-income housing project in District 4, specifically on the western edge of Magnuson Park.

The summary and fiscal note explains what's going on and I want to summarize that here since we agreed this council for a sewer easement would go straight to council today.

So in 2019 the council approved a lease of parcel 9 between the city and the Low Income Housing Institute or its affiliate to support the development of up to 20 to 25 cottages for individuals who have experienced homelessness.

And that parcel was subsequently leased to Lehigh's affiliate, SP Cottages LLC, which is proceeding with the project.

So SP Cottages LLC's development of the cottages can be facilitated if the cottages can connect to the adjacent property owner's sanitary sewer main line.

The University of Washington owns the property and has agreed, in principle, to providing an easement to allow this connection.

And so that's what this ordinance will facilitate, enabling the director of housing to enter into the easement agreement.

In District 4, you probably saw in the media a key multimodal bridge connecting Seattle, the University Bridge, malfunctioned and was unusable by all modes of transportation for approximately 48 hours.

This 90-year-old bridge, which SDOT hopes to rely upon for the future J-Line bus rapid ride, apparently suffered a failure of key electrical components.

I'm grateful that our budget chair's balancing package includes the proposal to authorize a boost of funds needed to fix our aging bridges.

And I want to thank the workers who worked hard to repair and reopen another broken bridge and to assure them that additional financial support should be on the way as early as next year to help the city keep all Seattle bridges safe and secure.

In arts at Magnuson Park, in addition to the 33rd annual Best of the Northwest art show held at Magnuson Park this past weekend, I attended the Friends of Magnuson Park celebration that unveiled several historical murals painted by children and youth at the park.

If you enter the park at its main entrance from Sandpoint Way on the Northeast 74th Street, the murals are on your right-hand side of the historical building 41. These bright murals highlight the extensive aviation history of the formal Naval Air Station at Sandpoint, including the first flight around the world in 1924. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, let's go ahead and continue on down the line.

Next up is Council Member San Juan.

Good morning.

And then after Council Member San Juan, we have Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

The next meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee is scheduled for November 30th at 2 p.m.

At that meeting, as I've said before, I hope to discuss the rent control legislation that my office unveiled over the summer and legislation from my office giving the Green New Deal Oversight Board the opportunity to support the Stop the Money pipeline movement by raiding financial institutions, betting on city contracts to urge the city not to contract with banks and insurance companies that also back fossil fuel infrastructure.

The COP26 climate conference ended with predictable total inaction from the leaders of the capitalist world last week.

Not only did they fail to take any substantive action of any kind, even their pledges are only a fourth of what scientists say would be needed to hold global warming to no more than the critical 1.5 degree centigrade above pre-industrial levels.

A last-minute amendment from India's far-right Modi regime even removed language that advocated for phasing out coal, replacing it with, quote-unquote, phasing down coal.

But to be clear, even if the agreement had had high targets and strong language, it would still be nothing but a smokescreen for the fact that it contains no substantive action.

It's not simply political inaction or incompetence.

It's because capitalist world leaders are diametrically opposed to any measure that would disrupt the profits of major corporations.

Understanding this very simple fact will be a crucial lesson for the struggle to preserve life as we know it.

The world's biggest 60 banks have provided nearly $4 trillion of financing for fossil fuel companies just since the Paris climate deal in 2015. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, cutting energy use, overall fossil fuel funding remained on an upward trend, and the finance provided in 2020 was scandalously higher than in 2016 or 2017. The Stop the Money pipeline movement, which is what the legislation is related to, around the world, demands that financial institutions like banks and insurance companies end their backing of fossil fuel industry projects like tar sands, oil pipelines, and natural gas fracking, and they urge public institutions like the city of Seattle to refuse to do business with financial institutions with ties to the fossil fuel industry, to put pressure on them to cut those dice.

The ordinance from my office, drafted by Eric McConaughey from City Council Central Staff with the help of climate activists, will help, will support the Stop the Money pipeline movement by giving the Green New Deal Oversight Board the authority to rate banks and insurance companies that bid on city projects and weight those ratings as 20% of the criteria that the Finance and Administrative Services Department will use to select winning bids.

My hope is that this bill will be ready for a vote at the meeting on November 30th.

If it is not ready for a vote by that committee meeting, then we will discuss it in draft form, but I do hope that we will be able to vote at that meeting.

My office has submitted to City Council Center staff a budget amendment to be introduced.

This amendment on behalf of the people's budget and the solidarity budget would increase the funding for affordable housing to $635 million in 2022. And the funding for the green new deal building decarbonization, $85 million per year.

If this budget amendment passes, it will fully fund the recommendations for housing and the green new deal in the people's budget and the solidarity budget and will fund the housing and green new deal needs of working people much more towards the scale that the crisis demands.

The budget amendment is self-balancing, raising the funds by increasing the rate of the payroll expense tax on large corporations or the Amazon tax.

The budget amendment also includes LTGO bond authorization to fund affordable housing and funds the yearly Green New Deal work and the LTGO debt service payments with the increase in the tax.

Many council members have opined about the need for new progressive revenues, but we know that progressive revenue is not a mystery.

It's simply a question of political will.

Council members will have every opportunity to fully fund housing and green new deals to the scale that is necessary and that is commensurate with the demands raised by the People's Budget and the Solidarity Budget, but will need the political will to increase taxes on the biggest businesses in Seattle, which is what this budget amendment will do.

And I please urge council members or their staff, their budget leads to discuss with my office.

If you want to look at details, we're happy to talk with you all with any individual office offline.

Lastly, the tenants of Rainier Court in Mount Baker, this is a major tenant struggle that I've been sharing reports from with council members at previous briefings.

The tenants of Rainier Court in Mount Baker had another successful tenant meeting alongside my office and other community supporters on Friday night.

We have learned that Of course, that because of the tenants got organized, not only has the struggle forced the landlord seed to rescind the rent increases for 2021, which is a major victory, but it has now forced seed to verbally tell tenants, the management has been telling tenants that they can pay prorated or reduced rent.

for the next couple of months to get compensated for the rent increases they already paid before they are fight back for C to rescind those rent increases.

So tenants have told my office that they want C to send a written memo about this because they want to be assured that they will not be penalized for prorating their rent and my office will be making sure that that happens.

We've also followed up with Seattle City Life to make sure that all the residents of Rainier Court who are eligible for the utility discount program are signed up for it.

And we've also been, my staff have also been in touch with the information technology department of the city to get the ball rolling to make sure that the residents have access to low cost broadband access.

This is an access that they have lost since 2017. And then Friday night we will be or we will be doing a rally.

We're organizing this with the tenants, my office and community advocates, including faith leaders, a rally to push for their continuing demands and for rent control heading into the November 30th community meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Salant.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Again, thanks so much.

Next up is going to be Council Member Strauss, and then after Council Member Strauss will be Council Member Herbold.

Good morning, Council Member Strauss.

Good morning, Council President and colleagues.

Here in District 6, last week I hosted a town hall on Tuesday, November 9th, where I provided updates about my budget work, our Council's budget work, and hosted three presentations.

One from City Budget Director Ben Noble for the general overview of the Mayor's proposed budget.

We had King County Department of Community and Human Services Director Leo Flohr and Behavioral Health and Recovery Division Director Kelly Nomura, who discussed how Seattle fits into our behavioral health space in King County and Washington State.

We also had Downtown Emergency Services Center Executive Director Daniel Malone.

who DESC is the parent organization for the mobile crisis team that we've discussed quite a bit here during this budget process.

And then we finished the town hall with questions and answers.

While the town hall took longer than expected, we extended the town hall by an hour so that I could answer as many questions from D6 residents as possible.

On Wednesday, colleagues, as you know, we held a five-hour budget hearing.

And due to the budget hearing and My town hall, office hours were shortened last week.

I did get to speak to three folks from Green Lake, residents from Loyal Heights, Sunset Hill, and Ballard.

We discussed Green Lake Community Center, the Evans Pool replacement, zoning at large and upzoning, catalytic converter thefts and the solutions, discussed homelessness and ways to engage on boards and commissions.

Last week, I continued to host meetings with governmental entities and community leaders to implement a coordinated plan to address specific homelessness encampments in District 6. I want to thank everyone.

I wanted to, let me stop there.

I want to see everyone currently living in Ballard Commons Park and many other parks brought inside as soon as possible.

And we are actively working to that end.

That's what these coordination meetings are about.

Thursday observed Veterans Day and attended the annual Veterans Day dinner to honor our veterans for their service to our nation.

Last week I also met with Finney Neighborhood Association, we discussed how to better coordinate with community leaders and organizations on efforts to best serve people living unsheltered.

My staff also attended the Green Lake Community Council and Valley District Council meetings.

I want to congratulate Doug Bamberg, Shauna Kelly, and Sylvie Reynolds, who were installed as new members of the Green Lake Community Council board, as well as thanks to Seattle Parks and Rec.

David Graves, who presented potential work for the Green Lake Community Center in Evanspool, and there was an in-depth presentation regarding Green Lake Outer Loop and the Woodland Park Zoo operating agreement.

The rest of last week, I spent in council meetings and budget meetings.

This coming week, district office hours will be tomorrow, Tuesday, from 2 to 6 p.m.

Wednesday, I'll be meeting with the Woodland Park Zoo representatives to discuss their upcoming agreement, and Councilmember Juarez, I'll have my amendments in by November 30th.

As well, Wednesday afternoon, I'll attend the Regional Transportation Committee, where we're scheduled to take final vote to adopt updates to the King County Metro Strategic Plan for public transportation, the King County Metro Service Guidelines, and MetroConnect's King County Metro's Long-Range Plan.

For the rest of this week, colleagues, as you know, we'll be in Budget Committee meetings.

In the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, there are two items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's council full agenda.

clerk file 314367 and council bill 120216 which are corresponding clerk file and council bill approving a contract rezone application for 41302 30th Avenue Northeast from single-family zone or single-family 7200 to low-rise 3. There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods today on today's introduction and referral calendar.

And there will be a special meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on Friday, December 3rd, starting at 9.30 a.m.

followed by our regular meeting on Wednesday, December 8th, also at 9.30 a.m.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

That is my report.

Thanks so much, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we will continue down the line here.

Next up is Councilmember Herbold, and then after Councilmember Herbold will be Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning, Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning.

Good to see everybody here with us today.

I'd like to start my report with an offer of condolences to the family of Deputy Chief Jay Sheckengrass and to all of those at the Seattle Fire Department who served with him together with All of the folks who have been involved in the last couple of weeks participating in a search at in Keyess County, including more than 60 agencies, 160 members of the Seattle Fire Department all over the last 12 days.

Want to just share some words from the Seattle Fire Department that I know We all that are representative of sentiments that I know that we all share as well.

We're very saddened by this news and we're all grieving for the loss of one of our own deputy chief.

Shekin Gross was a husband, a father, and a friend to all, and our hearts are with his family right now who have been at the site every day searching alongside search and rescue, fire, and law enforcement agencies.

Again, many, many thanks to everybody who's been involved in the search over the last couple weeks and our thanks and sympathy and condolences to everybody in the Seattle Fire Department family, as well as the family of Deputy Chief Shekin Goss.

Thank you.

Moving on to departmental updates from the Human Services Department.

Just want to circle back around about the status on the Seattle Relief Fund.

They're still accepting applications, but only until noon today.

You can submit at seattlerelief.com.

So far, they've received 34,000 applications as of November 8th.

The fund has 16 million.

to award direct cash assistance to households financially impacted by the pandemic.

And again, this is a really important source of assistance to families in Seattle.

And just reminding folks that noon today is the end of applications.

For public health, Just want to recognize that with the possibility of households losing power, public health of Seattle King County is reminding us of the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.

This is a result of poisonous and odorless gas that can't be seen or smelled.

And that can kill a person very quickly, in minutes.

If you lose power, be careful about any alternative heat or cooking sources.

Only use a generator outdoors and far from open windows and vents.

Never cook inside on a charcoal or gas grill.

And if you suspect somebody has been poisoned by carbon monoxide, move the person to a place with fresh air immediately.

Take the person to an emergency room and tell them that you suspect carbon monoxide poisoning.

Moving on, just a quick mention of an item that intersects between our deliberations on the 2022 budget and some misleading statements in Seattle Times editorial over the weekend related to the police department budget as proposed under the chair's balancing package.

The chair's budget that we heard last week first made public on November 9th reflects the input from the monitor's letter dated November 8th.

The items that the monitor under the Consent Decree, Monitor Avtali, referenced in his letter that he recommended shouldn't be subject to cuts are actually not cut in the chair's budget.

And you wouldn't, I don't think, understand that if you'd read the references in the Times today.

Um, it's the times article makes it sound like the chair's budget cuts the items that the monitors letter request that we consider not cutting does not recognize that the chair's budget actually.

took the input from the monitor and incorporated it in her proposed balanced budget.

And then regarding the monitor's, well, I shouldn't say the monitor's statement, the characterization of the monitor's statement in The Times that no council members met with him.

The monitor is well aware that Greg Doss was representing council special staff when Greg met with the monitor.

And I'm more than certain that the monitor let the Seattle Times know that.

And that's why I say it seems to me that this might be a characterization of the conversation with the monitor.

It is true that no individual council member met with the monitor, but again, Greg Doss.

did meet with the Monitor on behalf of the Council to go over the budget proposals before the Monitor sent the Council his letter reflecting the input of the Monitor.

The very purpose of the meeting that Greg had, as requested by Council, was to represent the Council to see if there are questions about the proposals and to be able to discuss the budget proposals in detail.

And this is very similar to a process that we used with the recent supplemental budget action.

Greg Doss and the city attorney's office met with the monitor.

And in that case, there's no letter from the monitor.

So in that particular instance, there wasn't input that we needed to receive and reflect in our budget and consider reflecting in our budget.

In this case, there was.

And to the budget chair's credit, she did so.

Moving on to events last week and coming up this week.

Significant events at the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting last week.

Significant because SDOT noted that the negotiations for what's called the Maximum Allowable Construction Contract are complete.

And the final negotiated cost is in line with the estimated costs and budget.

and drumroll, SDOT expects to issue the notice to proceed for full construction this week.

So this is great forward news.

Also just want to reference the fact that I had three regional meetings last week that I attended.

The first was the King County Regional Violence Prevention Leadership Group.

This was the first meeting of that group convened by King County Executive Dow Constantine and Renton Council Member Ed Pierce.

We also had a Regional Policy Committee meeting where we heard an update from King County Superior Court.

on their efforts to address the backlog associated with COVID-19 at the Superior Court.

And we also voted out the initial Health Through Housing Implementation Plan that will govern the expenditure of sales and use tax.

received authorized by by King County.

And then lastly had a WIRA 9 committee meeting as well.

All three meetings overlapping but somehow with the help of a lot of folks supporting me was able to attend all three meetings.

Lastly, I just want to note, as far as things that happened last week, that on Friday, the Seattle King County Advisory Council on Aging and Disability Services received the council and mayor's proclamation that we dealt with a couple weeks ago, declaring November to be National Caregiver Support Month.

And there was a lot of appreciation for the council and the mayor's support.

in the month of November for their work.

So I thank each and every one of you that joined on the proclamation a couple weeks ago.

Coming up this week, I'm excited to take a next step with the Roxhill Bog Restoration Project.

I'll be attending a community meeting and helping to kick off the next phase of that project.

And on Thursday, just really excited to participate in the 20th anniversary of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition and look forward to being out in community for these items this week.

And with that, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold, for that report.

Are there any comments or questions?

Right.

I don't see any hands raised, so we'll keep going down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Juarez, and then after Councilmember Juarez will be Councilmember Lewis.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

I have five issues to speak to this morning and I will be brief.

There are no items of the Public Asset and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

As I've shared, the next committee meeting is on December 7th at 2. The committee will consider legislation to renew the Woodland Park Zoo Operation and Management Agreement.

A weekly reminder again to get in your amendments.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I've already seen and received some draft language from my colleagues and information from the Woodland Park Zoo regarding some potential amendments, so thank you for that.

Parks, between November 3rd and November 9th, the Parks Department served about 120 people through their shower program.

This is a reminder that the Parks Department is requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for all of their programming.

This is some good news we'd like to share.

The Parks Department recently signed a transition agreement with the Bullitt family estate regarding a 1.5 acre property on Capitol Hill.

The property was transferred to the City of Seattle when Kay Bullitt passed away on August 22, 2021. Parks is now preparing to take this generous gift into its public lands inventory.

So I would like to share a gracious and very much appreciated thank you to the Bullitt family for this gift that they have given to the City of Seattle.

In early November, Seattle Parks and Rec crews focused on deep cleaning Meridian Park and the Blanche Lavizio Park.

Let's move on.

Seattle Public Library, in anticipation of the closure of Seattle Public Schools on Friday, November 12th, the library ensured full staffing in their after-school programming to respond to the predicated above-average number of participants.

Thank you, Seattle Public Library and staff for your leadership, anticipating the need and being there to help out with Seattle Public Schools, making sure that the young folks had somewhere to go and things to do.

The library continues to move forward with planning interviews for the candidates for the chief librarian set to start beginning of 2022. Item number four, North Seattle College.

This is exciting news too.

North Seattle College completed the renovations to their veteran center recently.

The upgrades are designed to help during the transition for veterans from serving in the armed forces to becoming a student.

The newly renovated veteran center features new computers, more desk space, and televisions.

The lounge will also host office hours to connect students to a variety of resources, including accessing their GI Bill benefits and child care services.

North Seattle College is working on expanding their child care services and continues to be successful with the Promise Program, which, as you all remember, some of you remember, was initiated in 2018 with the Families Education Preschool and Promise, the FEPP levy.

So that has proved a success, particularly at North Seattle College.

North Seattle College, in addition, also installed a pantry, a kitchenette for veterans who are struggling with foods insecurity.

You can learn more of this.

It seems that, and I had a chance to watch it, Channel 13 featured a segment highlighting this new addition on November 10th.

So I want to really thank President Crawford, who we work closely with of North Seattle College, and the VetCorps navigators, Jeanette Purser-Smith, for your work on this project and taking care of our veterans.

Lastly, Sound Transit, The Sound Transit Board Chair, Kent Kiel, has asked me to serve on the search committee to select a new CEO for the organization.

We begin that process this week.

We received materials last week, and our first scheduled meeting will be Wednesday, November 17th at one o'clock.

And that is all I have, Council President.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

hearing none.

We'll keep going down the line here.

Next up is Councilmember Luis and then after Councilmember Luis is Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning.

Good morning Madam President.

I similarly will be brief following in the mold of Councilmember Juarez.

A couple of things to report.

Last week I had the great privilege to join a group of stakeholders from our public service outreach provider community, as well as business leaders, small business leaders in the Pioneer Square and downtown neighborhood to celebrate the great work, the great person-centered outreach work of Just Care at the First and Yesler Pergola site, where over the course of the last two weeks, Just Care successfully navigated several dozen people living at that site into enhanced shelter spaces with wraparound services, minimizing or eliminating entirely displacement from that outreach operation, centering the needs of the people living in the encampment, as well as the needs of the broader neighborhood.

having the Pergola Park restored to its purpose as a recreation and gathering site instead of a place to live in.

This is another great example of how this initiative jointly funded by the council and King County and implemented by the mayor's office has led to building these kinds of partnerships and bringing people together to solve the most pressing challenge the city is facing.

namely our homelessness crisis.

Really just want to give a big shout out to Nicole Alexander with the Public Defender Association, as well as Lisa Dugard and Lisa Howard with the Alliance for Pioneer Square for their leadership in bringing this coalition together and maintaining this kind of person-centered approach to addressing moving people into shelter in the Pioneer Square neighborhood.

It was really good to be able to join them and celebrate that work and lift up the work of the outreach workers who have been out there in incredibly challenging conditions, as we're all aware, with the wind and the rain, doing work that is more important than ever.

I was also very humbled to join on the evening of Veterans Day parishioners of the Catholic Archdiocese of Western Washington at St. James Cathedral for a mass mourning and recognizing the passing of 220 of our homeless neighbors who have perished on the streets of Seattle over the course of 2021. At the conclusion of the mass, the names of all 220 individuals were read as the bells of St. James tolled.

It was a very moving, it was a very, very moving event, really centering the work that we do as a council in trying to mitigate on the incredible challenges and harms our neighbors experiencing homelessness live through every day on the streets of the city and really just further redouble my personal efforts.

And I know the efforts of everyone on this council who share the sense of urgency to make sure that we are centering this work and continuing to move forward in a plan to get our neighbors experiencing homelessness inside and scale up our investments in housing and shelter to make sure that In the future, far fewer and eventually none of our neighbors experiencing homelessness perish for lack of a place to live with dignity and security.

And I do want to thank the Archdiocese for the invitation and appreciated the opportunity to join in that observance for the people most vulnerable in our community.

Finally, I will be taking a tour this week of the 911 call center.

Originally that tour was scheduled for October.

and was rescheduled due to other commitments related to our budget deliberations.

I look forward to meeting with the 911 call center leadership to discuss some of the exigent challenges around staffing, as well as the plans to transition to a future where the 911 call center is dispatching an increased number of alternative responses and I look forward to talking about what I learned there when we convene for council briefing next week.

Thank you, Madam President.

I don't have any additional items.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we'll keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Morales, and then after Council Member Morales will be Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone I have no items from the community and economic development agenda on today's council meeting.

Last week I met with folks from the Friends of Little Saigon, the Community Safety Liaison from SCPTA, as well as the SPD Liaison and the Crime Prevention Coordinator, and several staff from LEAD to discuss some of the issues that they are facing at 12th and Jackson.

We know that it's a confluence of lots of different things happening, but it was really clear that we could, as a city, do better coordinating between SDOT and SPD for street vendor licensing, for example, SPU with more frequent sidewalk trash cleanup.

LEED is also gonna be doing more street outreach.

So, I think we've all heard there's been lots happening there and really wanted a chance to meet directly with the neighbors and the business owners as well as the community safety folks there.

Since that meeting, my office has engaged with.

to request much needed garbage pickup at 12th and Jackson and for them to add the area as an emphasis route in their Clean Cities work.

We've also met with LEED and have provided LEED community referral forms to these organizations.

LEED staff have also committed to meeting with small businesses in the area to coordinate their engagement work with folks in the area.

particularly with regards to crimes of poverty and crimes related to substance abuse disorder.

We will soon reach out to SDOT to see what can be done about allowing street vendors in the area.

I know folks are understandably really concerned about retail vacancy in Little Saigon, and I would welcome conversations with other city departments or outside organizations that are looking for ways to activate the spaces there as we try to navigate this economic downturn that has been brought on by the pandemic.

The only other issue I wanted to mention, colleagues, as you know, for a little over a year now, my office has been meeting with neighbors in the Mount Baker neighborhood.

We continue to meet with them around their concerns regarding safety at the light rail station.

There's an elevated track and there's a lot of issues that are happening underneath and around.

There was another incident last night.

apartment building there was broken into last night.

So there's just a lot of frustration there.

My staff did meet last week with community members, with representatives from Sound Transit and the mayor's office to continue the conversation.

Out of that meeting came some ideas around perhaps emulating the corner greeter program that we have in the Rainier Beach neighborhood, as well as for the Department of Neighborhoods to work with local residents and the local business community to see how to activate some of the space around that building.

It's not just the space under the platform, but the UW laundry site behind it and the vacant parking lot.

So there's a lot of things that are contributing to some of the the challenges there.

I hope to have additional ongoing conversations with the next mayor about how the Office of Housing and possibly Department of Neighborhoods can stimulate activation in that space as we wait for, particularly as we wait for the UW development to start.

Neighbors there are really frustrated by the slow movement at the city.

I share their frustration.

It's been a very long process.

And in the meantime, neighbors feel very unsafe in their community.

As a council office, I'll admit, I wish I had more power to, you know, to move departments to make things happen and address these concerns more immediately.

In the coming months, I would love to engage with my citywide colleagues and with the next mayor to see how together we can really start to advocate for, not advocate, implement and act on the fundamental changes that are needed in that area so that folks are safer and so that their building stops getting broken into.

That is all I have this morning, colleagues.

Thanks so much.

Council Member Morales, any comments or questions on that report?

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thanks.

Not a comment or question to Council Member Morales' report, but Council Member Lewis reminded me of something I should have reported out.

My staff and I did have the opportunity to visit the community safety and Communications Center last week.

He had mentioned that he has an upcoming visit and spent a good amount of time there touring the center and sitting with call takers and dispatchers, understanding their work.

understanding the need for council support for their work as they are grappling with staff turnover and vacancies.

I shared with them and they were well informed, I can say, the information about the council's efforts supported by budget chair Mosqueda in her proposed balanced budget working on increasing the staffing of the CSCC and specifically the recommendation from the Kimball report back in, I think it was 2016, that showed that the call center should have 169 FTEs based on a workplace analysis.

The workers there were really, really, really grateful that council is working to fund up to 140 positions, of which 20 are vacant and an additional 17 that currently have part-time absences due to situations such as medical and military leave, they can't wait for the help.

So just wanted to let council members know that there's a lot of gratitude and recognition that the council supports their work.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Herbold, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

I just wanted to briefly, Council Member Morales, express my profound understanding of the challenges you're facing with Mount Baker Light Rail Station and some of the ongoing issues.

It's similar to a lot of the intractable public safety challenges my office has also tried to troubleshoot around throughout the downtown core and Pioneer Square.

I know you indicated an interest in building coalition with colleagues.

I just wanted to extend my offer to commiserate on things that we have found helpful to to get action in some of these places, you know, with great frustration and over long periods of time.

So, you know, there is no magic solution to it, but to the extent that we can assist, we are happy to share our experience as well.

So I just wanted to offer that and feel free to reach out to Connect.

Great, thank you so much.

I don't see any other hands raised, so let's keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member Mosqueda, I will give my very, very brief report.

Go ahead, Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning, Council President.

Thanks for the opportunity to be here today and to start with a note of clarification, building off the vice chair's comments as well.

I want to directly address the comments that came from the Seattle Times editorial board over the weekend.

And I'll also not only be doing this verbally, but we'll be following up with each one of you so that you receive a central staff memo that will be in inbox shortly.

And we'll also be making sure that that's available to members of the press.

We want to clarify that indeed, The Seattle City Council members via central staff reached out and directly engaged with the court monitor on the proposed items related to Seattle Police Department in our 2022 budget.

Directly counter to what the Seattle Times editorial board is trying to lead readers to believe, we are telling the truth and will continue to work in a transparent and honest way.

I would like to state for the record the actual timeline of council and central staff's engagement with the federal court monitor during the creation of this initial balancing package.

So there are not any questions or concerns, especially for my colleagues.

You've heard me directly tell you that we engaged with the court monitor.

So it's important to me that you have a direct answer for me.

Yes, we engaged and you will have that timeline in front of you and to confirm with what the vice chair shared earlier.

Uh, this was a conversation that is not accurately being reported by the Seattle Times editorial board.

Not that the reporters but opining on behalf of the editorial board needs to be corrected as well.

Per the request of me, the budget chair, the request of the council president, and the public safety human services committee chair, Seattle city central staff reached out to the law department to request a meeting to brief the court monitor on the proposed budget as we have done in budget actions over the past year and a half.

Central staff, at the request of me, the vice chair and council president, met with the court monitor The court monitor was briefed by Carola Cowett of the city's central staff and central staff lead on police items, Greg Doss.

This meeting occurred on November 1st, 2021. Carla, on behalf of the law department and Greg, on behalf of Seattle City Council's central staff, set the appointment a week before our scheduled release to ensure that there was sufficient time to receive feedback from the court monitor.

Again, colleagues, our release budget was set to occur no later than November 10th, and we wanted to try to release that to you on November 9th, so the meeting was set for November 1st.

The meeting did occur, and this was a critical conversation allowing for the central staff to present on behalf of council members to provide a briefing on what was some of the proposed items in my draft budget at the time that built upon these Council members, CBAs, or the council budget amendments that you all had presented.

Central staff, on behalf of City Council, presented a summary of the proposed inclusion of the CBAs in a neutral, nonpartisan manner.

Greg asked questions of the court manager to gain a better understanding of the potential budget changes from the court monitor's perspective.

The court monitor is very aware that Greg works on behalf of all council members, and as central staff, works directly with us, with me, as the budget chair, in drafting the proposed budget.

In fact, central staff is the author of the CBAs and is the best person to provide technical feedback on all of the proposed amendments that we were considering.

The law department and central staff, again, briefed the monitor on all of those CBAs that were public that would potentially affect the Seattle Police Department.

Those items were also provided to members of the public in our committee meeting on October 27th.

The court monitor received this full briefing along with all of the materials provided from our October 29th meeting in their November 1st meeting.

During that meeting, Greg told the court monitor that central staff would be working with me, the budget chair, to help finalize the draft budget over the following week.

That was November 2nd to the 15th.

Central staff said that any feedback the court monitor wished to provide would be greatly appreciated, and the sooner the court monitor could provide that feedback, the better.

During that meeting, they asked for any initial feedback that the court monitor could provide.

For context, central staff mentioned that the chair's budget is typically reviewed in the second week of November and that the budget is typically adopted the week before Thanksgiving.

The court monitor said he didn't have any immediate feedback during that meeting, but we left the door open to make sure that the court monitor knew that if they had any additional information or questions or concerns that they please identify any of those concerns as soon as possible.

After the conclusion of the November 1st meeting, the court monitor said that they would think about any additional concerns they had and send that over as soon as possible.

Colleagues, as you know, on November 8th, I received a memo from the court monitor noting some concerns about potential CBAs and potential provisos.

That was November 8th.

Our budget was released on November 9th.

Immediately following the receipt of the memo, I worked with central staff to address the court monitor's concerns when deciding which of the final proposed amendments we would include in the proposed package.

Colleagues, it's a draft deliberative process.

Those CBAs are intended to identify specific ideas and get policy strategies in development.

We worked very quickly to make sure that we addressed any of the concerns that the court monitor noted, and we ensured that issues with the court monitor flag as important to complying with the consent decree were addressed before the budget was released.

Those are the facts.

I understand that it must continue to be an inconvenience for the Seattle Times editorial board to acknowledge that we did indeed and will continue to engage with the court monitor directly as we have done in the past.

But I wanted to make sure that I started my comments with setting the record straight.

We will continue have done and will make sure to include any technical feedback that flags any concerns.

That is how we engage in a transparent and accountable process with all of our colleagues and with members of the public.

With that clarification out of the way, Madam President, I do want to flag a few items on today's introduction or referral calendar.

Today, we have the legislation related to the 2022 budget that we will be reviewing and taking a vote on later this week in committee.

This includes Council Bills 1200, We also have the street vacation fees for affordable housing legislation related to the conversation that Councilmember Peterson brought up this morning.

I'm excited that this legislation is a follow-up on the amendment I am bringing later today to the Grand Street Commons street vacation to waive the fee for the affordable housing project.

This would codify an exemption for all publicly funded affordable housing projects from having to pay street vacation fees.

This bill would enable our public affordable housing dollars to be put to use to build affordable housing rather than being paid back to the city.

We have an initial briefing from the Transportation and Utilities Committee on December 1st.

I want to thank Council Member Peterson for our joint efforts through the two committees that we both chair to make sure that we are providing at least two conversations about this as we seek to round out this year's committee meetings after we get through the budget.

After Councilmember Peterson's briefing and discussion on December 1st in the Transportation Committee, we will then have the bill in my committee, Finance and Housing, for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Having this discussion that both crosses over transportation and housing issues allows for us to have full community engagement while making sure that the briefing discussion and vote occurs on December 7th in my committee on Finance and Housing.

colleagues with your support.

I do hope that the final vote will take place I believe on December 13th on that Monday.

Additionally, on the introduction referral calendar, we have Resolution 32028. This is the Domestic Workers Portable Paytime Off Benefits legislation.

This resolution requests the Office of Labor Standards to collaborate with community partners, including the Domestic Workers Standards Board and the Portable Benefits Coalition, to develop policy related to establishing a portable benefits paytime off program for Seattle domestic workers.

Colleagues, you'll note that many of the domestic worker Sanders board members have called in over the last few months to talk about the importance of this work.

We are thankful that the mayor's proposed budget included some funding to advance the conversation through the Office of Labor Standards and with community to help develop a very important piece of legislation that requires a lot of time and expertise, as we are seeing done in other cities.

We want to make sure that this is being done directly with issue experts and with community partners.

I want to thank members of the Domestic Worker Standards Board, the Portable Benefits Coalition, Jasmine Moraha, the Office of Labor Standards for their work to help us identify a path forward to getting those policy details right throughout the next year.

Cranable from central staff and Lori Mayhew from my office have been working very hard to finalize this piece of legislation.

This is a resolution that would go hand in glove with the upcoming budget to make sure that we continue in a transparent way with our community partners to identify how the policy will come together.

And just for reference, this resolution was very much worked on with those community partners from the Portable Benefits Coalition.

So thank you to their work in helping to finalize the draft in front of you today on the introduction or referral calendar.

This afternoon, we also have the Sandpoint easement legislation up for discussion and vote in council.

This legislation would authorize the Office of Housing to execute an easement agreement for sanitary sewer mainline with the University of Washington to support the development of cottages for people experiencing homelessness on city-owned property.

While this is technical legislation, it brings us a step closer to realizing a wonderful project that will create 20 to 25 cottages for individuals experiencing homelessness and and to make sure that those who are living and sleeping in areas throughout our city or perhaps on couches across our city have a safe and comfortable place to go.

This will include living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and a loft area.

This is an exciting opportunity to build a common building and create a community garden, as well as outdoor recreation space and walking paths.

I want to thank Representative Chopp and Lehigh for the work that they've done on this project.

I look forward to moving forward this legislation to bring those cottages together online.

A briefing from the what to expect from the city, from the Select Budget Committee meeting.

Colleagues, we are in the final week of our budget deliberations.

Next Monday at this time, we hope to be on the cusp of wrapping up our budget deliberations to send to the mayor the 2022 balanced budget.

Last Tuesday, I released the chair's 2022 budget package.

Central staff and I provided an overview of the public to all of you on Wednesday as well.

And then on Friday, we use the opportunity to yet again provide clarifying information Friday morning on many of the details in the proposed budget, including the increased investments in Seattle Police Department, the ways in which unused and available dollars in 2022 within the Seattle Police Department were seeking to be repurposed.

We also talked about the large investments in affordable housing, $124 million into affordable housing.

and the deep investments we are making with community partners and the Regional Homelessness Authority to address the most pressing crisis in addition to the pandemic, and that is the public health crisis of folks who need shelter and services who are living unhoused in Seattle.

I appreciate all of the feedback that you've provided and the amendments that you have submitted to the central staff on Friday at 2 p.m.

was our deadline.

Thank you very much to all of you who have submitted amendments.

We have been working throughout the weekend with central staff to review those amendments and working with central staff to make sure that on Thursday this week you will have the opportunity to see all of those amendments that have been submitted on time.

Those again will be published the day before with the agenda.

If for any reason there is a last-minute walk-on amendment, which I am I'm hoping there will not be, but if there are any, you need to circulate those to central staff, the deputy clerks, and to council members before 5 p.m.

on the preceding business day.

That would be Wednesday evening.

So please do circulate those before 5 p.m.

on Wednesday.

If a member wishes to make an amendment that is not published on the agenda, the agenda must be amended by an affirmative vote of the majority of council members present.

The final Budget Committee votes and the Council adoption of the budget again will be next Monday, November 22nd.

Central staff will complete any necessary legislative corrections over the weekend.

I did ask if we were able to get through everything on Thursday, if we would be able to vote on Friday in our Budget Committee, but they do need those extra two to three days to finalize the budget and make sure that any technical corrections are made.

So please do note, we will still keep that November 22nd meeting in the morning so that we can then pass on the legislation to our full Council in the afternoon for the final vote.

Lastly, I want to thank Emily Alvarado.

It is a very exciting opportunity for her to go on to continue her work in making sure that we're building more affordable and accessible housing throughout our region.

We want to thank her for her seven years of service at the Office of Housing.

Her last day was on Friday last week.

and thank her for the incredible work she's done as the Director of the Office of Housing.

Under Emily's direction, the Office of Housing has implemented innovative policies like community preference, has scaled up our affirmative marketing strategies, has invested in community-driven affordable housing, and has worked with us to make sure that those investments in community affordable housing have preference and priority for those who are building housing to serve those who are at the highest risk of displacement, most notably our BIPOC community.

Under Emily's leadership, we have increased investments in permanent supportive housing by nearly 50%.

Emily is headed to Enterprise Community Partners to serve as Vice President and Pacific Northwest Market Leader, and we look forward to continuing to work with her.

And in the same vein, welcome back Robin Kosky, who is serving as Interim Director of Office of Housing starting today.

I wanna thank FAS for their continued work on a number of issues, notably on the Jumpstart Progressive Tax Legislation.

FAS License and Tax Administration conducted another Jumpstart Tax webinar on November 3rd.

76 attendees were present and the webinar, the next webinar is scheduled for December 1st.

I wanna thank them for all the work that they continue to do to get information out to those who are payors into the jump start progressive revenue, which is making our budget sound and stable this year.

And finally, I want to add to Councilmember Herbold's condolences and sincerely send our deep appreciation to all of the firefighters and their family and the family members at SFD who in this moment are grieving the loss of the chief for this difficult time.

I wanna make sure to also extend my gratitude for the 60 different agencies and the 160 firefighter members who responded to the site and are working extremely hard as they sought to secure the location of Deputy Chief.

And thank you all for this work that you've done and our deepest condolences in this time of grief.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you so much Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, I'll go ahead and conclude this section of our agenda with my own report before I move us into executive session.

I have nothing on this afternoon's city council agenda for final action, but I do have one item on the introduction and referral calendar.

Item five on the introduction and referral calendar is resolution 32029, a resolution adopting general rules and procedures of the Seattle City Council.

The resolution is being referred to my committee, which is the Governance and Education Committee for consideration during the month of December.

My committee will hold two special meetings to consider and ultimately vote on this resolution amending the council rules consistent with our biennial practice.

The two special committee dates to discuss the council rules are Wednesday, December 1st at 2 o'clock p.m.

and Wednesday, December 8th at two o'clock p.m.

This year, there are a number of changes to the rules being proposed by various council members.

And in order to ensure that all council members have the opportunity to consider and provide feedback on these proposals before we take final action at the city council, the office of city clerk will be reaching out to all of your offices to offer briefings on proposed amendments to the rules during the week of November 29th.

Again, I have asked that the Office of the City Clerk reach out to each of your offices and schedule a one-on-one briefing, should you wish to take advantage of that one-on-one briefing, during the week of November 29th.

If that week does not work for you, please feel free to communicate that to our Office of the City Clerk and they will work hard to accommodate a time that does work for your schedule.

My hope is that we can have some kind of briefing before the first meeting which occurs on December 1st in my committee.

In addition, I'm inviting all council members to attend the two special committee meetings that I just described so that we can discuss collectively the resolution and that you all have a direct opportunity to engage in the deliberations and the conversation, even if you're not voting members of the Governance and Education Committee.

Please keep in mind that those that are invited but not members of the committee cannot vote or sponsor amendments, but you can be considered authors of amendments so long as you find a committee member to sponsor your amendment.

Non committee members can and will also be recognized to speak at the committee hearing and otherwise participate in the debate.

So, again, all of you are welcome to participate in the 2 special committee meetings.

Which again, mark your calendars will be Wednesday, December 1st.

At 2 o'clock PM and Wednesday, December 8th at 2 o'clock PM.

You can expect to hear more from my staff and from the Office of City Clerk on this topic in the coming days and weeks, and I appreciate your engagement on this important matter.

This concludes my report for the week.

I'm happy to take any questions or hear any comments on that report.

Council Member Juarez, please.

I'm sorry, Council President, I didn't get the, I'm sorry, I didn't get the times.

I had the dates of your committee, and I think I'm on that.

I am on that.

What were your times on your committee meeting?

2 p.m., both days, 2 p.m.

Okay, thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

All right, hearing none, we, as I mentioned at the top of today's agenda, we do have two executive sessions.

So I'm going to go ahead and move us into those executive sessions.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing the Seattle City Council will now convene two executive sessions.

The purpose of the executive sessions are to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 1115 a.m.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond 1115 AM, I will return to open session and announce the extension and the expected duration.

Thank you.