Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/30/18 Session 2

Good afternoon everyone and welcome back to our October 30th 2018 Budget Committee meeting.

I want to say thank you to my colleagues and to Council Central staff and Allison McClain for a great morning session.

I really felt that it went productively and smoothly and this afternoon we have 21 more issues.

to take a look at.

As I mentioned this morning, and just there were a few of you who came in late, not to name names, but I think we've gotten in the mood here that if you want to add your name to this or to any of the recommended green sheets, you can just raise your hand.

We'll talk it through like we did.

And then I've also asked people, if you have or are recommending a statement of legislative intent, that what I'm asking the sponsor to do is to come back with essentially a one-pager describing what the scope or the schedule of the budget would be so that we can give Council Central staff a roadmap for 2019 on what the objectives are that you want from your slide.

Oftentimes, in the past, what's happened is, you know, six months, nine months go by, and you get your report back, but frankly, some of us have forgotten what the point and the intention of the slide was in the first place.

So, we want to make sure that we're not just putting things on a shelf to become dusty, but they're active, and we know what the outcomes are, and again, I'm thankful to Councilmember Herbold for her reminding us that we need to know what the theory of change may be when we're asking for these statements of legislative intent, which allows us to know what the outcomes are, but to work backward and how we're going to implement.

God bless you.

So, with that, I think we can just get ready and move forward.

We are going to be starting on, let's see, you have lost the number already, on item number 30. Green Sheet number 30 and Council Central staff, if you will introduce yourself and we will dive right in.

Hello, I'm Eric Sund of your Council Central staff.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Nice to see you both.

And the first one I think is Teresa Mosqueda.

Okay.

So, item number 30 is Green Sheet 8-1A1, which would add $100,000 of general funds to the Department of Education and Early Learning, or DEEL, in 2019 for a child care access and affordability study.

The study would examine the barriers constricting the supply of child care facilities in Seattle, explore new programs that could overcome those barriers, and estimate the impact of those actions on the cost and supply of child care.

And this item comes from Councilmember Mosqueda and is co-sponsored by Council President Harrell and Councilmember Johnson.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mosqueda, would you like to talk about this?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to appreciate Councilmember Harold and Johnson for signing on to this and also acknowledge the immense amount of work that this council has already done to study the barriers to affordable and accessible child care in our city.

I've said before and it bears repeating, this is one of the most expensive cities in the country to have child care.

And not only is it expensive for those who are at the lowest income, but it's expensive and inaccessible for families at all income levels.

When you have to consider the fact that many individuals who are trying to go back to work either after adopting a baby or having a baby of their own are spending more than their rent and more than their mortgage on child care, we are forcing individuals to make impossible decisions about whether or not they give up going back into the workforce, continue with unpaid work at the home, whether or not they cobble together funds with existing friends and family, or if they pay out of pocket upwards of $2,300, $2,500 a month.

So we've done studies in the past.

This study would ask for us to look at potential barriers across Seattle, including the fact that we have low provider wages.

Again, on average, we pay child care providers less per hour than we pay those who are watching our car, and child care providers are watching our kids.

We know that there's permitting and zoning regulations that have changed and need to be changed further.

We've taken some strides in the education levy to address the need for additional training, but obviously training and ensuring that we have a pipeline into this industry is critical, and looking at provider licensing requirements.

I'm really interested in making sure that we get the answers to these questions and don't just have as the council chair just said another report that gets put on a shelf to become dusty if there is the opportunity to build on the past analyses that we've done in this city already and actually lead by example and do for example put the child care facility downstairs here at City Hall, which is another one of our proposals that we'll be talking about tomorrow, I believe.

We are more than interested in that.

I appreciate the support from Councilmember Harreld and Johnson on this effort and do think that we need to take the next step.

If we were to do another study, my intent would be that this would spur us into action.

If we are interested in using $100,000 as allocated for this green sheet to actually open the child care facility downstairs, for example, that would be something I'd be very interested in as well.

I think both efforts are needed, and that's why we put forward both of the recommendations for this year's budget.

Great.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

I want to underline what Council Member Mosqueda just said.

It will be my goal to get a child care facility open in 2019, either in this building or in SMT across the street, but somewhere for city employees to be able to bring their kids and also open up to public if there are spaces available, if we can make one large enough to accommodate that need.

But I am very interested in identifying what are the barriers, as Council Member Mosqueda said.

What do people need to be able to open?

I know that there are a lot of state rules and regulations with which we must comply.

But to the extent that we could make it easier for people, either having an online toolkit, where they know what they can do, but I do want us to move forward with the concept of having a childcare facility in this building, in a city building within here or within the immediate block or two.

So, thank you for that.

I know we'll have more money and more opportunities to discuss this coming up, but I want to just reiterate how important this is to me personally.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I just wanted to make sure that as we continue to look at this space around childcare access and affordability.

that we make sure that we're working with our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, which I know we are, but I just think it's important to highlight that some of the things that need to change that are currently presenting barriers to being able to have a greater supply of child care centers and family child care facilities in Seattle are for the most part being created by some Washington Ministry of Code restrictions and other state statutes that are really creating a significant number of barriers and bureaucratic morass that really makes it really difficult for people who might want to enter into the childcare industry to do so.

And so, you know, one of the things that we talked about when we were developing our Families in Education Preschool Promise Levy was, you know, could we allocate some funds through that proposed levy that would allow us to create greater number of centers in the infant care space in particular?

And one of the things that we really heard loudly and clearly from a lot of the service providers is that there just, there isn't enough of a bench to begin with to make those investments go as far as we wanted them to go in that infant care space.

And so there's certainly a need to be able to really systematically evaluate and analyze what are some of those barriers that could be incredibly helpful to our state lobbying efforts when we, you know, have conversations with our state, our state, our Seattle delegation to talk to them about what kind of legislative administrative policy fixes need to occur to allow for this type of work to actually produce some results in the field.

And I was going to save my comments around the high cost of child care for when Council Member Musqueda's green sheet around adding additional capacity in that space could be, but I think it's relevant here as well.

But the Child Care Aware of America organization, which is a national organization based in Washington, D.C., just recently published a publication this month where it talks about the lack of affordability in child care across the country and highlights some statistics here in Washington state.

And the report provides that, quote, in Washington, single parents pay 51.6% of their income for infant center care.

married parents of two children living at the poverty line pay 101.6% of their household income for center-based childcare, and the cost of infant care in Washington is more than the annual cost of college tuition at a four-year college.

So I think, again, those are Washington State numbers and statistics and data that are in here, so I suspect if we were able to disaggregate that data, those numbers would probably be I think we'd see even deeper lack of affordability for families who are really struggling to make ends meet here in the city of Seattle.

So can I ask a question?

Let me just come back, Council Member Wallace.

So I know Council Member Johnson and Council Member Gonzales and Ms. Skater, you've been working on this for this last year in various form.

How would you like to see this proceed?

Would you like to see one of our committees take this on in this next coming year?

Would you like to see a interdepartmental team?

What would work well, because my goal on all of this is to move it forward and not spend 2019 studying something where we already have a pretty deep understanding of what the problems and issues are.

Council Member Johnson.

If I may take a shot at that.

Knock on wood, but I would hope that um, we have some good news coming out of uh, the city of seattle voters on tuesday And that will require councilman gonzalez's committee to update the Proposed spending associated with the families education preschool and promise program, which brian goodnight Helped staff and so at some point next year, um the confluence of that work and this study, as well as additional work that we're going to talk about further on in the budget process, dovetails all very nicely together in what kind of coordinated plan you're asking for, Councilmember Baxter.

So I would say that the implementation plan for the levy, should it be adopted by the voters on Tuesday, that we'll get into in the first and second quarter of next year, is a great home for that.

It's going to be, I think, necessary for us to make sure that this body of work is informed or has a place to live, rather, inside that levy implementation plan.

And then, to whom's, is it to your committee that that levy oversight committee reports?

Yes.

So, education is part of my committee assignment, but I would actually propose that instead of doing it through the Jezna Ed Committee, that we consider with the council president's permission and indulgence that we continue, that we reinvigorate the select committee on education to address those implementation issues.

And that would be co-chaired by myself.

Councilmember Johnson.

Perfect.

Thank you for that.

I certainly would support it.

Councilmember Juarez, did you have a point?

I did.

I had a few questions for the Councilmembers and I wanted to make a few comments.

So under my question part, this would be, we've had numerous presentations from DEEL, but this would be a third study.

We had one in 2015, the Citywide Child Care Nexus Study, and then we had the 2018 Child Care Assistant Program Analysis.

Now I know We address some of these barriers, and even in the green sheet itself, you kind of listed what the barriers are, low wages, permitting, zoning, availability of training, et cetera.

I would suggest that we also focus on What I've seen, and Councilmember Gonzalez touched on this more importantly, is just a lack of facilities, a lack of brick and mortar.

We've worked with the Seattle Public School District in citing our pre-K programs and deal money within some of these elementary schools.

And so I wanted to see, and I continue to push for transit-oriented childcare at transit centers.

That is my big push that I'm working on now with the developers at Northgate.

I plan on doing the same thing at our light rail station on 130th.

I'm trying to change the narrative that child care, pre-K, and these type of facilities are more than just a luxury or an amenity, but there actually should be a requirement if we're going to have these high-density areas.

And I would even go as far as to say, not particularly in my committee, but that if we study this issue, that It's very possible that these transit-oriented child care facilities that we would put in our transit areas to complement the density and these rich transportation spines we're building, that they are public assets and public benefits.

And this is something that we should be funding and we should be just thinking of.

And I have been trying to change the way some of the nonprofit and for-profit developers are thinking.

that having a child care center is like having a latte stand.

It's an amenity.

It's something that you might just kind of think of.

And I'm like, no, it should be in there with parks, streets, curbs, lights, ingress, egress.

So I'm hoping that your focus will be on the, a big focus will be on just on having the brick and mortar in the facilities.

Because we've already maxed out, and I think in our space in Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So I think that's a really excellent point and perhaps it's a both and situation here.

We want to lead by example with the potential green sheet that we'll talk about tomorrow during the FAS section and make sure that we can potentially put an actual facility on site here.

and to the other council members' points about needing to provide the data so that we can do a better job of changing some of the regulations at the state level, respond to some of the national statistics that were just read, and respond to Council Member Juarez's eloquent comments about the need for brick and mortar What the second part of this study would look at is actually increasing the supply by looking at incentives, incentives for developers to create the space, incentives for us to help local businesses be able to create childcare facilities on site, incentives for implementing local childcare facilities.

One thing that we know is that as a lot of these new businesses are going in and new employees are coming here to work, for example, in the tech sector, Many people are being offered doggy daycare subsidies, and there's doggy daycare on the first floor.

We should be able to do a quick analysis of how we can do a better job of replicating that for actual child care.

So I love Council Member Juarez's idea of potentially even looking at incentives around transit hubs.

So perhaps that's part of what we could consider as we think about various options.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Council Member Gonzalez.

I appreciate that additional detail from Councilmember Mosqueda that that's not how I'm reading this green sheet and so We have to redo the green so I think I read the green sheet very differently than what I think I just heard you say Councilmember Mosqueda, and so I'm I I sort of see, the way I read this green sheet, it very much talks about increasing the number of classrooms, but not necessarily creating land use and zoning incentives for private developers or affordable housing developers to create brick and mortar spaces within their development plans to allow us additional capacity.

So maybe we could just talk offline about what your intent is with this one.

I tend to agree with some of the comments up here that I think we know what the barriers are.

And if we're going to spend $100,000, I'm just curious as to whether we can spend the $100,000 on actually implementing a lot of the recommendations and the studies that have already happened, as opposed to another study.

So, I will take responsibility for this one, and that is exactly where I wanted to go, which is to spend the money on actually doing it rather than studying it when we already have a pretty good idea of what the problems are.

But this green sheet alone doesn't get us there.

But I like what you're suggesting about having, reactivating the previous committee.

You're looking very pained.

No, no, I'm just saying, I'm just, I don't wanna, you know, I think it just depends on what the it is that we're trying to study.

And I'm here, what I heard Council Member Mosqueda say a minute ago sounds different to me than what I'm reading on the green sheet.

And so i'm trying to reconcile My own miss perhaps my own misunderstanding of what the intent is with the green sheet I'm suggesting that that i'm the one that is creating the problem because I talked with her right before This committee meeting saying I think we may want to take another look at the green sheets And what it is we want to accomplish so it may be that we're going to ask brian To help us fashion something new.

I mean if this is going to be about creating land use incentives for encouraging additional capacity in classrooms, I'm not sure that DEEL is the department to do that work.

That to me sounds more like SECI and OPCD as opposed to...

deals body of work, but I guess I'm just struggling with trying to figure out what we're doing.

If I could clarify, and I appreciate the land use chair reaching for the microphone too, because perhaps it was the wording that I used that is causing the confusion.

There was a sentence that was included in the document that we submitted that I don't think is reflected here, but the concept is perhaps more around incentives for businesses and incentives for the type of buildings that we're creating.

The sentence reads, the study should also examine new programs that would increase supply, such as development incentives or incentives to local businesses for implementing local child care sites.

That was specifically included because some of the new buildings that we see do have doggy daycare facilities downstairs.

And if it's not brick and mortar, some local businesses are also providing childcare assistance vouchers to employees, which, I'm sorry, doggie care assistance vouchers to employees, which is important.

But I would also like to figure out if there's better ways to incentivize local businesses to provide actual childcare vouchers as well.

Sorry.

Okay, Councilman.

Yeah, please, Councilman.

Just briefly, I will say the planning department is poised to get the, planning committee review of the city's incentive zoning program, which we use to fund many of the brick and mortar childcare spaces that many of our affordable housing developers have on the ground floor of their buildings.

So case in point, up in my neck of the woods, Mercy Housing is about to open a project in Magnuson Park.

It's called the Building 9 Project.

The way that that project is set up, they're going to have Susan Yang and the folks from Denise Louie on one side of the ground floor and Neighbor Care folks on the other side of the ground floor.

The current development codes in downtown allow for developers in certain parts of downtown to build slightly taller through incentive zoning and pay into a city fund for the capital construction of childcare facilities.

We are using those downtown dollars to subsidize the construction of the childcare facilities in Magnuson Park.

The planning department is doing an analysis of the offsetting benefits of the incentive zoning program as we contemplate implementation of MHA.

And we anticipate getting some of those recommendations next year.

It's not to say that we can't induce incentives for large-scale or small-scale businesses to do more childcare benefit programs.

It's not to say that we can't work with local landlords to incentivize more childcare spaces.

I think, again, all of this is best served when we have a good understanding of the dollars that we can spend on this program once we've got an implementation plan in front of us as a council sometime next year.

Thank you, Councilmember Muscato.

Did you want to close this one?

All right.

I think we need we've got a lot more work we will and clearly there is plenty of interest in this and Brian I think maybe we can circle back and talk about this together about what you hear and whether or not we should recraft the green sheets.

if we need to go into a different direction.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay, let's go on to the next item.

Okay, so the next item is Green Sheet 821A, 2A1, sorry, which would add $60,000 in general funds to deal to fund the Community Learning Center Program at Concord International Elementary School for the remainder of the 2018-19 school year.

The Community Learning Center Program was previously operated by the YMCA and provided academic and physical education programs both before and after school.

And this item comes from Council Member Herbold and is co-sponsored by Council Members Johnson and Mosqueda.

Great.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

So this is contemplating only one year's funding with the expectation that Concord would do as they have done in a prior year, which is to purpose a portion of their levy elementary innovation funding.

towards this purpose, assuming, of course, that we do have good news on Tuesday.

But in any event, it is proposed only for one year, to finish out the school year.

And I've been working with the school district to identify a likely provider.

There are several providers throughout the city that provide these CLC services.

The school district has identified a provider that is interested, and I'm also working with the school district to confirm with the principal that they, too, are interested in working with this identified likely provider.

Okay, any other questions?

I was just gonna, so this would be effectively Council Member Herbold, it's for lack of a better term, a little bit of a bridge funding.

Absolutely.

So this, the Concord Elementary, my understanding is that this program currently does receive levy dollars, which are set to expire.

So this is just to get them over the hump.

And then your intent would be that in the implementation plan, they would at least be competitive in terms of continuation of the program, et cetera.

Okay.

Thank you.

Very good.

Anybody else?

All right, let's move on to item 32.

Okay, so now item 32 begins the section on the Seattle Center.

So the first one is Statement of Legislative Intent 4181, which relates to the relocation and replacement of the existing Seattle Center skate park that's located within the footprint of the Key Arena redevelopment area.

In the proposed budgets, the project is funded through a combination of $1.7 million of REIT 1 and $500,000 provided by Oakview Group in accordance with redevelopment agreements for a total project of $2.2 million.

The slide requests that Seattle Center work with the skate park community to pursue outside funding to incorporate additional enhancements into the project and to provide a status report on that work by July 1st.

This item comes from Council Member Bagshaw and is co-sponsored by Council Member Juarez.

Thank you very much.

We've spoken about this many times over this last year.

The skate park community has really been a big part of the conversations around Seattle Center.

Right now we have earmarked 2.2 million to replace the skate park that is right currently at the south end of the key arena.

We'll be moving it over to the east side, broad street, place, street, alleyway, just immediately east of Seattle Center.

What this will do, it is not requesting additional funds.

But to be sure that our Seattle Center is working with the skateboard community and also reach out to philanthropy.

Potentially to interested people who may be developing residential space, commercial space along Fifth Avenue if they want to participate.

We know that having a good, The word's been used for me as an undulating roof.

The notion that that could help keep noise in, make it a more attractive from above scene looking down at the skate park is something that people want.

So I'm very much supportive of working on this going forward.

There's not additional money we're asking to put in.

2.2 is what the budget is at this juncture.

And so it is a statement of legislative intent and I will do what I'm suggesting.

To all of us is that I put together a one-pager about what it is we're looking for, the scope, the schedule, the budget, and how Seattle Center can continue to take the lead and we can be supportive.

Councilmember Juarez, did you want to add anything?

Okay, very good.

Councilmember Johnson?

I'm raising my hand.

Oh, thank you.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

So let's move on to Interfund Loan.

Okay.

So the next three items are all proposed budget legislation.

Green Sheet 4-2A1 recommends passage of Council Bill 119-379, which would authorize an Interfund Loan of up to $5 million to Seattle Center to support operations during the redevelopment of Key Arena, which is a two-year period where the department expects to accumulate a deficit.

The loan would be required to be repaid no later than December 31st of 2026, including interest, and would be repaid at least in part with annual rent payments from Oakview Group upon the reopening of the arena.

Seattle Center expects to first draw on the Interfund loan in 2020, and the total interest expenses are estimated to be about $622,000 over the life of the loan.

And this is sponsored by Budget Chair because it's a piece of proposed budget legislation.

Good.

I have nothing else to add.

I see no hands raised, so let's move on to 34.

Thank you.

The next item is Green Sheet 4-3A1, which recommends passage of Council Bill 119-382, which would adjust the fee ranges for hosting events on the Seattle Center campus in facilities such as Fisher Pavilion or the Armory Loft.

The fees are established in ranges, which allow the Seattle Center director the ability to raise or lower the fees, depending upon the current event market.

And in addition, the revised schedule would remove those facilities that are affected by the key arena redevelopment.

And again, this item is sponsored by the budget chair.

Okay, again, I have nothing to add to this.

Seeing no further hands, let's go.

Okay, and the last Seattle Center item is Green Sheet 44A1, which recommends passage of Council Bill 119381, relating to parking charge adjustments.

The bill would increase the daily and monthly parking charge ranges, adjust the service charge amounts for the premium parking program, and would remove outdated code language related to programs that are no longer in, that are no longer active.

The department expects that the adjustments would generate additional revenue of approximately $268,000 a year.

And this item is sponsored by the budget chair.

And in 2019, this parking revenue will come back to Seattle Center, correct?

Or is this designated maybe, Kirsten knows on how much of this would go to Oak View Group and when that parking revenues begin going in that direction.

I'm sorry.

I don't have that information.

This is just for the 2019 2020, which I believe there is coming Seattle Center Okay, I believe that's right.

Very good.

Madam.

Sure.

Yes councilmember Johnson Brian Do you have a sense about how we use the money now?

Well, they go to support general operations.

So there's three categories where they bring in revenue.

It's about $5.8 million, a little bit less than that is what's proposed for the next two years.

But in general, it just goes to support all of Seattle Center.

So it's kind of just lumped in as revenues.

So this assumes then this $268,000 increase is part of the set of strategies that we would use to fund Seattle Center during this period of reconstruction of Key Arena?

Yeah, I think it's mostly just because the parking rates haven't been adjusted in a few years.

And they like to do this every so often just to keep the rates current with what they feel the ability to charge is.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

I know there's a lot more discussion about parking and what's coming and what we're looking at for alternatives.

So we will save that for another day.

So thank you for moving forward with that, Brian.

The next item is the Seattle IT.

Yes, the next item, number 36, is a statement of legislative intent, number 17-1A1, sponsored by Councilmember Sawant.

It requests that Seattle IT submit a report on public broadband, looking at building and maintaining a public broadband network so that internet access can be free and accessible to all Seattle residents, including assessing, updating for new technologies such as wireless 5G, and presenting options both for a citywide network and for pilot projects.

Thank you.

This statement of legislative intent requests the Seattle Department of Information Technology present the council with a report analyzing the cost and timeline of building and maintaining a public broadband network citywide to make broadband internet access free and accessible to all Seattle residents.

This analysis should build on the, as Jeff just said, this analysis should build on the study commissioned by the department as it was then in 2015 and updating it with the impacts of new technologies such as wireless 5G and new adhesives that it seems this new technology will allow fiber optic cable to run directly along the street which So this is not a study to just avoid doing something.

This is a study to actually make sure that we understand what opportunities there are, what options there are, rather, not opportunities, options for doing public broadband using the new technologies.

As some of you may remember, the 2015 study investigated several funding options for municipal broadband with upfront public investment.

It is extremely feasible and it would allow Seattleites, it would free Seattleites from the gouging bills and slow speeds and continual breakdowns of the for-profit internet service providers like Comcast.

I'm sure some of you remember what happened in, I think it was in April of two years ago when the most, I think the majority of The customers on Capitol Hill were out of service for several hours and it stood out to me because there were a lot of small businesses who were on the same page as working families who all want public broadband because their businesses were impacted by the problems that were caused because we don't have enough redundancy in for-profit companies, redundancy of technology.

Chattanooga, Tennessee has a very popular municipal broadband network that is now up to 10 gig speeds at affordable rates.

As a result of that 2015 study, my office and community organizers from Upgrade Seattle proposed funding the pilot project suggested at the end of that study in the budget.

of each of the next two years.

Unfortunately, at that time, the majority of the council did not agree to fund a municipal broadband pilot project.

Now that 2015 feasibility study is three years old, technologies have developed rapidly since then, as everybody can imagine.

The city has changed, so this statement of legislative intent is asking Seattle IT to update that.

with the intent of going forward in the future to carry out a pilot project and then ultimately a citywide broadband.

The report should present options for a citywide municipal broadband network and for the pilot project where the concept of municipal 5G wireless broadband or fiber to the premises could be tested.

I hope that the council will support this statement of legislative intent, but most importantly I hope that you will support using this study to build a public high-speed municipal broadband network.

Any comments?

Council Member Johnson.

I was just raising my hand to offer support, though Council Member Sawant didn't reach out to me about this topic.

I've been a supporter of the idea of municipal broadband in the past and would love to see us continue to evaluate that, particularly with the new City Lights a new director, having had a history of working on municipal broadband issues, having her weigh in on the business case viability here makes some sense to me.

Although this request asks Seattle IT to do that work, I would assume that Seattle IT would work with City Light considering they would be the ones who would have to do most of the implementation and outreach.

I would agree with that.

Okay.

Very good.

I'd like to sign on too.

Okay.

So we have Council Member Swan Johnson and Ms. Skate signing in.

Okay, very good.

Thank you for that council members want.

Next item is item 37.

Item number 37 related to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection is Green Sheet 33-1A-1.

This would add $131,000 of general fund in 2019 and $132,000 in 2020 to SDCI's code development team to make a half-time term limited position a full-time position and ongoing.

This is intended to provide staff resources to carry out council identified priorities and provide support for environmental review of council-initiated land use decisions.

As currently proposed, the Code Developments Work Program for 2019 suggests that they would need seven FTEs to do all the things on the list, and the mayor's proposed budget includes five FTEs.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Johnson.

Code development is one of those things that can't be supported by fees, so it requires general fund support.

We as a council have asked the code development team within SDCI to do a lot of analysis based on our ideas about both design changes, design review changes, rather design guideline changes, as well as implementation of MHA.

So as we contemplate even further work in the land-use space, this allows the SDCI staff to get us faster turnaround times for the things we're asking for.

Okay, thank you.

We have council members Herbold and O'Brien signed on.

Anybody else want to be added?

Okay, please next one.

Item number 38 is screen sheet 33-2A-1.

This is a proposal from Councilmember Johnson with support from Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember O'Brien.

This would add $403,000 and restore position authority for five FTEs in SDCI in 2019 and 2020. to support some of the administrative functions associated with permit processing.

These positions would be supported by permit fee revenues.

And so the idea here is to provide the position authority so the department can add positions to help with improving permit review times as needed, as well as from a race and social justice lens, these entry-level administrative jobs within SDCI have provided a point of entry to city employment for women and persons of color and a career path for new hires by providing training and education to support internal promotions.

In addition, the screen sheet requests that to increase transparency and accountability in improving permit review times, the SDCI work with the chair of the PLEZ committee to develop performance goals for 2019 and 2020 and to report quarterly to that committee on progress made in achieving those goals.

Great, Council Member Johnson.

I would just reinforce again, these projects, these funds for these staff members are fee generated.

So this has no general fund budgetary impact.

It also doesn't mean that we necessarily spend this money.

It authorizes, as Ali said, the opportunity for these folks to be hired and for them to be paid through land use fees.

So that I think makes a lot of sense, as does our request to have the department director come and perform more regular updates to the committee about performance metrics associated with permit turnaround times and other things of that nature.

Okay.

Very good.

Council Member Juarez.

I would just support Council Member Johnson in this.

Okay.

Great.

I'd like to add my name.

I don't please go ahead item number 39 is green sheet 33 a1 this is a proposal by council member johnson supported by council member herbold and council member o'brien this would add 101 000 in 2019 and 136 000 in 2020 in sdci for a senior environmental analyst to enhance staffing for tree reviews to improve service levels.

This position is also supported by permit fees.

Recently, SDCI reported that tree reviews have been consistently running eight weeks behind.

And further, as council has been considering updates to the city's tree regulations, there's been regular comments on the lack of attention to those regulations.

So this would provide additional staff resources.

Thank you, Councilmember Johnson.

Again, fee-generated revenue to fund a fee-generated position, which I think is necessary.

Right.

Thank you.

And you've got support from Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember O'Brien.

Anyone else want to add their name to this?

Well, I certainly support it, Councilmember Johnson.

So let's move on to item number 40.

Item number 40 takes a number of actions, and this is related to funding for tenant services and primarily funding that goes to community organizations to provide tenant services and outreach services.

The green sheet would cut $615,000 of general fund from the Human Services Department and redirect that to SDCI for contracts for tenant services.

Currently, that funding is used for tenant services and HSD.

It would also provide a portion of those funds pending development of a new request for proposals to ensure that the services we are contracting with are what has been identified through the stakeholder work, as well as it includes proactive outreach to tenants.

In addition, it would add a new position in 131,000 dollars of general fund in 2019 and $132,000 in 2020 for a position to manage the contracts with community organizations.

Adding this staff position will provide resources for SCCI to thoughtfully re-bid those contracts and provide adequate oversight and coordination with the service providers to ensure that the services being contracted for are being met.

Very good.

Council Member O'Brien, do you want to speak to it?

Sorry, you caught me off guard there, Council Member.

I'm sorry, it's item number tab 33 I've got it behind my Item number 40 on the agenda.

Thank you Oh yeah, thank you.

We've talked about this a bit in the past.

Last year we added money to the budget for tenant outreach specifically to do proactive outreach to communities that may be at risk of various tenant landlord interactions where them knowing how they would get access to support to know their rights would be important.

We were pretty clear, I thought, in our budget last year that this was to be kind of a different suite of goods than the traditional kind of more passive phone response centers that we run, which are also really important.

I don't want to diminish those.

but really actively going out and finding households that may not be aware of what their rights are and making sure that they have access to those other resources.

What happened last year is the executive chose to put that funding into increasing the funding for the hotline response work.

Again, that is good work.

What this would do is essentially take that work out of HSD, put it into STCI, and add an incremental amount with clarity.

Hopefully, it's hard to imagine how we can be more clear than we were last year, but we will try to be more clear than we were last year, that that incremental amount is specifically targeted for doing outreach.

I mean, that's what the proviso would do.

And so, hopefully, we won't have the same issues we had last year.

Can you, and maybe central staff this is a question for you, if we're cutting 650,000, 615 from human services department, what or who is impacted in human services department by this?

So that is the, that is just the amount of contract dollars that currently goes out the door for working with tenant services, so it wouldn't have an impact on staffing.

It would require that those contracts are rebid, and so the organizations that have previously received funding in the past may not receive the same level of funding.

It would be a competitive process.

The way that this screen sheet is proposed is that there would be some bridge financing in the first or bridge funding in the first quarter of 2019, so that it would provide those organizations some time to prepare to bid on the new request for proposals, as well as time for SDCI to prepare an RFP.

And so it would provide some transition time.

But the dollar amount is for contracts that currently flows through HSD.

Instead, it would flow through SDCI.

The pivot from HSD to SDCI is in part reflecting the reality that SDCI is the group that is doing more and more of that kind of tenant landlord work.

They're doing the rental inspection program.

and they're doing a variety of programs that are aligned with this, and we think that this is probably a more natural fit for that.

The shift, I think, any time we shift can be a little bit of a shock to the system, so having a chance to work with both those departments and figure out how that works in the transition dollars I think is helpful.

Very good.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just wanted to speak to that issue that Council Member O'Brien is raising around the alignment of these functions with SDCI.

So many of our tenants' rights in the City of Seattle are actually in our land use code.

And so that puts SDCI in the position of being the primary enforcer of tenants' rights.

So Council Member O'Brien mentioned the Rental Housing Inspection Program, also the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance.

And since we're talking about funding agencies to work with tenants in exercising their rights, it makes sense to have the entity that enforces these laws to be the sort of the link with the community in providing these funds.

There is one One of these bullets talks about maintaining coordination with the service providers, likely including regular service provider meetings.

Is this envisioned to be one-on-one or with the tenant service providers as a group?

So I think both has been been discussed in the the work that the STC I did with HSD last year They convened the the groups together.

And so part of it would be bringing them back together as the RFP is being developed to determine sort of how to deliver that RFP in a way that is targeting the right organizations for the right services.

And then I think ongoing, it's to be determined, but I think that staff person can help both provide one-on-one support to the individual tenant providers as well as convening those groups to see how things are going.

Yeah, I think having a semi-regular convening of the groups together is really useful to be able to identify emerging issues.

Often, the providers are the folks who kind of have their boots on the ground, and they know what's going on.

and what some of the problems are that tenants are faced with.

I was recently visited by the helpline folks associated with another budget action sponsored by Council Member Juarez.

they talk to me about how they work with other providers when they identify a problem.

And sometimes being able to do that allows them to sort of share their practices with other providers.

And it really kind of helps change the culture sometimes with the interactions between landlords and tenants.

Good, thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to first and foremost just give my appreciation to the sponsors of this particular green sheet.

I do think it's important for us to continue to figure out how to make sure that we're adequately connecting tenants to the services that they need to prevent eviction and housing instability.

I also just want to in the spirit of always being the one who brings this up is that I want to make sure that language is included as one of the areas of need in terms of tenants who don't speak English as their primary language and just want to sort of If the chair is going to consider including this in the revised balancing package and the sponsors consider it a friendly amendment, I would like to make sure that the list of sort of which community organizations we would be working with to accomplish this work also includes language and cultural competency.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Council Member Swann.

I would like to support this and in fact this the question of taking tenant related outreach related services to SDCI actually has you know that point has come up that it maybe makes much more logical sense for it to be there because that's where many of the tenant rights laws are enforced from that department.

Okay.

Great.

All right, then let us move on to item number 40.

Item 41 is green sheet 335A1.

Item 41. This statement of legislative intent requests that STCI research and recommend ways that renters can have their habitability issues addressed on a faster timeline.

The request is to identify strategies or new mechanisms to speed up the process for addressing those issues generally and for an emergency system to resolve issues when a notice of eviction related to habitability issues is followed.

In addition, the response should include any staffing or other resource impacts that would be required to stand up each of these strategies.

And this is a proposal from Councilmember Herbold with support from Councilmember Muscata and Councilmember O'Brien.

Great.

Councilmember Herbold?

Thank you.

This is, I think, one of the first actions that the council is or the sponsors are proposing to act on the recent Seattle Women's Commission study, Losing Home, the human cost of eviction in Seattle.

The Seattle Women's Commission worked to basically go through all of the evictions in the past year and identify some of the causes of those evictions.

And they found that there are a lot of tenants who are being evicted that live in properties that have serious habitability issues.

And so there are several recommendations on how to address that.

And this is one of those recommendations.

I think another is related to this might be something that we want to pursue in our state legislative agenda related to whether or not judges are authorized to give stays in instances where there are actually habitability issues.

Right now they don't have the authority or the flexibility in an eviction action that basically stop it when there are severe habitability issues.

Would we need something local or something statewide to get that authority?

On the ladder, statewide.

Okay.

And we've been talking with Representative Macri on that.

Oh, very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Muscata, did you raise your hand?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to note, as we've been talking about item 40 and 41 on tenants' rights and eviction protection, I literally just got a text message from a young woman who I used to babysit when she was about three Saying who can I call about landlord tenants rights?

It is not clear to folks out there in the community and appreciate that the portals coming online soon I'm hopeful that our own departments at every point of service have the opportunity to direct people to this new service hotline and website But this this service is critical.

Very good.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold Councilmember Johnson

I support this as well.

I just want to lift up, you know, the outcome that you're going for here, Council Member Herbold, I think is really good.

You've asked the department to submit a report to your committee.

We, SDCI is a pretty big department, but it's now kind of bifurcated and reporting in three different places here.

So, as we contemplate through our work plan processes, the division of a department amongst several different council committee structures, I think one of the outcomes that we should think about is having a report like this go to all the council members who have some sort of jurisdictional oversight over a department.

I can imagine if Council Member O'Brien had some elements of SDOT reporting to a different committee and other elements of SDOT reporting to a third committee wanting to make sure that there was some coordination between those recommendations in some way that we all knew what the other one was working on.

So, in this instance, SDCI has some reporting requirements to me, some reporting requirements to Councilmember Swann, and some to Councilmember Herbold.

And so, I think as we think about slides, we should just make sure that everybody who's got some jurisdictional oversight over a department gets the same information.

And I'm not at all adverse to having it go to your committee.

I only recommended my committee because that's where we heard the Women's Commission study.

But you have been, as we will talk later, great about hearing reports in your committee on issues that I've been taking the lead on.

So it would be fine.

It's fine for me if it stays in yours.

Again, we have this sort of interesting position where SDCI has sort of three parents.

And so I just want to make sure that all the parents get the same information.

Great.

And I appreciate that.

And once again, this would be the classic example.

If we're going to ask for a statement of legislative intent, I would very much appreciate the sponsor and co-sponsors working on this with essentially a one-pager is what I'm asking for.

What is the scope of the information that you're requesting, the time for it to come back, and what do you anticipate doing with it?

It sounds like you're clear.

I just want to make sure that six months from now that we all remember this conversation and we know where it's going.

So if I could ask for that.

We have a very active advocacy group that will make sure.

Yes, we do.

Yes.

And I just want to say thank you to all of you who are working on this.

We know that when a person is evicted, nothing good happens from that.

Their lives do not improve.

So having this in a coordinated fashion, I think, will be helpful.

Thank you.

So I think you've got the names of everybody who's spoken and interested.

Let's move on to the next item.

Item number 42 is Green Sheet 33-6A1.

This is a proposal from Council Member Sawant that would add $864,000 of general fund in 2019 and in 2020 to SDCI for eviction defense legal support and outreach to tenants.

Specifically, approximately $664,000 is proposed to support six tenant rate attorneys and one paralegal to provide eviction defense legal support to renters facing eviction with an organization like the Housing Justice Project.

And the remaining $200,000 is proposed for contracts with community organizations with extensive experience in direct door-to-door outreach and engagement in neighborhoods with low-income renters and communities of color to educate renters of their rights and their legal resources, such as the Washington Community Action Network.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant, do you want to speak to it?

So we were just talking about eviction.

Some of you might have read the study conducted by the Seattle Women's Commission with the support of the Tenants Rights Organization, Washington Community Action Network, and as Ali mentioned, the Housing Justice Project.

The study is extremely, it's revealing, it shows the deep inequities of the eviction court.

Seattleites have been evicted for being, in some cases, only $40.

And in fact, there's worse cases than that, only $40 behind on their rent.

And even when they could pay that back rent at the time of their court date, the eviction still went through.

And most people who are evicted in Seattle do not have a lawyer present and often do not even come to the court date because they correctly feel the system is so stacked against them.

They don't know how to navigate it and they don't fight the evictions.

But we know that having one eviction on your record as a renter can really make life extremely difficult and in some cases can be a direct pipeline into homelessness if you're not able to rent again because of an eviction on your record.

There are some cities like New York that have made having a lawyer in an eviction a right, just like you have the right to counsel when you're facing criminal charges.

In order to create the right to counsel for evictions in Seattle, I was shocked when I started looking into this, I was shocked by how little it would cost.

The Housing Justice Project and Washington Community Action Network, who do this work already, have explained what would be necessary to provide attorneys for anyone who needs anyone who needs, you know, when they're facing an eviction.

This green sheet would fund, as Ali said, six housing justice attorneys along with associate attorney costs and would also fund $200,000 for a community organization like Waukan to go and knock on the doors of people who are communities that are often vulnerable to evictions, communities of color, low-income communities, immigrant families, to let them know that they have the right to counsel and that hopefully, I hope that the council will support this.

budget amendment so that it can actually augment the ability of Washington Can and the Housing Justice Project to provide these essential services because it is really a make or break situation for many of these renters.

And this is a small amount of money.

It costs much less than what it would cost the city to deal with homelessness if that family, you know, if the eviction eventually led to homelessness.

So I really look forward to your support.

Any comments?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just want to point to some information that Ms. Panucci provided related to the 2018 tenant services contracts and deliverables.

The city funds some of these services, not a lot, but some of them, specifically to the Tenant Law Center, which is formerly the Legal Action Center.

And the outcomes associated with this funding is that 90% of households at risk of homelessness exit to stable permanent housing, and 97% of households at risk of homelessness that exit to permanent housing do not enter homelessness within six months.

They were able to, with funding in 2018, so far they've been able to help 80 households at risk of homelessness.

This, I think, demonstrates that when tenants have attorneys, they have better outcomes for stability.

The one thing I would want to see if the sponsor had any consideration about.

potentially reducing this number by 200,000 because of the proviso that we discussed earlier is intended to include these outreach services.

If that was, which we funded last year and didn't end up going to outreach services, if the proposer was willing to make that alteration, I would be more than happy to support it.

Yeah, I mean, as you said, the funds are not enough.

So I would actually would not quibble with the $200,000.

And I agree with you.

It is unfortunate that it didn't go to the organization that actually do the door knocking, although the door knocking is extremely, I mean, it's what makes a difference because communities don't know what discussions are happening at City Hall.

But my main interest here is to have funds for the legal defense.

And so if you are willing to support it, Without the $200,000, then yes, let's do that.

Thank you.

I am.

Be clear.

OK.

Sounds like we've got Council Member O'Brien signed on, too.

Anyone else?

Thank you.

Please, let's go to the next.

Sorry.

I just got to say one point from that Women's Commission article that struck me so much.

When they did the analysis of the 1,500 or so households that went through eviction in 2017, 87% of those ended up homeless, some form of homelessness.

Couch surfing, shelters, or on the street.

And I mean, there's part of the pipeline, and there's something we can do about it immediately.

You ready?

Yes.

Okay, please proceed.

Item number 43 is Green Sheet 33-7A1.

This is a proposal from Councilmember O'Brien with support from Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Gonzalez.

This is a statement of legislative intent requesting that SDCI works with the Office of Housing to research and identify options to support lower income renters facing displacement beyond the support provided through the city's existing tenant relocation and assistance ordinance.

This includes looking at the existing TRIO program and looking at the income qualifications and increasing the amount of relocation assistance, as well as how to qualify low-income individuals who are living in a shared housing or roommate situation, as well as how other strategies to support tenants who are facing displacement.

I would just note that some of these strategies will likely require changes to the state law related to tenant relocation.

I just on the thread of the point I made a minute ago is is I think there's a lot of a lot of work we can be looking at on you know I view this as both stabilization for households but also homeless prevention investment and The intent of this is to just give some clarity on where we can be more aggressive on things, where we can provide more support, and where, as Ali said, that state law prohibits it, but getting some clarity on maybe some changes in state law that would give us more flexibility that would benefit all of us.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

I just wanted to mention that the Let's see, the top three bullets are items that I requested that we include in our state legislative agenda when we were given the opportunity to make requested changes.

Good, thank you.

All right, please continue.

So the next four green sheets are related to the SDCI proposed fee ordinance, which is Council Bill 119386. The first three are amendments to that bill and the final one would recommend adoption as amended.

Item number 44, excuse me, is Green Sheet 33-8A1.

This is a proposal from Council Member Johnson with support from Council Member Herbold and Council Member O'Brien.

This would amend that fee ordinance to increase the land use hourly fee to a full inflationary adjustment.

This results in a land use hourly rate of $386 in 2019 and $394 in 2020. This increase is estimated to produce approximately $623,000 of additional revenue in 2019 and $633,000 in 2020.

Mr. Johnson?

Just to offer that the base bill, as you may remember from our overview from last week, increases the land use hourly fee, which hasn't been adjusted, Ali, since 10 or 15 years?

It has been adjusted over the last couple of years, but there was a number of years that it was not adjusted at all.

So they've been incrementally getting it to catch up, but didn't make the full jump to the full inflationary.

adjustments where the other fees in SDCI have kept up with inflation and are just a smaller adjustment this year.

So this would allow us to go to what we anticipate to be the appropriate level based on inflation.

Okay.

Anything further?

No ma'am.

Okay, let's please continue.

Item number 45 is Green Sheet 33-8B-1.

This is also a proposal from Councilmember Johnson.

This amendment is also to the fee ordinance to apply a lower maximum fee for a certificate of approval to buildings subject to a historic landmark review that select the performance option to meet the requirements for the mandatory housing affordability program.

SDCI's proposed fee ordinance would increase the maximum certificate of approval fee that the Department of Neighborhoods charges for historic reviews to $20,000 for new construction projects.

Rehabilitation projects and affordable housing projects that are financed at least in part by public funds would be exempt from this increase and would be subject to a lower maximum fee of $4,000.

This would be applying that same lower maximum fee to projects that opt to provide affordable housings on site to meet the mandatory housing affordability requirements.

Council Member Johnson.

We have an objective of trying to incentivize at least 50% of the projects that come through the mandatory housing affordability program to build those units on site.

This is one of the tools in our toolbox that would help continue to incentivize that.

Okay.

Yes, please, Council Member Warren.

I want to thank Councilmember Johnson for his ingenuity here.

We've been looking at all types of ways to incentivize people to participate or perform in the MHA, and this is a great tool, and we have a lot of growth and density happening, particularly in my district, so I would be very supportive of this.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

I'm supportive as well.

Oh, okay.

So add Councilmember Herbold.

She's already on that.

Item number 46 is Green Sheet 33, This would also amend Council Bill 119386 to increase fees for the vacant building monitoring program to fund an enhanced vacant building monitoring program.

The screen sheet would also add three FTE inspectors to implement the enhanced vacant building monitoring program and authorize further expenditures for vehicle purchases and other costs to stand up a program.

This is sponsored by Council Member Herbold and supported by Council Member Harrell and O'Brien.

I'll just direct your attention briefly to the second page, which shows the mandatory language.

This probably bears a little bit more characterization.

At this stage, an initial fee is estimated to be $2,056.

That would be an annual fee.

By way of comparison, the current fees for inspections of buildings that don't have any violations is $261 per quarter.

So on an annualized basis, that's about a $1,045 fee.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

And because I'm a visual person, I'm going to just pass out this updated green sheet that I just think it's important to see that we're not, I'm not talking about going from zero to $2,000.

And so the way I've sort of marked up Ketel's green sheet for illustrative purposes, this is really a difference between a fee that is currently charged four times a year at about $250 per quarter compared to a fee that would be charged monthly at about $171 per year.

And so this would make the program basically would allow the program to be funded with the fees generated from the program.

And I think I've talked a lot about the need for this program, and I also want to thank Councilmember Johnson for agreeing to hear the recommendations from SDCI in his committee in September before we had this budget process because of my interest in queuing up their recommendations.

They specifically recommended a program that focused on properties that are in the development cycle and putting those in the monitoring program.

I'm taking a little bit further, and in addition to properties that are in the development process, putting them in the monitoring program, I'm also recommending that the properties that are on SPD and SFDS, the fire department's sort of watch list, also go into the program.

I think that's about it.

I mean, I could talk ad nauseum about the numbers of vacant buildings and what happens when they fall into disrepair and the number of vacant buildings in District 1, but I think I've done quite a bit of that.

So, Council Member Herbold, does this apply only to residential properties as currently?

So there already is a vacant building monitoring program.

It just doesn't work very well.

There aren't very many properties in it, despite the fact that there are lots of vacant building complaints.

And that vacant building monitoring program is specifically for residential properties, and it is focused on enforcing the vacant building code.

There's a special part of the law that refers to the standards that buildings are supposed to be maintained.

I know you have an interest in potentially looking at non-residential properties.

I haven't discussed that with SDCI, but I think it would be an interesting issue to talk to them about as well.

Very good.

Thank you for that.

And I'm particularly looking and considering some of the buildings that have been boarded up and whether or not people are getting inside or not, we know.

based upon neighbors' concerns that there are rats, that it's just not a healthy place to be.

So I'll certainly be interested in exploring this further with you, and I'd love to talk with STCI Council Central staff to find out, can we add commercial buildings to this that are simply unoccupied, boarded up, no longer contributing positively to the neighborhood?

Yeah, please, Council Member Warren.

Sorry, I didn't see you.

That's okay.

I want to really follow up.

I know you've heard me say this many times and I agree with Council Member Herbold.

This has been a perennial issue on Aurora and Lake City with empty houses, vacant houses, vacant motels, vacant businesses.

The nuisance, getting SCCIA out there quicker.

We were successful in shutting down a couple motels that were not beyond on violating the code, so is this limited in its scope to just, as you're saying, to just vacant building, monitoring program, vacant building?

What would you like to have it expanded to?

What are you thinking?

Well, I would like to see commercial motel building.

I mean, am I reading this wrong?

We can research the scope of the authority.

The scope of the authority actually does not reside in the fee ordinance itself.

It resides in the Housing and Building Maintenance Code, but we can take a look at what is authorized there to make sure that it extends beyond residential properties.

And if I may suggest, Madam Chair, you know, there has been a large body of work that has gotten us to this point.

Council members should ask Mr. Freeman to come and give them a briefing about the time and energy the department has already put into this.

I think what Council Member Herbold is suggesting is a modest growth in a program that if we really wanted to could get unwieldy and very big, very fast.

So I would encourage us to be thoughtful about the budgetary impacts here and allow for a little bit of space and time before we make a decision about big scale policy stuff here.

Okay, I just well, let me just end with I appreciate what you said Councilmember Johnson that right now to be modest and mindful of the budget and I appreciate that Councilmember Herbold has been very Laser-focused in this particular area.

So this will certainly lay a foundation for a broader discussion as you said offline.

So, thank you Thank you for that If there's no further comments, let's move.

Oh, sorry.

Councilmember Juarez wants to be added to that Let's move on to 47 And I want to say congratulations, everybody.

We're down to the penultimate.

It sounded kind of ominous.

Item number 47 is Green Sheet 33-8-D1.

This is the green sheet that would pass Council Bill 119-386, the fee ordinance, as amended by the three green sheets we just discussed and as budget legislation.

This is sponsored by the budget chair.

Very good.

I have nothing to add.

Item number 48 is Green Sheet 33-9A-1.

This is to pass Council Bill 119-387, STCI's Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance, and is also budget legislation sponsored by the budget chair.

This Green Sheet, or excuse me, this legislation would make changes to the RIO program to adjust the registration fees.

It would do a number of things which would shorten the renewal cycle for rental registrations from five to two years, as well as reducing the property registration fees and increasing the unit fees for renewals.

In addition, it establishes a new private inspection submittal fee to capture the cost of processing inspections performed by private inspectors.

It would add a late inspection fee and increase the late registration renewal fee to recoup those costs, as well as adjusting other fees to better reflect the cost of performing this work.

I'll just note that in 2017, the City Council adopted Ordinance 118974 that made changes to the RIO program.

At that time, Council asked SDCI specifically to look at their fee structure to ensure that fees were appropriately recouping the full cost of running this program.

as well as looking at whether or not there were any inequities between the smaller properties and larger properties.

Very good.

I think Council Member O'Brien has something that he wants to put on the record and come back to Council Member Johnson.

Thank you.

I just want to take a moment to disclose that I own a couple rental properties.

this ordinance wouldn't actually have a financial impact on me.

I've talked to the ethics and election folks, and so I'm comfortable voting on the whole budget as the budget as a whole and participating in this, but I just wanted to disclose that for folks.

Very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Johnson.

I wanted to reinforce that, Ms. Panucci, you've mentioned is that this does, we think, more equitably balance the REO program between the small-scale landlords and the larger-scale landlords.

The appropriate process here also allows us to go from five years down to two, which I think will satisfy everybody on all sides.

Very good.

Seeing nothing else, let's move on to the next one.

Good afternoon, I'm Eric McConaghy and the Council of Central Staff.

I'll be covering items 49, 50, and 51. Number 49 is Green Sheet 32-1A1.

This Green Sheet would amend and pass as amended Council Bill 119349. This is the City Light Rates Ordinance.

And we mentioned just briefly in the presentations previously, but I'm open to any questions about that.

This is sponsored by the Budget Chair.

Any additions?

Seeing none, please proceed.

Thank you.

The next green sheet is 32-2A1.

This would pass Council Bill 119394, and this would authorize City Light's issuance of $255 million revenue bonds to support its capital program and other qualifying costs.

questions I'll just move right along.

And I know the next one is council member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

It is and this is a statement of legislative intent requesting that City Light submit a monthly report about power outages.

I can continue with the description here or that you take it from here.

I'll keep on going.

Thank you.

So this would request that the City Light Seattle City Light deliver monthly updates beginning in February of 2019 and to the Chair of the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee, and the Central Staff Director, as a matter of course, on unplanned power outages and irregularities occurring throughout the City of Seattle, including the causes, and the City Light's assessment of what caused these outages and actions taken to reduce their frequency and significance.

Along with this, this would request that City Light address the utility's plan for replacing aging infrastructure particularly pertaining to outages that deal with equipment failure.

Thank you.

Do you want to proceed, Councilwoman?

Yeah, I would just add that this is probably the least controversial thing that we will consider in this budget.

I've had good conversations with the chair of the committee responsible for Seattle City Light, and there is no objection there.

Seattle City Light also has no objection to producing this information.

It really is just about good governance, transparency.

There has been some concerns in some neighborhoods about a perceived increase in outages in their neighborhoods and their districts.

And so this is really just an opportunity for us to take a deeper dive and have some oversight over what those outage numbers are.

In response to my inquiries about some of those outage concerns, Seattle City Light produced an initial robust spreadsheet of data and information that really showed us that we've actually been doing much better in terms of shortening the times of outages when they do exist and mitigating unplanned outages.

So I just think that in the spirit of additional transparency, oversight, and just good governance, it would be a good practice for us to have the utility report this information to the chair of the Utilities Committee to make sure that if there are unexpected trends that occur, that we can act swiftly to intervene.

And I should beg forgiveness, I should have said the Council Member Mosqueda, of course, is the chair of that committee.

Forgive me.

I'd like to sign in on this slide as well.

What I found interesting years ago when we sort of looked at the outages was the correlation between outages and What the utility we're investing in tree cutting services that direct tie in between when they were backing off the cutting in the trees, and so I think I look forward to those reporting so love to sign on with that.

Anyone else all right, but that brings us through.

Our 51st item today, I want to say thank you very much, council colleagues.

This has been an extraordinarily positive and full discussion on these items.

I really appreciate it.

So, we are going to take public comment.

We are also going to reconvene tomorrow morning at 9.30 where we will continue with our, just as we did today, We will have tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon and then also Thursday and Thursday afternoon to continue.

So I want to say thank you to that.

And so we have anything else Council Central staff would like to say at this point?

I would just briefly note that the Updated agenda for tomorrow's council meeting was just distributed about a little less than an hour ago, and is a little fuller than today's agenda.

So just putting a note there.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Seems fair to warn.

Well, thank you for that.

And of course, none of us have seen it since we've all been up here.

But I appreciate knowing that.

We will.

But I think we've done well today.

We've moved this forward.

So we've got one person, Weir Harmon, who has signed up for public comment.

Weir, welcome and good to see you.

And I'm sure you're here to speak about town hall.

Whatever gave you that idea.

Hold on.

Before you start, did you want to offer public comment?

Not you, behind you.

Thank you.

Jody, I'm gonna hand this back to you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, please, go ahead.

Nice to see you.

Sure, thank you.

It's nice to be seeable.

Hi, everyone.

As you've probably heard me say over and over again when I come to your offices, sorry for that.

Town Hall Seattle is more than just a cultural organization.

It's a unique only in Seattle model of a shared piece of civic and cultural infrastructure.

Six years ago, we self-nominated our 102-year-old building for landmark status, and we're currently raising $31.5 million to renovate it.

I want to thank the city for its prior support and reassure you that after we return, we'll maintain our commitment to maximum accessibility.

Most tickets will remain $5, many free of charge, and all Town Hall produced events will be free of charge to 22 and under for every event.

To date, 1,100 folks have contributed $24.7 million, which is staggering for our little $2 million organization, and we are four and a half months away from concluding our fundraising and reopening the facility.

Over 20% of our construction budget, about $4 million, supports a cutting-edge seismic stabilization program.

Other features of the project include building-wide ADA access, 18 new all-gender restrooms, acoustic improvements, and two new performance spaces.

With just four and a half months to go, we have an emergent need.

A series of recent construction setbacks relating to seismic reinforcement, specifically enhanced steel program in the attic due to unforeseen conditions, have added an additional eight weeks and additional $1.5 million to the project's budget.

This is on top of a major previous increase of nearly $2 million due to unanticipated hazard remediation we absorbed into the project last spring and summer.

The board and staff of Town Hall have a plan to raise these additional funds, turning to both first-time and previous donors.

An additional $150,000 from the city will raise the city's total contribution to $1 million.

At present, King County has provided $1.6 million, and the state of Washington has given $3.5 million.

Most important, an additional gift from the city will prove crucial to leveraging an additional gift from other levels of government.

Town Hall is an important community asset, and this is an absolutely critical moment in our institutional life.

We have a steep climb ahead of us over the next few months, and city support would give us a good boost in reaching it.

Thank you so much for considering additional support.

Thank you, Aaron, and thank you for all the work you're doing at Town Hall.

It's a really critical institution.

Appreciate it very much.

Steve, and if you'll give us your full name, please.

My full name is Steven Rubstello.

R-U-B-S-T-E-L-L-O.

Thank you.

My concern in the budget cycle here is Looking forward, let's take a look at the Town Hall problem.

That comes from land use not looking at the whole thing and then you just up the zoning widely in huge areas.

Town Hall is an old established institution in Seattle.

I don't think there's anybody on this council that seems to care much about historical Seattle.

They care more about higher and higher and higher buildings.

Earlier, I heard some rumors that you were asking about how to raise some more money for the city.

We are one of the few cities without developer fees of large size in the state of Washington.

I know you've been studying it for at least a decade.

Other cities have actually implemented it.

Another idea that you might take a look at is we're spending a lot of money on bicycles in this city and it might not be a bad idea to have a license fee.

So recently I had one kick my vehicle.

It would be really nice to have a license plate number off of that.

Now someday I might get really angry and chase somebody down.

I'd rather be able to just write down a license plate number and solve the problem.

Most bicyclists are not that way.

But there are some out there.

So I think you should also take a strong look at what you're doing with all these trucks that keep getting taken in and resold.

If the city is paying the tow truck driver to pull them out, And you're getting $15, $25 a kick on that.

The tow truck driver, if they're making money on the deal, I can see why this continues on.

But there is no real reason to have this continue fluctuation going through.

And my idea is that probably the city is losing money on the idea because nobody seems to audit programs.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

Just for the public record, I think it's important that we correct inaccuracies when they're stated.

But in this case, I think it's important in this time of day, in this country that we're in, where people are very quick to jump to violence and accusations that we don't allow for comments about chasing people down with vehicles that weigh tons versus an individual on a bike.

that that type of language is not allowed here.

So I appreciate the passion in which we need to identify where dollars come from and the need to share the road needs to be shared by everyone.

But in terms of chasing folks down is not something I think we want to encourage.

Thank you very much.

And Steve, I have a sense that you meant that tongue-in-cheek, but you should know up here on this dais that there are at least six of us that ride our bikes and ride them frequently, and we hope we can share the road with you.

Okay.

Thank you very much, everybody who's coming and has come.

Thank you.

We will see you tomorrow at 9.30 in the morning.