Seattle City Council Briefing 7/14/2025

Good afternoon.

Today is July 14th, 2025, Bastille Day.

The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.02 PM.

Council Member Saka is excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Council Member Solomon?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Six present.

If there's no objection, the minutes of July 7th, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

So, President's report today, I will be just providing an update on the D5 vacancy filling process.

We received 22 applications, which were distributed to you all on Friday, and also published on the clerk's website for the general public.

We're now on day seven of our 20-day timeline, and this process will replicate what we've done for the two other vacancy filling processes.

Tomorrow, after full council, there will be an executive session for us to discuss the vacancy.

We will then have a special council meeting at 930 this Thursday, the 17th, to identify finalists.

There were two community groups who applied to host the candidate forum, which is part of the...

By law, we do that.

And one proposed a Zoom meeting and the other that proposed a meeting in District 5. So I selected them to ensure accessibility for all and consistency with past practice.

The candidate forum is scheduled for 7 p.m.

on Monday, July 21st.

And that will be open to the public and held at North Seattle Community College.

And of course, it'll be broadcast by the Seattle Channel online and over the air.

And then our next, our regular city council meeting next Tuesday, the 22nd will begin one hour earlier than normal at 1 PM to provide extra time for us to publicly interview the finalists prior to our normal council business.

And then finally, we'll have our vote to appoint someone to the vacancy in two weeks on Monday, July 28th.

And that'll be day 20, I believe.

Yes.

And this will be a special council meeting instead of our council briefing on that day.

And then the rules maintain that if no candidate is selected to fill the vacancy on that day, our appointment rules stipulate that we must continue to meet every day until someone is selected.

So that is the process.

Are there any questions?

Yes.

Thank you, Council President.

You mentioned that there were two groups that applied.

One was selected.

Yes.

Who was the group selected?

The group selected was Unified Outreach.

Unified Outreach, yes.

Sounds good.

Are you able to share who the Zoom group was?

It was a group of city commissions.

I remember the women's commission, but I don't remember the others, but there was a handful of commissions.

Thanks.

I always appreciate in person over Zoom every day.

Indeed.

All right, there are no proclamations for signature today, so we'll go right into blue sky.

And this week's roll call rotation begins with Council Member Kettle.

So please begin and then hand it over to Council Member Rink.

Okay.

Okay, go ahead.

I had to do the alphabet in my head to make sure that I wasn't, when I said handed over to Council Member Rink, that I was going in the right order.

Go ahead.

Thank you again, Council President.

All right, starting again as usual, start with Public Safety Committee.

We do not have a Public Safety Committee this week.

That slot is with transportation as always.

Next week, our focus will be on the criminal justice system, briefing and discussions.

Importantly, coming out of the Public Safety Committee is two bills that will be before full Council meeting tomorrow.

One is the graffiti bill, graffiti abatement, and then chronic nuisance properties bill, which were both seen in committee and now coming to full council.

We do have some amendments on each bill.

I'll let my colleagues speak to those if they'd like.

I do have Basically, one technical fix, particularly with chronic nuisance property, and then similarly with the graffiti bill, too, in terms of making sure that the work that's been done thus far is also captured in the process related to graffiti documenting and accounting for recent graffiti actions that have happened.

Pretty straightforward for those two.

And central staff will be present to assist if needed.

Okay, in terms of schedules, this week, today, I should note that I had an interview for OPA director, Office of Police Accountability.

It's the third that I've met with.

So that process is ongoing.

As you know, Director Betts left, we've had an interim director with Ms. Glenn.

And so now the process is in full gear now in terms of appointing a full-time director of the Office of Police Accountability.

Tomorrow is the, basically the, if you will, a grand opening press conference for the Real-Time Crime Center.

And that's happening at 11. I've informed Council Member Chair Saka that his team that I would, excuse myself from committee a little bit early to run across the street at Seattle at the police headquarters for that press conference related to the real-time crime center.

Speaking of the SPD, I'll be going to the north precinct on Wednesday.

Again, this is part of my going out and about to all the precincts throughout the city.

Thursday, King County Board of Health.

with my fellow colleagues who are on the King County Board of Health.

And then Friday, I think it's important, and this has come up in different ways.

It came up in the discussion regarding during Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee meeting of working with our King County counterparts.

So I have a meeting with my counterpart, both in terms of area of coverage, but also he is my sister committee in the King County Council, Jorge Barón.

So Council Member Barón and I and his team will be meeting on Friday to talk the various issues related to public safety direct, and back to the committee meeting, some of those tangential pieces as it goes to the budget.

For next week, there will be a creating a safer Seattle community forum on Monday.

This is Chief Barnes as it's going about, and that will be at the Queen Anne Community Center.

I'll be at the Birds Connect Seattle ribbon cutting.

They got a new headquarters on Olive Way.

on Wednesday.

So if you're any birders out there, Birds Connect Seattle.

And the Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board is on Thursday.

So that's next week.

And separately, I just wanted to note that I really appreciate the Downtown Community Council coming.

We had a full group come to the Sam Smith to talk to the issues related to downtown, capital D downtown.

So not Belltown, not South Lake Union, not the CID, not Pioneer Square, but the area that's in between all of them, the distinct downtown.

Also, I had a meeting with the First Avenue Transit Alliance talking about bus service on First Avenue and the need for it and ideas about it.

The group has also reached out to many of you, my colleagues, also on the county side, obviously King County Metro, engaging regarding First Avenue bus service.

And I did have it on my list.

As somebody who studied and lived more than once in France, I also wanted to wish a happy Bastille Day to all our French-connected residents and or Francophobes.

Happy Bastille Day.

Thank you.

The alphabetically correct council member.

No questions?

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

And hi, colleagues.

I'm back from Chicago.

For those who didn't know, I've been in Chicago the past couple of days at the Local Progress National Convening, which was just an incredible event, being alongside city, county, and school board officials representing actually 38 states across the country, meeting in Chicago.

talking through a lot of the challenges that I know we feel every day.

And it was such a good reminder that we're not alone in these challenges.

So many cities across the country are facing structural budget deficits, are dealing with the ramifications of the big betrayal bill and what it means for their residents, and also coping with this mass deportation agenda, which is just fueling cruelty across our country.

So it was a really incredible past couple of days just meeting and connecting with city leaders across the country, talking about these issues, but also caucusing on legislation.

I had the opportunity to sit down with elected officials from nine other cities who have also passed algorithmic rent fixing legislation, being able to compare notes and figure out how certain cities tackled that policy issue, but also attending workshops related to immigration, housing, displacement, World Cup, and surveillance technology.

It was really incredible past couple of days.

We even got to hear directly from the mayor of Chicago himself as well, giving a really incredible speech.

So very excited to bring forward and chat with you all about some of the ideas that have come out of this event.

And I'm just really happy to be back and continue the work.

And also, I'll close on this note by saying we have a lot of friends across the country.

and the more that we can find ways to work with other cities and elected officials in other cities, again, who are facing many of the same challenges we are, I think that would certainly be a good path forward.

So on that note, going to Select Budget Committee on Wednesday, at this upcoming Wednesday Select Budget Committee meeting, we will be continuing our discussion on the Seattle Shield initiative BNO tax rebalancing proposal that begun in the July 2nd Finance Committee.

This will be a bit of a reprise of that session with an added bonus that all members of this body will be able to get this information and briefing at the same time.

And as a reminder, the proposal would raise the B&O tax threshold exemption from $100,000 to $2 million in gross receipts and create a new B&O deduction up to $2 million.

About 76% of current B&O taxpayers, many of our small and medium sized businesses would no longer owe tax to the city and approximately 90% of businesses would owe less than they do today.

And B&O tax relief has been highlighted by small business leaders as a way to support Seattle's economy, make the city more competitive with neighboring jurisdictions, and just help more small businesses thrive.

And we crafted this legislation in partnership with the mayor's office with three simple goals in mind.

Shield critical city investments from cuts in a very challenging budget environment, shield small businesses from the impacts of rising costs, and shield our community from the massive cuts in federal funding we all know are coming.

And my office has continued our outreach to small businesses around Seattle, and their reception continues to be really strong in favor, both in terms of tax relief, but also for protecting key human services and small business support.

So very much looking forward to continuing the conversation and ensuring that Seattle voters get to weigh in on this.

And moving to Land Use Committee, two bills that are coming forward.

I want to thank again Council Member Solomon's partnership in co-sponsoring the Roots to Roots legislation, a pilot program meant to incentivize community-led to affordable housing development.

And lastly, I'll touch on the Select Committee for Federal Administration and Policy Changes on Friday.

We'll be receiving a briefing from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations about the impact of Trump's big betrayal bill.

and what the impacts will be on City of Seattle and Washington State.

We will have a panel of human services and social services providers, including the Seattle Human Services Coalition, the University District Food Bank, and the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence, who will also be able to provide some local context as to what federal Medicaid and SNAP cuts could look like.

And with that, just in time, I believe I'm passing to Council Member Rivera.

Quick question.

I'm interested in the event in Chicago.

You mentioned surveillance, and obviously we've invoked Sears many times in the last 18 months with the Real-Time Crime Center, CCTV, and the various bills that we've done that are in keeping with the Seattle values and the like.

And in combination with the other bills that we've been doing in terms of the strategic framework plan, I was just curious, well, A, if there was any interest in what Seattle's doing, I am more than happy to talk to any of them because we do have a plan.

We're putting it forward.

It's a dynamic plan.

And it also is in keeping with Seattle's values in terms of working through the SEER process, working with our accountability partners.

And I think it is a model for other cities around the country.

And so if there was any interest in Chicago, I am more than happy to speak with any of those folks.

Yeah, certainly there's a lot of cities that have taken up this kind of technology.

The session, we didn't caucus on this, but we did have some workshop sessions just talking about some of the potential vulnerabilities that can come up with the use of this kind of technology that I know has been discussed before committee, but I will be sure to share some of those materials and would love a discussion about how we may be deploying this in a way that supports, and as you're saying, really lives up to Seattle values.

through some great amendments from my colleagues, I'll add.

So thank you.

Okay, colleagues, apologies for showing up late.

I was meeting with a constituent in the district who was a little bit upset about just Magnuson Park and some of the noise issues there.

And toward that end, I actually this morning did a small business public safety walk, this time in the Roosevelt neighborhood, hearing about a lot of the public safety issues that the small businesses are having.

They're having break-ins and a lot of graffiti that is happening.

And then also there are folks, you know, experiencing mental health and addiction issues in the neighborhood that are, you know, sometimes entering our small businesses.

Obviously we need to respond to make sure that folks are getting the services that they need and be responsive to our small businesses who are just trying to make ends meet.

And I will say, even I heard from one small business owner who at Roosevelt where parking, Estad had taken out some parking because they're doing some bike lanes and other construction work, but it has translated into 50% walk-in business decrease for that small business.

So just daylighting some of the serious issues that our small business communities are facing, because that's real.

That's a big hit to the small business owner's revenue.

As part of the small business public safety walks, I bring a lot of the city departments together to do these walks and someone was there from Messdott so they could hear firsthand and have a conversation with the business owner about what can we do to mitigate for the lack of parking and then that that impact, that huge impact to his business.

And there was some good conversations had about what we could do to help in terms of even like delivery services.

Is there a way that we can do some nearby parking, like the food delivery signs so that people can park for a few minutes and at least his food delivery business or not food delivery that folks are ordering out and he's able to do the food delivery part can be helped along since we can't do anything currently about the parking there.

So those are the kinds of issues that small businesses are facing, not just obviously in our district, just across the city.

And this is real.

And then I had folks from, well, obviously SPD was there and Chief Scoggins was there, which was really great because we have some boarded up homes in the district and whether they were in a condition, you know, we don't want to attract folks there.

Is it safeguarded, you know, because we have fire worries and things of that nature.

So it was good to have.

chief scoggins there as well and i really appreciate his partnership and chief barnes's partnership um and then we had the clean cities folks there too because there's like i said earlier a lot of graffiti and a lot of business owners don't know that seattle public utilities has a team where if they can sign a waiver the spu team can come out and clean up help with the cleanup of the graffiti So things of that nature, just more touch points so that small businesses know that all these services are available to them is really important.

They don't always know that.

And to me, for the district, it's equally important to, you know, the residents are obviously concerned about public safety issues that I'm constantly working with our friends in the mayor's office and SPD on bringing attention to.

And then obviously the small businesses also have some public safety issues that we're constantly bringing attention to and seeing where we can provide services.

So it was a really great conversation this morning, great conversation, not so great that we have to deal with all these public safety issues for small businesses in the district and across the city.

So that happened this morning.

Last week, I took a walk with residents, the Bryant Neighborhood Center, and I had OPCD join me on that walk to talk about the boundaries for the proposed neighborhood center there.

And I really thought it was important for OPCD to be there because they had not sufficiently explained to the constituents there how that neighborhood center came to be designated.

How is that?

There's like one grocery store there in the fire station.

It's a very small area.

And constituents felt confused about how that determination came to be.

So it was good for OPCD to be there.

And you've heard me say in the past, OPCD needs to do a better job of doing the community outreach as they are moving forward, particularly with phase two now.

And I want to thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

for all the work that you're doing on the comprehensive plan.

It is a heavy lift.

And so I, for one, am very grateful to you and for listening to all our constituents, not just the ones that you represent in your district.

And also there's a phase two that OPCD will be in concert with the mayor's office sending us zoning legislation.

And I wanna make sure that they are listening to constituents as that's moving forward.

because I am feeling a little bit sometimes like things are moving forward around constituents instead of you really need to meet with constituents, really hear what they have to say and do.

Not just listen, but do.

All of that is important.

Do in terms of compromise, what can be achieved working together to listen to some of these concerns and not talk past constituents because we are here to serve constituents, not the other way around.

So, um, that is really important to me.

Uh, and that is part of the conversation we had and we're, I'm going to be continuing to have with folks in the district.

Today, also after the public safety walk, I had my monthly meeting with Chief Barnes.

Now he's official.

Sadly, I was not able to go to the swearing in last week.

I was so happy to see that it was in community at NOM.

So that was really great.

And tomorrow I will be also seeing luckily Chief Barnes again and SPD, our friends, because they're actually having a series of public safety community meetings across the city and our district has theirs tomorrow.

So I'll be joining them there.

at the Magnuson Park Community Center from 6 to 7.30, and hear from the chief about his views on community policing.

One thing that I really am super appreciative is that, and I've talked to Chief Barnes about this a lot, but just his approach to community policing, and that really means working with doing the outreach and working with community members to hear them and to really partner with them to solve some of these public safety issues that have really taken hold in this city.

And I really appreciate that because we really need to as i said a few minutes ago listen to community as we're doing this work not talking past community but working together it's the only way that we're going to be able to make a big difference in seattle is by working together all of us you know the mayor always talks about one seattle and i agree on that part we are one seattle we all make up seattle And our city departments are part of that one Seattle and we all need to work together toward a current and a future Seattle that's gonna work for everyone and it's gonna be safe for everyone that's here.

So I really appreciate his commitment to do that community work.

And I think part of his coming in new and speaking to that are these series of community meetings they're having.

So I'm very grateful to be joining them tomorrow.

And I didn't mean for all this to translate into all things public safety, Council Member Kettle, but it just so happens today and this week is all things public safety in the district.

It is something that I still, it is still the number one issue for folks in the district followed now by the comp plan and the land use zoning issues that have come with the comp plan and HB 1110. are the biggest things that we are talking about in the district, but certainly public safety is still number one.

So thank you.

Happy to answer any questions.

Council member Rivera.

Yes.

A thank you for the public safety rundown.

It is very important and there's reasons to the things you talked about.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, our two bills tomorrow.

So thank you for that.

And, and as you know, Every meeting becomes a public safety meeting at some point.

But I was gonna ask before that, at least at the end, to say thank you for raising the mitigation requirement and the communication related to impacts on businesses, like from SDOT projects.

But not just SDOT.

I've been having meetings.

I had one last week.

I've had others because we have ST3.

And we need mitigation planning on steroids with respect to ST3 and, you know, the engagement.

All these things that you were talking about has come up in different ways with OPCD.

We need it on steroids with respect to ST3 because it's bigger, you know, it's just more impactful.

And we could lose businesses, major businesses, if we don't get it right.

And so thank you for raising this.

I'm looking to, you know, my colleague to the left, we're happy to, you know, work with Chair Saka from the Transportation, but also Councilmember Strauss with your role on ST3's board, because it's so important, particularly in D7, you know, downtown.

But also with South Lake Union and Uptown, we have two going at the same time.

Like you're trying to mitigate one, you may be making the other one worse.

I mean, it is like double trouble.

And so I'm just stamping my foot on that point you related to SDOT and shifting it over to SD3.

So thank you.

I appreciate you raising that, Councilmember Kettle, because I could not agree more wholeheartedly, and I keep talking about outreach, and I brought an amendment that passed outreach related to the partnership agreement.

with Sound Transit, but I got a lot of flack for that as somehow I was being an obstructionist when in fact, I'm not.

I, again, and I've said this multiple times, I didn't have a driver's license till I was 30. I hate driving.

I'd much rather take public transit.

That's where I've always felt more comfortable.

Of course, I drive now, and I'm a mom.

Sometimes you can't help when you're shuttling kids around.

That's real for parents, too, in this city.

But it was not to be an obstructionist.

Actually, I wholeheartedly support, and I was very disappointed when I first moved to the city 25 years ago that there wasn't a more robust public transit and there was no light rail in those days.

So I've been very happy that we have that now and I'm very lucky.

There's one in the district that I represent and one I can walk to from my home.

And we also need to make sure that we're doing the proper outreach because we want support for these projects.

And we want to help businesses and residents mitigate when we are doing these projects.

We need to help them with mitigation efforts as displacement is happening or other issues.

And it's not to be obstructionist or to stop the projects moving forward.

No, we need to move these projects forward.

We need to have a robust transit system in this city if we're going to be that world-class city that we want to be.

And that doesn't mean one does not preclude the other.

You need to have outreach as you are doing these projects.

And so it's unfortunate that somehow it got portrayed that way, but it's not that at all, because we can do both.

I mean, the conversation this morning with the business owner and SDOT, it's, you know, there are some loading docks.

Could we put a sign there where It could be temporary parking for the delivery cars that are picking up food from that restaurant.

It's the small businesses, the restaurant, from their restaurant to bring to, you know, constituents that have ordered the food.

Can we work together to find these workable solutions?

It doesn't mean we're going to shut anything down.

And so this is really important.

So thank you for raising it.

And I think, Council President, did you have a question for me?

Sorry.

when you just said it doesn't mean we're shutting anything down that might not be the intention but of the city but um decreased revenue or lost revenue over a certain amount of time can shut the business down a small business down so i really appreciate you being such a strong advocate for small businesses in d4 and um councilmember kettle i noted your comments about uh light rail construction downtown the fact is that One of the limitations is that Washington prohibits the gifting of public funds.

So unlike other states, it's very difficult for us to compensate for the impacts of city projects in our neighborhoods.

I do believe that some cities interpret the latitude to help small businesses to be more wide than Seattle does.

And I know that Director Markham McIntyre was looking into that last year.

So we really, I do think that as we go forward, especially with light rail, but in general, thinking about how we can minimize impacts on small businesses with city projects and also figure out a way to help them through it.

If not financially, then what more than a sandwich board saying businesses are open on this block.

So can you tell me where on what blocks on Roosevelt that you went on a public safety walk?

I went on 65th and Roosevelt on Roosevelt and then on 65th.

So we went to three businesses along the way.

And these are very welcome.

I will say when I said we don't want to shut things down, I meant like real projects because that's that too.

was accused of doing, which was not the case at all.

But yes, so the impacts to businesses means they, you know, they, some of them do shut down.

And so as we're doing construction projects of any kind, whether they're with a partner organization or whether they're our own through SDOT, What can we do to help mitigate the impacts?

And I believe we can.

But we need to be honest, we need to do the outreach, and we need to, you know, when SDOT is out there doing these projects, they need to work with these small businesses and make sure that they're aware of the full landscape.

you know, of what's going on there and not.

Sometimes the right, I always say right hand, left hand, both need to be working in concert.

It can't just be that we're doing the road projects, but we're not thinking about its impacts to the residents and the small businesses there.

And both can be achieved.

You can do the project and do these mitigation pieces to help the businesses along.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm trying to find my alphabet.

Go ahead.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

So just jumping right in, the land use committee that was scheduled for this Wednesday is actually gonna be canceled.

A couple of reasons for that.

One, looking at the subdivision thing, We've already been briefed on it.

There's really nothing more to say about it.

Roots to roof, that is still being worked.

There's some things central staff is working on, so there's really nothing to update people on.

So why meet for the sake of meeting?

Your Wednesday afternoon is free.

Let's see, this past week I met with the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom.

They actually provide gender affirming care, reproductive care.

They have two locations in D2.

They're looking at putting up a third one near the Rainer Beach light rail station.

They had specific asks and we're seeing how we can support them in their asks.

It's interesting that the person who heads up that clinic or heads up that organization is someone that I worked with 30 years ago.

on youth police relations issues.

So it's interesting to see things come full circle.

Also had a meeting with the Indian Services Commission.

It was State Representative Nicole Macri.

Attended Chiefs Barnes squaring in at Northwest African American Museum.

And following that went to Elder Mason's 80th birthday party and annual fish fry.

So that was a good time to be there.

Didn't get any fish though.

I did meet with some students from the Office of Civil Rights Youth Civic Engagement Program this past Thursday.

Those young people had great proposals, great ideas in terms of things they wanted to propose for consideration.

They did their research, they did their homework, and that was really good to see.

It was like, I wish everybody who came and talked to me did the same thing.

Those great kids.

And one of them is a Seattle Prep student.

You know which one I'm talking about, right?

Yeah, I told her to look for your picture in the downstairs on the wall of fame.

On Thursday, I said, don't be shy.

Excuse me, what wall?

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

The wall of fame.

We actually have a wall of fame with our colleague posted up in her basketball gear.

Yeah, you're going to have to go check it out.

Okay, have I ambestry enough yet?

It's okay, you can keep going.

I'll keep going, okay, good.

Keep going.

We did have staff that attended the Seattle Sports Commission celebration of the Seattle women's sports on Thursday.

I actually was attending the community safety forum in Rainier Beach with Chief Barnes, Chief Scoggins, and Chief Barton.

So all of them were there.

And then Sunday, yesterday, we had, you know, team was able to participate, or excuse me, this past weekend, the team was able to participate in the one day of service, actually doing some litter pickup down in the Chinatown International District.

Coming up this week, we'll be doing, basically attending a groundbreaking at 4001 South Webster.

This is a project that Nitsa Stegen is doing that I had a chance to do the SEPTED review of prior to them actually completing the project or the design of the project.

And based on my input, they actually revised what it is that we're going to build.

So I'll be attending that.

This Thursday, two of us will be Council Member Charles and I will be doing a council edition with the Seattle Channel.

And on Friday, we've got a series of meetings, meeting with First Tee regarding some issues at the Bill Wright Golf Complex, fathers and sons together.

We will have, oh, I'm also meeting with a group of small landlords on Friday to talk about some of the housing issues and housing concerns.

And then we have some events coming up, meeting with friends of Little Saigon, attending the Chinatown Seafair Parade.

So yeah, kind of a packed week.

And I will close by saying that I did have the honor of being in Paris on Bastille Day, I won't say what year, because it was so last century.

But yeah, there's something magical about being, you know, dancing on the banks of the Seine on Bastille days.

So it was kind of cool.

Very bien.

Yeah.

Now you can swim from the Seine.

Yeah.

Apparently.

At that time, I would not have even thought about it.

I think you could have been.

Yeah.

Council Member Strales.

Thank you, Council Member Salomon.

Colleagues, I've got a number of different categories of updates today, both within my internal committee and with my external committees.

We'll start with the internal committees.

I'm going to focus on the native communities and tribal government section of my committee, which is I had a wonderful meeting last week with the Suquamish tribal council.

The entire tribal council was there.

We were able to discuss government to government relations, A number of local issues and Councilmember Kettle, I brought up the emergency access in Magnolia that we are looking to create between the marina and 32nd.

While they couldn't give approval in that meeting, it was a very fruitful conversation, and it proved that when we speak with the tribes first, everything is easier because they are a separate government that we have to consult with.

And what I've found is time and time again, when folks don't consult with them up front, it creates more problems in the back end.

So we're taking the right first step right away.

As well, in September, there will be the second ever Tribal Summit.

And so in committee, we had planned to have it already in committee this month, but we'll be having it in August due to the updates that are coming next with an update about the progress since the last tribal summit.

So that's very exciting.

Again, the last tribal summit was the first of its kind ever to have government to government meeting here at City Hall between tribal elected leaders and elected leaders within the city of government.

Moving on to finance side of the house as well, we'll be utilizing the Select Budget Committee in the next few weeks to ensure that everyone has equal access to voting and bringing amendments forward.

Again, anyone and everyone is welcome at any one of the finance meetings.

Within this body of work, we have to pass the supplemental, the carry forward, the FIFA appropriations, an interfund loan, and consider the B&O shield protection law.

this all needs to be done before recess.

And so there's going to be a lot of work over the next few weeks.

I'm going to start with B&O.

I'm starting to give this update.

Thank you.

I've been able to work with both Council Member Rink's office and the Council President's office to provide everyone as much time with the legislation before the deadline to pass it at full council, which is August 4th.

to be able to send it to the November ballot, as has been requested.

So here's where we stand this Wednesday, July 16th and select budget.

We will have the second briefing on the legislation.

If you have any early thoughts, especially on what you are considering for amendments, I encourage early discussion of these ideas at this meeting.

We've already received a briefing on the underlying legislation, so we will have that briefing once again with more, you can have the pieces of paper in front of you, the correct version has been attached to the agenda, et cetera.

Other than having a briefing on the underlying legislation, which we've already had, there's no new information unless you have amendments to discuss.

And so we will have a brief overview, and then I'm requesting if you do have amendments, be able to talk to them, talk about them.

Amendment concepts will be due to central staff the following week on July 22nd.

So this is like every other process that we've used.

I think we're in this process with comp plan.

Currently there's concepts in the final, uh, concepts are due to central staff by July 22nd and final amendments will be published with the agenda by July 28th.

Then our long scheduled July 30th select budget committee that had a much different purpose when we originally scheduled it months ago, we will vote on amendments and the underlying legislation.

We had discussed about moving this up a week to either July 25th or 23rd.

Council member Solomon is hosting the housing meeting on the 23rd, which does not allow us to meet at that time.

And at this time we solicited feedback from colleagues, but there were quorum issues for the 25th.

We could go ahead and have that meeting on the 25th, but I found two things to be true.

One more time with the bill so that everyone can come up to better speed so that we have fewer so that we can reduce or remove the need to bring amendments to full council.

So you have more time in committee so that we can have those votes there.

That was the other.

So more time for you and then wanting to make sure everyone had a seat at the table.

That does put us up against the August 4th meeting, which is the last day to send it to King County for the November 4th ballot, which has been requested.

So we've worked with Council President and Councilmember Rank on the schedule to give us the most time possible to consider this legislation and to accommodate that extra time.

As I've just described, if there is a split vote on the July 30th select budget committee, we will need to pass a motion for the legislation to be referred to the August 4th full council meeting.

Under the Council rules, we are able to refer it to that Council meeting with a vote of the committee and consent from the Council President and Council President.

I know I've seen an email from your staff indicating we're moving forward on July 4th.

Just want to double check.

Absolutely.

I have no interest in.

No, it's I don't want to create any pressure to.

add more time to the schedule just for a divided report, so I'm all there.

And the last day, too, actually the deadline is the fifth, but we don't want to leave it to the actual deadline deadline.

That's why the fourth.

Yes, because again, it's due by 4.30 in King County.

And while King County is across the street, many don't work from the office.

And so it is harder.

Sorry, editorial there.

It is important for us to meet that Monday deadline.

Thank you, Council President, for being there.

Because again, my goal here, as you'll see during the full budget process again this year, My goal is to reduce last-minute amendments, give folks the time.

So again, July 22nd is the concept deadline.

I'm going to move on to the other items within the select budget or finance space.

We have the supplemental, the carry forward.

We've received a new draft of the carry forward after last week's confusion.

Thank you, Council President, for your assistance there.

We have the FIFA World Cup initial appropriations.

We've already set this money aside in last year's budget, and now it is to appropriate it on the line item specific items such as bollards and public spaces.

So we'll be taking that up, as well as we have an Interfund revolving loan ceiling change.

We can get into that.

It's very straightforward.

It makes good sense.

Just want to note that those are four pretty meaty items.

After in Select Budget Committee, we'll have the B&O legislation that we've discussed.

Because the carry forward has just been sent down to us just late last week, I believe, It is not ready to be posted to this week's committee, and so we will have it discussed as part of the supplemental budget because, for me, it is important that these two things go together.

The money that we are carrying forward from last year and then what additional appropriations are we putting into this year's budget.

Those conversations are knitted for me.

We will then from there discuss the FIFA World Cup appropriations.

And then finally, this Interfund loan regarding human capital management systems.

I'm gonna pause there before I get the full council, sound transit and district six.

Seeing no questions, I'm just gonna keep ticking.

So in full council, our committee has no bills.

why do I still have bullet points on my page?

Because I do have an amendment to Councilmember Kettle's chronic nuisance property bill.

I've discussed this amendment with Councilmember Kettle.

It's very straightforward.

This bill would allow some off-property nuisance activity to count towards determining that that property is a chronic nuisance.

And colleagues, as staff formally here at Council, I was excited to be able to put forward the condemnation legislation for chronic nuisance property.

So I'm not afraid of this.

I've used it as a tool to motivate good change.

My amendment this week would exempt nonprofit social service providers from new provisions of the nuisance property ordinance related to those offsite activities.

Really, the concern here are places like food banks, because I know in our district, the Ballard Food Bank in particular, There's a lot of issues that are going on in the community that are not their fault and really are the city of Seattle government's job to deal with.

And while we are working, you know, I did a public safety walk down there with the chief's office and Captain Davison's team and and other members from the Seattle Police Department and Natalie Walton Anderson.

those are not the responsibility of the food bank, and they're not caused by the food bank.

And so I just want to make sure that we're not confusing or adding any layer of gray space to that for neighbors to think that these issues are caused by the food bank.

So the amendment would ensure that this doesn't happen in the future as an unintended consequence of the bill, and it'll give these providers like food banks the confidence that it won't.

So I just want to stop there and check to see if there's any questions on my amendment.

Ticking forward good news from sound transit moving to my external committees Last week the federal way station was noted to be opened sooner So we're actually going to have to the federal way station will open before we get across the lake The trains getting across the lake are doing are entering in some of their final segments of testing those testing that testing takes many many many many months and but they're good thresholds to meet.

And so it is exciting that we are able to get to Federal Way sooner than anticipated and not have impact on crossing the lake.

Sound Transit's also in the process of purchasing properties in West Seattle for light rail extension.

I was hoping Council Member Sockle was here because I've been carrying his passion over there to make sure that any property that Sound Transit purchases is maintained well and is not left vacant or derelict.

In Association of Washington Cities, I was lucky enough to be appointed to the Executive Committee as the large city representative.

For reference, the last time the City of Seattle sat on the Executive Committee in this role was in 2019, and so this is a really nice step forward for our city.

Moving on to District 6, last week I did not have office hours because I spent the entire time working with neighbors, drawing lines on maps, regarding neighborhood center boundaries.

So we did outreach at half an hour to an hour and a half, depending on the group of putting pen to paper, working with neighbors.

So Council Member Sokka, thank you for the time back this Tuesday or this Wednesday, because I now have to return back to them and talk some more before we put forward any amendments.

I was able to participate in the one Seattle day.

I actually had two one Seattle days.

I don't know if that's two Seattles.

We volunteered as part of One Seattle Day at the Ballard Seafood Fest, so I was serving salmon for both Saturday and Sunday, and I judged the lutefisk eating contest on Sunday.

Yes, I've learned my lesson and smart enough not to eat it myself, but we did have a new champion for that lutefisk eating contest.

With that, colleagues, that is my report.

I'll take any questions, and if not, any questions, I'll pass to Councilman.

I don't usually ask so many questions, but I just want to say thank you for referencing the Magnolia Community Council, because I had a walk with the same group on the D7 part of Magnolia.

Very important to do so, and very helpful in terms of moving forward with the possibilities with the comprehensive plan.

I forgot to mention my walk with Magnolia Community Council, so thank you for that reminder.

And I'll say Councilmember Strauss, Fremont, I have a tiny little sliver of Fremont, but they expressed some concerns about the boundaries, but really it's on your side of Fremont.

So I'm hoping that someone connected with you.

And if not, we can connect you with the person in Fremont that reached out.

But I think that you'd walked and they were part of the walk you did.

So hopefully that's all squared and they were part of the conversations about the boundaries, but we can follow up after.

Happy to follow up.

We have boundaries of the Fremont Urban Center, but then also the Upper Fremont Neighborhood Center, and then Tangletown is actually up against the Wallingford Urban Center, so we've got a lot of shared boundaries.

Yes, and I've heard from both groups, but they are related to the Neighborhood Center, both in Fremont and in Tangletown.

Wonderful.

So yeah, just let us know their name.

It sounds like they were probably on the walk already.

And we weren't able to bring everyone from the walks to the conference table meeting because what I found is that if you have more than four to five people, that means that not everyone's voice gets heard in those meetings.

And then people feel like they've come to the meeting without getting to have their voice expressed, and that's a challenging expectation to manage.

So any other questions?

Over to Councilmember Hollingsworth, Hall of Famer, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Oh, my goodness.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

I have no response besides thank you.

The Parks Utilities Technology meeting will be Wednesday, July 23rd at 2 p.m.

The agenda is still being formulated right now, so, colleagues, I don't have any updates about that meeting, but I really appreciate your engagement, the people who sit on the committee engagement.

with our parks, utilities, and technology committee.

So thank you all for that.

We've had a lot of legislation that has come through the past couple weeks, and so really appreciate you all engaging in that process.

So thank you.

Upcoming meetings, we have the Select Committee of the Comprehensive Plan.

That will be August Monday, August Monday, sorry.

That will be Monday, August 4th at 9.30 a.m.

We canceled the July 11th meeting.

Number one, it was a Friday afternoon, but number two, we felt like council members needed more time to be able to continue to engage with the community, their process on the comprehensive plan to formulate your amendments and also get feedback from folks.

And that has been our biggest thing is making sure that we're getting all the feedback from people and really appreciate your all's engagements from neighborhood walks to one-on-one meetings.

to community meetings, to the drawing on the map exercise, Councilmember Strauss, or engagement on social media.

Whatever way people are accessing us, I think, is incredibly important that we're taking all these channels and getting all that information.

And we've been in close contact, obviously, with central staff about some of the concepts that people are working on, or that we're working on.

Obviously, those are not shared.

Just really appreciate the engagement that you all have with this process and how important this is to our city, because I think we have been hyper-focused the last I don't know how many years on building a city, and now we have the opportunity to really build a home for everyone, and that is what is important.

Also, where are we at?

I can't even read my own handwriting, and I apologize.

Okay, so the Board of Health meeting we have this week, July 17th.

That's with Councilmember Kettle and Council President Nelson.

Looking forward to that.

I know that we get those agenda items sent over, so looking forward to that.

continuing our work on the Board of Health and what we're pushing for, you know, all the whole body of work.

That is a big chunk Board of Health.

I don't have any other regional committees, I guess, want to highlight.

I do have an amendment with the graffiti ordinance that I'll be bringing to full council tomorrow.

Let me back up.

I first want to say that I know that we have tried to distinguish what is art versus tagging or graffiti, and I wanted to highlight I have, since last year, have been talking about Capitol Hill being the Wynwood neighborhood of the West Coast.

Colleagues in Miami, Wynwood neighborhood is a beautiful neighborhood full of murals, and I want to thank the budget chair, Councilmember Strauss, package money for murals on Capitol Hill.

And so those are in the process with our arts departments of being formulated just like we have in Belltown.

And so that was a big thing for us to identify community groups and that process to happen.

And so really happy about that.

We also had in our chairs package, so thank you Councilmember Strauss, also money that went to paint the bathroom at Cal Anderson.

And so that process will continue.

We haven't, working with parks to figure out, you know, what are the next steps so we can ensure that we have a vibrant Capitol Hill and also have been talking to our executive and the, Executive and Parks Department so we can continue to save a hot rat summer, okay?

And a lot of people love the hot rat summer and the mosaic that's absolutely gorgeous and beautiful at Cal Anderson on the Lincoln Reservoir, the gate, the historical landmark that is on the south end of Cal Anderson on the reservoir.

And I know that A lot of people, Council Member Rank loves Hot Rat Summer, and so we want to save that, and particularly the murals that are on Capitol Hill that create this vibrancy and color and artwork is important for us to distinguish that from some of the tagging that's happening.

So I do believe that there's a difference, there's a delicate balance, and we have been advocating for that and wanna thank one of our public commenters for advocating for that, Bennett, who has come to our parks meeting and has also been advocating for that on Capitol Hill as well and has put a sign.

It's become a ritual.

People have left candles and flowers and all different things because they want to save hot rat summer, St. Rat is what is...

I, they are, I don't know what gen, but they're something and it's a rat.

So they will just, it's a rat.

That's all it is.

Okay.

Um, and it's fluid and we love it.

So, um, we will, uh, we will continue to work with the mayor's office and, and the parks department on that.

So thank you to the community who brought that to our attention.

Last but not least, I also want to bring up, and I sent their regards, and I was going into your district, Councilmember Kettle, but I know you don't mind if I go down there.

Had the opportunity to see the soft opening of PCC downtown.

Just wanted to thank PCC for coming back to downtown.

It's a new model.

It's PCC Markets, Corner Markets.

It's a different concept and something that they would like to continue to expand throughout the city, because every neighborhood might not need a full service grocery store.

They might need other types of grocery stores and models.

And I think this one can be incredibly successful.

So I had the chance to connect with the office of the CEO and a lot of people there that I have been talking to for a long time.

And I know, Councilmember Kettle, you're a champion of, you know, grocery stores from the Safeway on Queen Inn and all the Trader Joe's.

I can name off all the grocery stores in everyone's district.

But I do want to highlight and I continue and I will bring this up.

I continue to be concerned about the two QFCs on Broadway.

And I have brought that up numerous times on social media and meetings.

I do continue to be concerned about those two grocery stores and the impact of what they mean to the community if we, the city, does not continue to improve some of the services that we need and engagement for those grocery stores.

During my tenure, we've lost two grocery stores in my district, colleagues.

I don't want to lose another one.

So I take it really serious when we don't have a food access point, because it's not just the consumers.

Think about all the meal programs and food banks that extend the life of that food from that food access point to put in back into community.

And that's what it really means to a lot of people, is another drop-off point or pick-up point that they don't have to receive food.

that's what it means to the community.

And I will end on, that's not a sour note, but hot rat summer, that's a good note, so.

I have a question.

Yes.

Who, I don't, whoever.

Okay, I'll go ahead.

I was sorry to miss the opening of the PCC today, just got really full, but I look forward to going there, so thank you for representing.

And I appreciate that you represented.

My question is, has QFC told you what they want?

Like, have they put any asks forward that have a legislative fix?

Yeah, well, a lot of it has to do with public safety, and we know that.

And so that's, you know, I'm looking at Councilmember Kettle.

I sent our whole regards to the grocery store downtown, but it's a lot with the public safety.

It's also the security piece.

It's the lighting.

It's the environmental design.

It's a lot of things that we can invest in as a city that will make that experience be better for some of the grocery stores.

And then it's also just them having a direct line to folks that can address some of the issues immediately or just say, hey, we're listening, or the communication back and forth from departments.

Some people have said, well, what are some of the legislative stuff that you're thinking about?

It's not necessarily legislative things right now, it's just better communication from city departments to our grocery stores and identifying some issues.

So they feel like they have the support, just like our small businesses.

They feel like they have the support to navigate some of the issues that we see on our streets.

And I just want to thank you for raising it, because we've lost a couple grocery stores in the D4 as well.

So this is happening across the city, and it is a real issue for folks.

And particularly, we lost a Safeway, and it was the one closest to folks that live at Magnuson Park.

That's a huge deal.

So thanks for raising that.

This very much is an important piece, and I agree, Councilmember.

um hollingsworth that a lot of this is there needs to be better communication also so that folks understand including our grocery stores what the impacts are to community when they do close and how can we better support them so they don't and food and folks have access to to food same with the drug stores but that's i know another issue but a lot of the the Sorry, a lot of the grocery stores do have drug stores in them.

And so that's really having an impact on folks getting their medications.

So, you know, the impacts are big.

It's the pharmacy piece and those grocery stores.

And no, you're okay.

Every store.

No, no, no, you're good.

You're good.

And I also want to highlight every grocery store is very different.

Some grocery stores accept Snap, some accept Fresh, but it's very different.

So I know oftentimes people are like, oh, but there's also these grocery stores.

I know the Safeway you're talking about, there might be Met Market and QFC, all these other ones, but there's a different audience that different grocery stores stores serve, especially when you're looking at SNAP and food access and those types of things.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

And with, oh, Council Member Rank, sorry.

Councilmember Hollingsworth, thank you for saving Hot Rat Summer.

You knew I'd be excited about it.

I didn't save it.

I just said, please don't paint over it, and then let's have more of Hot Rat Summer, so yeah.

Well, thank you, colleagues.

I would encourage you to make the pilgrimage out and visit it, and it might seem silly to be excited about a mosaic of a rat, which is beautifully done, by the way, but these are the little place-making things, the little things that kind of bring character to the city, i mean what is you know how we may be talking about hot rat summer right now maybe the origins of the gum wall or other key destinations the lennon statue or the the troll these are how destinations are made and what makes our city really alive and so i encourage you to visit hot rat summer and uh thank you for your leadership on this councilmember hollingsworth i got a lot of outreach as well awesome no that's good to know uh thank thank you councilmember rank and then i will pass

I'm sorry, I have to ask.

Is there any, is this an intentional or unintentional nod to Frank Zappa?

It is unintentional.

I am sorry for showing my age.

You're showing your age, but yet I am older than you, council member Josh.

He's just more knowledgeable.

Yeah, no.

But yes, I think art is incredibly important.

The Wynwood neighborhood in Miami is one of the most gorgeous neighborhoods in the country, and people go there to see the beautiful murals that are painted all across, have been there multiple times.

That's what Capitol Hill should be and will be.

And Wynwood is a gentrified neighborhood, so it really was...

They put a lot into uplifting that neighborhood and the murals were a huge draw to it.

So yeah, I've been there.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

That's all I got, Council President.

I guess it's off to you.

All right, thank you.

You mentioned grocery stores, or you answered my question about the grocery stores.

And while they all have different features, pharmacies, not pharmacies, catered to different clientele, for the most part across the board, they are all fairly low margin, really thin margin for what they can do.

you know, the amount of loss they can take if some of the safety, public safety problems keep persisting.

So that they do have that in common.

So anyway, that leads in a little bit into my topic.

Last week at the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee meeting, we had our first briefing and discussion of resolution 32174, which I'm calling my Progressive Public Safety Initiative, which would, and I'm calling it public safety because it would use a portion of the public safety sales tax that we anticipate will be coming forward later on in this year from the executive and allocate it to a suite of promising new treatment services as well as shoring up existing treatment services.

And that was a really interesting discussion.

I encourage folks to listen in.

We were joined by Daniel Malone of DESC, Lisa Dugard and Brandy McNeil of PVA and Brandy Flood from Evergreen Treatment Services slash reach, all of whom are in 100% support, partly because they helped me craft the list of the investments that serve as examples of things that could be used that could be funded through this revenue source, which probably wouldn't generate more than about $10 million a year.

But not to get ahead of ourselves, that was the first discussion of that.

And we'll have a second discussion and possible vote out of committee on July 24th.

We also in committee last Thursday had a presentation from the city auditor on unimplemented recommendations, audit report recommendations.

And I did find it impressive that since 2007, 72% of the recommendations from their office have been implemented.

So that's a pretty good amount.

From the audits in 2024, only 21 of 123 tracked recommendations had been implemented.

So it kind of depends on how you look at it.

Anyway, the biggest group of outstanding recommendations are from a series of three reports related to crime and public safety.

And so there will be, as mentioned by Dr. Claudia Grosh-Shader, an additional report discussion about that small group of audits at our next meeting, because we just couldn't fit them all in.

We couldn't fit that into the conversation around just because we had three things on the agenda.

So those specific audits will be presented in more detail.

on July 24th.

And then finally, we had the first presentation and discussion of the proposed 15 changes to our council rules, which sounds like a lot, but it's pretty much standard practice.

These changes come from a long list of suggestions provided by the city clerk, central staff, and city attorney's office, which we narrowed down with your feedback, all of you when you were when this was distributed a couple months ago a draft and then we'll have another briefing and discussion and a possible vote on the 24th as well so um i opened the i invited folks to join last week and of course you're welcome again next thursday a week from this thursday Okay, moving right along, I'll be joining Councilmember Kettle at the Real-Time Crime Center opening tomorrow.

That is really exciting.

It's, you know, Seattle's a tech town and it's great that Seattle will be joining other large progressive cities across the country that do have, that do take advantage of technological advances to help ensure public safety for their constituents.

And so I look forward to that.

It's been it's been a long time coming and I think I'll stop there because we do have a an executive session.

You don't need to hear from me what I did.

Go ahead, Councilmember Kettle.

Council President, I just thank you.

And I just wanted to note and as the course of this meeting went along, I got to the point where I'm going to say it.

Probably all of us read an article in The Seattle Times this weekend and it's extremely frustrating to read it.

You could just listen to this meeting, walk a mile in our shoes, not just the district representatives, but also the city-wise in terms of the public safety challenges that we're facing.

This is expectation management.

We have a lot of public safety challenges.

We're working them, and there's more to do.

And here's the other thing is, we have a strategy.

We have a plan.

We're executing it.

We're up to 20 plus or minus bills right now, if you include confirmation over 20. It's about putting the bills out there, and 25 is about implementing and operationalizing these bills.

This is what's making a difference on public safety, and we're in a bridging function right now.

in terms of getting to where we need to be on public safety.

So to be blunt, when I read that article in Seattle Times, I just scratch my head and go, what in the world?

Walk a mile in our shoes because we deal with this day in and day out.

There you go.

And hiring is at unprecedented levels now, thanks largely to some of those of the 20 bills that you're referencing.

So I appreciate your comment.

Go ahead.

And as I talked this morning, Councilmember Kettle, with the small business owners, we're finally at the point where we are not losing more officers than we're hiring for the first time in the last however many years.

Since 2019.

2019, which is a huge progress point that we, you know, since this council has been here.

So thanks for saying that.

And we are making some good progress here, even though I acknowledge that, you know, and like I said, I started my report with having had a conversation with a constituent.

There was a lot of frustration and we are pressing, to use your word, Councilmember Kettle, pressing, we continue to press on the public safety issues because, and as I said earlier, it's still the number one issue in the district that I represent, and I would say across the city, and we are continuing to keep our eye on the prize on that and working with SPD and the mayor's office on these public safety issues.

And things don't change overnight, but we've seen a lot of progress in the short year and a half that I've been here.

I've seen a lot of progress and that's not to pat ourselves on the back at all.

That's to say like we are pressing on it and we're getting some results and we're going to keep pressing on it because this is the most important.

Having a safe city for everyone that lives here is the most important piece.

And as a kid who grew up unsafe in the inner city, I can tell you that is the most important piece for our kids to grow up in a safe city and our grownups as well and our seniors is critical.

It is mission critical, so.

Thank you.

And I will note that there is the link between public safety and our small businesses.

Small businesses have been talked a lot about today too, because if not a driver, a very, very strong correlation between the terrible toll that addiction takes on the community and then its impacts on communities.

I appreciate your comment there.

All right.

Looks like you're getting ready to go, Councilmember Kettle, so I will hustle up here.

All right.

Seeing no further business to come before the council.

Okay.

This, we will now go into an executive session as presiding officer.

I'm announcing that the Seattle city council will convene into an executive session.

The purpose of which is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

And it's an opportunity for us to talk about confidential legal matters with the city attorney.

And we are, watched over by a monitor who makes sure that we're not getting into policy.

Let's see, now I have to add 75 minutes to the time right now.

So if any, it's now 315, 60 is 416. Let's say about 4.30.

Yay.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

All right.

So I expect the executive session to end by 4.30.

And if it goes longer, then I'll come on and say it's gone on longer.

But if it ends earlier, this meeting will adjourn automatically.

Thanks, everybody.