Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/18/18 Session I

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me.

It's October 18th, 2018. This is the Budget Committee.

I'm Sally Bagshaw, and I appreciate my on-time colleagues being here, Councilmember Gonzalez, Councilmember Johnson, Councilmember Juarez.

Before we begin, I want to alert my colleagues that we are going to take a recess at 10.15 this morning.

We have a earthquake drill that's happening.

It's a national drill that's happening at 10.18, so I thought what we would do is take a break.

We can all return to our offices, climb under our desks when the earthquake siren goes off, and then we will reconvene.

1018 and I was hoping to be able to use this as an opportunity to sneak under the desk here on the dais Well, you can do that.

Okay, so we can stay you can stay if you like.

Um, some of us have other responsibilities So we're going to give you a break and choose what you want to do so today begins phase two of our budget committee and I just want to review for the public that may be fascinated by the budget schedule, how we do this.

The mayor delivered her budget to us on Monday, September 24th.

Then we have actually had two presentations that came from our budget office explaining the elements of the mayor's budget.

And we had a special presentation on October 3rd, which focused the entire day on housing and services that we are offering to people who are homeless.

We're now beginning the third phase of this, which is our issue ID.

We're going to go through the elements of the proposed budget, department by department.

Our Council Central staff will lead us through this.

And just for those who are interested in submitting green sheets, those are going to be due next week at 2 o'clock on Thursday.

And then we will We'll move from there for our green sheet proposal review beginning five scheduled days, October 17th through the 24th.

Also, let's see, what was I just going to say?

I'm off a line here that the green sheets are due next Thursday, October 25th at 2 p.m.

We extended that time from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

to give a little bit more time for our staff to deal with green sheets coming in.

So please remember now, Thursday, October 25th.

Our next public hearing is next Tuesday, October 23rd.

So that will be here in chambers starting at 5.30.

Public is welcome to discuss their interests and concerns with us at that time.

So the balancing package with all of our council member proposals will be presented to the council by me on November 7th.

Then we will have a couple of days the following week where we will be talking about the balancing package at which point the final budget vote is going to be on Monday, November 19th.

So the deliberation sessions begin today, and it's going to end next Wednesday where we're going to be taking a closer look.

And for my colleagues, after the presentation section by our council central staff, they will provide a high-level introduction of issues that we may have given to central staff already.

And I'm going to turn to each of you to ask you to present a little bit more information about what your issue is around the particular edition and it's essentially your opportunity to provide input to your colleagues about why this is important to you.

Today, we're going to start with Department of Construction and Inspections, then Department of Neighborhoods.

We'll take a break this afternoon, come back with the Police Department and Fire Department.

So, I think, Eric, I'm going to turn this over to you, and then I'm going to ask Linda if you will be sure to remind us at 10.15.

We'll take a break.

We'll take 10 minutes.

We'll come back.

Very good.

Thank you.

Eric, thank you very much.

Allie, thank you, all of you.

Lish, Allison from my office for being here today, and appreciate all of the work that you've done so far, and we look forward to many more days of this.

Hopefully not that many.

Not that many days.

We got many more days.

Okay.

Eric.

Thank you, Chair Bagshaw, members of the committee.

I'm Eric Sund of the central staff, happy to be here.

I have only a few remarks to make before turning things over to Ali.

So across all the various funds that the city has, the mayor's proposed budget is about 5.4% larger than the 2018 adopted budget was, and in the general fund, the most flexible source of funding that the city has and that the council has to program for a variety of services and programs, the increase is about 2.6 percent, not as large.

It's roughly $34 million.

And the mayor has proposed funding for some higher priority, new or expanded initiatives, such as the creation of an office of the employee ombud.

Most of these don't, pardon me, most of these don't involve large amounts of general fund.

A substantial amount, about 15 million of general fund has been programmed to, in the mayor's proposed budget, and devoted to sustaining increases for services for the homeless that were initially made by both the council and the mayor in 2017 and also this year, 2018. The remaining increase in the funds is primarily devoted to little increases here and there spread throughout the budget that cover the cost of basically inflation, the increasing cost of delivering the same services, and the establishment and maintenance of reserves for some costs that are anticipated in the near term but not yet programmed in the budget.

With that, as Chair Bagshaw indicated, each of the presentations today, as well as those that central staff will be giving next week in committee, will begin with a review of the mayor's proposed budget for the given department.

But we will also be outlining some preliminary proposals that council members have made for changes to that budget.

And in addition to allowing an opportunity for proponents to speak to their ideas, this is also going to provide a chance for you to begin to think about how to prioritize and balance these priorities.

in this environment of limited resources, generally speaking, before we get to the more formal, fully developed discussion of green sheets and statements of legislative intent in the following weeks.

So that is one of the purposes that we're hoping we we can meet in these meetings.

We will be looking for cues from council members as to where they're looking for additional investigation or where they have ideas that they might want to propose to us next week.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

Good.

Welcome, Ali.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council Members.

For the discussion today, I'll primarily be following the memo that was attached to the agenda, so I will be discussing issues and Council Member proposals generally in that order, but if I do inadvertently skip ahead, I'll try to signal that.

I'll first provide a brief overview of the department's budget, then we'll move to issues identified by staff, and then briefly describe the budget legislation transmitted for the department, and then move on to the budget actions proposed by council members.

The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, that I'll refer to as SDCI moving forward, administers city ordinances that regulate rental housing, building design and construction, and the use of land, enforcing compliance with those regulations and providing inspections.

SDCI's 2019 proposed budget is 83.1 million.

That's about 1.9 million or 2% lower than the 2018 adopted budget.

SDC operations are primarily supported by fees necessary to support permitting and inspection work, with the exception of the code compliance and the code development teams, which are funded primarily by the general fund.

In fact, only about 8% of the department's budget is supported by the general fund.

In the mayor's proposed budget, there are minimal budget and staffing additions in the proposed budget.

There are two primary areas.

One is in the enhanced quality management for permit review and inspections program.

Currently, that area has two positions that are Scheduled to sunset at the end of this year, this budget action would make those two positions ongoing and add a third.

This team is tasked with identifying and implementing ongoing improvements to the permit reviews, land use reviews, and inspection services.

In addition, one change is giving specific appropriation authority for credit card fees in the SDCI's budget, also supported by permit fees.

With their questions, I'll move on to issue identification.

Good.

Any questions, colleagues?

Please go ahead.

So the first area that staff identified is in code development program staffing.

The code development program develops and updates the land use code and other related codes to help ensure that development conforms to the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan, new development trends, executive and council priorities, and new state and federal regulations.

The code development program in SDCI is funded by the general fund.

The Mayor's proposed 2019 and 2020 budget includes five FTEs on this team.

Submitted with the budget was a work program for that team that is estimated to require seven FTEs, suggesting that SDCI will not have sufficient staff to carry out all projects, including those priorities identified by Council in 2019, such as tree regulations, regulations for alleys in the West Edge neighborhood, the 2030 Challenge high-performance existing building pilot program update, and requirements for solid waste storage areas.

Options available to the Council to address this would be, of course, to add additional staff.

An alternative option to ensure that Council priorities are considered in the work program first would be to work with that group to develop a prioritization process and have some regular reporting to the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee.

to move through that throughout the year.

Alternatively, council could place a proviso on some portion of those resources to ensure that some portion of the staff time is devoted to council priorities.

Allie, do you want to talk a little bit?

Maybe this is a point for Council Member O'Brien to discuss about the tree protection, staffing, what is intended at this point.

Sure, so, Council Member Johnson.

It's okay.

Council Member O'Brien can talk about it if he wants to.

I mean, it has been my thing, but that's okay.

Please go ahead.

I was just throwing a curveball to Mike to see if he was awake.

Okay.

Okay, go ahead.

Council Member Johnson.

So, Madam Chair, I think as we contemplate structurally the conversations we're going to have both today and the rest of the day, I'd appreciate the chance to kind of pause at the end of each issue ID and sort of maybe have a moment to see if everybody's okay with it.

In this option, this list of options that Allie provides for us, I'd love for us to consider option C.

One of the challenges that we've had with not just my tree protection regulations, but also things like the The other piece of adu-dadu legislation that is coming sometime in the future is making sure that the team that Mike Podolsky has at SDCI is appropriately staffed up to be able to respond to council and mayoral-led priorities.

has enough work for seven people, but it's currently funded for five.

So this would split the difference and consider adding a sixth.

I think it's a prudent course of action for us to consider.

And, you know, recognizing that I'm not the budget chair would highlight option C as my preference for consideration.

Great.

Thank you.

Do you want to comment on this or are you changing the subject?

Very good.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I want to thank Ali for identifying the council priorities in particular as relates to my issue area, the requirements for solid waste areas and doing some code work around.

multifamily dwellings.

I would be interested to know whether or not, from a central staff perspective, you feel that SDCI is estimating their workload appropriately or accurately.

So I think developing a work program is a bit of an imprecise, as we know, going through the council work program exercise each year.

It's a snapshot of a moment in time, and they do their best to capture the number of things on the list.

I think sometimes what happens in developing that work program is all of the potential work that is out there that they've heard from council, from the mayor, and from internally identifying areas where the code could use tweaks or improvements.

I do think that as we move through the course of the year, there's often competing priorities between the council and the mayor, and also procedural friction that can delay some of that work.

So I think it is unlikely that all of the items identified on that work program will move forward in 2019. And so I think that there is an opportunity to help that group prioritize areas, and if there was not resources to add additional staff, sort of provide more stronger direction on which projects to take up first.

Can I ask a follow-up, Chair?

Please, go ahead.

Thank you.

I remember there was a presentation in the PLEZ committee about the SDCI work program at the beginning of the year.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to take a look at all the things that they anticipated doing.

And, you know, just sort of a back of the envelope estimate of what things they didn't do because of staffing issues.

I think that would give us maybe another useful tool to work with to answer this question.

I can follow up with that and provide that information to the members.

Any other follow up on that?

All right, please go.

And just I would just add one point of clarification in terms of the tree protection work that that's an issue that will come up in a few moments.

But there are two areas.

There is the work that needs to be done to amend the code to update those regulations.

That is the code development group that I'm talking about here.

And then there is the work to actually implement the tree regulations, which is the issue I will discuss in a few moments.

So it's kind of a double or there are two sort of related issues.

All right, great.

Thank you.

Anything else?

All right, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So moving on to issue number two relates to permit review times.

SDCI has established goals for permit review times that are tracked and reported on regularly.

The goals focus primarily on the initial plan review time and vary by the type and complexity of those permits.

Success at meeting those goals is an ongoing challenge for the department, and council members continue to hear concerns about the time it takes to get permits out the door.

SDCI is currently taking several actions to try to address this issue.

This includes ongoing monitoring of their systems, which has been a little bit complicated with the introduction of a new permitting system, but they are getting that up to date, adding the quality management staffing I referred to previously, filling vacant positions, trying to keep their groups fully staffed, extending some sunset positions that were meant to sunset at the end of this year, and then also looking for other process improvements and revising their evaluations and reporting.

So essentially updating what it is they're measuring and when.

Well, there are steps being taken to improve services.

There are also some things in the mayor's budget that might work against other actions to improve review times.

This includes the elimination of five positions that are primarily administrative.

Additional administrative staff could be used to increase capacity and shorten throughput time in permit services and inspections by supporting some of the administrative functions and allowing subject matter experts to focus on other pieces of the permit processing.

Further, from a race and social justice lens, these entry level administrative jobs within the department have historically 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.

And finally, because they're fee supported, it doesn't really introduce efficiencies in the budget in terms of reducing demand on the general fund.

So options that council could consider include adding additional staff, restoring the position authority for those administrative positions that I just mentioned, making some of the sunset positions permanent, and introducing a more, I said, ongoing reporting structure to the PLEZ committee to increase transparency and accountability.

Good.

Council Member Johnson.

Again, no surprise here that I think option D, the choose all of the above options, is probably the best pathway for us to consider at this point.

I'd like to spend a little bit more time with SDCI to both support Ali's opinion that these positions are fee supported, so IEA doesn't really have much benefit to us in terms of cuts to the general fund to be spent in other places.

but that also that there is an opportunity here for us to contemplate how ongoing work can continue to improve without necessarily having a whole lot of new staff.

So option D, none of these options really have much of an impact on our overall budget and I think could help increase some of the permit turnaround times.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So moving on to item number three that relates to tree protection staffing, and this is staffing for the implementation and oversight of the existing tree regulations.

Currently, the work to review permits related to tree regulations is covered by an out-of-class assignment, which basically means there's a person from the zoning team in SDCI currently working out-of-class doing this tree regulation works.

work, which has left that team short a person.

So the proposed budget allows for shoring that up so both of those positions can be filled, but it doesn't actually increase the resources dedicated to reviewing permits for tree regulations.

And we've heard recently the SDCI is running about eight weeks behind on tree reviews, so council members could consider adding an additional staff person to focus on reviewing permits related to the tree regulations.

Anything?

Just briefly, again, this would be one of those fee-supported positions, so I think it would make a lot of sense for us to consider it.

One of the commitments that I made to folks when we were developing the treaty ordinance, which we hope to take back up after this budget process, is that that tree ordinance may result in the need for us to have additional staff members to go out there and implement that ordinance.

So this starts that conversation, but certainly once we have contemplated a final ordinance, if it's passed, that may have additional budgetary impacts in 2020. Great.

And thank you, Council Member Johnson, for bringing that up.

And I raised this question with Ali yesterday, is how much delay happens based upon our requirements And if there's another eight weeks delay for an individual who may want to be looking at a construction project, that can be the difference between this season and next season for buildings.

So thank you for raising that issue.

Thank you.

So moving on to issue number four, this relates to resources for tenants and landlords.

Here I'll discuss two areas related to tenant and landlord services.

One is the Renting in Seattle portal or, you know, previously referred to as a tenant-landlord resource center that's housed in SDCI.

The other is resources that are provided to community partners for tenant services.

I'll note that the contracts and funding for those contracts with community partners actually flows through HSD's budget, but because of the related nature of these topics, we're discussing it here.

In the 2017 and 2018 adopted budget, council provided resources to launch a tenant landlord resource center that's been rebranded as Renting in Seattle.

This includes a new web portal and a dedicated phone line, working with Department of Neighborhood on outreach efforts, translating their existing materials and updating many of their handouts to be more user friendly.

Both the phone line and website and many of the new materials are expected to go live towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

SDCI has seen increases over the years in the number of calls and complaints from tenants and expects to see this continue over in 2019, and it's likely to increase if the Renting in Seattle portal is launched successfully.

In 2017, for example, the group saw about a 58% increase in the number of contacts from the year prior.

Council Member Herbold, do you have something to add?

Okay.

In addition to the demand for tenant and landlord support services likely to stem from the full launch of renting in Seattle, contracts with nonprofit organizations to provide education and advocacy service to tenants also can generate additional demand.

SDCI has identified a likely need for ongoing staffing to support increased calls expected when the renting in Seattle phone line is activated.

So the first issue I'm identifying here is a potential staffing issue for the renting in Seattle, particularly the front end taking the calls.

Aside from those staffing concerns, the contracts with community organizations is also identified.

Last year, council added resources to expand those contracts with community organizations to include contracting with organizations with extensive experience in direct door-to-door outreach and engagement in neighborhoods with lower incomes and communities of color.

However, funding in HSD for tenant services was provided, that additional funding was given to the same organizations that have been contracted with historically, who do provide assistance to tenants, but it's not for direct outreach.

So they do workshops, the Tenants Union does calls, eviction, that sort of thing, but it wasn't expanded to include direct outreach to tenants.

When council added that money, they also asked HSD and SDCI to work together and engage with stakeholders to determine what services should be prioritized and how those contracts should be managed.

And the question last year was, should those contracts be managed by HSD or should SDCI, as the entity who's going to receiving much of the calls and the inspection work, manage those contracts?

And so was the conclusion reached?

No, you stole the punchline.

So there was a report back, there was detailed information about sort of, there appears to be consensus about a need to re-bid those contracts, rethink the services, that there needs to be a combination of sort of direct assistance and technical support as well as direct outreach to tenants.

However, the question of who should manage those contracts remained unanswered, and in part it's I think it's a difficult question for the departments to answer, but I will note that if this funding is redirected to the, to SDCI, they don't currently manage a lot of these types of contracts or an RFP process.

So there is some concern that they don't have staffing capacity to manage those contracts where HSD is managing many contracts and have, you know, more staff with experience doing that.

I'll also note through the renting in Seattle and through the requests from council to to coordinate over the last year I understand that there is a more regular ongoing coordination between the departments and I think more ability for SDCI to play a more active role in shaping those contracts if and when they are if and when they are rebid.

Good.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

And then Councilmember Johnson.

A couple things on that.

One of the other intentions of the request that there be sort of a facilitated conversation with the providers of different tenant services was Also to determine whether or not we were funding the right sort of complement of services or whether or not there are gaps.

It was also to make sure that the funder, the city, understands that different organizations have different abilities and different capacities to do the different kind of work.

and to make sure that they're developing an RFP that both funds the things that we want to fund and makes the funding available in a way that the organizations that have the abilities to do the different things are able to apply.

So I'm still interested in that body of work being done.

And I would like to know to the extent that the executive has been actually engaging with the providers to have this conversation.

And I'd also like to just understand a little bit more about why the RFP wasn't issued last year, if you know.

So in terms of the work in sort of shaping that RFP and the right sort of suite of services and targeting the organizations that are ready to deliver on those services, that was the focus of much of the work.

And I can send around the report that was provided to Council.

There is some detail on sort of who they engaged with and what they learned.

And I think they did make some progress in sort of even drafting a potential a revised RFP to that end.

So I think that body of work has, they have made some progress on it, but they have not committed to reissuing the RFP.

And I can't speak to exactly why, but I can ask again, but I can't answer for the executive on that at this moment.

And then, I'm sorry, the second question.

Can I just follow up Council Member Herbold?

Yeah, okay.

Specifically what I'm interested in is what are the outcomes that we want?

How would you like to proceed with this?

Because I know you asked about it last year and if it hasn't been done, what would you like to do?

I think Ali has some options presented that I think will potentially accomplish our goals, and I believe Councilmember O'Brien might have a Form A related to this issue as well.

Okay, great.

Councilmember Johnson, I think you had a question.

You know, this is one of those issues where Allie's about to walk us through options.

And I would suggest that depending on which way we go, an ounce of prevention would benefit us by making sure that we direct funding towards staffing that will result in a lot more folks staying in the existing housing that they're in.

We know that it's really expensive once someone is evicted to find them housing again.

So one of the objectives initially for the Renting in Seattle website was to allow for people to better understand what their rights were, but then also to make sure that we, as a city, were empowering some folks to be a go-between in some way, shape, or form between the landlords and the tenants when disputes come up, recognizing that once we intervene in those instances, more often than not, people do end up staying where they're living, and that that is much cheaper and more effective than it is for them to get evicted and then struggle to find housing and become homeless.

So for us, in consideration of the staffing set of decisions, whether that means adding more staffing time or beefing up or provisoing up the HSD funding, I think it would be worthwhile for us to consider that as one of the programmatic elements that we're choosing to fund here because I think, again, an ounce of prevention will prevent a pound of pain later on.

Thank you very much for that.

Council Member O'Brien.

Yeah, I think Council Member Bakeshaw, you asked a couple questions that I think are really important.

One is what are the goals and then the question over the distinction between what policy makes sense between HSD or STCI.

Can tell you is that last year at this time?

I thought we as a council were pretty clear on what our objectives were which was we currently fund You know eviction response hotlines which are important and probably underfunded So that when people get in a position where they're struggling that they can call someone and have a resource but what we thought last year, and what's been completely reinforced by a report from the Women's Commission that came to Councilmember Herbold's committee about a month ago, is that there's a lot of evictions that are happening that could probably easily be prevented with a little bit of work.

And there's a lot of folks who are getting evicted or don't even go through the eviction process who probably don't even know that there's a hotline to call.

And what we tried to do last year was fund organizations to proactively go out and identify populations that we think might be at risk of eviction, and it's not terribly hard to do.

and make sure that they understand what their rights are and be proactive.

Proactive hopefully before anything even happens, but if an eviction happens, so they know.

And instead, and we funded that in the budget, and instead of what the departments did is they put money into the other option, which is not a bad thing, but they completely missed it.

And I don't know that we're gonna get a clear answer if they just misunderstood us, or they had a different policy, or they were given different direction, I think the individuals are probably in tricky positions and we may never know exactly what happened, but I want to, my goal in this budget is to do whatever we can to be really clear about what we want to do and make it more difficult for someone to intentionally or accidentally miss our intent.

I'm leaning towards moving that to SDCI from HSD.

I think there is, as Allie said, there was some work done to create an RFP, and so I I think we can, hopefully SDCI can get that work and build on it.

But I'm kind of disappointed, frankly, that the way this played out last year, I think...

Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was intentional, I don't know.

But it's disappointing that I thought we were pretty clear on what we wanted to do and it didn't happen.

And so I hope we revisit it this year.

The ultimate goal, of course, is, and I think Council Member Johnson touched on it, is to prevent evictions where we can.

And what we saw in that report from the Women's Commission is there are so many folks getting evicted and who, again, don't even go through eviction because they don't even know about it and just voluntarily walk away from units.

probably shouldn't happen.

And for pennies on the dollar, we could be investing in that instead of some of the really intensive homeless reversal stuff we're doing.

And I want to acknowledge and thank Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing up a point, and we will probably be reiterating this throughout the next few days, and that is language access, to make sure that we're targeting the information to people and that it's targeted to people who are natural leaders within the community and also in the language that they need to understand.

So, as we're going forward, my goal, and I'm going to say this probably a hundred times between now and the time we vote on this budget, we need to have a system in place that's working across departments and with the people who are doing this work in the community.

So, when I ask what are the goals or objectives, I'm going to be really specific about who do we want to do the work, how is that work going to get done, and what do we want to see at the end so that it's not just, hey, we're putting money into something and we don't specifically have answers about what are the outcomes.

Anything else, Councilmember Herbold?

Yeah, I just want to make a distinction for all of our clarity about what we mean when we talk about tenant services as it relates to this particular body of work, because there's another discussion about tenant services as it relates to HSD's current body of work.

When we're talking about tenant services here, we're talking primarily about funding to support organizations that focus their work on teaching people about their rights as a tenant, because much of the law, the landlord-tenant law, is self-enforced.

There are a lot of elements of the law that a tenant has to affirmatively stand up for their rights in order to enforce them.

This body of work is related to hotline work, telling people what their rights are and who they can go to to get legal assistance.

It's focused on tenant outreach, going door-to-door, working with tenants on issues that may lead to housing instability, and tenant workshops, where tenants come together and learn about their rights in their buildings.

The other tenant services that we often talk about, and this is another issue that the Seattle Women's Commission brought up very prominently, and I'll be raising in the HSD discussion, are the homelessness prevention dollars that are used to help tenants pay their rent when they're behind in their rent.

And so when somebody has received a three day notice, there are a number of different organizations, three day notice for nonpayment of rent.

There are a number of organizations throughout the city who can make funding available to help that person pay their rent and avoid eviction.

One of the recommendations of the Seattle Women's Commission study is to look at ways of delivering those resources more effectively and in a more streamlined way because tenants only have three day to pay the rent.

After three days, there's no obligation for a landlord to accept any money.

Great, thank you for bringing that up.

All right, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

I want to thank Council Member O'Brien and Council Member Herbold for their work on this and agree with Council Member Gonzalez that we need to make sure this information is done in language.

I underscore everything they said and want to echo my support or signal my support for investments in this area.

But I also think that it's important as we provide investments for community outreach, we also look internal to what our own departments should be doing.

When we have over half this population of Seattle residents who are currently renting, I think that we need to have a better way of educating our own departments about the services that we provide.

Recently, I had a friend who contacted me about a notice that was not properly posted.

If she didn't move her materials off of her porch within a 48-hour period, they would be thrown away.

She had to pay for storage.

She had to figure out how to move it.

And at the same time, she got a notice that her rent was not complete, that she had actually had an increase in her rent.

She never received the notice of rent increase.

When she called to complain, they told her, well, we mailed it to you, and we don't have verification electronically of the date it was sent out.

She asked me who to call.

I called three different departments to try to figure this out.

And if we don't have a better way of signaling to a council member who to call, and if I had to wait a few weeks to figure out who the right person was, and thanks to Council Member Herbold for directing me to SDCI, we clearly have a problem internally.

I would love to figure out what we can do so that every point of service, if somebody does have a question about rental rights and attendance rights, even, not just eviction, but increases in rent or proper postings, that our departments have a better understanding of who to call and how to direct folks.

I think the website will be a good starting point.

I think that the tenants of the phone line, investing in the phone line, as has been suggested, is a good idea.

I also think that we need to identify ways that we can improve internal education for our own departments as well, so point of service is complete.

Nice.

Thank you very much.

Allie?

I didn't actually walk through the options, so I'll just briefly describe what those are.

They've been sort of covered in a general sense, but there are options you could add.

In terms of the staffing for STCI, you could add phone line staffing.

This could be accomplished by redirecting a portion of the funding proposed for contracts with community organizations or additional general fund resources.

essentially cutting something else.

In terms of addressing the concern about how the funds for community organizations are contracted, placing a proviso on funding for those dollars and requiring that an RFP is developed and issued prior to releasing those funds would be a way to ensure that those, that RFP includes the suite of services and is targeted towards the types of organizations council anticipated.

Shall we move ahead to the budget actions that are proposed?

We've actually covered one, well almost one, two, and three, but we'll give Council Member Herbold an opportunity if you want to speak further to it.

No, I think there's a budget legislation, though, that it would be great to cover.

Go ahead.

So there are two pieces of budget legislation that accompanied the mayor's proposed budget for SDCI.

The first would adjust most fees and charges for regulatory services provided by SDCI.

This is primarily increased to implement inflationary adjustments and reflect anticipated wage increases.

In addition, there's a larger increase for the land use hourly rate going from $324 to 365. This is really over that the land use hourly rate was not adjusted for many years.

And so over the last several years, there have been increases to try to catch it up.

This doesn't quite catch it all the way up, but it gets it closer.

The fee adjustments proposed by the legislation will result in a net increase in SDCI's fee-based revenue of $4.8 million, equivalent to approximately 6% of the projected fee revenue.

These are designed to cover the costs of SDCI doing this business.

Madam Chair, I think one of the things for us to consider here is contemplating additional fee adjustments to get us to the fully actualized results that would have happened had we did annual increases in the hourly rate.

The caveat here is I'd like us to start doing a much better job of tracking permit timelines and turnarounds associated with it and be able to demonstrate more demonstrable progress towards getting those permits turned around more quickly.

If we're going to increase The fee legislation is proposed in the budget.

I think that that's a good thing for us to do, particularly for the eligibility here for us to think about smoothing the hiring and firing process that happens during every up cycle and down cycle associated with permit fees.

But also, I want us to be able to say with some degree of certainty that we're going to do a better job of turning around the permits than we have so far.

Admittedly, we're in the largest growth in the city's history.

It's going to take a while for you to get your permit through.

But as we contemplate what will likely be a downturn in the construction cycle over the next couple of years, I'd like us to make sure that we are continuing to make progress at shortening up the amount of time that it's going to take us to get those permits back to the permit holders more quickly.

Great thank you and I'm looking at the clock and I'm going if we can take council member Herbold your question between now and 10 15 then I'm going to suggest we take a break for the earthquake drill.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Oh, wait.

Forgot all about that.

Okay.

So, as it relates to that question, I also support a full adjustment to catch up with the adjustments we haven't done.

But the statement that fee revenues are designed to cover the cost of SDCI permitting, inspection, and enforcement functions, to what extent have we examined whether or not they actually do?

I mean, we know how much of the STCI's budget's general fund dollars.

Are all of those general fund investments designed to cover for where fee revenue is not covering the services?

So let me, the functions of the department that are permit fee eligible are fully funded by permit fees.

The other functions are not eligible for use of permit fees.

Is that?

Yeah, so it sounds like you're saying that they are, the ones that are funded from fee revenue are fully, they do an accurate job of anticipating what the costs are and the fees fully pay for those costs.

Yeah, SDCI has done a lot of work over the years to monitor this carefully and have updated both the costs, including the cost of planning for the future, so staff reserves and technology costs and those sorts of things.

So I'd say the department is very careful about adjusting those fees to be accurate, and I think have fine-tuned that over the years.

Great, thank you.

If you'll hold that thought.

If there's no objection, I'd like us to recess for 10 minutes.

That'll allow us to go back to our offices for those who are participating in the earthquake drill.

And so we will reconvene back here at 10...

26. So if no objection, hearing no objection, we're in recess for 10 minutes.

Okay, we're back.

Thank you, the mics are on.

This meeting is back to order.

Thank you all for participating in the drop, cover, and hold earthquake drill.

So we just recessed from our budget committee, but we are now back.

Allie and Council Member Herbold, you had some dialogue going.

Did you conclude what you needed, or did you want to proceed with another question?

I think on that piece of legislation, I'm good.

Okay.

Great, please, and let's move on to the next.

Chair?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I had a follow-up.

Okay, Councilor Cuomo is down there.

Thank you.

This is, and I know some of this is going to be addressed when we actually get down to some making some of the decisions on the budget.

You know that Well, not just District 5, but particularly on Aurora, where we have, and also within the neighborhood, where we have budget motels where we often give low-income or no-income people vouchers.

Aurora Commons does that, and North Helpline.

We also have a lot in the district, which I think is one of Council Member Herbold's budget issues on vacant buildings and vacant lots.

So my concern is more of a fiscal policy, but getting to the information that you provided us, do you at this point have adequate funding to pursue violations when we have these empty buildings and empty lots?

Because as you know, besides being a public nuisance, It's a crime magnet.

And the other concern I have is that it really does prey upon our most vulnerable residents when we're giving people vouchers, first of all, with people that are not fixing up their homes or motels, but then also just the empty lots, which is concerning because we have a couple, and one of them is on 33rd and 125th, where we designated that a park.

And instead, a year later, it still hasn't, nothing has still happened.

So we have many empty buildings, many vacant lots, where I don't, I'm concerned whether or not we're going to be able to, I think you cited 64% increase in vacant, in vacancies or vacant lots and vacant.

So, are we going to be able to, how are we going to be able to address that when you were talking about streamlining and being quicker, what Councilmember Johnson raised about on a piece of property, instead of us just Googling or getting on the SDCI site and then finding that piece of property, finding out who has the permit, what are they supposed to do, when they are supposed to do it?

How do you envision us dealing with that?

It's an excellent question.

I can answer it in part but not fully.

I'll have to coordinate with the department and with my colleagues who work more on some of the sort of questions around vacant lots and that sort of thing.

So I will get back to you on that piece specifically on what efforts are being made.

There is a A difference in the department between the work done to issue permits for buildings and that sort of thing and the work that the code compliance team does that is often complaint driven and addressing the sort of issues you are outlining.

And those are general fund supported functions, the code compliance piece.

I will say that that area of the department is constantly resource constrained because it is not supported by permit fees and so it is difficult, quite frankly, to keep up with the number of complaints because they take on not only complaints from tenants but you know, violations of the building code and, you know, all sorts of things that they cover.

And it is, they do, they do a lot with a small, small budget, but I will say they continue to be resource constrained to be able to respond proactively.

But I can, I can dig into that issue a little bit more.

And this is just a quick note of a follow up.

And I don't know if this is, I mean, I think it's important and maybe it's something where I've learned this term, we put a pin in it.

I'm, we had a owner of a motel.

which I am glad we shut down, has now been rebuilt because we were out there three times physically.

But one reason it got flagged for us to go out there was they were 23,000 in arrears at SPU.

And this hotel took vouchers, and it was for homeless folks.

So the people weren't complaining because they had really nowhere else to go.

Does STCI have a relationship that is closely, more closely monitored with SPU or City Light on these areas where we have these code violations that would link up?

And I only found that out because I had, well, actually Mercedes did some snooping and figured it out what the bill was, but 23,000 interiors that just kept rolling over and rolling over where the city was giving like Aurora Commons and North Helpline vouchers to go house these people, and this had been going on for years.

Are they connected, Seattle Sea Light, SPU, and SDCI on that kind of issue?

I do know that the departments coordinate on these complicated violations, but I don't know all the details of how that works functionally, so let me do a little bit more research and talk with the departments and get back to you on how they are coordinating together and what that process looks like or where there might be opportunities to improve.

Great.

Thank you for bringing that up.

And Council Member Juarez, thank you for bringing it up because once again, it's part of that system connection we're trying to make.

Good.

So any other questions?

Council Member Johnson.

Just to follow the thread there, Council Member Juarez, we in committee, as you may remember then at full council, I think we're suggesting that we consider something that it goes beyond that for buildings that are So I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point.

RIO and the thing that we're about to talk about next would allow for a lot more regular communication between those sort of rental units.

In this case, you're talking about a motel, so it's a little bit different.

But I think you bring up a really good point that it's worth us considering additional pieces of legislation, not for buildings that are vacant, but for buildings that are occupied within the system.

So you're flagging for me a 2019 priority of something to look at.

Thank you.

Please continue.

Okay.

So also accompanying the budget is a bill that would restructure the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance Program, also known as RIO, including changes to the fee structure.

The RIO program was established in late 2012 to help ensure rental housing in Seattle is safe and meets basic maintenance standards.

It requires properties to register with the city, pay a registration fee, and submit to periodic inspections as a condition of their registration.

In 2017, the council adopted some changes to that program, and included in that legislation was a request to the department to prepare recommendations to adjust RIO registration and inspection fees before the first renewals were set to begin in 2019 to ensure that fees cover the cost of administering the program.

In addition, council requested that SDCI evaluate if there are any imbalances in the current or proposed fee structure for small landlords and make adjustments accordingly.

The proposed bill does restructure the Rio program and updates those inspection fees and is responsive to that request.

Specifically, it does essentially hold a smaller single unit steady but really shores up the full cost of what it takes to administer the program for multifamily.

multi-family dwellings.

In addition to updating registration and inspection fees, the legislation would establish a new private inspection submittal fee to capture the cost of processing inspections that are conducted by private inspectors, adds a late inspection fee, and adjusts other fees to better reflect the cost of performing.

And I should note that one of the main things in restructuring those fees is they're moving from what is currently a five-year registration renewal requirement to requiring renewal every two years.

This will make the revenue stream more stable for the department, and frankly, it will give us better information about the units that are registered.

Good.

Council Member Johnson.

I just want to endorse this approach.

It levels the playing field better between larger multifamily buildings and single-family properties that are currently being rented.

And so I think that the fee structure as proposed here is a good change to the existing proposal.

Thank you.

Just a follow-up question as it relates to the inspection fees.

I see there's an added late inspection fee, but was there any analysis about whether or not the inspection fees were adequate, with the exception of the private inspector inspection fee?

And did we ask them to take a look at the inspection fees as well, or just focus on the registration fees, especially as it relates to the number of units that property owners have and making sure that we're not overburdening small property owners.

So I'll have to follow up essentially on both questions.

They did look at the full suite of fees and look at what it would take to adjust things to be full cost recovery.

So I would expect that they did look at those inspection fees and confirmed that they are adequate.

I think what they learned was processing the work from private inspectors is more costly.

And then the efforts needed to deal with late inspections, the administrative work and the follow-up and that sort of thing justified increasing those costs.

But I will confirm that.

And I believe the original request, I don't have the language in front of me, was specifically focused on just adjusting fees to be full cost recovery, broadly speaking.

And then the specificity was about shoring up the smaller buildings versus the larger buildings in those fees.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, please continue.

Okay, so moving on now to budget actions proposed by council members as of October 10th.

The first is a request from Council Member Herbold and Council Member O'Brien for a statement of legislative intent to develop new tools to support tenants facing eviction and to address the turnaround time necessary sometimes to address habitability issues when there is a code violation.

Great.

Do either of you, Council Member Herbold, Council Member O'Brien, want to speak to it?

Or we already have?

Okay, very good.

Let's keep going.

Item number two is an item we've already talked about.

This is a request from Council Member O'Brien to place a proviso on the resources for tenant services to ensure that they are including contracts with nonprofits to do that direct outreach work.

And in addition, contemplates redirecting that funding to SDCI rather than HSD.

So I look forward to hearing more about that, again, what our end goals are.

So thank you for bringing that up.

Good.

Item number three is a related but slightly different request, which would increase the amount of funding for tenant outreach and would provide funding for legal services.

This is from Council Member Swan, and it would add $700,000 to SDCI's budget to contract with organizations like the Housing Justice Project that provide outreach and legal services to tenants.

$500,000 is proposed to support six tenant rights attorneys for eviction defense.

legal support to renters facing eviction, and $200,000 is proposed to increase the resources available for contracts with community organizations with experience in direct door-to-door outreach.

Great.

Any questions?

Council Member Johnson.

This is listed as a general fund expenditure in your memo, Allie.

I presume that these are the kinds of services that we have been prohibited from funding through fee-supported revenue?

Correct.

That's too bad.

Correct.

Thank you.

One of the things that I flagged in our meeting yesterday, Allie, is that $500,000 to support six tenant rights attorneys for eviction defense legal support.

Particularly if we root that in the context of, for example, the Housing Justice Project, which is run by the King County Bar Association, $500,000 would buy probably like 20 tenant rights attorney based on the salaries that are actually paid to those attorneys.

I'm exaggerating.

It's not 20, but I think their average salary is about $40,000 to $45,000 a year.

Is that correct?

I believe that is correct, and I will work with the council member who put in the request to refine the request to accurately sort of portray the full cost.

I would describe this one as, you know, potentially scalable.

So it could be reduced downward, but we will work to identify what those actual salary and overhead costs are for benefits and that sort of thing, and then give you an accurate estimate of what it would take to fund six staff attorneys.

Good.

Council Member Herbold, follow up.

Thank you.

I would also be interested to get just, again, a ballpark estimate of the number of eviction cases that would be able to be handled with six staff attorneys.

Great.

Okay, and finally, the last item is a request to amend the vacant building fines and fees to fund an enhanced vacant building monitoring program.

This is a proposal from Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

So in the past four years, the number of complaint cases to STCI, complaint cases specifically for vacant buildings, and there's a special vacant building code and special standards for vacant buildings.

The number of cases has increased by 64% from 265 citywide in 2013 to 434 in 2017. I'm going to pass out a handout that shows a district by district breakdown and just focusing on District 1 which happens to have the most complaints citywide.

There are 95 complaints in District 1. The city also has a monitoring program where certain buildings that are vacant and might have some ongoing problems are put into the monitoring program and SDCI regularly visits them.

Even though there are 434 cases of complaints of violations to the vacant building code, there are only 43 buildings in the monitoring program.

In District 1, we both have the most vacant building complaints and the fewest number of properties in the vacant building monitoring program, only two.

STCI issued a report based on our request last year when we did amend the vacant building standards for demolition.

And the report was heard in Councilmember Johnson's committee, and one of the things that we learned is that due to the increase in calls about illegal entry, illegal activity, and fires in vacant buildings in the last few years, the inspection staff coordinate with the police and fire departments to enhance monitoring and enforcing at buildings at the 70 or more problematic properties.

And again, the 70 properties that SPD and the fire department are monitoring are not the 43 properties that SDCI is monitoring.

And the costs for going out and monitoring those properties that SPD and the fire department incur are not recouped.

These are costs that are being borne by the taxpayer.

And so, You know, there's one example.

During 2017, SPD was dispatched to 44 different addresses for a total of 284 times in District 1. So basically, the proposal here is to adjust the fees for properties that are in the vacant building monitoring program and adjust the fees sufficiently enough so that more properties can be in the vacant building monitoring program.

And so we're taking a look at sort of what that sweet spot is of increasing these quarterly fees that owners of vacant buildings pay that will be sufficient enough to have more inspectors doing this ongoing monitoring.

So I really appreciate what you're saying, Council Member Herbold, too, about bringing the departments together who are doing this work.

So it's not duplicating the efforts, but we're actually targeting a broader range of vacant buildings and do whatever is going to be required to do to either fix them up or get them rented out again or whatever the plans are.

But I appreciate what you're doing.

Council President Harrell.

Just a question.

I sort of like where you're heading with this.

What is monitoring?

What does that mean when they're monitoring?

What does it do?

It's a regular visiting of the location to ensure that the properties are being maintained in accordance with the vacant building code.

And what that does is it doesn't put the burden on the neighbors to have to be constantly calling in and putting in complaints and going through what can be a really arduous complaint process and follow through and You know, just basically kind of keeping an eye on the property and always notifying SDCI if the boards have been taken off the building, that sort of thing.

And we're, I don't expect you to know this, and I guess saying we...

And you may.

Our collection rate on monitoring fees and assessments are pretty good, you assume?

They could be better.

I think they're around 60%.

And we've also had a great meeting with the law department to talk about how we can improve the collection.

rate and I think they've got some good ideas that we can pursue and include addressing sort of either within the vacant building monitoring program legislation, budget legislation that I'll be bringing forward or with some other sort of agreement with the law department.

My last comment was I didn't see in the at least the write-up the point Councilmember Herbold raised about making sure our departments are coordinating the buildings are monitoring, but I assume that's part of, I just thought this was increasing the fines and fees, but there's also a component of this that talks about better coordination on the department's monitoring, or is that just an issue that we said occurs?

That was something I just brought up in response to Council Member Herbold's point that we've got multiple departments doing this.

Some were able to recover fees, others we aren't.

The goal here is to really have a coordinated approach where we can...

I understand.

I was asking, was that part of what you're proposing or simply the increase in fees?

and fines.

Yeah, I think it's both a proper identification of a problem and that we want to address.

And, you know, I think it's also understandable that SDCI would be doing some of the monitoring and that there would still probably be a need on occasion for SFD and SPD to respond to situations as they occur.

But again, the goal is to recoup the costs associated with that work.

legislative tool we could develop to tighten up the coordination.

Great.

I think we've made it clear what we're looking for.

Did I miss anything, Ketel?

No.

No, you did not.

One thing to note here is that depending on how the program is expanded, preliminary cost estimates from STCI are that it could cost an additional about $485,000.

So the fees would be structured to recoup that cost.

Very good.

All right.

Good.

Please proceed, Ali.

Is that it at the end?

All right.

Any other points or questions for my colleagues before she leaves the table?

All right.

Well, thank you, Ali, as always.

I appreciate your hard work.

And the next one we're moving to is Department of Neighborhoods.

Lish, thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

Lish Whitson, Council Central staff.

The Department of Neighborhoods has three lines of business, community engagement through programs like community liaisons and the Your Voice, Your Choice program, community assets including historic preservation and the P-PATCH program, and community investments like the Neighborhood Matching Fund and the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund.

The mayor's budget proposes $13.2 million in 2019, which is up from $12.5 million in 2018. That's a result of increased IT costs being folded in and funding for the community liaisons program being better called out in the budget.

In 2020, those IT costs are going to be resolved and some one-time costs in 2019 would be ended, and so the budget would go back down to $12.8 million, about where we are in 2018. The mayor's budget proposes to cut four FTE, bringing the total count down from 62.5 FTE to 56.5 FTE.

Those are all four, there are four vacant positions that are being cut and two positions that support the Department of Education Early Learning are being moved to that department.

Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, I'm interested to know whether two of the vacant positions, their elimination has any impact on the program work, specifically the vacant position that's been eliminated for administering the DROF, the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund, and the vacant position that has been removed to implement the Your Voice, Your Choice participatory budgeting program.

According to the department, that work would be absorbed by other staff in the department and so their workload would increase and there could be impacts to the programs.

The mayor's budget cuts funding that's been in the budget since 2017 for a community satisfaction survey.

That is $80,000.

It shifts funding from a program that provided $150,000 for fellowships for individuals to work in nonprofits in the Rainier Valley to census outreach to help support efforts and provide grants to community-based organizations to support outreach related to Census 2020. And it adds one-time funding for outreach and engagement in the Chinatown International District, so $200,000 in 2019 only.

So did we talk a little bit about that community satisfaction?

Funding cut that was something that the mayor wanted to do But did I understand correctly that that was money that was put in the budget last year?

So I think it was put in the budget 2017 and also in 2018 and my understanding is that the first survey will be undertaken this fall and then they will need to find other resources if they want to continue to do the survey after this one.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Yeah, Lish, to be clear, the survey has not yet been done, so the $80,000 that is reflected here is still not been utilized by the department, is that correct?

I will find out how much of that money has been spent already.

They have been doing work to lead up to issuing the survey, so I'm not sure how much is available at this point.

Thank you for getting back to us on that.

Okay, please proceed.

affect the department.

The first is revisions to the Neighborhood Matching Fund guidelines and carryover provisions.

This legislation brings the legislation guiding the Neighborhood Matching Fund and makes it consistent with their current practice.

So currently we have resolutions that call for three different types of neighborhood matching funds at various price points, basically.

The legislation would collapse that into two categories.

The current guidance in our legislation regarding the neighborhood matching fund calls for one annual call for large project fund, neighborhood matching fund projects, and this would allow for three times a year for community to apply for those large grants.

And it clarifies the review process and changes the review process that have happened over the last few years.

Great.

Lish, one question about that neighborhood matching fund.

You have explained to me that in the last couple of years that sometimes we don't have $3 million worth of grants that we fund.

And my concern about that is if we've got money that we have earmarked for neighborhood matching grants, and the community is perhaps unaware of the requirements.

I know the Department of Neighborhoods has done some restructuring to make staff available to help people know what they need to do to be eligible.

I just don't want to see that money going a-begging.

It seems to me that we're missing a big opportunity because there are, I mean, in every neighborhood there are people who want to have their projects funded, so I'd like to figure out if we're not receiving quality grants what, I mean, really burrow in to find out what do we need to do to help make that happen.

So, if you could check back with Department of Neighborhoods for us and just find out what they're doing.

Sure.

I know in 2017 they did a really targeted outreach based on the change from one grant per year to three grants per year.

Right.

Which resulted in than receiving a lot more applications.

I don't have final numbers for the 2018 grant process, and we can see if they're not meeting.

If they're not able to get all the funds out the door this year, what was done in 2017 that could be replicated in 2019?

Great.

That's exactly what I want to know is what can we do to really reach the neighborhood so that we're not finding ourselves in a situation with cash that's not being distributed for well-crafted grants?

Chair Baxter?

Yeah, please.

In the past, I seem to recall sort of from my previous life, that there were some concerns being expressed about the accessibility and capacity of particular neighborhood groups to be able to apply for the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

And so just wondering if we have a sense of whether there's been any process improvements or any modifications to the neighborhood matching fund that would allow for, you know, sort of more scrappy community organizations and neighborhood groups to be able to access these funds.

And, you know, I particularly worry about the ability of of folks who don't speak English, of folks who don't know that this is available for them, you know, sort of what kind of meaningful access do they have to the program?

Because $3 million is a pretty sizable amount of money that is there, but we're not actually giving to community.

Yeah, the department has done a lot of work to make sure that the grants will work for those communities.

Has it worked?

I don't have any data about the scrappiness of the organizations that have received funds, but more funds are going to districts one and two, and particularly district two than some of the other districts.

Don't get Councilor Juarez started.

But I think that that's, I mean, I do think that there is, I mean, setting, in all seriousness, the reality is that there are pockets of incredibly diverse communities all over the city, including up north.

And so I think about the time that I've been able to spend up in District 5, for example, around Lake City, and the growing diverse population that they have up there that are not English speakers.

I just think that we, These matching funds are incredibly important, and there are certain communities who have historically benefited from being able to access those neighborhood matching funds, and I have not been able to figure out how to evaluate from my perspective, and probably it's because, maybe it's because I'm not asking the right person the right questions, but I think it would be helpful to get an understanding about whether we are really truly reaching deeply into communities who wouldn't historically have access to these.

And that might mean doing an evaluation of where have, not just like a last year evaluation, but sort of a historical evaluation of where have these dollars gone, to whom and for what purpose, and whether or not there are gaps in terms of communities' abilities to access the process.

I mean forget accessing the money just like even knowing that it exists and that and that they have an opportunity to apply for these funds.

Thank you.

Okay, Council President Harrell.

Just real quickly, I think Council Member Gonzalez makes some great points.

I think D.O.N. would have a lot to say in terms of the progress.

I mean I sat through a few community groups, literally accessed the grant website, and they simplified, I think, the former applications, like 15 pages down to three pages.

They have community events I've been to somewhere.

They've had interpreters there.

Now, we probably could still do still a lot better.

But to Council Member Gonzalez's point, I think they heard us a little bit.

But we really do not see if at least what I'm perceiving is accurate.

And whether those process changes are actually yielding the result and the outcomes that the Department of Neighborhoods had indicated were their guiding principles, I think is what I'm struggling with, is evaluating whether those process changes have actually accomplished the goal or goals.

Oh, and then count, sorry.

I just want to confirm that the items that we are identifying as current practices in the bulleted areas are current practices.

So currently there is no small and simple grant category.

Is that correct?

Right.

And then currently for neighborhood matching funds, there's no community review of proposals.

Right.

And then is it true that they've already reduced the rating criteria from five to two?

Yes, I think so.

That's too bad.

There are some good criteria here.

I'd be interested to understand the thinking in removing community benefit, community match, considering that in-kind donations can be part of the match.

I'm not sure why those were removed.

My last question, there is 3.9 in the neighborhood

Um, it's been stable in terms of grants and then, um, as always, uh, staff costs more each year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Morris.

Thank you.

And I'm going to just not to beat a dead horse, but I really need to say this.

Um, and thank you for looking at it.

You knew I was going to say something.

What we're, what we're, what I'm always struggling with when we are, this is my third round at a budget is the, um, and thank you, Council Member Gonzalez, who, um, first brought this up.

is the geographical parity, and it isn't just with Department of Neighborhoods.

We see it with Seattle City Light, SPU, HSD, SDCI, SDOT.

The last two census have shown that District 5 and a lot of the folks up north has changed dramatically in the population, and renters, and homeowners, and language.

But let me just say this.

My main concern with Department of Neighborhoods is we have had community meetings where we have had to make phone calls to get translation services for community members.

And as you know, we have literacy source up there.

And we now know we speak at least, the last count was 82 languages in D5 alone.

So we get those statistics from Aurora Commons, North Helpline, God's Green Acre, all these other folks.

So again, I just want to, I'm not saying that each district should just, we should just give money for district's sake.

But we should have that geographical parity lens that we are looking at the north end because people are moving north.

And a lot of things just aren't reflected.

I'm going to kind of go back on what Councilmember Herbold had pulled up the chart about the vacant buildings in D1.

But those are just buildings.

We are dealing with vacant buildings, vacant homes, vacant lots, abandoned buildings, motels.

So again, I am continually and will continue to press central staff.

When you do this type of analysis, just like we do with the race and social justice issue, I think we really have to look at demographic parity and the comparisons so that these districts don't always get what they want, but they certainly should get what they need.

And so that's my point there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

All right.

Thank you.

The next piece of legislation, the third quarter supplemental, includes $100,000 to study the show box.

When legislation was passed last month, it included a work program, and this $100,000 would go towards implementing that work program.

Finally, last year the council issued a statement of legislative intent related to fee recovery for Department of Neighborhoods programs, particularly historic preservation, where staff reviews development proposals.

Over the last year, we've increased the workload of that staff by shifting some of the role from design review boards to the historic review boards.

As a result of that slide, the department has proposed increasing fees for new construction in historic districts from a maximum of $4,000 per project to a maximum of $20,000 per project, which is more consistent with other peer cities.

And some projects like affordable housing buildings in those historic districts would be exempt from those fees.

That's intended to recoup about $115,000.

Council Member Johnson.

Two quick things.

One, Lisha, I think that the fee ordinance changes make some sense.

I'd love for us to contemplate the financial impacts of exempting any project that performs under MHA within a historic district.

I don't know that we're gonna see a ton of those, but we're trying to encourage a lot more MHA buildings to do performance, particularly in historic districts.

this could be one of the mechanisms by which we incent more of that option to exist.

And then secondly, is the $100,000 to support the review of the historic significance of the Showbox Theater general fund dollars?

Is that $100,000 in general fund dollars?

Okay.

Follow up on that, please.

Could I get, or could we all get a little bit more of a description on what that review will entail?

Seems like a lot of money.

Anything else?

That's it?

OK.

All right.

In terms of council member proposals, there are three.

Council President Harrell has proposed providing up to $500,000 to Historic Seattle, the Historic Seattle Public Development Authority, to provide seed funding for acquisition of historic resources.

Great.

Council President Harrell.

Yeah, what I'm proposing here is an ad.

I'll wait to the sidebar.

No, I'm just kidding.

Then you'll be waiting a long time.

We're always talking about it.

What I'm proposing is an ad of $500,000 to basically, if you look at historic Seattle and you look at sort of the situation we found ourselves in with the show box and another entity in District 2 is called the Beacon Hills Garden House that unfortunately was sold, which has been a historic facility for decades and decades and decades.

that we're trying to allow Historic Seattle to have seed money to when they're really fighting cultural displacement and physical displacement of historic entities in neighborhoods.

buildings under their domain right now, I think in districts three, four, and seven, which means the other districts, they don't have any property.

And so what this is intended to do is to be able to strike and assist them when we see these gems come up for possibilities to transition and be lost to the community and allow us to have more of a sustainable approach.

to fighting displacement with historic Seattle.

So it's sort of a new approach, but again, with the garden house and even with the show box as an example, we're in more of a position to act when we have to act and again, be a little more strategic in this approach to fight displacement.

So that's the thought.

Thank you.

Council Member Musqueda proposes to add an FTE to DON to coordinate the census outreach efforts.

The mayor's budget includes $150,000 for that work and this would add a staff person.

Great.

Thank you.

Council Member Muscaty, do you want to speak to this?

Yes, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for covering this important issue.

I think what we know is that it's critical that we have outreach dollars to do the work to make sure that there's trusted community partners out there and appreciate the Mayor's inclusion of 150,000.

We also know that it's going to require a lot of coordination.

We have seen an increase in the number of residents in the city of Seattle who are coming from immigrant populations grow to about 20% compared to 14% in just a four-year period at the beginning of this decade.

We also know that 18% of residents are foreign-born in Seattle.

Our outreach efforts are going to need a lot of coordination in the community and appreciate the outreach dollars that have been included.

But what I'm hoping for with the council support is to be able to have an additional FTE to help coordinate.

We have included some suggestions for a potential position at the suggestion of the chair to do staff coordination, make sure that we have culturally competent communications going out.

provide liaison with the county and task force and state work group, work with trusted community partners, and especially with immigrant populations and refugee communities.

As you've heard us talk about before, and this council was on the record in earlier efforts this year, we sent a letter in March outlining our concerns with this federal administration's approach to the census, because while it is important for us every year to make sure that all residents are included, this year it's extremely important.

We know that this federal administration has included a citizenship question for the first time ever since 1950, asking whether or not our residents are citizens will have a chilling effect on participation.

And while it is critical, I think, from an inclusion perspective to make sure that we include everybody in the census count, it's also critical for the budget, which is what we're discussing today.

We know that in order for us to make sure that we get all of our federal dollars, we have to make sure that everyone is counted.

And the count makes it possible for us to get funding for academic institutions, for medical facilities, for our businesses, for nonprofits.

We all use the census data to inform our research and decision making.

The census data provides information to us on how much we will get in terms of reimbursement for medical coverage and for education assistance.

And so it's really critical for us, especially now under this administration, to make sure that all people in our area are counted.

Looking forward to working with you and the county.

We know the county is considering putting forward some potential dollars, and I'm interested in how much King County is putting forward in the census.

And I also would love to know if we have a better sense of how much potentially we would lose because without a full and fair census account, we could lose up to $2,000 per person if we do not count every resident of our city.

And I think both this is a matter of fiscal responsibility and it's also imperative that we stand up and make sure that big cities like ours that see increase in population, specifically increases in refugee and immigrant communities, that we're counting everyone and that we represent everyone.

Can I ask a quick question?

I appreciate very much you bringing up this issue.

Since the mayor has asked for an additional $150,000 in her budget to support the community outreach, Is there something different that you're looking for?

I mean, you mentioned the word coordinating with the county.

Yes.

What's your emphasis on this?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

So, the mayor has also created a task force, which I am very proud to lead with Manas from REWA, Refugee Washington Association.

Thank you.

But what we know is that it's going to take a lot of coordination in the city to make sure that we're doing the outreach.

So here's a list of some of the examples of what this individual FTE would do so that we have greater coordination with our community partners.

One is staff the city's task force on the census.

We don't currently have any staff associated with this task force.

Draft culturally competent communications, liaise with the county's task force state work group.

work with trusted community partners, specifically within the refugee and immigrant community, review and research policy questions, coordinate local response to the national census changes, and work with national, demographic, and other organizations based on best practices for census count, provide early communications, and raise resources, and coordinate with the city's departments.

These are some of the examples of what an individual could do.

So in addition to the hundred and, 50 that has been provided for the outreach.

We're talking about $138,000 if I'm correct.

Great.

Thank you very much for bringing that up.

Council President Harrell.

Just maybe I'll ask more direct question.

I really I'm glad Council Member Mosqueda we're looking this this sense is going to be a critical one and I couldn't agree with you more.

I guess and we talk offline a little bit about it is I guess the question I would have is does it make sense for us to add a city employee for two years, a strategic advisor, six-figure strategic advisor, or possibly increase more money into the community who might be able to in a better position to do this kind of grassroots work and verification better?

And I just don't know.

Are you thinking you would like to proviso this, giving yourself some time with that committee to determine what you're going to need?

Let me just quickly address Council President's question, if I might, Madam Chair.

I do want to make sure that this is seen in coordination with the dollars that would go out to the community.

We know from our work at the Office of Labor Standards that it is best to have individuals in community doing the outreach in language, in bilingual, bicultural ways.

and making sure that there's trusted community partners.

What we don't see is additional FTEs within the city to do the coordination that I think is important for the task force for making sure the materials are available to provide the liaison to the national partners who are doing this work across the nation and with King County.

So I think, I don't want them to be seen in competition.

It would be in addition.

Yeah, I get that.

I mean, we have the thousands of employees.

I don't know That's a question of priority of the executive side on the work they're having our employees do as well.

And I just don't know.

I probably end up supporting this just because I want to make sure we get the best census we can.

But sometimes I'm a little intimidated by just adding on another employee, not knowing exactly who's doing what and whether we need to get more money to the community.

But I get your point.

Currently the executive is proposing to use part of one manager in Department of Neighborhoods and part of one mayor's staff time to lead this effort.

So Department of Neighborhoods would have part of an FTE working on it and mayor's staff would also be working on it.

Thank you.

And Madam Chair, can you just explain to me just a little bit about the proviso process that you suggested?

Sure.

One of the things that we can do in our work here for the budget is to identify, like you were asking for, your $138,000 and then target with the explanation that you're saying there that this money can be released, assuming that we have a plan that comes back that really targets what it is that you're asking for.

So we're identifying the resources, but it doesn't just get turned over to a particular department until the department comes back and says to us how it's going to be spent, coordinated, and what the objectives and outcomes are.

But we wouldn't lift that proviso until that came across?

Yes, I'd be happy to come back with you to explore that option more.

Good.

Very nice.

Council Member Gonzales.

Thank you, Chair.

You know, as I think about this particular ad, I think we are talking about these additional dollars in the context of the U.S.

Census and I want to be sort of cognizant and aware of the fact that our own charter is going to require redistricting efforts.

So the U.S.

Census is obviously done for redistricting and for funding decisions at the federal level, et cetera.

But we also need to make sure that we have an accurate count for purposes of our own obligations under the charter.

And we're all familiar with Charter Amendment 19 at this point.

But I mean, our own charter also requires us to do council redistricting, which will inherently require us to understand and comprehend the population increase within each current district for purposes of assembling.

the districting commission that is required under the charter that will then be charged with the responsibility of potentially redrawing the lines within all the districts.

So I sort of see this body of work, not just in the particular context of the U.S.

Census, but also potentially helpful for purposes of doing our own council redistricting, which were required to do by no later than, I think, November 30th of 2022. So, the charter amendment, however, is silent on the timeliness of the counting and how the counting occurs.

So, I'm assuming that that means we can rely on our latest U.S.

Census numbers.

So, just wanted to add that as an additional layer in terms of Work that the city council and the mayor will need to do not just in the context of the u.s Census but also in the context of our own charter redistricting obligations.

Thank you Anybody else Eric did you have something you wanted to say are you pointing your pencil or councilmember waris?

So that was that was my mistake.

I Okay, yeah

All right, your last item for the morning is also from Council Member Mosqueda.

It would add a half FTE and submit a statement of legislative intent to the Department of Neighborhoods and Office of Planning and Community Development to undertake a racial equity toolkit on the urban village strategy, which is the core of the city's growth strategy in our comprehensive plan.

Good.

Eric, I think we talked yesterday about pulling together what has already been done in this area and providing it not only to Council Member Mosqueda but to the rest of us so that we're not duplicating something we did last year and the year before.

This feels like deja vu to me.

So I identified 11 different studies over the last three years that have touched on these issues but not addressed this question specifically.

Okay.

So let's talk further about it, because I know that we've all been had, I mean, I feel like we have all been asked to be careful about the statements of legislative intent for which we're asking, to make sure that what we're asking for is building on something that we've already done, or if it's a whole fresh topic, that we make sure that we are all coordinated.

we're not asking departments to do duplicative work.

So if you could provide that to us and Council Member Muscata and her staff so that we all know specifically what it is you're asking for so we can just help frame that.

Good.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Councilmember Johnson?

Councilmember Juarez?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Thank you.

So, I really appreciate that.

I'd be happy to look at that.

You know, I expected more hazing, you guys.

This is just my first budget and I've already got two items up, but I would love to look at that so that we can have a better frame of reference.

And the research that our staff have done in I think in line with what many of you have done in the past, we're very interested in figuring out how we can add to the analysis that's been done so far, but specifically the urban village strategy we believe needs additional analysis on whether or not it meets our racial and social justice initiative goals.

Given that the urban village strategy was adopted in 1994, And the Race and Social Justice Initiative began 10 years later.

It wasn't until 10 years after that that the Race and Social Justice Initiative was expanded through executive order to incorporate a racial equity lens on policies that include equitable development, housing, and the environment.

So while we are very proud to have the RSJI tool, It doesn't appear that to date a racial equity toolkit has been completed on the urban village strategy itself.

And we all know that urban village strategies were intended to concentrate development in centers around the city.

One of our questions is whether or not we are investing in urban villages equitably throughout Seattle.

We know from the north end to the south end, we want to make sure each of our urban villages feel like they have the investments.

But also, more importantly, does concentration of development, particularly in these areas, equal increased risk of displacement?

Does it contribute to historic disinvestment in other areas?

I'm very interested in whether or not we're crafting policies that are allowing for more people to live here.

And since a racial equity toolkit has not been performed on the urban village strategy, it seems prudent to conduct this type of analysis on our urban village strategies.

And maybe it's already been completed.

We would love to see the data.

And if there's something that maybe we can add to, that's another analysis that we'd like to do.

So, for the purposes of this effort, we're looking at about a half an FTE to make sure that in the 34 years since the Urban Village Strategy has been deployed, that we are meeting our goals of being an inclusive city that creates housing for everyone across the city.

Council Member Morris and then Council Member Johnson, did you have something you wanted to add?

Go ahead, please.

I want to thank Councilmember Mosqueda for bringing this issue up and I would encourage Councilmember Johnson to assist me in responding just if I'm off base here.

The only caution I have is the racial social justice initiative within the urban village strategy if that is going to conflict or in any way address the current lawsuit that we have.

under MHA, is that being one of their issues on appeal, that race and social justice initiative should have been brought through the MHA and in the investments and in the housing and the density questions?

That is my only caution.

Is that an issue, Council Member Johnson, or am I just being overly lawyerly here?

The issues of litigation I think are best saved for moments of executive session to quote my lawyer colleagues on the council.

However, I will say that I think that the issues that Council Member Mosqueda brings up are very appropriate for us to consider.

I would recommend that we contemplate this as maybe one of those issues that we could accomplish through a quarterly supplemental.

once we've had a chance to go through the legal rigmarole that we've been put through right now by some of the different.

That's really what I was getting at.

And a quarterly supplemental given the scope and the size of this sort of budgetary ad might be a really good place for us to contemplate that.

But I'm not the sponsor of this and so I'd look forward to working with her on what some of those ideas would look like.

Can I just add one thing, Chairwoman?

Council Member Johnson, I'll put you on the spot again, just quickly.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe you said this before and this isn't...

Are we, because of the litigation, are we losing, was it, two to three hundred million in fees?

We are currently asking the Office of Planning and Community Development to do some analysis about what the potential loss of funding for affordable housing would be if we had been able to take action on MHA when it was originally proposed as opposed to one full year later.

So I don't have a number off the top of my head, but we are asking for that information to be produced.

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Muschietti, it looks like you do.

I just want to say thanks to Councilmember Johnson for working with us on this and I'm really excited to work with you guys on how to make this possible.

I think that We do have a huge opportunity to build on perhaps past data and make sure that the Department of Neighborhoods leading on this effort with OPCD and the equitable development team can help us take on the technical aspects to make sure we're meeting our goals.

And I appreciate all the work that you've done over the years to infuse the racial equity lens into our development work.

I think this would be a nice addition.

So I look forward to working with you guys on this.

Thank you so much.

And I appreciate all that you're doing and your staff.

Let them know we appreciate where they're coming from too.

Any other questions for this morning?

Okay, well this will end our first session of this budget committee this morning.

We will reconvene at two o'clock this afternoon and then we will have public comment period at the conclusion of I believe it's our fire department.

We have police and fire.

Thank you.

All right, so we are adjourned.