Seattle City Council 5/4/2020

It is 2.05 p.m.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, President of the City Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

And the clerk might be muted.

Council Member Sawant?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Eight present.

Thank you so much.

The city of Seattle issued a civil emergency proclamation due to the coronavirus on March 3rd, 2020. Since then, the governor has issued a stay home and stay healthy order through May 4th and has been announced recently that it will be extended again through May 31st of 2020. To comply with the recommendations and in the interest of the safety and welfare of the public and our employees, the Seattle City Council is meeting remotely and participating electronically.

The City Council anticipates continuing this practice for City Council and potential committee meetings through May 31st.

Council members, the Council rules are silent on electronic participation at regular City Council meetings and committee meetings.

To allow the Council to conduct business remotely, the Council rules will still need to be suspended.

I will move to suspend the Council rules to allow the Council to conduct meetings remotely through May 31st.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow council members to participate electronically at city council and committee meetings through May 31st, 2020. Council Member Peterson.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Just wanted to clarify what we're approving here.

So is this still subject to a review of the types of legislation to make sure that they're either COVID related or necessary and routine?

Yes, this vote that we're taking is parliamentary in nature.

The only thing we're voting on is whether or not we have to be in chambers or if we can continue meeting via Zoom.

Thank you.

Okay, if there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow council members to participate electronically at city council and community meetings through May 31st, 2020. Any objections?

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and the council meetings will participate electronically through May 31st.

We will move on to presentations.

Colleagues, earlier this morning, I asked for signature on proclamation.

That's the only presentation we have today.

I'll make my comments really brief, but again, this week is municipal clerks week.

It is an opportunity for us to recognize how the office of the city clerk and municipal clerks in general contribute to the functioning of local government.

We know that our own city clerk staff are just absolutely a vital part of our local government here, creating access to our archives, making sure that they're receiving public documents, including citizen initiatives that are filed with the clerks for placement on the ballot.

There's so many public forward ways that the city clerk shows up every day, and there are even more countless ways that our city clerk shows up behind the scenes to make sure that our job is a lot easier, including helping to facilitate these kind of meetings, making sure that we have all of the information we need to run efficient public meetings.

And we just really appreciate all of the work that Monica, Martina Simmons, that Amelia, that Jody, and that so many others in the council's city, excuse me, in the city clerk's office do every day to really make sure that our city government is functioning at its best.

So thank you so much for allowing me an opportunity make this presentation publicly.

Usually we would do this in chambers and we would have the benefit of seeing all of the wonderful faces of the folks who work in our city clerk's office.

But unfortunately, the times that we're in don't allow us to convene in that way.

But I did want to have a moment to publicly recognize the tremendous work that the city clerk's office does on behalf of us and on behalf of the people of the city of Seattle.

Would any of my colleagues like to make any remarks as it relates to the proclamation?

Oh, Council Member Strauss.

Just reiterating my comments earlier that when I am navigating our council rules and procedures, I rely on our clerks and our deputy clerks.

And I have continued to be impressed with the level of nuance and assistance that they're able to provide me on a regular basis.

And I really just so appreciate Jody, Amelia and Monica.

Thank you so much.

Any other comments, colleagues?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you so much.

I'll just echo my appreciation.

When I came back from my parental leave and was acting as president pro tem for a few weeks prior to the president's return, I just can't thank the clerk's office enough for helping me navigate those early weeks back.

And also, they were there on the front line as we came up with strategies with the council president's office and all of the other department directors for how to respond and serve the public and protect the health of staff and council members during the time of COVID.

So under unprecedented times, they were extremely, extremely helpful as always.

And I just want to say thank you to them every day for coming out and protecting the public's health and our health to make these remote meetings possible right now.

Thank you so much.

I think it should go without saying that many of our clerk staff are still showing up at work every day because they have a public facing a job.

They are considered essential workers.

And while we acknowledge many of the frontline workers in a lot of other industries besides government, we don't oftentimes take the time to thank our own city.

of Seattle employees, including those in the legislative department, in the city clerk's office in particular, who are still serving those public-facing functions, like Chris in our reception area, and folks up on the third floor who are still here every day, making sure that they're serving the public functions.

So to our very own essential workers, thank you so much for all of the work that you do.

and that you've done in the past and that I know you will do in the future.

We really, truly appreciate all of the work you do.

All right, colleagues, we're going to go ahead and move through our agenda.

Our next item is approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the city council meetings of April 20th and 27th, 2020 have been reviewed.

If there is no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed, and I ask that the clerk please affix my signature to those minutes.

If there is no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Okay, folks.

At this time, we are going to open up the remote public comment period for items on the City Council agenda, introduction and referral calendar, and the Council's 2020 work program.

There is a separate public hearing on agenda item one today.

That's Council Bill 119785. Before we begin, I want to start by reminding my colleagues and the viewing public that this is a pilot and we are still testing this process out.

I know this is about the third or the fourth time we've done this, but believe it or not, we're still finding improvements every day.

So I ask that everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time and navigate through the inevitable growing pains of implementation of this tool.

As we move forward, we'll continuously look for ways to fine-tune this public comment process and hopefully add new features that will allow for additional means of public participation in our Council meetings, remotely that is.

While it remains our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on future meeting agendas, the City Council does reserve the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we believe that the system is being abused or if it's no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner where we are able to conduct our necessary business.

So today I will moderate the public comment period.

Just as a reminder to those who are on the line listening and to us on council, this just wanted to sort of give folks the reminder of how the public comment period will be moderated.

The public comment period will be for 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the city council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov forward slash council.

The public comment link is also listed on today's published agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate mic and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

So I'd ask that the speakers begin by stating their name and the item that they are here to speak to us about.

Public comment, again, as a reminder, should relate to an item on today's agenda.

the Introduction and Referral Calendar, or the Council's 2020 Work Program.

We are not, and I wanna repeat this for anybody on the line, we are not accepting comments on Council Bill 119785 at this time.

The public hearing for that bill will begin shortly after this general public comment period is over.

So speaking of new tools that we've been testing out, this was tested out in the Select Budget Committee last week, that there will be a new audible chime feature that has been added to notify speakers that they have 10 seconds left in their allotted public comment time.

This is a 10-second notice to the speaker to begin wrapping up their comments.

If the speakers don't end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

So once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following this meeting, we'd ask that you do so via Seattle Channel or any one of the listening options listed on the on the agenda.

So with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and begin the process of calling folks who have pre-registered for public testimony today.

Again, you'll see the timer in front of you there that gives you two minutes.

You'll get a 10-second warning when your time is about to end.

And at the end of your two minutes, your call will be muted.

So it is 2.17 p.m.

We'll go until 2.37 p.m.

on public comment.

The first speaker is Angie Gerald.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Angie.

I'm here to comment on renter and eviction legislation.

My husband and I rent two houses in the Finney Ballard area.

Our current tenants have a mix of working class and public service jobs and so far they've been able to pay their rent.

We did opt to cover $800 of utility bills as a courtesy and we're ready to have conversations beyond that.

I'm very concerned that the extremes of eviction and rent release activism combined with the flurry of unprecedented Seattle landlord legislation like the first in time and roommate ordinances are shifting the local market toward large corporate landlords who can better handle the greatly increased risk and complexity of tenant relations, tenant selection, and now the unsteadiness of rental contracts.

We need voices on city council who meaningfully incorporate local small landlords into legislative actions.

We need a strong focus on eviction prevention programs, not a lengthy destabilization of legal contracts.

If Seattle wants to be a city with locally owned rental houses, duplexes, 80 years, and mother-in-law units, city council needs to individually and collectively demonstrate that.

Today's proposed legislation does not reflect that.

Thank you.

That concludes my comments.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Roger Valdez.

Hello.

Hello, councilmembers.

Roger Valdez with Seattle Progress.

I'm speaking to you today on behalf of hundreds of housing providers across the city.

You've heard from over 400 of them that want to let Seattle's COVID-19 eviction ban expire at the end of this emergency.

Housing providers like an 80-year-old woman who depends on income from her single rental unit to survive, and housing providers like the one who has hundreds of units but has seen delinquencies from people who can pay, but aren't paying rise to the point where he's looking at layoffs in the months ahead.

What you're planning to do here with this proposal will have a lasting impact with people who need housing.

Housing providers are just that.

They provide a place for people to live.

Income they earn covers costs of maintenance and improvements.

Residents are customers and often friends.

Nobody wants to evict residents.

This is an income problem.

People who have lost their jobs and income need the benefits due to them.

The council shouldn't be working on that.

Instead, you're sending a signal to people in our city that paying rent isn't important.

You cannot solve a hunger problem by abolishing shoplifting laws to encourage taking food from grocery stores.

You provide food access and income.

What you're about to do will create long-lasting impacts from delinquencies, damage to existing housing, and will discourage new housing in the future.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Colleagues, you may note that I'm taking a little bit of a pause.

I'm just giving IT an opportunity to reset that timer.

So apologies for the awkward pauses there.

Next speaker is Dave Karlstrom.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Dave Carlstrom.

My wife and I own a small 11 unit apartment building here in Seattle.

I'm calling to follow up on the e-mail I sent to all of you folks over the weekend with a couple of comments on CB 119784. First rent deferrals just won't work.

Most most residents would struggle to catch up on one month's rent over say, five months, that'd be a 20% increase in rent.

Catching up on six months over, say, a year would be an eye-watering 50% increase.

And it's very hard to imagine a resident willingly continue to pay catch-up rent after voluntarily, for whatever reason, moving out at the end of his or her lease.

Now, I hate evictions, and thankfully I've only had to do two during the 14 years we've owned our building.

They're expensive, they're time-consuming, and relationship-destroying.

They're an absolute last resort, but having said that, an important tool for housing providers when all else fails.

Now, here's a way the city could mitigate housing providers' losses.

That is to reimburse appropriately documented COVID-19 hardship related forgiven, not just deferred, rent through property tax and utility fee credits.

Really, this would be a win for all with the city providing material assistance both to housing providers and to residents.

Now, two other quick points.

Any COVID-19 related ordinance should in my view include an objective definition of when the emergency is over and when regular rules apply.

And second second as drafted CB 119784 excuses non-payment of rent for all regardless of need.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Dana Frank.

Thank you, Council.

Yes, my name is Dana Frank, and I'm a 55-year-old African-American woman and a lifelong second-generation housing provider with approximately 100 rental units.

Being a housing provider has always been my life's work.

I've never held another job.

In the 1950s, my father and mother started investing in Seattle Central District.

I grew up, along with my sisters, putting tickets on Seafirst, Rainier Bank, to get funding.

My father has been gone almost 25 years, and to this day, I, along with my 88-year-old mother, Teresa, who is profiled with me on the front page of the Seattle Times in our article, Persistence Pays for Black Family, Investing in the Central District, get up every day and work full-time on our rentals.

As I said, my mother is 88, and my son has just come on at 26 to work with us.

We are astounded that our efforts to fight redlining and get funding are being attacked by self-proclaimed socialist groups for rent strikes and eviction bans.

We have provided a few hundred residents and we are honored to provide quality housing for.

We have great working relationships and have dealt with individuals affected by COVID on a case-by-case basis.

As our residents have legal obligations to pay rent, we have legal obligations to provide quality housing.

Our properties are in high-demand locations, such as Central, Capitol Hill, Columbia City, and Central areas.

They've all been updated with new elevators, pools, siding, roof, granite countertops, wood laminate floors, and amenities.

Due to increased crime, we have added security cameras and entry lock sittings.

If we are denied rent, the properties will lack funding in terms of standard.

Repairs will not be rent.

The long-term effect of an invention ban and rent strike is that we would be forced to sell to giant investment groups and wipe out 60 years of hard work efforts and the ability for me to pass this legacy along to my children and their future.

Residents affected by these tough times need assistance from our government, but we housing providers should not be penalized.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Charlotte Thistle.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

OK.

I'm Charlotte Thistle.

I'm a small housing provider in Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood.

And I'm speaking also to the proposal to extend the moratorium on evictions, credit reporting, and late fees.

I say, I call myself a housing provider because the landlord rents land, but a housing provider does much more.

We provide housing with roofs, plumbing, heat, electricity, and appliances.

This past fall, I put a new roof on the house I share with my tenants because it had started leaking.

That cost $10,000, which I didn't have, so I put it on my credit card.

I have to pay that bill no matter what.

My property tax went up this year, so did my insurance.

I won't get any exemption from any of these bills.

No one wants to evict a tenant, especially not one who lost their job through unfortunate circumstances.

However, eviction and credit reporting are the only two tools housing providers have to enforce rent collection.

If housing providers can neither evict nor make credit reports, what would prevent an unscrupulous person from living rent free for six months or a year and then skipping out without paying their bill?

when the moratorium is finally lifted.

The answer nothing.

This bill would create a loophole that could be exploited by dishonest people who have no intention of paying their rent at all leaving housing providers on the hook for thousands of dollars.

I understand there's a perception that landlords have high profit margins and can therefore afford to absorb these expenses but this simply isn't true.

Most small housing providers cannot afford it and would simply be forced to sell or go bankrupt.

That concludes my comments.

I also want to thank the city clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you Charlotte for being with us this morning.

Our next speaker is just waiting for that timer to get reset.

Okay there we go.

Our next speaker is Marilyn Yim.

Hi, this is Marilyn Yim.

I'm speaking against Council Bill 19762 and Council Bill 19784, the proposal to extend the eviction moratorium by six months.

Being a small landlord, this forced my husband to make personal loans of thousands of dollars to our tenants with no warning, no resources to cover it, and no guarantee of repayment.

The CARES Act did not provide relief for small landlords, and neither does Congresswoman Jayapal's proposal.

Mortgages and utilities add up to well over $100,000 in a year for our rentals, and that would be a devastating sudden expense from me and my husband who are also working people to cover all on our own.

If landlords also can't use eviction to make rental decisions or report non-payment of rent to credit agencies tenants will be significantly incentivized not to pay rent.

This deeply flawed legislation does not require that a tenant actually be impacted by COVID-19 to use the moratorium contrary to the declaration that this is for an emergency.

It's unfair to tenants to deprive them of assistance needed to make ends meet and instead lure them to incur deep rental debt that they will be on the hook to repay when they probably can't.

It's also unfair to housing providers to prevent any enforcement of payment plans and nonpayment for tenants who choose not to pay for their housing.

This is just legalizing the rent strike by telling people they don't have to pay rent, even if they are able to, and removing the disincentives that normally exist against nonpayment of rent.

Some of you insist that everyone who can pay their rent will do so, but in the next breath, you have a council member plainly telling renters who can pay their rent that they should not.

Evictions in King County are dramatically below the national average at about 0.41%.

This is not an eviction problem.

It is an income problem, and it's bigger than any individual landlord can solve.

What is needed is rental assistance.

That would give renters the assurance that they can pay their bills.

It would allow everyone to meet their obligation, and it can be directed to the people who actually need it, rather than granting a rent holiday to programmers.

You can make better laws than this.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Neil Wilson.

Hi, my name is Neil Wilson.

Hi, my name is Neil Wilson.

I'm speaking in relation to the eviction moratorium.

And I think that the council's eviction moratorium is less about finding innovative ideas and more about using council members' On words, it's more about making big changes and even nationalizing housing.

So rhetorically, I'm asking, why is the council enacting legislation to support a rent strike?

Now, the council has used the National Multifamily Housing Council for a lot of information.

But I think it's important that you use this correctly, that back in April, April 6, there was a 30% of renters could not pay their rent.

But this has been continued to be used throughout the month.

As of April 26, 91.5% of renters have paid all or a portion of their rent.

And that amount is only 4% below the same time period in 2019. Now, there's a couple other statements.

You know, the Council felt it was important enough to include an advisement by the National Multi-Family Housing Council in this current legislation.

whereas is clause.

But they also advise to do a 90-day postponement on eviction, not nine months, as effectively this would be if you started it from the date that they made their statement back in March.

And really, it is effectively going to be a one-year moratorium if the mayor's emergency declaration ends on June 15th.

Just a couple other things.

Okay, I'm done.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Leslie, I think it's Hogue or Hodge.

Hi, thank you.

I am Leslie Hogue, like the sandwich, actually from Fremont.

I want to start with a solution.

I think it's the job of government, not private people, to care for vulnerable.

All of us should be pitching in and doing our fair share.

Governments should be providing generous housing vouchers, food vouchers, and medical vouchers for people in jeopardy of losing these essentials, especially now.

These supports so that eviction will only be used in dire circumstances.

My husband and I are small-scale mom-and-pop housing providers.

Our rents are so far below market that we operate on very thin margins, and our mortgage is only one very small part of our expenses.

We rent to artists and self-employed people, people who looked very marginal when we rented to them, although at first in time we probably don't even have that option anymore.

We're working with our vulnerable residents right now.

We're giving them discounts.

We're offering payment plans, whatever we can do to work together with them, because we're all in this together.

But if people just stop paying, especially when they can afford to pay, we will lose our property.

And we won't be able to evict a non-paying tenant.

Thankfully, we have never, ever had to evict anybody, and I hope we never have to.

And so if we lose our property, the supply of affordable housing or what passes for it in this city will disappear.

We're both self-employed, we're struggling like our tenants and so many others, we're not wealthy, and we rely on our rents to pay our bills, like health insurance and groceries, in addition to the maintenance and repair and all the other expenses that go along with renting property.

You're asking us to work for free and give up control of our property with an eviction ban and also with rent forgiveness.

I'm wondering if anybody in the council is actually working for free as well.

Anyhow, thank you for listening to me.

Goodbye.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is John Wisdom.

Thank you.

I fully support solutions to provide direct support to tenants who are in need rather than an evictions ban that will likely have sweeping negative consequences for small landlords and the supply of affordable rental housing in Seattle.

As retirees and small landlords with one ADU in Seattle, my wife and I cannot afford to provide free housing without compensation any more than a small local family farm or a corner grocery store could provide free food for a hungry community without compensation to cover their costs.

The reality for anyone providing food or shelter is the fact that expenses have to be paid.

And those expenses, many of those costs are required by regulation.

So how do we maintain an apartment without rental income?

How do we pay property taxes?

Rent is also our basic income, and we should not be forced to work without compensation, as we need to be able to buy essentials to ensure our own survival.

A tenant may still be obligated to pay, but there is no assurance that they will have the means to do so when the ban is over.

This proposal is much too far reaching and will have many unintended consequences.

A ban on evictions gives everyone, regardless of means, license to stop paying rent without any real consequence.

This literally means that a tenant who makes much more money than my wife and I can simply stop paying and inflict heavy financial and emotional consequences on our family.

If small landlords are forced out of business, who benefits?

Big corporations with deep pockets benefit, not the tenants who rely on us for housing.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Colleagues, we are close to our 20-minute mark, so I'm going to have to extend public comment if there's no objection.

I'm also going to, just to sort of expedite the process, I'm going to ask that the public comment timer be set to a minute and 30 seconds to allow us to go through the rest of the list.

We have about We have about 12 speakers left that are that are present, so I'm hoping that'll be enough time to get through.

So I'd like to, if there's no objection, extend public comment until 3 o'clock PM.

It's currently 236 PM.

Casey, no objection.

We will go ahead and extend public comment until 3 o'clock p.m.

and then move into items of business.

Okay, for those on the listening line, we've reduced the time to a minute and 30 seconds.

I apologize for having to do that, but we have several other speakers signed up, and I want to make sure that we have an opportunity to hear from everyone.

So our next speaker is Jennifer Lakish.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Jennifer Leakish.

I'm a housing provider and manage 12 residential units in the Queen Anne and Capitol Hill neighborhoods.

I take great pride in providing clean, well-maintained market rate housing.

I appreciate the City Council's compassion and desire to help those who have suffered financially due to the pandemic.

However, City Council should not be calling for a rent strike or an eviction moratorium.

These assume that all residents have suffered financial hardships which prevent them from meeting rent obligations.

This is not the case.

A Seattle Times May 2nd article documented that 10.6% of Washingtonians are behind on April rent, which means that 89.4% are not behind on their rent.

I find a similar percentage in the units that I manage, where 11 out of my 12 residents, or 91.7%, have not suffered a financial setback that prevented them from paying rent.

These residents paid their rent.

I, like most housing providers, work with my residents who need assistance and come up with solutions.

Universally asking everyone not to pay rent and banning evictions prevents housing providers from helping those who truly need our help.

It also hurts our city.

The Seattle budget includes revenue from property taxes and utility bills paid by area housing providers.

In addition, housing providers hire businesses and trade people such as electricians, plumbers, and carpenters.

Less income equals less spending.

Calling for a rent strike and eviction moratorium are not reasonable.

They create open-ended relief of financial responsibility, which no business can afford.

I urge you not to pass these and instead to provide targeted and timely assistance.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Alexander.

And I'm so sorry, Alexander, but I'm going to butcher your last name, Heijer.

Hi, my name is Alexander Hayer.

And no, no worries.

I'm 26. And I just joined our family business.

We own a apartment building over in Eastlake.

And just since joining last year, I've already seen the process for screening applicants become much more complex and expensive.

And we're spending more and more of our time weighing the risks of tenants and those types of how we're going to screen applicants when we're making our development decisions.

I think that if the city continues to pursue this course of action, it's going to make it more difficult for us to support doing new developments in the future.

If investors are wondering, anytime in the future that The rent could possibly be put on hold.

It makes it very difficult for them to be satisfied that they can make a long-term investment in Seattle.

I think that the city needs to really consider supporting the individuals rather than asking for a ban and undermining our lawful contract.

We do not support CB 1198784. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Edmund Witter.

Hi, my name is Edmund Witter, and I run the Housing Justice Project at the King County Bar Association.

We also co-administer the home-based program with the United Way.

I'm urging you to pass Council Member Gonzalez's ordinances 117984, along with her proposed amendments.

The need for urgent intervention increases daily.

I was pretty optimistic that we would have enough rental assistance available for struggling tenants at this time.

But when we offered help for April's rent, we received, within 48 hours, over 7,000 applications.

And I expect that we're only going to be able to help up to about 2,000 of those 7,000 applicants.

We need to figure out a solution.

And I think we do need to get some time to be able to figure out how we can both help tenants and their landlords as well.

And this is one of the ways to at least put a pause and do it to make sure that we can help all the tenants who are currently struggling right now.

I understand that there is a need for other relief available, especially for a lot of landlords.

But at this point in time, this is something that's going to be necessary to be able to put a pause.

I'll note that even Congress bipartisanly did issue a 120-day moratorium that also impacts a lot of mortgages or federally backed mortgages at this time.

This is sort of providing additional relief for those persons as well.

So I urge you to pass this ordinance.

Thank you, Edmund, for being with us today.

Our next speaker is Rob Wright.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Rob Wright, and I live in District 4. First, let me say thank you to the Council for your time and willingness to listen.

I'm here to ask you as well to vote no on the proposal to extend the moratorium on rental evictions.

My wife and I own three small apartment buildings in Seattle.

We purchased our first building six years ago as an investment in our family's future with the hopes that the income can support paying our kids education and eventually our retirement.

We are very middle class and like many of you each month we are making sacrifices and prioritizing what to pay.

for monthly bills.

I certainly fully support your efforts to provide assistance to renters in need, but my ask is that you help them by enacting programs to support them to pay their rent and other basic needs.

Taking away the rights for landlords to evict will encourage some tenants to take advantage, which simply isn't fair to me as a property owner.

and it's not good for our city's long-term health.

I should also add that I have never evicted a tenant, and I'm currently working with several tenants on payment plans, and I have no intention to raise rents for the foreseeable future.

Please protect my property rights by voting no.

Thank you, Rob, for being with us.

Next up is Jessica Westgren.

Hello, council.

My name is Jessica Westgren.

I'm a lifelong renter with 13 years renting in Seattle, eight years renting in Wallingford specifically.

In addition, I've also been a property manager in Seattle for over seven years, both in market rate and HUD subsidized apartments.

I'm here asking you to pass the council bill 11784, but not to add in Alex Peterson's amendments that have been added in.

The people who need the most protection during and after COVID are likely to be renting from smaller landlords, lower income tenants and tenants who are not able to meet rigorous corporate rental requirements are more likely to rent from smaller landlords.

Who are these people?

These people are service industry folk who rely heavily on tips.

Tenants without predictable yearly income, such as substitute teachers and seasonal workers.

Tenants who work night shifts, odd hours, such as bartenders, musicians, performers, emergency personnel, single parent families, families that have gone through divorce, tenants in the non-traditional family structures.

I'm probably the first tenant you've heard from today.

In addition, I don't think someone who owns three buildings is a small landlord because as a renter, I own no buildings and they own three.

So that's something to also take into account.

In a time of massive unemployment and knowing that our unemployment department is struggling to keep up with the amount of claims and paying our distressed citizens as quickly as possible, it seems like the amendments are more punitive towards 50% of our tenants.

Thank you very much for your time this evening.

I've sent you a number of emails.

I don't know if you had a chance to read them, but thank you again for your time and your service on our city.

Thank you so much for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Candace Chevalier.

Hi there.

This is Candace Chevalier.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Great.

I wanted to touch base with you to oppose Council Bill 119784. Again, my name is Candace Chevalier and I work with a series of different apartment owners to help kind of guide them through the process of owning their property.

I've met with several council members regarding some of the most recent ordinances.

And I would just like to mention that I really talked to hundreds of these kind of mom and pop owners, and I can tell you when this COVID crisis began, not one landlord even thought about eviction as even a remote first step.

The idea that that's the first idea in a housing provider's mind is really unfair.

Right now, If you're wondering what housing providers are doing, they are trying to figure out how to work with their tenants that are having trouble paying and balancing their other expenses that they have to pay, like property taxes, which although due June 1st, will still be owed at that time.

Property owners are putting in the, property taxes on their credit card bills.

They are trying to work with their lenders to push back the mortgage requirements that they have to pay.

It's not...

Thank you, Candace, for being with us today.

Our next speaker is William Shadbolt.

Thank you very much.

I am just Thank you very much.

My name is William Sharbolt.

I'm asking the council to vote against the extension of the eviction ordinance.

My wife, myself, own rental properties in the city of Seattle, and fortunately we only had one tenant that couldn't afford to pay their rent in April, and they were provided assistance by the Housing Connector Program.

I would strongly suggest as an alternative to this ordinance, that the city looked at its housing levy funds and other funds to help support the housing connector program and the home base to provide rental assistance where it's needed.

What this eviction ban does is help people that are the medium and higher income people by the fact that if you earn less than $62,000 a year, you're actually making more money because of the CARES Act additional insurance than you were before.

My concern has been well documented in the press that there are people that are just voluntarily not paying their rent, even though they can afford to.

And what this eviction ban does is encourage that action.

And as many of the testimonies before me have said, is we as small landlords, have our own bills.

We have property taxes, one rental property in the city of Seattle that went up 101% in the last 10 years.

Inflation during that period of time was 18.6%.

Please vote no on this.

Thank you for calling in.

Our next speaker is Brett Frank Looney.

Hello, Council.

My name is Brett Frank Looney, and I'm a 26-year-old third-generation housing provider, working along with my mother, Dana Frank, who you heard from earlier, and my 88-year-old grandmother, Trent Frank.

As a graduate from the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, I took my schooling from both UW and by watching my family and the hard fight of African-Americans acquiring real estate.

The Council's actions concern me for my long-term ability to continue to provide quality, affordable housing.

Daily, we interact with our residents to access their needs, repairs, and concerns.

We have some residents that have lived in our buildings for 10, 20, 30 years and more, and this attests to our commitment to take care of one of life's greatest needs.

We have a staff with long-term employees, 20-plus years, and insurmountable numbers of contractors, painters, electricians, plumbers, and such that depend on the rents we receive to keep the cycle going.

Our residents have been very amenable to working with us.

Giving residents an excuse not to pay, especially for those who are able, will create havoc.

The trickle-down effect is easy to see.

Housing providers will not be able to make obligations, including mortgage, utilities, and repairs.

Properties will be foreclosed upon, and landlords will have to sell to big conglomerates.

Even in my life, the landscape of Seattle has already changed so much.

It's unimaginable what this would look like.

I've served with my friends, and at large, they believe that we would not go into a restaurant and take food and not expect to pay, or for that matter, any service you offer.

If you work, you expect to get paid.

If a housing provider provides housing, the same should be true.

Don't get the signal that not paying is an option.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Elizabeth Lacer.

Hi, can you hear me OK?

We can.

Awesome, thank you so much and good afternoon everyone.

I am calling to comment about CB 119784 Amendment 3B in particular.

This requires a good faith effort to access rental assistance.

What's the current funds in the rental assistance programs?

Do you know?

Is it enough for citizens to easily access and get approved?

What's the language access?

Of the nearly one million on unemployment, how many have fallen through or given up to try to apply?

Can we all camp out at your house, Council Member Peterson, once we are evicted?

Do you know the number of available shelters?

The City of Seattle already was battling a housing crisis.

Is this what you want to do to add to it instead of helping?

Is that what you were elected to do?

This pandemic has disproportionately affected women and people of color.

Why are you trying to target the most vulnerable right now?

Are the lives of those who rent less than yours who are homeowners?

Having the ability to finance, let alone own four properties is a privilege.

Your privilege is showing.

Thank you for your time and have a great afternoon.

Thank you for calling in.

Our next speaker is Jeffrey Cook.

Can you hear me now?

We can.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm calling to ask the council to vote against the rent moratorium.

Someone just said I had privilege.

Thanks a lot.

I don't know that this council fully understands the implications of the rent strike that they're proposing.

I'd like to believe the council is there to fairly lift up all citizens in a balanced manner.

But now it seems the council is spurring divisive us versus them tactics when we are all in need.

As a council I want you to stop undermining one group of citizens that you are irrationally deciding can handle excessive financial burden.

We own one small rental home that we bought for a good price from an elderly neighbor who didn't want to see it torn down when he moved out.

We spent months fixing it up with the goal of renting it at cost to working class adults.

which we've now done.

They have part-time work and unemployment available to them.

We are out of work from the arts sector and on unemployment ourselves.

We're trying to be part of Seattle's housing solution, local landowners providing housing for the working class.

We are in fact already discounting their rent and using our unemployment to subsidize our tenants, but this is not a long-term solution.

There is no profit being made, only monthly loss on our part.

Tenants are hearing this council's call for a rent strike, and they are assuming landlords are getting resources to cover costs.

They will stop paying rent.

This will eventually sell people like us or force people like us to sell the rental home.

How is this going to help?

Do you want us to help or not?

We're asking for the council to support everyone.

We don't have to do this, but you're going to miss small landlords when we are gone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Andrew Grant Houston.

Good afternoon, Council.

This is Andrew Grant Houston, a queer architect of color, District 3 resident, and speaking today as a small business owner.

So I'm someone who runs my own practice out of my home, and it is a home that I rent from someone else.

I'm speaking in support of 119784 because I am one of those many small business owners who is still waiting on funding and access from the federal government.

And looking at this piece of legislation, not just for myself, but for other people in a similar situation where, yes, we would love to be able to pay our rent if we're able to, but unfortunately, we're still waiting to hear back from the federal government about things that We applied two months ago.

I just heard back that my application's been reviewed for economic injury disaster loans, and I applied at the end of March.

And I just heard back today that they're looking at my application.

And so in my mind, the intent of this legislation is the limits of the capabilities of what you can do as city council members.

I know for myself, what I am trying to do outside of just hopefully get more work, because unfortunately I've had a lot of projects pause because of COVID, is ensure that people can stay in their homes because unlike what's been discussed so far, no one has talked about the implications of people being out on the street and how that affects the spread of COVID.

And so I ask that you please pass this bill today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew, for being with us today.

Next up is Mark Brunson.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mark Brunson.

I am a longtime renter in District 3. I support the extension of emergency tenant protections under consideration today.

However, I strongly oppose a proposed amendment that provides exemptions to tenant protections for small landlords.

Due to our severe housing shortage, it is quite difficult and competitive to find an apartment in Seattle.

Renters, particularly those at the lower end of the income scale, do not often have a choice in what type of landlord to rent from.

Furthermore, as anyone who has attempted to research the owners of a rental can tell you, many rentals in our city are masked by a web of LLCs.

There is no way for a renter to definitively tell how many units a landlord owns, and I question whether that information is even available to the city.

Landlords should not have the ability to exploit loopholes in tenant protections regardless of how many units they own.

Please protect and expand tenant protections for all renters in Seattle.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you all stay healthy.

Thank you for being with us today, Mark.

Our next speaker is Kyle Woodring.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Kyle Woodring.

I'm the Government Affairs Director for the Rental Housing Association.

Speaking today about CBE 119784, RHA has a membership of over 5,000 housing providers who pay less than $20 a month for forms, education, and other resources for a self-managed property.

Even before the orders on eviction, Our organization was one of the first to put out best business practices to waive late fees, hold physical evictions and rent increases, and work with renters to create payment plans.

While we stand ready to work with stakeholders to develop policies to address the financial crisis being felt both by tenants and our members, we can't support this legislation.

This bill contains no nexus connecting the prohibition of eviction with the loss of income due to COVID-19.

It will nullify the filing of any eviction for nonpayment of rent, no matter the circumstances.

Our office receives calls daily from housing providers who are confused about whether or not those who can pay their rent are required to under the emergency executive orders.

They read media reports of rent strikes promoted by the city council and cannot understand why legislation would be offered to protect individuals who choose not to pay their rent, even though they continue to work normally through the crisis.

We would ask policymakers to look closely at the data that shows that less than 10% of a rent payment ends up with the housing provider.

Renters who are choosing to forego paying their rent are not paying taxes, utilities, maintenance on the property, and are hurting struggling neighbors who have come to an agreement with their housing provider on a payment plan.

Our members continue to follow best business practices and are working with their tenants to offer the best terms they can to help all parties get through this unprecedented period.

But we are not sure what will happen to all of you.

Thank you, Kyle, for calling in today.

Our last speaker who is signed up and present this afternoon is Malik Elbaz.

uh...

as uh...

uh...

a c lc council uh...

my name's about that uh...

i'm a small landlord in the uh...

city of seattle and asking you to go against this uh...

addiction uh...

extension if you will uh...

i just kind of one up in the scene for everybody that people are calling landlords small and large privileged and i don't think people are looking at the grand scale of things uh...

the most of the buildings that these landlord owns, but they don't actually own, they're actually mortgaged.

And you're talking to, you know, someone on average, say I make a hundred grand a year, someone making 35 or 40 grand a year is calling me privileged.

You ought to look at the billionaires and millionaires that run these corporations.

and you know i know everybody has good intentions but this whole eviction extension is really going to uh...

make a lot harder for low-income uh...

uh...

ceo residents to find housing because the next time i have somebody who has a minimum wage job i'm gonna think you know three times about what my criteria is going to be because of the nightmare i had trying to evict somebody which now i can't So I'm not saying I'm trying to pick somebody, but if that were to happen, and I do work with my tenants, and there's one that can't afford to pay rent, and they're on a payment plan.

But this really just encourages bad actors, in my opinion.

So please vote against it.

Thank you for calling in today.

Colleagues, I'm doing one last scan of the public comment.

And it looks like we have gone through the entire list of folks who signed up for public comment today.

So I'm going to go ahead and close out the period of public comment and we'll go ahead and begin the business portion of our agenda.

We will go and move into payment of the bills.

Will the clerk please read the title?

Council Bill 119786, appropriately amended to pay fair and uttering claims to the week of April 20th, 2020 through April 24th, 2020, and ordering the payment thereof.

I will move to pass Council Bill 119786. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Madam Clerk, you might be on mute.

Thank you.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it and I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Committee of Reports of the City Council, Agenda Item 1. Will the clerk please read the short title.

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 119769, funding for housing and community development program.

Adopting the City of Seattle 2020 annual action plan to the 2018 through 2022 consolidated plan for housing and community development and operating its submission to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Thank you so much.

So before, colleagues, this is the bill that requires a public hearing.

Before I open the public hearing on this item, I am going to turn it over to Councilmember Mosqueda, who is the sponsor of the bill, to provide us with introductory remarks.

So Councilmember Mosqueda, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

As I mentioned during Council briefing this morning, this bill adopts the annual action plan, which details how the city will spend its annual entitlements of four federal grants.

This includes, first, the Community Development Block Grants, or CDBG, second, the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS, or HOPWA, third, the Emergency Solutions Grants, or ESG, and fourth, the Home Investment Partnerships Program, otherwise known as the HOME Grants.

A draft of this plan, based on our best estimates of how much funding we would receive and was included in the 2020 adopted budget, were both heard in the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee in December of 2019. We have now received notice of the actual grant amounts, so this council needs to adopt the final plan for submittal to Federal HUD.

One small technical piece, the plan was originally transmitted and has been updated by the executive.

There is now a proposed substitute, which reflects the very latest information on the federal grant funds and the projects they support.

You can find the link to this proposed substitute on the council's agenda.

Just very briefly, this plan includes over 25 million of funds for supporting people in Seattle, including $3.4 million to provide emergency shelter operations and case management to move people to permanent housing.

$7.8 million to provide housing for persons living with AIDS and their families.

$1 million to improve fire safety at Seattle Housing Authority.

$6.4 million for affordable housing preservation and development.

2.8 million for small business stabilization.

While most of these funds were included in the 2020 budget, this plan reflects that we received more grant money than expected, and these funds were added to the Affordable Housing Program and the Small Business Stabilization Fund.

That's the quick overview, Madam President.

Thank you so much for those introductory remarks.

I am juggling between screens, colleagues, so I appreciate your patience.

I am acquiring the public.

hearing list and making sure that it is accurate for our staff that is listening as I open up, make the comments to open up a public hearing.

If you could look through the spreadsheet of folks who have signed up for public comment to make sure that they have indicated that they're speaking on Council Bill 119785 as opposed to any other matter, I'd appreciate you cleaning up the list accordingly as I make the introductory remarks for the public hearing.

As presiding officer, I am now opening the public hearing on Council Bill 119785, relating to the adoption of the 2020 Annual Action Plan.

The online registration to sign up to speak at this hearing opened at 12 noon today, and I will call on speakers in the order of registration.

The online registration will remain open until the conclusion of this public hearing.

The rules applied to the public comment period also apply to this public hearing.

Each speaker will be provided two minutes and a 10-second warning to wrap up comments.

Speakers' microphones will be muted at the end of the allotted public comment time.

Public comment relating to Council Bill 119785 is only being accepted at this public hearing.

So speakers will be asked to begin their comments by stating their name.

And again, I know we had a couple of different public comment preregistration sheets going around.

This public hearing that I'm about to open up is only to accept comments on Council Bill 119785 relating to the adoption of the 2020 annual action plan as described by Councilmember Mosqueda.

And so my hope is that staff have worked on the sign-up sheet to make sure that we've got folks who are on the list only as it relates to Council Bill 119785. Okay, I will go ahead and begin the public comment period.

IT, if we can get the timer up on the screen, that would be great.

Thank you so much.

Okay, I'll go ahead and call the first speaker up who appears to be, it looks like everybody who signed up for Council Bill 119785 is not present.

We have one person who's present.

I'm gonna call on him and see if he's got testimony related to this matter, John Wisdom.

I'm going to pass.

Thank you.

OK.

Thank you so much.

OK.

And the only other person just testified about the eviction reform bill, it doesn't appear that he's interested in testifying about this issue.

OK.

So we don't have anyone else that has signed up for public comment on Council Bill 119785 based on the registration sheet that I am looking at.

So I'm going to go ahead and close out the public hearing.

The public hearing on Council Bill 119785 is now closed.

Written public comment is still being accepted on this item.

And for those who are interested, you can email us at council at Seattle.gov.

until the council passes this bill, which is scheduled to occur on Monday, May 11th, 2020, at our two o'clock p.m.

regularly scheduled meeting.

Okay, so, and just to double confirm, I wanna make sure that staff confirms that there's not a member of the public in the queue before closing the public hearing.

I'm not hearing.

Yes, I don't see anybody, Councilmember.

Okay, thank you so much.

Okay, so being that there is not a member of the public remotely present for the public hearing on Council Bill 1975, we will now officially close the public hearing period and we'll move into agenda item two.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Mentioned item 2, Council Bill 119783 relating to the city's response to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, and then the ordinance 12600, which adopted the 2020 budget, accepting funding from non-city sources, changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and various funds in the budget, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date, all by three-fourth vote of the city council.

Thank you so much.

So I will move to pass Council Bill 119783. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to pass Council Bill 119783. Council Member Mosqueda, you are listed as the sponsor of the bill, so I'm going to yield the floor to you to make some introductory remarks.

Thank you, Madam President.

As I mentioned this morning, I've had the chance to work on a substitute bill that includes a handful of amendments in an effort to have a conversation about that bill.

May I please move to amend the council bill so that we can have that discussion on the substitute?

Okay, so you want to move to amend Council Bill 119783 by substituting version 7 for version 2?

Yes, if that's appropriate at this time, I'd like to move amendment and move to amend Council Bill 119783 by substituting version 7 for version 2.

Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill by substituting it for version 7. Council Member Muscadet, I will hand it back over to you to speak to the substitute.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

Council colleagues, as we talked about this morning, this is an ordinance in its amended version that would accept appropriated federal and state funds related to COVID-19 pandemic crisis and response, including partial CARES Act funding.

This is the city's first opportunity to apply federal appropriations and allocations to our city to respond to the COVID crisis.

We appreciate the work that the city budget office, office of housing and the mayor's office has provided to us.

They presented last week a full PowerPoint presentation about the plans to distribute these funds.

Following the presentation, I submitted a handful of follow-up questions regarding the executive's plan for shelter D intensification and emergency homeless COVID response.

We have subsequently, at the end of last week, heard a number of providers who are providing direct services to those who are the most vulnerable in our community who are in need of housing, food services, cleaning, PPE, staff pay for the folks who are working in homeless shelters.

One of the great pieces that we know is that this is not going to be the last opportunity for federal funds.

Other forthcoming dollars include FEMA dollars, where there's going to be reimbursements, $130 million in federal coronavirus relief funds, $13 million from the Department of Commerce Emergency Homeless and Housing Needs, and future CARES Act allocations.

We are looking forward to having a robust conversation in the near term about how all of these sources will be used for a comprehensive, holistic strategy that meets the needs of homeless services providers, rental assistance, small businesses, and more as we respond to the COVID crisis.

We know, though, that we need to act quickly with these dollars that are in hand, so I really appreciate our ongoing conversation with the city budget office to make sure that we can get these dollars out the door here, as you see in substitute version 7. What substitute version 7 includes is ongoing funding to make sure that we are getting money out the door for small business stabilization.

funding out the door for the Building Stability Fund, which is rental assistance.

We've actually increased some of the money that's going to that fund to about $1.4 million.

We've also split $1.4 million among homelessness prevention and rental assistance efforts.

And at this point, we've added clarification in the amended bill in front of you.

We have clarified that we'd like there to also be food support for unsheltered persons as an appropriate use of emergency services grant dollars.

We've also added our desire to see if we can include meal delivery to permanent supportive housing as an appropriate use under the Americans Act funds to expand food programs.

And we understand that there's ongoing conversations about how these funds may be used for home delivery.

And we believe that ensuring meal delivery to those in permanent supportive housing is also an appropriate and qualified to look forward to making sure folks can get access to those meals in their homes.

Again, I'm looking forward to having a future conversation about the $1.4 million that we're holding back in CDBG.

allocations in this round of CARES Act funding to allow for time for a conversation with the executive's office and homeless service providers.

Pending that future conversation about what can be funded with existing funds from HSD or Office of Housing, we will have more information for this council to consider.

I mentioned a handful of the issues that are needed among our homeless services providers, including de-densification issues, cleaning and staff support, PPE, and more.

So that is a conversation that we greatly appreciate has already begun initiated this morning.

We do want to act quickly though.

So colleagues, my commitment to you is that we come back to you with an update on how those conversations are going and look forward to releasing the 1.4 million, hopefully for additional appropriations to rental assistance, as we heard about today, and look forward to getting feedback from those housing services providers.

I'm feeling really confident about the ongoing conversations that we've had about supporting residential and business tenants.

I really appreciate the conversation that you all have participated in as we advanced and protected tenants, both as small business tenants and as residential tenants.

And we're hoping that the conversation over the next week will truly add to a robust and comprehensive approach to protecting those who've been experiencing the consequences of COVID.

I'll also note that this is an effort to try to make sure that we're responding not just to the economic needs, as we talk about building stability funds, small business stabilization funds, rental assistance, and homelessness prevention.

We've tried to walk that fine tightrope to make sure that we're continuing our ongoing effort to respond to the health crisis that is COVID.

So that is sort of the impetus of the strategy that you see in front of us with the bill that we have as amended.

My office has spoken as well with the folks at United Way Rental Assistance Program about the approach that we are proposing in substitute version 7 and appreciate their support.

They have let us know that they are holding a portion of the CBPG Rental Assistance Fund temporarily will not cause negative impacts on folks being able to access rental assistance.

And they are concerned about the upcoming June 4th date.

when the state eviction moratorium expires, and we've committed to working with them, along with the entire council, to make sure that funds are released well prior to that date.

I will leave it at that, council colleagues, and I'll turn it back over to you, Council President Gonzalez.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda.

So we are currently considering the proposed substitute, and I think Councilmember Mosqueda addressed the substitute and the substantive bill.

So are there any questions on the proposed substitute as introduced by Councilmember Mosqueda?

Okay, so let's go ahead and take a vote on the adoption of the substitute.

So will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the substitute bill?

Salant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Moraes?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Ms. Gatto?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Eight, nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries.

The substitute is adopted and version seven of the bill is now before the city council.

Councilor Mosqueda, are there any other further comments on the bill as amended?

I will just say that, again, this is the first opportunity for us to accept federal funds.

I hope that this sets a tone for the type of assistance that we'd like to see applied across our city, both in terms of rental assistance for families and individuals, workers, for small businesses, and as you will hopefully see within the next few days here, spurring additional conversations and investments in those who are the most vulnerable and currently living in congregate shelters.

I think this morning we've had a conversation about our desire to see the executive and the departments move in their strategies to de-densifying the shelters that we have.

and really diving into the recommendations that have come over in the last few days from the housing service providers and homeless shelter providers to make sure that we are responding to the ongoing public health need in those settings.

We know that it's critical to not only participate in social distancing, but we cannot keep distances when folks are living in congregate shelters.

very interested in following up with all of you.

And I know Council Member Herbold expressed interest this morning working with our council colleagues to make sure that we see movement on this effort in the next few days here.

And we'll be coming back to this council very soon about the release of the $1.4 million.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I first off want to thank Councilmember Mosqueda for the language clarifying in the substitute, clarifying that seniors living in permanent supportive housing will be eligible to receive meal delivery funded by the Federal Older Americans Act.

Our friends at the housing development consortium had conveyed a request last week to find ways to support meal provision for people living in permanent supportive housing.

So I really appreciate that the substitute includes that language.

As mentioned this morning, I do have some reservations around reducing the amount of funds available for rental assistance.

normal budget times, we fund rent assistance programs to the tune of almost $4 million.

We added an additional million dollars a couple weeks ago.

We were poised with this legislation to add another 1.5 million.

We are reducing that to $750,000, but really appreciate understanding from Councilmember Mosqueda that this is a temporary pause.

I want to just provide a little bit more detail about the conversations that my office have had with the Home Base program, United Way, more than 7,000 households applied for April rent over a 48-hour period of time.

The estimates are that they will be able, with the current funding, be able to assist about 2,000 of those 7,000 households.

So the need for rent assistance is great, and we understand that they they will be doing another opportunity for people to apply for rent assistance on May 18th.

And so I think a short delay on providing that full funding for rent assistance is acceptable.

And as Council Member Mosqueda mentioned earlier, the United Way and the home-based program there is supportive of us doing so.

So I'm comfortable with holding back some of the federal funds from this appropriation for a limited period of time.

And I also want to say that I really, really support the goal of holding these funds back for a short period of time, if that goal is indeed to facilitate a conversation with the executive about how to ensure that people who are living in care in unsafe, unhealthy conditions that are able to move into places where they can stay safe and healthy.

We know that outbreaks of COVID-19 among people living in congregate shelters in the past several weeks is increasing greatly.

Cases among people experiencing homelessness are accelerating, while new cases in the county as a whole have stabilized.

Two to three weeks ago, people experiencing homelessness only comprised 1% of total cases, whereas today, they are 4% of total cases.

So again, I appreciate the opportunity to hit pause on the full allocation of these funds so that we can really deal comprehensively with the challenges that we have before us.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold for those remarks.

Council Member Strauss, I'm hearing a little bit of ambient noise from your phone.

If you don't mind muting, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

My sincere apologies.

Oh, no, that's okay.

We're all learning this together, so no worries.

Okay, so are there any other comments on the bill as amended?

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I will be, of course, supporting this bill, and I support the attempt to figure out if funds can be allocated for the de-densification of shelters in light of the contagious virus.

But I think all this discussion also clearly illustrates the no-win situation created by local, state, and federal finances when big businesses don't pay their fair share.

I think this, unless governments at all levels have the political courage to create public revenues through progressive sources, we will end up, as this recession gets deeper and gets worse and gets more widespread, We will end up being forced to use not only a robbing Peter to pay Paul approach, but really ultimately an austerity budgeting approach.

We, of course, desperately need funding for the home-based rental assistance program.

And we also need funding to allow for social distancing within the homeless shelter system.

And both need to be passed.

And the only solution is really to expand the public revenue base especially in a city like Seattle, which is the nation's most regressive tax system.

And hence, we are going to see budget revenues be deeply impacted as joblessness of working people keeps going up because working people are shouldering the burden.

So it's not only a question of injustice, it's a question of mathematics as well.

I think it was very important that Edmund Witter from the Housing Justice Project revealed to us during public comment that they have received 7,000 applications for the home-based funds over a 48-hour period and the program can only help 2,000.

of the applicants and my conclusion from that is slightly different from what some other council members have drawn.

I think what this shows is that with joblessness dramatically going up and the number of applicants, people who will need these funds will rapidly rise that in combination with sky-high rents and the amount of money that will be needed just in terms of dollars, the sheer number of dollars that will be needed to cover the rents that people won't be able to pay.

Rental assistance by itself is not a viable solution.

It is certainly not a viable proposal by itself in the absence of taxes on big business and the wealthy at local, state, and federal levels to generate the revenues to be used for the scale of rental assistance needed.

But I think equally importantly and actually more importantly, rental assistance at this moment of the recession, because in a recession, somebody is going to pay the price.

The only question is, who will pay the price?

So rental assistance at this moment on a large scale, on the basis of public funds, would effectively mean a bailout for corporate landlords and property management corporations, which are one of the most And so in addition for all the rental assistance which of course I completely support, we need to, we need to have a fight for full suspension without consequences of rent payments and mortgage and utility payments.

for renters and homeowners and for small landlords.

And the big banks, corporate landlords, and Wall Street should pay for this crisis, not ordinary people.

And I'll just share, once again, that over 9,000 Washingtonians have signed our community petition for such a suspension without consequences of rent, mortgage, and utility payments.

And we are seeing similar petitions and campaigns, hundreds of them, all around the nation from different organizations.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Are there any other comments on the bill as amended?

Okay, I don't see anyone else raising their hands or sending me messages for those who are on the phone.

So I will go ahead and close out debate and ask the clerk to please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Aye.

Herbold.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it and I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Will the clerk please read item 3 into the record.

Item 3, Council Bill 119784. Relating to termination of residential rental tenancies providing a defense to evictions occurring within six months after the termination of the marriage residential eviction moratorium As amended by ordinance, excuse me, Resolution 31938, amending section 22.206.160 of the Seattle Municipal Code, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date, all by state court's vote of the City Council.

Thank you so much.

I am going to move to pass Council Bill 119784. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill and so we have several amendments to go through and so my suggestion is that we go through the amendments first and then we can have a discussion about the bill as amended before we take final vote on the bill.

So I will go ahead and kick off that conversation to make a motion to amend Council Bill 119784 as presented on Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill.

Colleagues, as a sponsor of this amendment, I'll address the amendment first and then we can engage in conversation.

Amendment one is a very non-controversial amendment.

It is a variation of technical changes.

So these amendments would make a grammatical correction, revise references to the date of the mayor's eviction moratorium to include a reference to council's amendments in resolution 31938. And it also adds additional findings showing compliance with Governor's Order 20-28.

I'm happy to entertain any questions or comments about Amendment 1. Okay, hearing and seeing none, I would ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1.

DeWant?

DeWant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

I'm going to go ahead and call on Council Member Peterson now who has amendment two.

Thank you, Council President.

So the viewing public right now might not know that we did talk a bit about this this morning during Council briefing.

So bear with me as I repeat some of my comments here.

But just to set the table for the three amendments that I have today, I really appreciate the Council President working really hard on this legislation, Council Bill 119784. I agree we need to do what we can as a city government to prevent eviction.

I'm proud to have joined my council colleagues and the mayor to support multiple relief packages and changing regulations.

to provide relief.

This includes funneling millions of additional dollars to eviction prevention and rental assistance.

I also want our compassionate policies to be sustainable.

Some constituents, just like the people who called in today, some were in favor of the legislation, some were opposed to it.

And to reconcile these opposing views, I put forward these amendments, which I believe will to be helpful for the sustainability of the legislation.

I started by considering the approach we took to amend the legislation for our moratorium on evictions during the coldest winter months, and then to consider differences with the current COVID crisis.

So the first amendment before us is to exempt small landlords defined as those with four or fewer units.

Do I need to move the amendment?

Yes, you do.

Before we discuss it, if you can say the magic words to put Amendment 2 in front of us, that'd be great.

Yes, I move to amend Council Bill 119784 as presented on Amendment 2 on this agenda.

Second.

Okay, so it's been moved and seconded to amend the bill.

Council Member Peterson, you can now address Amendment 2.

So this is similar to the situation when we were considering the winter months ban on evictions or moratorium on evictions at that time.

We've heard from lots of landlords who own a couple of units, three units, four units, who are struggling to pay their mortgages, their property taxes, their property insurance, and they're They're opposed to this bill, a lot of the ones who have written to us here.

And so this exemption would be in the same spirit of what we passed during the winter moratorium.

Happy to answer questions.

Colleagues, thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I would just say in response to this that, as I mentioned during Council briefing this morning, I am not supporting Amendment 2, and I'd like to talk a little bit more about why.

So we know that over 50% of Seattle residents are tenants.

These people live in small, medium, and large multifamily buildings throughout the city, and many of them are feeling the negative impacts of this public health crisis that has also caused an economic crisis of mass proportions.

That economic burden is being felt deeply by low-wage workers who now find themselves, many for the first time in their lives, on the rolls of unemployment.

Many of these folks are renters who would benefit from this law in particular.

So this amendment, however, as proposed by Council Member Peterson, would strip many of those renters of the ability to assert this defense if and when they needed it in the six months after the eviction moratorium declared by the mayor is lifted.

The intent of this bill is to provide access to an additional eviction defense to as many tenants as possible, regardless of whether the tenant made a choice during better economic times to rent from a corporate landlord or a small landlord.

So unfortunately, I believe that this amendment creates too much of a carve out that may result in leaving thousands of renters without access to a meaningful opportunity to prevent their eviction in a court proceeding in the six months after the termination of the mayor's residential eviction moratorium.

And for those reasons, I will be voting no on Amendment 2 and would ask my colleagues to join me in voting no on this amendment as well.

I just wanted to share those comments with folks before I invited a comment from my colleagues.

Anyone else want to make a comment?

So I see Councilmembers Salant, Lewis, and Herbold.

So Councilmember Salant, the floor is yours.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I will also be opposing this amendment, which will potentially strip tens of thousands of renters of their protections against eviction, especially in the context of a pandemic and a global recession that is going to be as deep or deeper than the Great Recession.

My council office has been contacted by hundreds of renters over the years, and we've seen that the big corporate landlords are far more likely to be responsible for violating renters' rights.

However, we've also seen that the worst slumlords usually divide their properties up into multiple LLCs and even have those LLCs owned by other LLCs and so on to obscure who owns what.

This provision makes it very difficult for renters to know if they are protected by the law.

Even in the rare cases where the eviction might actually be pursued by a smaller landlord, council members and elected officials need to decide who most needs our support.

Families who are on the verge of being evicted, losing everything, especially in the context of tens of thousands being in that situation, many likely becoming homeless as a result, having damaged credit.

and having debt on their hands, possibly dying, you know, are we going to stand up for them or somebody who owns four or 10 or 100 rental homes?

I think that's another important point, you know, who is exactly a small landlord is a very subjective issue from their own admission.

At one of the two renter organizing town halls that my office organized in April, we had a small landlord tell us who attended the town hall happily and told us that they had worked with their tenant who has been laid off.

And moreover, that they proactively approached their tenant to negotiate an agreement that works for both tenant and small landlord.

And I would really urge small landlords to negotiate such agreements with tenants and be on the side of tenants and not on the side of big property management corporations and landlords.

Obviously Councilmember Peterson is choosing to represent landlords and it is unfortunate that the amendment was presented even at the winter evictions moratorium legislation that my office put forward and it was unfortunate that Councilmembers, some Councilmembers voted yes on that amendment.

That amendment was bad then for renters and this amendment is bad now for renters.

Councilmember Peterson talks about reconciling between the interests of landlords and renters, but this is not a neutral issue.

As Jessica Westrand, who's been a member of the City of Seattle Renters Commission, said in public comment today, you know, somebody who owns multiple buildings of apartments is not the same as a working class renter who is barely getting by and who is now statistically probably likely to have lost their job or their income, even if they haven't lost their job.

I do not think we should be making it easier to evict working-class tenants.

In fact, we should learn from what happened in the wake of the 2007-2008 Great Recession, where nearly 8 million middle-class homeowners were stripped of the only equity they ever had.

That homeownership has not come back.

It is not going to come back anytime soon.

And so we can see that crises such as the Great Recession and the recession we are heading into now will, unless we have a movement fighting back, be used not only to deny renters and working class people of their rights during this pandemic, but also to extract more from them and extract austerity in different ways.

And that is why it's important that we stand against this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant, for those comments.

I'm going to call now on Council Member Lewis, and then I think I had Council Member Herbold also in the queue.

So Council Member Lewis.

I want to thank Councilmember Peterson for bringing this forward for our consideration and appreciate the spirit in which it was introduced.

I supported a similar amendment during our discussion of the winter eviction legislation.

I think it made sense in the context of that policy and that we were wading into new territory.

It was a proactive policy about clear policy preference.

And it was, we were shaping the first in the nation ordinance to accomplish that policy goal.

I think these circumstances are different for a lot of the reasons that Councilmember Gonzalez articulated earlier.

namely, that we have widespread and massive uncertainty.

Over 1.4 million Washingtonians are on unemployment, have lost their jobs, are facing significant insecurity above and beyond the precarious situation that a lot of folks were in before this.

I think given that and given that our policy goals here are different, this is emergency legislation not to be in effect in perpetuity, but to be in effect for a brief period of time.

It is designed to make sure that we have folks inside able to remain in place, to not be in a position where they're experiencing homelessness, to make sure they're in a position where they can be isolated for public health reasons to observe the social distancing and other guidances that the government has applied and that that certainty in their ability to do that won't be impacted by the uncertainty that an eviction proceeding could introduce into that.

And we know that that risk of displacement will persist after the orders are over.

We aren't going to come out on the other side of this and then all of a sudden be in a position where the economy will spring back.

It's going to be a long and difficult recovery.

So a buffer period between the end of the orders and coming back, I think, would be appropriate, and I think that exempting such a large number of units would undermine some of the public policy rationales of this emergency legislation.

So I'll be voting against this amendment, but I do appreciate the underlying rationale for bringing it forward.

I just think that given the scope of what we're focusing on, it's probably not the best approach.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Herbold, are you still with us?

I am indeed.

Thank you so much.

So as a council member who in the winter evictions legislation did vote for an exemption for small landlords, I want to speak to the reason why I'm not supporting that now.

As Council Member Lewis just spoke, I think what we are The policy and the reason for the policy that we are contemplating right now is very different in light of a health emergency and the impacts on the general public's health when people are homeless.

And then secondly, I want to just sort of have a mea culpa as it relates to my support of this amendment for the winter evictions legislation.

At that time, I had conflated SDCI, the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections Rental Housing Registration Program requirements as it relates to small landlords and large landlords.

They, SDCI holds information about the sizes of the number of units in buildings.

Nobody holds the information about whether or not somebody is a large or a small landlord.

So I don't believe there would be a way for a tenant to be able to assert that their landlord was a large or a small landlord in exercising this defense.

because it is not information that the city collects.

The information that the city collects relates to the numbers of units in individual buildings for purposes of assessing an inspection fee.

And so that I think is another reason to not support this amendment at this time.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Colleagues, is there anyone else who'd like to speak?

Council Member Strauss, I see your hand is up, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Lewis and Council Member Herbold summarized my thoughts as well.

Council Member Peterson, I appreciate you bringing this amendment forward.

I did also vote for the amendment on the winter evictions and because that is a permanent policy that is put in place and this policy, temporary in nature, I will not be supporting the amendment and thank my colleagues.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss.

Colleagues, any other comments on this amendment?

Okay, Council Member Peterson, it is your amendment, so I'd like to give the sponsor of the amendment the last word.

So if you'd like to give us some last words on your amendment before I call it for vote, please feel free to do so.

Sure, I just appreciate the process.

I'm glad that I brought it forward.

I'm glad that people were able to air their views on how it is different.

I see that rationale and respect it as well.

I'm ready to call for a vote on the amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

I want to sort of echo the sentiments of some of my colleagues who appreciate what was potentially motivating your desire to want to bring Amendment 2 forward.

Obviously, we have a difference of opinion as to this particular amendment, but I appreciate that we can engage in a respectful debate about those differences and ultimately move the policy forward still.

So thank you so much for reaching out to me personally and having a conversation with me about the fact that you were bringing forward this amendment and the others and giving me an opportunity to have an offline conversation with you about that.

I appreciate that.

So at this point, I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2.

Sawant?

No.

Strauss?

Nay.

Herbold?

No.

Juarez?

Nay.

Lewis?

Nay.

Morales.

No.

Mesqueda.

No.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

No.

One in favor, eight opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, the motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Council Member Peterson, I know you have another amendment for us to consider, so I'm going to hand it over to you to make the formal amendment for discussion on amendment three, excuse me, yes, amendment three B.

Yes, so I would like, so this amendment is about

The either doing good faith efforts to show that the tenant has applied for rental assistance program or with more more flexibility from the perspective of more flexibility, they simply self certify.

I'd like to move amendment.

3B, and I know that there's a proposed revision to that from Council Member Herbold that we can discuss in the mix of this, but I'd like to move Amendment 3B so we can discuss it.

Second.

Okay, so it's been moved and seconded to amend the bill with version three, excuse me, amendment 3B as described by Council Member Peterson.

So I'm gonna, Council Member Peterson, did you want Council Member Herbold to make remarks before you make yours?

I'd like to set the table first and then would welcome her revision discussion.

I would like to make a motion on amendment 3B.

to obtain rental assistance from a public, private, or non-profit rental assistance program, or they can submit a declaration or self-certification stating that they have suffered a financial hardship and is therefore unable to pay rent.

Let me explain how it got to this point.

So again, I was looking at what we did during the winter eviction moratorium when which I ended up voting for.

There were several amendments to that.

There was, at that time, what we called a means test.

So we basically were saying those who had no income, low income, or moderate income were eligible for the winter eviction ban.

However, a means test today may not make a lot of sense.

If somebody was earning 80% of area median income, back in 2019 per their tax return, they may not be now because of the COVID emergency.

So the means test was not practical right now.

Then the idea was to link it to COVID hardship that's occurred.

However, the direct link to COVID in terms of the tenant stating they had a hardship due to COVID was removed with the substitute version.

So that's how I, without that, I was looking for a way for the tenant to simply, you know, the whole idea is to prevent the eviction.

So the idea is to have them seek the financial assistance and rental assistance, all these programs that we've been talking about that are available.

to simply state that there was a good faith effort to seek that rental assistance.

In conversations with some folks, including the Council President, who wisely pointed out that not everybody's eligible for these programs, there are barriers to these programs for certain folks, then it came down to saying that or simply self-certifying that there is financial hardship.

So that's how this amendment has and I think that there is a further evolution here that is about to take place with Councilmember

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I did want to reiterate that this morning I had indicated that I might be willing to support a self-certification declaration path.

Initially, I thought that you were intending to revise your amendment in such a fashion that you would bifurcate the requirement to, in good faith, access rental assistance from sort of this new option to provide a declaration asserting financial hardship as the reason for the inability to pay a rent.

And so when I saw the revised amendment that kept those two things coupled, in a sense, in other words, put them in the same amendment, it led me to the conclusion that I couldn't support it because it still included the language around the need to access rental assistance as one of the ways to prove financial hardship.

And so I know that there's been conversations this afternoon about a potential amendment to your proposal that might create an amendment that would be more palatable to me, which would be one that would allow for a declaration and self-certification, but not require a sort of exhaustion of an administrative remedy to go through the process of showing that you've tried to access rental assistance.

So I appreciate, again, the intent that you have here to create some sort of requirement on behalf of the tenant to give assurances that they are, in fact, experiencing financial burden.

And I'm going to sort of leave it at that and open it up for additional comments and see if perhaps Councilmember Herbold wants to speak up at this point.

You're on mute.

Are you inviting my amendment, Council President?

Well, I think...

Yes.

Sounds like we are.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

I move to amend version two of amendment 3B.

This is the version noted as version three.

Perhaps you want to, before I read what the content of the amendment is, should we check to see if there are any objections to waiving the rules for this amendment as well?

Yeah, so I'm gonna, I know that Council Member Herbold, you have this proposed amendment to the amendment.

So in order for us to consider this amendment, the council rules will need to be suspended.

If there is no objection, the council rules relating to circulation of amendments two hours before the meeting will be suspended.

So hearing no objection, the rules are suspended and now Council Member Herbold, you are free to move your amendment that would amend Council Member Peterson's Amendment 3B.

fantastic, thank you.

So I move to amend version two of amendment 3B.

This is the version referenced as version three.

It amends the last subsection two and it deletes the words, has applied for or made a good faith effort to obtain rental assistance from a public, private or nonprofit rental assistance program or the tenant.

If adopted, this subsection two would still include a declaration or a self-certification asserting that the tenant has suffered financial hardship and is therefore unable to pay rent.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend Amendment 3B.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to speak more to your amendment?

Thank you.

I really appreciate Council Member Peterson's bringing both versions of these amendments forward.

My intent in the amendment to that most recent version 3B is really just to streamline what it is that we expect a judge to take a look at and confirm.

the certification being signed is something that a judge can review, and deception in such a certification is considered perjury, whereas the determination of whether or not somebody has made a good faith effort to obtain rental assistance interjects a certain amount of complexity to a judge's decision in this area.

And again, this is intended to really streamline and lift the burdens on the court for making these determinations.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Peterson, please.

Yes, thank you.

I welcome this as a friendly amendment and appreciate how this has evolved with the conversations.

I just wanted to clarify my intent was it would be good faith effort to obtain rental assistance or to provide the declaration.

So the tenant could do either one of those.

So there were a couple of different paths for them.

I understand the trepidation of some appearance of adding a barrier here, which I do not want to do.

So just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you for that clarification.

I really appreciate Council Member Herbold, your partnership in advancing this amendment to Amendment 3B.

I think it's a good It does streamline things.

And while I appreciate that Councilmember Peterson's original amendment included the word or, it still made me nervous as to how that would be applied in practice by a judge or how it would be utilized by landlords in eviction proceedings.

And so I think this is a much cleaner approach.

Certainly one of the things that they could put into their self-certification or declaration as a representation that they tried to access rental assistance and weren't able to secure it.

There's a whole host of other things that they can put in that declaration.

So I think this is a I think this is an elegant solution to the, I think, underlying issue that you're trying to resolve, Councilmember Peterson, through your original amendment 3B.

For the benefit of my colleagues, we did have a conversation with the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project lawyer, Ed, who we heard in public testimony earlier.

He indicated in terms of sort of on the ground perspective, having, you know, experience representing tenants in these court proceedings that they believe that this is a good solution and would not present any additional barriers to access the eviction defense and has confidence that a judge would see a declaration signed under the penalty of perjury as acceptable evidence to be able to support making a case if this defense is asserted in an eviction proceeding.

So I feel comfortable with that representation and feel comfortable moving forward with this amendment as proposed by Council Member Herbold.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I think that Council Member Herbold's version does mitigate the problematic nature of Councilmember Peterson's original amendment but I will still be voting no on this amendment because fundamentally I find it disturbing that Councilmembers are evoking this idea that you know this sort of boogeyman of a bad tenant who is going to skip out on rent And I'm sure that, I mean, I wouldn't say that that never happens because I don't know, maybe it does.

But the point is, policymaking has to be based on statistical evidence.

And statistical evidence overwhelmingly, not just mostly, but overwhelmingly shows that evictions, even before this pandemic, absolutely target the most vulnerable in our society.

The losing home report showed that Black community members, especially black women and single mom households were the ones that were most targeted.

And I would say just based on that statistical evidence and based on the fact that now vast majorities of working people are going to have job losses and income losses.

people who are going to be taken to eviction court are those who are suffering and have suffered financial hardship, and the only impact of this amendment is to force people who are already losing everything to go through one more dignity and humiliation.

As I said, the amended version does mitigate this, but the effect of it is still a pointless indignity being inflicted on a tenant who is already in dire financial straits.

It literally accomplishes nothing other than being odious towards working people who are already facing the recession.

I don't understand why this whole so-called good faith effort burden is not being put on landlords.

So I just, for all those reasons, I will be voting no on this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Any of my other colleagues want to make any comments?

Council Member Strauss.

Yes, just clarifying, we are about to vote on Council Member Herbold's amendment to Council Member Peterson's amendment.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

You are tracking.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from my colleagues?

Okay, so, uh, sorry, just as a process point.

Have we voted on the amendment to the amendment?

I believe we just voted on the motion to put it on the table.

Maybe I'm wrong.

No, we've moved and seconded to consider Councilmember Herbold's amendment to amendment 3B.

So we're not going to vote on Councilmember Herbold's amendment to Councilmember Peterson's amendment, but we haven't yet voted on Councilmember Peterson's version will be next as amended.

Parliamentary procedure is the best.

All right, folks.

Are there any, okay, so are there any other comments on the amendment as proposed by Councilmember Herbold?

Okay, so let's see here.

I am, will the clerk please call the roll on the amendment to version two of amendment 3B?

Strauss.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries.

The amendment is adopted and version two of amendment three B as amended is before the council.

So now colleagues, we are considering, um, council member Peterson's, uh, uh, amendment three B as a met as we just amended it.

Um, and so are there any further comments on the amendment as amended?

Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and ask that the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 3B as amended.

Solange?

No.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

No.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzales.

Aye.

Seven in favor.

Two opposed.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Okay, so we are going to move now to amendment number four.

So I will move to amend Council Bill 119784 as presented on amendment four on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second, it's been moved and seconded to amend the bill.

So amendment for colleagues is a amendment that would remove court ordered payment plans.

So we are simply removing the requirement that a judge order a payment plan as the only remedy available If the eviction defense is successfully asserted, we heard again concerns from folks over at the housing justice project about the sheer volume of.

of applications for assistance to the home base funds.

And as a result of sort of the sheer shock of numbers of receiving 7,000 applications and really KCBA housing projects estimation that they might be able to help 2,000 It really created a lot of concern for folks who are providing direct services that that a payment plan would be realistic in every single case.

And so, instead of requiring that a payment plan be instituted and potentially creating some kind of.

inadvertently creating a legal financial obligation that instead we should allow a judge to continue to have discretion in terms of identifying which remedy would be most appropriate based on the facts of the case.

If if a defendant is is successful in asserting an eviction defense.

And so I think it is more appropriate for us to allow a judge the latitude that they need based on whatever the record is in front of him or her to craft appropriate remedies.

A rental payment plan could be one of those, but it could also be something entirely different.

So as a result, I am advancing this amendment to remove that requirement from the substitute bill.

I'm happy to take any comments or questions on that particular amendment.

Second.

Great.

Any additional questions or comments on that?

All right.

Hearing none, I would ask the clerk to please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 4. Solange?

Aye.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzales.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

I understand that there is one last amendment is Amendment 5 and it is sponsored by Council Member Peterson.

So I am going to hand it over to him.

Thank you, Council President.

Yes, Amendment 5 is a reporting requirement that we would be adding to the bill.

So within two months of the effective date of the ordinance, The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection and the Office of Housing will provide a report to City Council on the implementation of this ordinance.

And it's, you know, the data is hard for them to gather.

However, they're going to come back to us with what they can gather on the eviction statistics, who's using the defenses, and we'll be able to, you know, Digest that information, find out how the ordinance is working while we're in the middle of the six month period.

And so I would like to officially move this amendment and to know that Council Member Herbold will have a similar revision to our amendment, which I welcome.

But let me go ahead and move the version two, wait, hold on a second.

Your options are 5A or 5B.

We're moving version two.

Yeah, moving version two of amendment 5A.

Right, because the previous amendment passed from me, so this will be moving 5A.

Second.

Although Asha, pardon me, I'm being told by central staff I should be moving Amendment 5B.

Excuse me.

I was strategically pausing to give you an opportunity to shuffle through your paper.

I do believe it is Amendment 5B.

Yes.

OK.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 5B.

Again, Council Member Herbold, I understand that you have a proposed amendment to this amendment to align the amendment to the revised Amendment 3. I've never said the word amendment more often in my life.

To consider this amendment, the council rules will need to be suspended.

If there is no objection, the council rules relating to circulation of amendments two hours before the meeting will be suspended.

Hearing no objection, the rules are suspended, and Council Member Herbold, you may now move your amendment.

Right, well, I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding.

I was not intending to move an amendment, an alternative to Amendment 5, given I had some concerns about Amendment 5. just based on the fact that I understand that SDCI does not hold information about what happens in eviction court.

They only get involved in these matters if there is a violation of the law.

And so people don't call SDCI.

for assistance in court when there is an eviction.

And so I was not planning on supporting this amendment, nor was I planning on offering an amendment to this amendment, although I recognize that the script that we've been provided says so.

So I think...

I think I understand if I may. either version of Council Member Peterson's Amendment 5. Is that correct?

I did not intend to, but I feel obligated because everybody thought I was going to.

So I have a script that I could in sportsmanship offer the amendment.

I do have reservations about the amendment though.

I don't think anybody on the in the meeting today is clamoring for more amendments.

So if you do not wish to advance your amendment, that is your call.

The difficulty, though, is if a majority of council members do support Council Member Peterson's amendment, it can't pass without there being a change to it because of our previous amendments.

So why don't we have a conversation about Amendment 5, and then we can sort of assess whether or not there needs to be shifting in terms of your position around introducing an amendment here.

So we have also received notice from our very capable council central staffer that we moved the wrong version of the amendment.

So I'm going to ask the clerk what our options are if Council Member Peterson has already moved version 5B, what we are required to do under Robert's Rules of Order to put that to rest and be able to consider the appropriate version.

This is Amelia.

The council can decide as a body to withdraw the motion, which is the motion to amend the council bill through version 5B if they want to withdraw it, as long as there's no objection.

And then from there, if there's no objection, you can move forward with the correct version of the amendment.

OK.

Is there an objection to withdrawing proposed amendment 5B?

Hearing no objection, the motion to consider Proposed Amendment 5B is withdrawn.

Council Member Pichon, I'm going to hand it back over to you to make the appropriation.

Yes, thank you.

Just for the viewing audience to explain, basically there were versions A and B because They were contingent upon what would happen to previous amendments.

So it sort of changes the ordering of the ordinance and the lettering and numbering of it.

So what I'd like to do is correctly move 5A version 2. And so 5A, it's A because we passed the previous amendment I had.

So we're going to go with A.

And it's version 2 because We passed Council Member Herbold's revision of my amendment, which removed the reference to seeking a good faith effort to seek rental assistance.

So that's why we're moving a version that our central staff circulated, basically just to align us to where we are right now in the process where we're no longer considering the good faith effort to seek rental assistance that's out.

That's why we have version two of 5A, which I'm now moving.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to consider a proposed Amendment 5A Version 2. Council Member Peterson, do you have anything else to add?

Yeah, so again, this is simply a reporting requirement to have the department's SDCI and office housing come back to us with information on how it's being implemented.

And they will, um, you know, the data that's available to them is limited, but I still think that if we are going to pass an ordinance that, um, that is making these changes, that it's, it's helpful for us to hear how it's going from the departments.

Thank you.

Okay.

And now I'm going to open it up for debate and discussion.

So colleagues, anyone like to comment?

Council Member Morales.

I'm nervous about this amendment.

I think this is an emergency time right now.

We're talking about protecting people who we all know are experiencing deep financial problems right now with an inability to pay April's rent, probably not able to pay this month's rent or next month.

And so there's no question that the protection that this bill is intending to provide is going to be necessary and useful.

I think this kind of an amendment really just kind of opens the door to removing the defense of, you know, if it's not used enough, then why are we doing this?

I think we will know if this is a useful bill or not, if it gets used.

And if it doesn't, then we don't need it.

But if we do, if people do need it, it's really important that it's there.

And I don't know that having a reporting requirement to tell us how much it was used is a useful step to put in place right now.

That's all.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I don't have any objection to the city receiving the information.

I think all information is healthy and I would not presuppose that we are asking for the information because of some future intent to argue that we either use a lot too much or too little.

I think analyzing the impacts of our ordinances is a good practice.

My concern, though, again, is SDCI simply does not have this information.

the Superior Court, King County Superior Court is the body that would have the information, the filings that tenants make as it relates to the defenses and the use of this particular just cause and whether or not a certification was filed.

SDCI simply does not have that information.

And I'd be happy to work with the amendment sponsor to try to figure out how we could get this information from King County Superior Court in the future, but I just don't think that this is a mechanism that's appropriate to put on SDCI.

I'm just concerned it would be burdensome to them.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I would just add that I think I've heard some of the similar concerns that Councilmember Herbold has heard, Again, in many instances, we do ask for report backs specifically for new policies where we want to be able to assess the effectiveness of the policy.

When you look at our labor standard laws, for example, almost all of them include some level of deep evaluation of how the law is working or isn't Um, working and, um, and I, I've had the benefit of being the sponsor of some of those report back requirements, not because I had an intent to unravel the law in the future or make some argument that the law was being used too often.

But, uh, frankly, because I think it's helpful information and data to continue to fine tune.

the policy to make sure that those laws are actually meeting the needs of the people that it's intended to benefit.

And so I think in this instance, again, I'm not sure it makes sense to require SDCI to go through the extraordinary effort of monitoring the King County Superior Court eviction proceedings and filings for a period of six months.

lived eviction defense.

And I think that what we're trying to accomplish here is creating maximum access to that.

And while I appreciate the desire to want to be able to have some sort of a metric associated to it, I'm just not sure that SDCI, as a fee-funded agency, has the capacity to do this body of work.

and I'm not sure that I want them to be investing their limited resources in this body of work when this law is intended to be in place only for a six-month period of time after the conclusion of the eviction moratorium as declared by Mayor Durkin.

So that's my position on this particular amendment, and I see that Council Member Mosqueda has also raised her hand.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Council President.

Thanks to the sponsor for the clarification on what this amendment is intended to do.

I'm a little torn as well, and I believe that getting the data is important.

I heard that there might be follow-up conversations to be had about how we can ensure that folks are getting access to these services.

One thing that I will note that I thought was missing from the report back, if we were to go down this route, perhaps not through SCCI, but through another body reporting back to us is how race and ethnicity will be reported.

Given the latest numbers that we saw on Friday, we know, for example, that Hispanics are four times more likely to be admitted to the hospital due to COVID and two and a half times more likely to die due to COVID-related deaths.

So I think as we think about the protections that we're putting into place under this emergency that is COVID, as we think about getting feedback about these programs and any future reporting back, I would like to see race and ethnicity reported back.

I agree with Council President in that SDCI is probably not necessarily the right body to do this, but I appreciate the spirit in which the amendment was put forward.

And if there are to be future conversations, I think as Council Member Herbold had indicated, that the race and ethnicity element be something that we include as a requirement for reporting back on these various protections.

due to the disparity that we see and how COVID is affecting various communities.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

And I think that the bigger issue that Council Member Herbold is flagging is that the City of Seattle does not track any of this information, period, because we don't do, we're not in the business of arbitrating, being the arbitrators and the finders of fact of eviction defenses.

That is something that is within a different jurisdiction being King County, and we do not currently have any sort of data sharing agreement with them or data sharing plan with them related to that information.

And so, I suppose that the worry really is, is are we setting up SDCI for inherent failure or are we setting them up to require them to expend resources that they may not have accessible to them to set up a data collection process for a defense that's only going to be in existence for six months by definition in the ordinance?

Council Member Strauss.

Yeah, thank you, Council President.

I have regular meetings with SDCI.

And while I truly do appreciate the desire for data so that we can create good public policy, I'm not sure that data that is hard to identify for a temporary bill is the best use of time.

And I will reiterate to SDCI my request for additional work work on the tree ordinance that I made last week.

And I will be voting no on this bill so as to ensure that they have staff time to create the tree ordinance that I am requesting.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments or questions from my colleagues?

All right, so I'm going to go ahead and call for a vote on this particular amendment.

So will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of amendment 5A version 2?

Salant?

No.

Drouse?

Nay.

Herbold?

Nay.

Is that a tie?

Herbold?

Nay.

Thank you.

Juarez?

They.

Lewis.

Day.

Morales.

No.

Mosqueda.

No.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

No.

One in favor.

Eight opposed.

Okay, the motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Okay, colleagues, I think that completes the list of amendments that we have on this particular bill.

I wanna thank you all for slugging it out with me.

I know it's 4.30 p.m., so let's go ahead and move along here.

Are there any comments on the bill as amended?

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to make a couple of comments before the vote.

I fully intend to vote for this legislation and I appreciate you for bringing it forward.

You know, as one of the two renters on the council, I think it's critical that we extend protection to renters in this time to make sure that we can keep people inside, especially in this time of uncertainty in addition to public health threats.

I just want to clarify too, for the people that commented earlier when we did have public comment that addressed this bill.

There is no city law that's authorizing, condoning, or calling for people to not pay their rent.

Just because there's a moratorium on evictions does not mean that the city is seeking to condone folks not paying rent, nor is a rent strike an official city policy.

And I think that that's important for members of the public to know.

This council, for the record, additionally, to everyone earlier who was talking about as an alternative to this moratorium putting money into rent support, as was alluded earlier by Councilmember Herbold and others, this council has put millions of dollars into rent relief before and during this crisis with more on the way.

rent relief is a criteria or is a priority of this council and continues to be and will continue to be, but we face the problem that we have 1.4 million Washingtonians that are unemployed and that state and federal unemployment and relief has been slow coming, hard to access, glitchy, websites have been crashing, and we are in a period of immense and extreme uncertainty regarding how people are going to immediately make their rent.

And it puts a lot of Washingtonians in a position where while they could ordinarily dependably be able to pay their rent on time, it might take some folks a little bit more time to do it.

And while I'm sure that many of the landlords who commented earlier and who have been contacting my office, I'm sure that I completely believe all of their representations that they are exceptional landlords, that they're working with folks to cut them some slack.

but we cannot make policy as a city council that is just going to trust that folks that are facing completely unique hardships are not going to be put in a position where they are going to be on the street and in a precarious position during this public health crisis and then later during the slow and um, circuitous recovery.

I did also want to flag, um, to a lot of the landlords who commented earlier.

Um, there are a lot of actions that the city and the state has done to help to alleviate the pressures that landlords are facing.

Um, there are delayed payments of property taxes that King County is doing.

Um, we have delayed, we are delaying payments of B&O taxes, um, given the hardship of the current crisis.

The city is delaying utility payments for folks who have to pay utilities.

All of these things are designed to try to defer some of the costs of landlords while we know full well that because of the nature of what's happening in the marketplace, some rent may be deferred because people are gonna have trouble paying rent or have to wait for relief to come through before they can do it.

and i i just want to state as a tenant uh...

who is currently in a state that has an eviction moratorium uh...

i did pay my rent i paid my rent cuz i'm in a position to pay it i will continue to do it because that's an obligation that i assumed when i signed a lease i am not refusing to pay merely because there's a moratorium in place and most of my fellow renters if they can pay are in a position to pay will pay Renters are professionals.

Two of us are on the Seattle City Council.

Some of us as renters are gig workers who are suffering and are on the margins.

Some of us as renters worked in restaurants and have been unemployed for weeks now because that industry has fallen off a cliff.

We are not a homogenous group, and if we're in a position to pay, we are going to pay.

We are not going to hold out purely because we are in a position where there's a rent moratorium and there's a perception that we could.

We're not going to do that.

It's just not something that is going to happen.

But we do know that there are going to be lots of people who aren't in a position to pay because they're suffering from these hardships that I just enumerated.

And we as a council will continue to support rent support for people to make sure that they have the resources to meet those obligations.

We're going to continue to work with our federal and state partners to expand on employment, to expand relief, to make sure that people have the resources to pay their landlords.

But I did just want to take this moment to clear up some of those misconceptions, to explain why I'm going to vote for this legislation today, and to say that I want to continue to work with everyone who testified publicly before, my colleagues on the council, to make sure that we can continue to fight for relief and continue to fight for protections for renters as well as get through this crisis.

to make sure that those deferred rent payments, not forgiven, but deferred rent payments will be made ultimately when we get on the other side of this.

So thank you, Madam President, for bringing this forward, and I will be voting in favor of this legislation.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Well stated.

Colleagues, any other comments on the bill as amended?

Councilmember Sawant, and then Councilmember Strauss, and Councilmember Mosqueda.

Councilmember Sawant, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much.

willfully refusing to, they're unable to pay rent because they have lost work hours or even jobs to the COVID emergency and recession.

In the first week of April, 31% of renters were unable to pay their rent in full.

I've not seen May statistics come out yet, but I'm sure that the crisis faced by renters is continuing, especially in the light of the new data that we've seen that the federal stimulus checks have not reached a majority of working-class households who are actually eligible for it.

And we know that that problem is translating into the impact on lives of tens of thousands of people, working people, many of whom are renters in Seattle, the vast majority of whom are renters.

And this would mean that tens of thousands of renters in Seattle are unable to pay their rent right now.

It would be completely unacceptable for them to be evicted with everything that it entails.

As I mentioned earlier in 2017, according to the losing home report, nearly nine out of 10 renters who were evicted ended up homeless.

Many of them were children.

They were disproportionately working class people of color.

Four of the evicted tenants in 2017 committed suicide.

That is why the rent strike movement nationwide, as I said, there's hundreds of organizations that are involved in demanding that rent, mortgage, and utility payments be suspended, or in other words, canceled during this emergency, and also demanding that rents be frozen for the rest of the year, meaning no rent increases for the rest of the year.

And as I've mentioned in the past, that online petition that was started by activists in Washington state and now has been signed by over 3 million signatories nationwide.

And our statewide petition has been signed by more than 9,000 Washingtonians.

And it's really interesting to see how something that is politically impossible in one moment becomes commonplace in the next.

Only a few months ago, our movement fought for and won the ban on winter evictions.

It was the first of its kind in the country.

And now cities and states across the country in the context of the pandemic have banned evictions, at least temporarily, and are now extending those rights with legislation like this one that we're going to be voting on.

You know, Council Member Peterson has proudly pointed out the I want to thank councilmember Herbold for the amendment he made in the winter evictions ordinance to exclude renters who supposedly have smaller landlords.

I thank her for noting this.

As I had noted at that time, unfortunately, the majority of the council did not agree with that at that time which was actually the truth.

It is virtually impossible for At that time, that amendment passed.

Unfortunately, the majority of the council voted for it.

But now it is important that the majority of the council stood against that.

And it's becoming increasingly clear to millions of people that the private market has completely failed to make housing a human right.

And socialists have already always pointed out that the private market will not meet human need.

But that reality has now magnified by so many orders of magnitude in the impact it has on human misery in the context of the pandemic.

And as far as rent strike and the demands of renters are concerned, here is the reality.

And this is the bitter reality.

Once the eviction moratoria are lifted, there will, if renters don't fight back, if renters don't get organized, they will face a massive wave of eviction throughout the nation.

We saw that, as I said, in the Great Recession with homeownership of middle-class households being completely destroyed by the big banks and the big mortgage holders.

Already right now we are seeing big landlords and property managers not complying with existing law.

I just got an email from a renter today who said that they had already faced a rent increase from Cornell and Associates, which is a big property manager in this area, and that is violating the governor's order.

So renters are already being forced to fight to have existing law enforced, let alone what will happen when those emergency orders are lifted.

And so that is why renters need to get organized.

And that is the purpose behind the nationwide rent strike movement, which is, you know, including hundreds of community organizations and tenants rights organization.

And lastly, I will say that in addition to fighting for renters' rights, we will need a massive expansion of social housing, which cannot be accomplished without progressive revenues.

And that is why I would really urge that the council support the Amazon tax proposed by Council Member Morales and myself.

And again, I'm happy to vote yes on this legislation.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant.

I think I will need a reminder as to who was next in line.

Was it Councilmember Strauss?

Yes, Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Mosqueda.

Councilmember Strauss, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Council President.

Just wanting to say, you know, this is a crisis, an international pandemic that we are responding to where we do not, we're not conducting life as normally as we did, you know, months ago.

And I want to just thank everyone who is participating in looking out for their neighbor, looking out for themselves.

When I read Danny Westmeat's tale of two landlords, granted it was regarding commercial landlords, there's a clear difference between people who are living in Seattle and part of our community and folks who are not.

And I wanna just take a moment to thank any person, whether you're a landlord or any other business who has looked out for your neighbor and allowed payment plans or not gone through evictions or provided affordable, below market rate housing.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for pitching in.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to offer a note of appreciation for all the work that you've done on this legislation.

I know it's been many weeks of stakeholder engagement and refining drafts on the legislation.

We heard initial feedback from the tenants advocates and Washington Community Action Network about the legislation.

related to removing barriers for tents experiencing economic hardship due to their documentation status or working in the gig economy, where it would be really difficult to prove or provide documentation of financial hardship due to COVID impacting their ability to pay rent.

So, really want to appreciate all the work that you've done as the bill sponsor for incorporating this feedback.

This legislation would provide a protection for tenants who are most impacted by the economic effects of COVID during the months when they are most vulnerable for six months and for six months after the civil emergency has lifted.

We know that this is just one piece of the puzzle.

We also need rent and mortgage forgiveness at the federal level to protect both tenants and small landlords.

rental assistance on a massive scale with federal, state, and local support, and more investments and dedicated revenue for building affordable housing to make sure everyone is able to stay home and stay healthy.

I want to just underscore the point that I think a lot of folks made on that national call last Friday, and I tried to really hammer home.

Not all landlords are the same, and that is why we know it's important for us to get federal assistance for small landlords, for housing authority entities like the Seattle Housing Authority and King County Housing Authority and for our nonprofit housing providers.

So having that type of assistance from the federal level with support for Representative Ilhan Omar's bill is going to be critical.

And that not all tenants are treated the same.

Right now, we have statistics from pre-COVID that show that the type of folks that are already experiencing housing discrimination and who are more likely to face evictions are women, are people of color, are immigrants, are the LGBTQ population.

And so with COVID, we are wanting to double down on our commitments to protect these already vulnerable populations.

I really appreciate the effort that you have put forward into this legislation to work with those stakeholders to move forward this commitment to lift up our protections for all folks, especially those who are experiencing this type of discrimination even prior to COVID.

Thank you so much, happy to vote yes on this bill.

Thank you, Council Member Minsky, I appreciate your support.

Any other colleagues have comments on the bill at the minute?

Okay, I will close out debate before we call this bill to a vote.

So colleagues, the bill we have before us today is in direct response to the COVID-19 crisis.

When this crisis started to unfold, we saw thousands of workers And indeed now we know it's well over a million workers who have abruptly lost their jobs.

Workers who are hourly wage earners with the hospitality and tourism industries hit particularly hard.

In some instances in that hospitality industry in the first week alone, their unemployment filings went up by over 600%.

During the month of March, we saw unemployment filings more than double in one week, only for that number to increase by 842% the following week.

Last week, the Seattle Times reported that more than one in five, more than one in five Washingtonians have applied for unemployment benefits, and we know this number would be greater if everyone actually could apply.

I'm proud of our city and our state for its quick, science-driven response to contain the spread of the coronavirus and flatten the curve.

The Declaration of States of Emergency and the actions by the mayor and the governor to put moratoriums in place against residential evictions in mid-March will keep many people safe and housed.

I'm appreciative to them for those actions that they took and I'm also appreciative to the Attorney General's Office for doing enforcement.

However, we know that the moratoriums will expire at their earliest in sometime in June, and it is unlikely that the civil emergency will be lifted at that same time.

Recovery is going to take time, and we know our economy will be back in phases, not all at once, and with social distancing protocols, it will continue to present issues for whether or not we will come out of this economic crisis quickly or slowly.

With the likelihood of the moratoriums on evictions being lifted before the conclusion of a civil emergency, there is that window of time where many people remain vulnerable if they are particularly impacted by this pandemic.

This legislation before us today can help people stay housed, and that is the bottom line.

This bill expands on the city's Just Cause eviction ordinance.

Similar to the defenses created by that ordinance, this legislation creates an additional tool, a defense.

A tenant may utilize an eviction court proceedings, but it is a time-limited tool.

This bill would cover that period of time between the end of the moratorium during the civil emergency and once the mayor declares the civil emergency over.

It will make this tool available to those who need it for a period of six months after that date.

This bill is not an extension of moratoriums by the mayor or the governor.

In fact, it does not prohibit landlords from taking actions associated with evictions, like filing of unlawful detainers, issuing determination notices, or initiating a writ of resolution.

I want to make that really clear because a lot of the testimony that we've been receiving in the public makes it seem as though we are getting rid of all of our landlord-tenant laws, and that's just simply not the case.

What we are doing is we are enhancing existing landlord-tenant laws to benefit tenants who are going to need additional time to get their feet grounded and to be able to continue to dig out of this economic crisis.

So I want to make sure that we are rooting our policy in those real renter stories and who is being impacted by the reality of this economic crisis and that intersection between that economic crisis and housing stability.

undertook the effort of collecting stories of people who've been impacted by this crisis.

Of the people who responded to that story collection exercise, we learned that nearly 64% of the respondents lost their jobs due to this crisis, with many waiting several weeks before unemployment benefits would come in.

An additional 18% of the respondents had their hours or income severely reduced as a result of this crisis.

the business closure because of the pandemic.

And some tenants shared that while some of their landlords had graciously reduced their rent, most people just didn't understand how they would ever be able to pay the rent on May 1st.

And in fact, we've heard some stories of people skipping meals each day to save money for rent, utilities, and other expenses after seeing their hours were severely cut.

shared with us that they were at risk at losing their health insurance because they'll drop below full-time status.

People shared with us, quote, I just don't know.

I'm terrified.

We just moved into this apartment after escaping from a horrible landlord.

Now we're finally somewhere safe, and now we're afraid we're going to lose it already.

If we do, we don't know where we'll go.

I can't move home due to abusive, dangerous family.

We feel completely helpless.

Another renter shared with us that they live with four people.

All of them are out of work due to COVID.

Many do not meet the standards for unemployment, and at this time, they don't know how they'll pay rent in the month of May.

These are real stories from our constituents throughout the city who would see relief potentially out of this law if we were to pass it today.

So these are the stories that we need to root this policy in, and the weekly stories we hear about our state's unemployment system working overtime to keep up means we know tens of thousands in our city are still waiting to get those promised benefits.

This legislation ultimately is a way to have more time for people impacted by this crisis to figure things out.

These individuals and families will have a longer road to recover from this crisis.

And many of us on this council, as articulated by Council Member Lewis, have been advocating for more rental assistance.

and additional mortgage relief and deferral of property taxes to help renters and small landlords alike.

And we will continue to work with our state and federal partners on making sure that those needs are met through COVID-19 relief packages.

I know I'm committed to doing that.

I know that folks on this council are committed to continuing to do that.

And with that, I'm really excited about calling this particular council bill Um, to a vote.

So with that being said, I will ask the clerk, please call the role of passage of the bill as amended.

I Strauss.

All right.

Purple.

Hi.

Hi, Lewis.

Hi.

Morales.

Hi.

Miskara I. Pearson.

I. President Gonzalez I. Nine in favor, none opposed.

I thank you clerk.

The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it and I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on behalf.

Thank you colleagues for that wonderful conversation.

I think we are doing something really important for our thousands of renters across the city.

Thank you so much.

Will the clerk please read the short titles of items four through six into the record.

503 Interlake Avenue North.

Council Bill 119782 relating to the financing of fire facilities, creating a fund for depositing proceeds of limited tax general obligation bonds in 2021. Council Bill 119781 relating to the Seattle Department of Finance Administrative Services authorizing the acquisition of real property being identified in King County records.

Good to see you.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

Council members, the clerk read items four through six into the record, and we'll discuss these items as a package, but we will take a separate vote on each bill.

Council member Herbold, as the lead sponsor, would you like to address these bills first?

Absolutely, thank you.

I will address all three of them together.

Council Bill 119780 is a bill that establishes an interim state lease for Fire Station 31. The site lease itself addresses issues such as lease terms, monthly rent, parking and funding.

The lease term period goes from January 1st, 2021 through December 31st, 2026. Council Bill 119781 primarily authorizes FAS to purchase property in the vicinity of 113th Ave and Meridian Avenue North as the permanent site for Fire Station 31. And the bill limits the maximum purchase price for the property to $4.5 million.

Council Bill 1197-82 does a number of things.

It creates a new fund called the 2021 Multipurpose Limited Tax General Obligation Bond Fund.

The purpose of the fund is to receive funds and distribute LTGO bond proceeds.

We will not be issuing the bonds right now.

We are going to be replenishing that fund with funds from an inner fund loan.

That's $8.2 million of an inner fund loan from the construction and inspections fund to this newly created fund.

We will then pay back the $8.2 million.

to the construction and inspections fund once we issue the LTGO bond fund.

And then finally, the bill itself creates a new capital project within the capital improvement program.

The new capital project is called Fire Station 31 Replacement Project, and really appreciate the leadership of Chief Scoggins, FAS Director Calvin Goines, Local 27, and Council Member Juarez, who is also a sponsor of this legislation, really tipped I would like to give a tip of the hat to Councilmember Juarez for her efforts during the budget process last year, and identify $100,000 of refunds as a way to jumpstart the need for this replacement station.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Are there any other comments on the bills before us?

Did you want me to address briefly the three, or how did you want to do this?

Yeah, we are discussing all four bills right now.

We'll take separate votes.

So if you have any comments on any of the three bills, now's the time to make those comments.

Great.

OK, great.

Yes, items 4, 5, and 6. First of all, thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for covering the basics and some of the detail on the financial plan.

Obviously, I'm glad to see this legislation before us today to relocate Fire Station 31 in the Northgate neighborhood in District 5. A special thanks, of course, to Chief Scoggins, Calvin Goins, FAS, and Kenny Stewart, the President of Firefighters Union, IAF, Local 27. The fire station is located south of Northwest Hospital, north of North Seattle College, and west of I-5 and Northgate Mall.

As many of you recall, the growing Northgate neighborhood lost Fire Station 31 last summer when firefighters were all relocated to other stations.

Relocation was necessary due to environmental testing, which revealed unhealthy conditions.

And as you remember, this has been an ongoing issue for a few years.

Since then, I've been pleased to be in regular contact with both Chief and FAS director Calvin Goings about next steps.

They review the current station capacity, the current system demand on the station, and the forecast for future demand.

According to Chief Scoggins, Fire Station 31 is one of the busiest stations in our city.

In addition, the relocation of firefighters last June resulted in higher response times that exceed the fire department standards.

So higher response times, that makes us very happy.

In the end, the city concluded that the current station 31 is too small to meet the needs of anticipated population growth in the north end, particularly with light rail coming at Northgate and hopefully our other station up the road on 130th.

But in any way, in meeting these needs of growth and increased service demand, so rather than trying to salvage an environmentally unhealthy and uninhabitable station, that will soon be too small, the recommendation was that the station should be replaced.

And so with that, I urge my colleagues to pass item Council Bill 119780, Council Bill 119782, and Council Bill 119781. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Any other questions or comments on any of these three bills?

Council Member Sawant, the floor is yours.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I of course support improving the infrastructure of the Seattle Fire Department, including the development of the new Fire Station 31, which is essentially being authorized by these three bills.

For Council Members who agree with the Fire Station 31 project, I just wanted to point out for the benefit of the public that the bill in Agenda Item 5 is totally routine legislation authorizing the Interfund loan.

The city uses an Interfund loan to make the funding immediately available when it can most efficiently be used.

and states the plan for how the loan will be repaid.

And I hope members of the public notice the difference between how the political establishment has talked about this interfund loan proposed by Mayor Durkin, that has not at all talked about it, and the interfund loan proposed by Council Member Morales and me in our Amazon tax bill to make COVID relief stimulus checks immediately available to the neediest of Seattle's working-class families, ultimately to be paid for, of course, by the tax on big business.

Rather than discuss the substance of the Amazon tax and the COVID relief and the jobs program that it will fund, the political establishment instead has mostly focused on the administrative inter-fund loan legislation in an attempt to sow confusion and distract from the substantive issues.

The mayor has toured news stations saying, quote, The Interfund loans, the funds that they want to rob, I am not sure that they have the authority to do that because those were all voter approved initiatives.

As importantly, to the extent that there is the ability to have Interfund loans, which is a budget technique, we may need that just to balance the budget this year.

So there is no scenario under which people would receive checks this year.

And I think that's really not responsible to tell people during these really hard times, end quote.

I hope Mayor Durkin will clarify if she also thinks that it is irresponsible to tell the fire department that they will be purchasing the land for Fire Station 31 this year, funded with this interfund loan.

Obviously, an interfund loan of $200 million for COVID-19 relief for up to 100,000 working-class families is at a totally different scale than the 8 million Interfund loan at question on question today.

And it would be appropriate if elected officials were openly to discuss whether the city had actually had funds to cover a loan of that size, which is precisely why We made sure that city Council central staff's research was presented that strongly demonstrates that the city does have sufficient funds.

Instead, the mayor has dishonestly claimed that it was somehow technically impossible or even illegal to carry out an inter-fund loan.

which is a common tactic used by the political establishment to confuse ordinary people in their fight for social justice.

You know, for example, in Congress, for decades, they have justified opposing single-payer health care by claiming that it is just impractical and too complicated and, you know, working people should not believe that those lies for one moment.

So I will, of course, be voting on yes on all three legislation, including the totally routine legislation authorizing the Interfund loan to provide the bridge funding for the Fire Station 31 project.

And I urge members of the public to see this example of how an Interfund loan authorization legislation was approached as a completely uncontroversial issue compared to the way the mayor has reacted to the Amazon tax legislation related Interfund loan.

I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions from my colleagues?

Councilmember Herbold?

Councilmember Sawant partially made this but I want to underscore this is a very different in scale.

for a small number of dollars.

It is not $50 million from four different voter-approved levies.

I'm not commenting on the legality of the latter fund.

I'm just saying that this is a different source of funds for the Interfund loan, and it's a much smaller number of funds.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any other comments?

Okay, great.

Thank you so much to both council members Herbold and Juarez for walking us through these bills.

Looks like there are no other additional comments.

So we're gonna move forward with each bill and council members will have a final opportunity to provide comments if they wish before we vote on each item.

So we'll begin with item four.

I will move to pass council bill 119780. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Council Member Herbold has already spoken to this bill.

Are there any additional comments on the bill?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Sawant.

Aye.

Straus.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

And I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Item number five, I will move to pass council bill 119782. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Are there any further comments on the bill?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Go on.

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

And I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Moving on to agenda item six, I will move to pass council bill 119781. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Are there any further comments on the bill?

Okay, seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

The wand.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes, and the chair will sign it, and I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Okay, colleagues, we are now in other business.

I understand there's one item of other business, so I will hand it over to Council Member Strauss to quickly walk us through that item.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, colleagues, for taking the time to look at the letter that we have circulated for the last week or so.

I wanna in particular thank Council Member Morales as this is her subject area purview on the council and she has made this letter much better and I just wanna thank her for giving me graces.

I work with constituents in District Six in regards to this letter and I know that the work from the constituents in District Six have been in contact, Restaurants United in particular, has been in contact with restaurants and businesses all across the city.

And so this isn't just a D6, this is a citywide letter.

So the genesis of this letter arose from numerous organic discussions my staff and I had with small businesses and them organizing as the COVID pandemic occurred, it became clear to us that the structure, execution, and magnitude of the state and federal programs were falling short of addressing the real needs of our local establishments.

And so in addition, I'm greatly appreciative of fellow council members and everyone who provided constructive comments based upon their own interactions with the restaurants and small businesses in their districts.

And we have incorporated almost everyone's additions.

So we are sending this letter to Senator Patty Murray, Senator Maria Cantwell, Representative Adam Smith, Representative Pramila Jayapal, Governor Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Speaker Lori Jenkins, and Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig.

We decided to combine the federal and state letters to be able to provide both our Washington state level and our federal level delegation the understanding of what we're requesting in a comprehensive manner, because as my staff has worked with small businesses to help them navigate the different layers of resources at different levels of government, it's clear that we need to be coordinated in these ways.

And so from the Ballard Brewery District, I especially want to thank Amy, Raymond, Laura, Grace, and Haley.

Your work around this has been very productive and very helpful.

And I really appreciate all of the work that you do in our in our brewery district area.

Also from Seattle Restaurants United Ian Nichols and Jeannie Chun on behalf of many many many many restaurants the list is too long for this conversation at this time.

in particular, Bakers in Valley.

Also, Fremont Chamber of Commerce, Brandy, and Finney Neighborhood Association, Chris, your assistance has been very helpful.

I'll just briefly highlight what's in the letter.

We've broken it into five categories.

The first category is increased flexibility for small businesses.

Within here, it's supporting an extension of the current City of Seattle moratorium on commercial evictions at higher levels of government, forbearance of business mortgage payments, payroll credits to compensate workers for lost wages, support a paycheck guarantee that covers 100% of wages for workers.

The bucket number two is greater predictability for local partnerships, consistency and clarity in government messaging.

That's been especially difficult as there's different layers of government with different levels of resources, procedural and legal guidance for small businesses, navigating relief programs, providing funding for technical assistance, provide non-English speaking small business owners and those without regular access to the internet with assistance, providing access to mediators.

The fourth bucket being, and I'm just kind of hitting high level right now because we've been in this council meeting for over three hours and it's after five and I want to Just be respectful.

So the fourth bucket is equitable access to relief programs, establishing a grant program that better aligns with the needs of small businesses, processing of EIDL and PPP being standardized, ensuring small businesses have equitable access to funding opportunities, remedying severe structural issues with the PPP benefit, directing grant stimulus to small businesses, and the fifth bucket being long-term solutions beyond the immediate crisis.

And this is something we talked about in council today, that the solutions that we need to recover from this crisis are going to extend beyond the last date that we have on our calendars.

And so fight for adequate testing and contract tracking capabilities, providing federal stimulus funds directly to cities, advocate, require all businesses, insurance carriers, offer a rider for pandemic, suspension of or decrease in federal taxes on these smallest businesses, institute a PPP-style loan forgiveness program, provide forbearance on these loans, enact a tax credit for rehiring laid-off or furloughed workers, and increase production and distribution of personal protective equipment.

So that's a short summary of a long letter, and I really appreciate everyone participating in this, and I would ask for your signature on this letter.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Any questions or comments on the letter?

We will do a quick roll call to allow Council Member Strauss to secure his signatures, but just wanted to provide folks an opportunity to ask questions or respond before doing so.

Okay, looks like folks are ready.

So I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll to secure signatures on the letter as described by Council Member Strauss.

Lance.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson aye.

President Gonzalez aye.

Nine in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you so much.

There you go, Council Member Strauss.

You got your signatures.

Please feel free to move forward with that.

Colleagues, this concludes our very long meeting today.

I want to thank you all for your patience and for your active engagement in today's meeting.

That concludes all items of business on our agenda.

The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 11, 2020 at 2 p.m.

We are now adjourned.

Thank you so much.

Bye.

Thank you.

Bye.