Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers’ Rights Committee 4/18/19

Well, good morning.

Thank you all for being here.

Today is Thursday, April 18, 2019. The Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 9.32, and I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

I'll be joined shortly by Councilmember Juarez, who is in route.

Councilmember Bageshot is not able to join us today, but she did share some messages with me to share with the committee.

And Councilmember Herbold will be joining us for part of the meeting today, as well as our alternate.

We have five items on the agenda for today.

The first is the Office of Housing 2018 annual report, which is this very large document and attachments.

Thank you, Office of Housing, for your work on that.

The Seattle City Light response and recommendations on the expansion of the home repair program.

Council Member O'Brien may be joining us for that as well, as this was a statement of legislative intent that he prime sponsored, and we had the opportunity to co-sponsor with Council Member Bagshaw.

And we'll have a brief overview of the Fort Lawton redevelopment plan, as well as the discussion and possible vote on the paid sick and safe time ordinance that we are going to consider today.

And finally, a resolution supporting safe and responsive workplaces in the city's legislative department or legislative branch.

I think I accidentally said Seattle City Light when what I meant to say was Statement of legislative intent from our folks who are also with the office of housing.

So sorry for the confusion so those five items are on our agenda housing and paid sick and safe time and The response that we're putting forward for the legislative department around safe sick, and I'm sorry.

We're related to safe and responsible workplaces So at this time, we will go ahead and open up for items that appear on today's agenda.

We have one person signed up.

Thank you so much for being here.

Sandra Taylor, if you'd like to come to the microphone, you're welcome to testify.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Sandra Taylor.

Sandra, if you could speak just right into one of those.

There you go.

All right.

My name is Sandra Taylor.

I am the Seattle Preschool Program Coordinator with Child Care Resources.

And on behalf of the six family child care programs in Child Care Resources Seattle Preschool Pilot Hub, thanks so much for the opportunity to present our program to you, and more importantly, for including in-home family child care programs in this SPP pilot over the past two years.

Family Child accounts for 20% to 30% of all preschool slots in Seattle.

and offers children and families such rich experiences, we are so grateful to be included in this program.

I am excited to touch on a couple of highlights of our work over the past two years, as well as thoughts about where we could go from here.

First, it's important to point out the uniqueness of the family child care model.

FCC providers cultivate and maintain much deeper relationships with both the children in their care and their families, largely due to the intimacy of an in-home environment with fewer children.

This deeper understanding of children's needs and family situations combined with the nimbleness of a smaller program impacts how a provider customizes her teaching, caregiving, and parent involvement.

These two unique strengths definitely contributed to the positive outcomes the pilot participants experienced.

And it was easy for all six of the FCC providers in my pilot hub to identify differences in their programs pre-SPP pilot compared to their programs today.

Four significant improvements to all of their programs include evidence-based curriculum to guide daily learning activities, assessment tools to better track children's development and progress, towards milestones, access to free third-party health screenings that identify learning barriers such as vision impairments or developmental delays that need medical intervention, and biannual observation from a UW assessment team to track the outcomes of the tools.

One such assessment recently reported that the vocabulary level of children in FC programs was equal to or higher than that of children in center-based SPP programs.

These program improvements help increase providers' confidence going into upcoming rounds of early achievers' re-rating cycles, where some or all of these FCC programs will likely earn a level four rating.

Another recent highlight was our experience participating in the SPP case study coordinated by Seattle Readiness Consulting.

The FCC model is very different from a center-based child care model, particularly around staffing and capacity to participate in such activities without disruption in their program.

I was very impressed with the flexibility shown by Diehl and the consulting firm in accommodating the unique schedules and availability of the FCC participants, even hosting an evening focus group that began at 10 p.m.

East Coast time.

The recognition and accommodation of FCC scheduling challenges meant that all six programs were able to participate in rich conversation together.

Looking forward, with these new resources in place at these stronger programs, there is a clear desire and natural progression to focus on quality and reflective practice to foster further growth and improvement.

Additional needs will include support in getting certified for the TSG assessment tool and the means to hire ample staff to perform regular assessments without learning disruption.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Sandra.

And we'd love to also have you, if you are planning on it, come to the 2 p.m.

Gender Equity and New Americans and Education Committee.

We're going to be talking about this a little bit more this afternoon as well.

Really appreciate you being here.

I get to sit on that committee as well, and we know that everything related to child care and child care access also creates greater workforce stability and housing stability.

So it definitely ties into our work plan.

So thank you for being here this morning.

and Farideh can share with you more information about this afternoon as well.

Thank you.

Anybody else here to testify?

No.

Okay, seeing none, that will close today's public comment, and we will move on to the first item on our agenda.

Buddy, if you could read into the record item number one, and while she's doing that, if we could be joined by Steve Walker, the Director of the Office of Housing, Miriam Roskin, Emily Alvarado, and anyone from central staff is also welcome to join us.

Erin House, why don't you come join us as well from our office?

Agenda item one office of housing 2018 annual investments report for briefing and discussion Thank you all for being here and let's go down the line and do introductions Councilmember Mosqueda's office Steve Walker office of housing Miriam Roskin office of housing Emily Alvarado office of housing Jennifer the Breck office of housing Well, welcome.

Thank you so much for being here.

We're really excited about this conversation.

We see this as the first of many conversations today.

You're really teeing up for us the framework for our future discussions around the administration and finance plan and as well as the discussion that we heard a lot about last night from some of the candidates interested in serving in District 4. There's a need to talk about updating our multifamily tax exemption program.

the renewal and update we will be talking about this summer.

And I think what you'll discuss today will also help us think about how we'd like to direct future investments based on successes and takeaways in these investments.

You know, we all know that affordable housing is the long-term solution to housing in affordability in this area and the homelessness crisis that Seattle is facing.

As we've talked about before, this is an issue that cities across the nation are really grappling with.

And we've had a lot of cities come to Seattle before and learn from us, which I'm really proud of.

And in this day and age, we're also learning from other cities in how they've scaled up, scaled up many of the programs that we've piloted with additional resources.

They've been also able to be successful there.

So as we look at how we're making investments in affordable housing, I'm especially interested in how we're supporting community-driven projects that serve those who are most impacted by housing displacement, the cost of housing, the homelessness crisis, and particularly how we're better serving communities of color who definitely are showing a growing interest in both site control and getting into development and ownership and self-direction of projects within their communities that not only create housing but create cultural space as well.

You know, we talk about plazas and child cares and small business opportunities and community centers as well as senior programs that can be operated out of buildings that are being generated to create affordable housing.

As we begin to get more into the conversation around the payments coming in through MHA and how we'd like to see those divvy up, I'm very interested in how we're identifying other resources for more robust investments in affordable housing, such as bonding against existing revenue sources, which I know is something we talked about last year, and we want to also get into conversations around what other revenue streams maybe we should be taking advantage of that have a high return on investment that we haven't yet taken full advantage of.

Really interested in your takeaways on how we can braid funds.

One of the concerns that we heard is that there's often silos within government.

That's nothing new.

We have a lot of really great programs for example our equitable development initiative I think mirrors some of the work that you are trying to do in the office of housing Which is not making sure that we're not only investing in the housing units, but as we talked about those cultural spaces So love to hear more on what we can do going forward to continue to braid EDI funds with office of housing funds and to realize that projects are that invest in housing and cultural space really do create community.

And I think we have some great examples of that up in D5.

Thank you for being here, Council Member Juarez.

I appreciate you coming.

That's okay.

The traffic was really bad.

I let them know you were...

Somebody should do something about that.

Somebody ought to do something about that.

I let them know you were battling your way down, but really we had a great chance to visit some of these new sites that are being generated in the North End, especially around child care facilities, which is a really great opportunity for us to learn from what we've already done and see what we can do this year to bring in more of those community desires and make them actionable in your plan.

With that, we'll turn it over.

We know you guys have a few pieces on the agenda, so we want to run through it as fast as possible.

We have about an hour for your three different components.

Great.

Thank you for that intro.

And I'm going to kick us off, and we're going to tag team across the table here.

But we are excited to be here today to share an overview of our annual investment report, which is a wrap-up of the impacts of all of our programs during the 2018 calendar year.

from rental housing and home ownership development to home repair and our weatherization activities.

We have a lot to share.

And before getting started on what will be represented here as selected highlights of the year, I want to make important note that we have submitted all of our annual reports to you.

They're all on our website.

and that we take very seriously a commitment to both stewardship and transparency.

With that, I think I'm going to turn to Emily.

So I like to remind us before we launch into about 40 minutes of presentation about dollars and buildings and sites and acquisition that we're really always talking about people when we're talking about housing.

And so I wanted to touch really briefly with a reminder of who we are building housing for.

Housing is about the people, and it's about the individuals and families who are living on the street or in shelter, veterans and working people, many of whom were born and raised in our region who are exiting homelessness to live in affordable homes.

This is about the families that have lived in Seattle neighborhoods for generations who are watching their neighbors priced out and affordable housing investments allow them to stay.

This is about the people who make up the backbone of our economy.

being able to live near where they work, like the 15,000 certified medical assistants and nursing assistants countywide who are foundational to healthcare services and are making at or below 60% of area median income.

This is about Gwen Anderson on the upper right-hand corner, a resident of North Haven, which is a senior housing development in District 5, and who is able to live with dignity and build strong community with other residents in affordable housing.

And we just got an extra 10,000 square feet through MHA for our medical and dental facility, which is a wonderful byproduct that we did not see coming.

Great.

As much as housing is about people, it is also about place.

It is fundamentally about creating an infrastructure of equity for our city.

It is the infrastructure that ensures that low-income people are included in the fabric of our city.

And I think of affordable housing as really essential urban infrastructure.

And when we invest in it, we invest exactly to your point, Councilmember Mosqueda, not only in the housing units that come above but in the delivery that comes on the ground floor, and that includes places like child care centers, health care centers, and community gathering spaces.

We have examples from last year's investment of community-focused units like at Yesler Family Housing with child care on the ground floor, or in community-driven projects like Chief Seattle Club, which is providing both housing and health care facility and community gathering space.

It's about infrastructure that also aligns with our significant investment in transit infrastructure, something we clearly think about as infrastructure.

And when we do transit-oriented development, we're not only making the best of both of those investments, but we're also ensuring that low-income people who are the most transit-dependent are able to utilize our transit system.

Today we're talking about our investments that sum up a lot of the resources that we have.

These are resources that come from a variety of places, including our housing levy, our incentive programs, and other sources that we'll talk more about.

But a really significant source that we have is the Seattle housing levy.

And on that specifically, we wanted to point out that one of the attached reports that we submitted to you all, and that's available on our website, demonstrates our success at delivering on the housing levy promise.

We are two years into this seven-year housing levy, and in all of our programs, we are either meeting or exceeding the goals that we have promised to voters.

So at this point, as we sort of move from talking about that one fund source to our programmatic investments, we're going to start off with the 2018 awards for rental housing funding.

This was a high watermark by any measure for production.

We made awards to 10 buildings comprising a total of 1,197 units of affordable housing.

One reason for such a high production number in 2018 was an extraordinary level of leverage, and that is, in this context, fancy for other people's money.

The purchasing power of each city dollar was amplified to the tune of over $5 of other people's money, and that means that 1,200 units are being delivered for a city investment of only $68 million.

That works out to about $56,000 a unit, which is a very good deal.

If you want to look at it through a different lens, remember that each of these units is income and rent restricted for a minimum of 50 years.

So that means that when you look at those $68 million annualized over that term, You are buying about 60,000 apartment years of affordable housing.

It is a smokin' deal.

I will say that this level of leverage from this year may not always be replicable.

There was sort of a confluence of events this year that both we and our development partners recognized and pounced on.

So, you know, normally we're in sort of the $3.5 to $4 leverage ratio, but it's certainly a moment to celebrate right now.

Welcome, Council Member O'Brien.

Thanks for being here.

Go ahead.

So how'd you do that?

So here's my expectation that you all have set is as we expand our housing investments, we will run out of the leverage dollars.

And we should expect to go from the $3 down to the $2.

Correct.

And so what's the magic you worked, or is everyone else stepping up their game too?

I don't think the feds are.

The magic is actually a very technical point.

The federal low-income housing tax credit, which is the biggest source of leverage that matches up to our dollars, The federal government designated some new areas in Seattle north of Yesler as a designation called a difficult to develop area.

And you get a boost on the value of each low-income housing tax credit.

So it just really amped up the amount of private equity.

coming into these projects.

And one doesn't know from year to year whether that designation will sustain.

We are hopeful that it does.

And in that case, you would see a new kind of pattern in terms of investment, but it was entirely because of that federal designation geographically.

But the point you made is true, that there is a point where As we scale up locally, there will be a diminished return on the ability to leverage.

We are not there.

So I don't, that we've been telling you is true.

I believe you.

It's not a problem I want to say I hope for, but we still have great leverage opportunities if we can scale locally.

And so the big pools that I'm aware of are HUD, I mean, I don't know how many Section 8 vouchers get assigned to projects.

The state housing trust fund, and then the federal.

And it feels like year to year, the politics, the winds are blowing one way or the other, and those can be robust or not.

And so I guess there's a bit of always bracing for the fact that in any moment, one or two of those sources could significantly go away or diminish.

Right.

And that's why we always, and particularly, you know, to Emily's point about delivering on promises, we forecast for not a best case scenario, but a middle to conservative scenario.

So, again, this is a moment to celebrate, but we also don't want to set a new false expectation.

And the two sources shown on that pie chart on the right that have some untapped potential are the two sort of gray frames, the 4% tax credit that gets coupled with those tax exempt bonds.

That's a space where we can take advantage of additional leverage opportunity if we have the local resources to initiate that.

I did want to just march quickly through the pies without dwelling because we are pressed for time.

We did make some reinvestments this year, $7 million for 231 units.

These are usually for older, often sort of historic character buildings where a systems or structural upgrade both extends the useful life of the building and also extends the affordability term.

which is an important pairing there.

I will say that the levy stands out as the foundational source of our funds.

It's the blue slice on that pie.

It was also true, oh, or orange.

The reverse, but about a similar slice of pie was a one-time infusion of $30 million from the Washington State Convention Center expansion.

That was, of course, one time, but it was wonderful to be able to capitalize on it this year, and it will be quickly going out the door.

We've already talked about the leveraging sources.

One thing really to stress here, though, is that those tax credit equity slices, that's private investment.

And the bank bond financing, that's tax-exempt debt through private activity bonds.

So there is a lot of money that is not local public monies that is coming into these projects.

Next slide.

Before you move on, one other statistic that you threw out that I think is important is you said that it's about $56,000 per unit here.

Tell us what the difference is because we often think that affordable housing construction is about $350,000 per unit.

So how did we get to 56?

Thank you so much for asking that.

The 56, again, is a matter of leverage.

So when you have $5 of other people's money coming in and matching up to every $1 you have, you can deliver a unit for $56,000 of city resources.

I will say that we modeled for the levy about 80,000 of city.

So again, that speaks to that conservatism.

But again, it's very important to understand that even under the most conservative scenario, city dollars are amplified many times over with other resources to deliver each unit.

Great, thank you.

We're going to move to this, and it's a series of pies.

The work that we do at the Office of Housing is suffused, obviously, in values, but effective administration is also one of our calling cards.

Each exercise in public funding, no matter where you are, is a matter of balancing priorities.

And that is what particularly the left pie on this chart starts to capture.

You see a pie there of 10 buildings.

These are the buildings funded in 2018. And two are homeless projects.

Two are for special sectors, including seniors and people with disabilities, in this case, chronic mental illness.

And then the orange slice is of low-wage working individuals and families.

It's important to realize, and Steve will touch on this in a minute, that even within that orange slice of those six sort of general population buildings, there is a great deal of variety of project types.

and particularly Council Member Mosqueda, to your point about community responsive ground floor uses and community-based partnerships.

Those are the types of properties that also fall within that orange slice.

The middle pie, a quarter of the units are for people with extremely low incomes, 30% of area median or below.

And that speaks to the fact that, again, in that orange slice, you are seeing blending of income levels.

These are not all just sort of generic 60% area median income buildings.

Those are very, very important to the overall picture, but it is also important to be able to blend different levels of affordability when possible.

And then the final pie, let's just pause here for a moment and look at the slices of the two, three, and even four bedroom units.

That is 36% of the total production.

People talk a lot about the importance of affordable family-sized rentals in the city.

This is the one sector I can think of where that is being delivered on a constant basis.

Again, those are located in those six buildings.

Yesterday, a couple of us walked through a building that we funded a couple of years ago, 8th and Jackson.

It is definitely worth a visit.

It is just finishing up right now.

It's incredible.

It has 44 two-bedroom units, and they are already leased up.

So there's clearly active demand and great benefit being delivered by this kind of unit.

And Miriam, so I can't do the math as fast as I'd like to, but if we were to just look at the three and four bedrooms, what is that, about 10%?

Yes.

The three and the four.

So it would be helpful for us, I think, to have a better sense of what are our goals for especially three bedrooms, because I appreciate what you're saying here.

A lot of families are going to be able to benefit from having at least a two-bedroom.

As we think about the nuclear family being larger, especially for some of our immigrant and refugee communities, and wanting more people, as we saw from the Seattle Times report just a few days ago, to be able to have a place to keep their kiddos in the school district here in Seattle and to be able to stay in Seattle.

We need to continue to scale up our number of three and four bedrooms.

We would love to hear more as we go forward.

What would be a goal of ours around three bedrooms and do other cities have goals they are aspiring to that are larger than 10%?

fruitful conversation to have.

Again, that gets to that point of administration in terms of balancing priorities.

When you're working in the space of single adult homeless people, those are clearly going to work against, you know, achieving the goal of having a dominance of three-bedroom units.

It's also important.

And so, again, working that balancing exercise is how we spend, I would say, much of our time in the Office of Housing.

Great, thank you.

My understanding is in the market rate units that are being produced, two bedrooms and above is single digits.

And so this is just, I mean obviously we're being very intentional in dealing with subsidized subsidies here, but it's amazing to see this many two, three, and four bedrooms being produced.

And the percentage is great.

But the absolute number of units, when we're producing 1,200 units and we're getting 30%, I mean, it's one thing when we did 300 units, but we've quadrupled that from just a few years ago.

I think it's something in the neighborhood, again, I can't do math off the top of my head, I think it's about 430 units.

Thank you for that point, Council Member O'Brien.

The sheer number here is something that we should underscore it, that's 311 two bedrooms, 106 three bedrooms, and is that 24 bedrooms?

So times that by two and a half or three individuals being able to live there, that's great.

Thank you for that reminder.

I have a quick question.

I guess what's concerning me, because this conversation has been going on about two and three bedrooms for a while.

at least since I've been here, and balancing that with sheltering individuals or couples that can live in one.

And so we know the demographics, of course, of Seattle have changed drastically, as well as our population continues to go up.

In my past experience of building housing in Indian country, there's no such thing as a one bedroom.

I mean, there just isn't.

Everything is built two, three, and four bedrooms because of families and extended family.

So we kind of have a Western attitude and concept that there's a mom and a dad and one kid, but you don't have a mom and a dad and a grandma and an auntie.

You've taken in a niece, you've taken in, you know what I mean?

I'm trying to calibrate the city to start thinking that way, that extended family, which is recognized under federal and state law for many things.

At some point, I'm hoping that we can memorialize that in a law, that we don't just focus on everything as a one or a two bedroom.

And particularly in our district, which I was concerned about, about the transit-oriented development that's going on at Northgate, when we've been working with Simon Properties and those folks up there, and the Wallace and Thornton Place people, is I keep hammering away as I don't want to see one-bedroom, two-bedroom condos.

That's not what we're gonna be seeing, particularly with two brand new elementary schools online.

One school has 1,600 students.

So I'm hoping that we're planning not from the 1980s, but in the next, and I think the census will bear this out.

So that's where my head's at as far as planning citywide, and I'm hoping that at some point we can codify and it's not just anecdotal.

Thank you.

So I'm going to transition to talking about those same 10 projects, but in a more thematic way.

And this is a list of projects that you're familiar with.

We were here with you in January when we put before you sort of our 2018 awards and broke these projects down.

So I'll move.

Fairly quickly, but I think it's worth touching on them again again organized thematically here with the first thing theme being homelessness and we know that housing is what ends homelessness and Thank you.

I think that we didn't have to say that these days But we do have to remind people what I will point out on each of these two projects is a few unique characteristics as you know the K site the second one there is taking advantage of publicly owned city-owned property and And the first one is, to your point earlier, Council Member Mosqueda, this is where we are and have been successful in braiding funding with EDI as EDI is participating in investment on the ground floor.

Yes.

Madam Vice Chair.

Decrease in Native American homelessness.

HSD just shared those figures with us.

80%.

And that is the power of a community that knows a community that talks to people to get them the services they need to get them indoors.

So I'm really proud of that.

When you really focus and effort.

Yeah, when you actually recognize that you can't have just one institution that thinks it's their job to not really use the gems on the ground, those social organizations and safety nets that have been in those communities and know those groups and know how to house them and know who they are.

So we're happy about that.

Fantastic.

Excellent.

There are, as you know, many different populations in our city with many different affordable housing needs.

Here are two examples from this year's funding where we are supporting specific populations and their needs.

The first being the senior project in North Haven, at North Haven, where we're supporting seniors as they age with dignity in an affordable home.

The second one is supporting individuals living with mental illness at Yancey Street Housing.

Steve, I'm looking at the Yancey Street numbers and the leverage there, I'm not going to do the math, but 1.5 million a city invested.

Is there a lot of private funding in that or is there other sources for mental illness?

What I know, at least in contrasting those two, one of the things that stands out is that we're taking advantage of the 9% housing tax credit as opposed to those tax credits and bonds.

So the financing is different and when we can tap that 9% credit, I mean that's our largest dollar for dollar leverage opportunity.

There could be more nuance and I'd be happy to follow up with you.

And that's just the city's portion.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, Council Member Ryan, I was just pulling out my calculator.

It did the same.

It's about $34,000-$35,000 per unit and that's a great deal.

I can see that.

These are, well, I mentioned that operational costs are not included here and those are probably significant for this population too.

I see this is going to be like a math thing going on here, so I'm going to have to check out.

I'm just going to pay attention, but this one and this one got their calculators going, but I'm not.

And we welcome those questions.

In anticipation of more math questions, I think one thing that is also in play behind the scenes is when we work closely, very closely with the other public funders, the county being a big one.

And so sometimes we are, you know, negotiating with the county about you go deeper in this project, we'll go deeper in that project.

And so sometimes that's what's also at play.

Miriam referenced this.

This is the balance of the six projects that, you know, calling them low wage workforce housing is not fair because each one of these is unique.

And balancing multiple priorities with limited resources that are heavily oversubscribed is a very challenging endeavor.

And it requires effective administration.

I wish to call out the staff at the Office of Housing that do an incredible job of sort of balancing all of these competing priorities with the resources that we have.

And so, again, while categorized as low-wage worker housing, each of these six are unique, and I'll point out a few of their uniquenesses.

They represent different developer types.

Mentioned a few times today, community-based organizations, but also represented here is our work with some for-profit affordable housing developers that helps us get to scale.

The projects are scattered throughout the city, an important sort of cornerstone priority for us over the last 30 years of investing.

These projects also include innovation in building technology, specifically the Othello Apartments.

And then I mentioned efficiency to scale you can see and it was referenced earlier type in that we just walked through yesterday That's beginning lease up as a 327 unit project, which is One of our largest if not the largest new construction project that we've taken on and it's beautiful I I'll also mention that at the Maddox apartment where we've, where sort of a few years back we supported and the state funded a massive environmental cleanup.

So this is taking a Browns field and turning it into eventual affordable homes.

And then as has been referenced, there's a diversity of unit types from the studios and ones, but most importantly, the threes and the four bedroom units.

Steve, I'm looking at the names in italics there, which I assume is the developer.

Correct.

And about half the names I recognize is folks that show up on these reports on a regular basis, but a bunch of the names I'm not familiar with.

Are we seeing new players entering the market, or new players coming to the region, or are these more private developers that are getting into affordable housing?

I think the first two categories you named, these are new developers that are getting into the region, maybe.

There's a couple of those.

Those are GMD and GMD on this list.

Is Inland on this list?

Yes, and Inland Group.

Those are two for-profit affordable housing developers that have found a way of participating in Seattle, which is fantastic.

We also see these new community-based organizations represented here, FAME at the very top.

That's a fantastic opportunity, organization, vision, which is taking advantage of housing that was built in the central area in the 70s.

And it has been realized by FAME that they can add density to this sort of, garden style developed community, this very valuable land, very centrally located.

And so we are participating, this is the first phase of two phases where we will be adding significant density and significant number of three and four bedroom units, really exciting.

So that's a small community based organization that doesn't necessarily do housing.

They have housing and they are going to densify that housing.

It's really, it's great.

We've been talking about the challenge around affordable housing for a number of years.

Well, you all do this every day forever.

But it seems like the call went out a number of years ago that we need to significantly increase.

And it seems like there's, I'm not sure the right term is, the market or whatever.

But people are responding in ways and stepping up.

GMD was before the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

a couple days ago, because they have a project near Othello Station that's looking for a street vacation that will never show up on this.

Well, maybe it will on a different list, because they're going to build 211 units of affordable housing at 60% of AMI, I believe.

Maybe it's 80%, but without any office of housing money, although there was some acquisition funds that they will be paying back shortly.

And so great to see other tools coming in, in addition to 1,200 units that the city is subsidizing.

There are people figuring out ways to do it, even without city subsidies.

I could not agree more, and thank you for pointing that out.

So I'm just going to do a quick time check.

We're going to add 10 more minutes to the clock for this item.

I know you have a few more slides.

Before we go into the second item, which is the statement of legislative intent, we'll also have to read that into the record.

So I just want to let you know we'll pause at the end of this presentation, and then we'll do the slide.

This slide is referencing the reinvestments that were made in the funding round.

And I will just note that, as we've talked to you before, stewardship does not end at funding and creating the unit, but it's living and walking alongside that building and that unit for 50 years.

And sometimes that means coming back and reinvesting in some of the systems and repairs that are needed.

And that's what's reflected here with these four sponsors that represents nine buildings.

And as you can see, 231 units that are sort of aging buildings within our affordable housing portfolio.

We want to keep them fresh and up to code.

Excellent.

Councilmember O'Brien just teed up a conversation about our acquisition and preservation program.

We have a $30 million program of funds that uses short-term lending of our long-term capital and operating and maintenance funds.

This is a conversation also teeing up as Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned.

We'll be coming in front of you all with our administrative and financial plan and housing funding policies.

This is one of the proposed changes that we'll be talking about, availing additional resources as part of a revolving fund to be able to take advantage of acquisition opportunities as they arise.

As you see on this, some of our acquisition loans were used for land, and some were used for multifamily buildings that are existing.

In some cases, we are likely to be the permanent funder of that project to have our long-term money in that regulates it as affordable.

In some cases, like at Willow Crossing that was just referenced, we are the acquisition funder And so we impose a regulatory agreement on the property by virtue of that acquisition loan, but we will not put long-term funding in the project, a really exciting opportunity.

We see more chances to use our acquisition lending in that way through partnership with the Seattle Housing Authority and partnership with other folks, especially as we see changes in the market to make sure that we're able to capture buildings that are there and hold them as affordable.

At this point, though, we have expended $28 million of the $30 million of authority that we have, so we'll be seeking the authority to be able to revolve this fund.

We will definitely be interested in helping you get the authority to do that.

This is a great investment.

I think this is part of our more exciting body of work at the Office of Housing, in part because of Jen Labreck's leadership.

We have had an increasing commitment to permanently affordable homeownership at our office.

It used to be that we primarily funded down payment assistance that supported first time low income homeowners in buying a home.

In this case, we've made an investment of 68 units at our first city-funded limited equity co-op as part of HomeSite's Othello Square campus.

So these are households that are reliving as part of a cooperative model.

This is another place in which we're braiding EDI funds.

While we participated in one of these buildings, the other buildings have support from the Equitable Development Initiative to deliver on a multicultural collaborative space and other uses.

So this is a really significant step for the City of Seattle and the Office of Housing in supporting this innovative financing to support low-income homeowners.

It's also a multifamily building, so it's homeownership in a multifamily building capitalizing on both density and the stability that's achieved through homeownership.

That's wonderful.

We then made some more modest investment to take some homes that were supported through down payment a system and convert them to be permanently affordable with Habitat for Humanity.

I just want to pause there for a quick second because this is obviously an area that's of interest to this committee and for our work plan going forward.

I also see this as not just a home ownership opportunity for creating housing stability, but truly an economic stability issue for our city and our workers at large.

Because of the lack of retirement security in this country, often home ownership is one of the only ways to have a guaranteed potential revenue source or equity built.

And, you know, when we go to places like, when I went to Berlin in Germany, they were saying that 80% of their city are renters.

Well, we have 52% of our city is renters.

We all want to make sure that rental units have stability and are affordable as well.

But the difference between here and Germany is that they actually have more retirement security and pensions through their work.

And so without that type of backstop for workers and retirees, we need to be able to create this equity option.

And, you know, my husband and I were really lucky.

We just got the keys to our first townhouse.

And one of the things that I want to do through that experience is say that wasn't easy, right?

We had to dip into our retirement.

And that's very scary.

And we're in a really good place of privilege, having good living wage jobs.

That is not the reality for so many of our families in Seattle.

So we'd love to help amplify the work that you're doing, especially around home ownership, recognizing that this is a worker stability, retirement stability issue, as much as it is about creating access to housing stability.

So thank you for your work on this, and we'll continue to amplify all the work you do at OH.

Thank you.

And I should also mention this is a really important place to say that this is also a body of work around racial equity.

Explicitly, we have a racial wealth gap in our country, in part for many reasons, but in part because of the way in which the federal government subsidized homeownership largely for white middle class people at the expense of communities of color.

This is a modest way to target our programs.

to low-income people, including communities of color, and help to close that gap, albeit at a very modest rate.

Thank you for saying that.

I really appreciate the...

I mean, I know that it's taken a real dedicated focus on, like, limited equity co-ops or other tools like that, and it's great to see a project that's ready for that, and hopefully we'll see more opportunities going forward, too.

And one of the things that you can look forward to also in our ANF plan is some work that we have around accessing publicly owned land and doing homeownership development on publicly owned sites to grow a continued pipeline of opportunities to support this work.

The fundamental underpinning of everything that we do at the Office of Housing is about furthering fair housing.

And furthering fair housing is about a few things.

First, it's about serving diverse populations, including protected classes, seniors, people with disabilities.

and communities of color.

Second, it's about geographic distribution, providing housing choice across the city.

And what you're looking at here is our 2018 investments in rental and homeownership mapped on our two maps that come from our growth with equity analysis around access to opportunity and displacement risk.

And in either way that you cut it, we are both addressing displacement and we are advancing access to opportunity for communities.

The third way that our investments affirmatively further fair housing choice is in the way in which we lease up and sell those units.

And so something else that you'll see in our administrative and financial plan is the extent to which we hone our investments to deliver on additional anti-displacement solutions around community preference and affirmative marketing.

Excellent, Matt.

You know, we have talked a lot, and Council Member Juarez, I appreciate your comment about numbers and math, and it's important to bring the conversation back around to the people.

Fully one-third of the staff at the Office of Housing actually does direct service work through our home repair and weatherization programs.

This is part of the soul of our office.

And one of the things that is very, very moving is to see the thank you notes that come in to Jennifer's staff for going into people's homes and helping them project manage very complicated projects.

In terms of, and actually let's flip to the next slide, our weatherization program, Lots of numbers here, 26 multifamily buildings addressed this year, upgrades to 101 single-family homes, back to home repair.

We have 44 low-income homeowners who received that type of assistance.

And I will say, because I can't come to the table without saying it, remember, but for $15,000 to address a leaking roof or a broken side sewer, a low income person is at risk of losing his or her most important asset, not only for him or herself, but also to pass on generationally.

And so these are extremely powerful tools in the space of anti-displacement.

OH has, over the past couple of years, really ended up with a revitalized, rejuvenated race and social justice initiative change team.

These are programs that got intensive scrutiny under a racial equity toolkit to make sure that we were doing the kind of outreach and engagement to make sure that this direct service was addressing exactly those people who are at the greatest risk of displacement.

At this point in home repair, for example, we are currently at 53% people of color.

I will also note that both programs are very heavily dominated by seniors, which is, again, another reason why the personal touch, the in-person project management support is so important.

Home ownership, as you know, is the greatest transfer of wealth.

Absolutely.

And so we know historically that people, when we talk about gaps, we're talking about people who are deliberate in creating those gaps, whether we're talking about home ownership, education, health, voting, I mean, across the board.

So this gives me hope.

So thank you very much.

A few upcoming challenges and opportunities like to highlight our takeaways from our investment in 2018 are several.

First, Council Member O'Brien, you mentioned operating and maintenance and services dollars that goes into our projects to support populations who have service needs.

And that is a key piece of what we do.

We've been able to front load significant investment in permanent supportive housing as part of our levy resources these first two years.

I do want to call out that our ability to continue at a sustained rate of production of permanent supportive housing requires additional operating and maintenance funds.

It once was a time that we could count on the federal government to provide that through McKinney or other sources.

That is not the case anymore.

So our ability to scale up on PSH will require additional operating and maintenance funds.

We traditionally have done about one PSH project a year, and we're upping that to what appears to be about two a year.

But what that means is at the end of 10 years, there are 20 programs, projects out there that need ongoing I mean the capital deal is one deal and that's really important but the operations of these is a lifetime of operations and so that is a cumulative impact.

It's a lifetime of operating support and a lifetime of service delivery.

And I think to your question earlier about the use of vouchers in our projects, you know, we had a generous commitment from the Housing Authority for this levy to produce 300 vouchers that we then project-based to provide operating and maintenance support in our permanent supportive housing buildings primarily.

And we have at this point utilized those 300 vouchers.

In order to keep going forward, this is a place where we'll need some attention.

Publicly owned land, we continue to be excited about delivering on publicly owned sites.

We're working with enterprise community partners on their Home and Hope Initiative.

We continue to find sites that we can then RFP.

We were excited to be able to deliver very quickly on the K site in terms of producing an outcome on that site.

What we want to remind everyone is that publicly owned sites can do one of two or both things primarily, and that is they can produce low-cost land that helps reduce the costs of our projects, or two, they can provide access locationally to communities that otherwise we wouldn't have had access to.

So we'll keep an eye out for both of those opportunities and have some that we'll bring to you in the coming months that we have.

We continue to want to do strategic site acquisition.

I won't dwell on this.

This will require a change to the administrative and financial plan to build upon the work that you allowed us to do in doing either direct acquisition of sites or buildings or doing so through our partners.

And then finally, we'll have an ongoing body of work in the coming months about producing equitable outcomes through community preference and affirmative marketing, both through our changes to the administrative and financial plan, which empowers this body of work, and then also through a process of working closely with the Office for Civil Rights, our city attorney, and the community to build guidelines on how we implement those policies.

The next few slides were about investments on the incentive zoning and our mandatory housing affordability program.

I can touch briefly, or we can come visit you at a different time to talk about these.

All of this information is covered in thorough reports, as we mentioned, that are available on our website.

two programs that are in place that help us both deliver units on site in market rate developments and also that have the option to make payments to our office that we then invest in the ways in which we've already discussed through this presentation.

So these few slides show our units that have been placed in service through performance or the dollars that have been collected and expended by both the incentive zoning and mandatory housing affordability program.

One thing I'll say really quickly is that a big question of MHA and our incentive programs is what it looks like to produce units on site versus producing them through our investment.

On this slide, you see a building that has units on site, performance units included in a market rate development.

On this slide, you see dollars that have been invested in affordable housing through our investments.

And I think you could see that all of these are high quality buildings.

Excellent.

Well, thank you very much.

This is a really a moment to celebrate to celebrate all that you and your team at the Office of Housing Done has done and you know, specifically you Director Walker, thank you for shepherding us through this last few years, five years, right?

Five years, and this type of housing does not happen overnight, so this report is really a reflection of your entire tenure at the Office of Housing.

We have a lot to celebrate because of your work there, and I don't want that to go unsaid.

We know that this has been very much helped to be driven by your direction and your leadership.

Thanks to you, thanks to your entire team for getting us to this point.

It's hard to see some of your tangible investments immediately, but I think this year's report really shows the long-term investments over the years.

Any other final questions?

We're going to have you guys back, I think, multiple times in the next few months here.

Quick question.

The awards, the 1,200 units we've been talking about today, when will those doors open?

Is it two years, three years?

The typical time cycle is two to three years.

The development cycle is exactly the same as what you would see in the private market.

Obviously, there's the front end.

We make an announcement, an award, long before a private market person would even surface in terms of getting permits.

So there's a period of time up to permits and then construction.

I think the The building we were just talking about today, Ty Bin, that is just around the corner is really worth it, was awarded through at the end of 2016. So it's a standard turnaround for a major capital investment.

I'll make a couple points here kind of echoing what Councilmember Esqueda said.

You know we declared a housing state of emergency about three and a half years ago and received a lot of criticism for not being able to respond as swiftly as possible and I think that criticism is in many places fair and legitimate and we need to continue to up it.

And as you said, Steve, the solution to homelessness is building housing, and building housing takes years.

Two to three, but there's probably even a year or two of work before it comes to us and we make awards and site acquisition and those types of things.

And when we see what the work that you all are doing and all the community partners out there that are part of this, The challenge is when we say, oh my gosh, we need to build a bunch more affordable housing.

The reality is if everyone jumps to it immediately, it's going to be four to five years until we see that.

And when I look at these numbers and where we've come from, that is starting to materialize now.

And the reality is that means there are thousands of people that, when we declared a state of emergency, have had to wait.

And that's real, and there's some harm being done there.

But I think two years ago, we opened about 250 units of housing.

And we are now at a pace where we are funding over 1,000 units a year.

It's not clear that it's sustainable, but we've had a series of one-time hits, and there may be a few more one-time hits in the next year or two that can help that.

And so maybe it is sustainable with a concerted effort.

I don't know.

But you guys have responded in an amazing way.

Your team, the team here, the team that's not here, and frankly, the folks that you partner with.

that have all upped their game.

It's really amazing to see.

And I think, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, how this will materialize on the street.

What I do know is thousands of more people will be finding shelter.

If we don't stop the inflow into homelessness, you know, we'll continue to be overwhelmed.

But it may be, you know, we've quadrupled the amount of housing we're putting out per year.

And that, if we can sustain that for a few more years, that's going to make a noticeable difference.

The other thing I want to just say is the transparency with which you all do your work.

I mean, these are really big reports, but there is so much information in here.

And it's so amazing to be able to go look at any year, at any project, and see what is the spread of units, who are they dedicated to, what is the mix of funding, what address is it at, what neighborhood is it in?

And receive a lot of criticism from folks who are critical of government in general, and that's fair to do that.

Sometimes I get frustrated because the work that you all do gets lumped in, and where does that money go?

And I'm like, what do you mean?

I can tell you exactly where that money went on any given year and who's living in that unit today.

And, you know, the challenges you all face is different than different departments.

But I really have been impressed with the transparency and the reporting you do to be held accountable and demonstrate to the folks in the honesty you know when we struggle with things you're clear about that when there are good things that happen but maybe one time you're clear about that and I'm just really proud for the city of what you all are doing I think it's some of the best work in the country so thank you

I want to, you shared a lot of what I was gonna, but you said it much more eloquently than me because you've been doing this a lot longer.

So thank you Council Member Bryan.

But there is a lot of work and there's a lot of information in the 2018 report.

So if this is what the future looks like, I'm excited to see this time next year when we sit down that the trend is going up.

I know that doesn't make the news all the time because you know people don't, that's not what they want to focus on.

They're not going to take the time to see that we started here and we're moving up and we are addressing how we shelter the unsheltered.

I was just at the opening, as you know, at the Clement Place and that was amazing.

100 brand new units and three people were moving in the very next day and I don't know if they're at capacity yet, but it is just an amazing.

We also did the Tony Lee house and with Pre-K at the bottom.

And I could go on and on at North Haven and, you know, what we're doing up in Holler Lake and Bitter Lake and Northgate and just what we know we do citywide.

So I just first of all, I just want to thank you because I know how hard you guys work and we meet with you all the time and you're always, always talking to us about Not only the home ownership program, but the weatherization program, making sure elders can age in place, that home ownership is one of the biggest ways to gain wealth and to pass it on to your children and to maintain it.

But the other issue that came up that's, and it may be in here, but if you can just briefly, and I think you were there, Steve, I think you invited me.

Do we have, have we ever put together, is there a private public campaign?

Because remember when we were at Mercy Housing and the Allen Foundation gave $30 million for that.

Is that, how do we help you go out to these, the private sector to say, you know what, you were unhappy about some things we did.

Do you wanna help?

This is how you can help.

Do we have a plan for that?

A public-private partnership in saying, like we did with the Paul Allen Foundation?

Yes, I'd like to think that we have a plan, but I think it's a plan that needs scaling.

I think it's a plan that needs to take advantage of our track record.

And to your example, that's an example where private investment focused on a project.

I think we need to find a way to scale private investment and philanthropy to scale against a mission to address our affordability needs throughout the city, not at the project level.

What do you mean scale?

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

I think that when that investment was focused on a project, we need to focus investment and scale that investment against the entire issue of affordability, not at the project level.

And I think the key is to use our track record of success to accomplish that.

So one example is just to expand on that.

In the total leveraged resources pie, for example, you see the the portion on owner contribution and fundraising.

And in many cases, a lot of our nonprofits are working hard to get their own philanthropic contributions to support their own buildings.

In other jurisdictions, though, for example, like in Silicon Valley, they've developed a trust fund in which private donors can provide funding into that trust fund that is then administered by a public entity to put into a range of projects.

That's exactly what I was asking about.

Our present system is more that the fundraising and philanthropic support comes at an organizational or building level as opposed to other areas that have done it through the government level.

So I'm going to be quick because I know the chairperson here is going to, but that's the model that I've been looking at from chairing my committee when we have friends of the waterfront who are raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

When I have friends of the library, I cannot tell you what these groups do.

And we've just, fundraising is, we need a fiscal agent.

But the point is, what I hear from a lot of people with a lot of money is we want to help, but we don't want to give it to the city.

Because we don't think you know how to spend it correctly.

I'm like, okay, what organization would you give it to?

Is there a fiscal agent?

Can you create that?

And I don't know if it's Office of Housing or HSD.

And again, I'm a little bit out of my depth here, but I'm going to say it anyway.

My understanding, what I would like to see happen is that we do have, we start thinking about the model that you just spoke of, that trust fund, and if it's OH that does that, I mean, please count us in on doing that because we have a lot of people who want to give money to address homelessness.

They just have, and rightfully so, I think Council Member O'Brien is true.

People are angry about what they see.

They're upset about the tents.

They're upset about people not getting services, medical and the mental health issues and all the things that we're dealing with.

And you're right, we can't just build 100,000 homes in a year.

Some people get angry and they call our office, well, why can't you just build more houses?

Because the world doesn't work like that.

However, I would like to start some kind of initiative and I don't know how we pan that out And if you could get that study to me or that that project I would I would love to work with councilmember chairperson Mosqueda on how we start just looking at that and if that's a state matching issue if it's a county thing because I know we're gonna start looking at a county response and to the homelessness, I think we have to be, and I wouldn't even call that innovative.

That just seems to make sense, because we do it in every other field where we want private money, but the people want to give the money to a fiscal agent or a PDA or another vehicle.

Which is fine with its own board, but works with these city or state organizations and departments to make sure that it gets out there quickly.

That's the nice thing about the private sector, is it gets out there quickly and we're not caught up in 1,900 committees and 1,400 public hearings.

Not that I'm against public hearings and committees, but I kind of miss the private sector for that reason, just getting stuff done.

Thank you very much, Vice Chair Juarez.

And I think that the materials that you've provided today help us counter that inaccurate narrative that somehow there's confusion on where the dollars are going.

One thing that I think you've done really well is identify specifically where the dollars are going, the exact type of housing that's being created, the type of workers, families, retirees, students that are able to live in those homes.

where those are at throughout Seattle.

I think that we have been constantly asking our other departments, including the Human Services Department, to help us with exactly this type of data so that we have something to point to.

In the ideal world, we would have a dashboard of key performance indicators that show not only how we are helping folks get into shelter, but how we are then helping them get into housing.

And without scaling up the amount of dollars that are going into housing, there is no exit from shelters, and our shelters remain at capacity.

So you all are providing a exit from instability and an exit from homelessness and an exit from shelter once we can help scale up your dollars.

And I think that is also a call to action on our part.

You know, we've seen your NOFA dollars go from $94 million in 2017 to $76 million last year in 2018. And at best, it looks like this year we're talking about potentially being able to anticipate $60 million.

You know, that is not the trend that is reflective of the need in our community.

So we will double down our efforts to make sure that you have both the capital dollars that you need and to your earlier point, the ongoing operation of maintenance dollars to make these housing efforts successful.

With that, I have a suggestion for our agenda moving forward.

I talked to Councilmember O'Brien who had to leave for another meeting.

One of the things I'd like to suggest is that we build in the statement of legislative intent report back in our meeting next on the administration of finance plan because there's a nice nexus there.

And perhaps we can go to item three on our agenda to wrap up the Office of Housing report to us, where we have the opportunity to also invite to the table, Ketel, if you'd like to join us, Ketel Freeman from the Seattle Central staff, who's gonna be here with us.

And Farideh Cuevas, if you could read item three into the agenda regarding Fort Lawton development plan and related legislation process, that'd be great.

Thank you so much, Miriam.

Steve, are you taking off?

You're going to stay here?

I'm going to get out of the way.

OK, you're welcome to stay.

We really appreciate your presentation, and we look forward to having you guys back at the May 16th meeting, correct?

That's where we will talk about the ANF plan and the statement of legislative intent.

Agenda item four.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Agenda item three, Fort Lauderdale development plan for briefing and discussion.

Welcome.

Hi, Emily Alvarado, if you'd like to introduce yourself one more time for the record.

Emily Alvarado, Office of Housing.

Excellent.

Hi there.

Hi.

Kenny Pittman, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Cato Freeman, Council of Central Staff.

And it's still Erin House and Teresa Mosqueda and Deborah Juarez.

Great.

So thank you for being flexible with us.

Given the excitement around the annual investment report from the Office of Housing, we wanted to spend as much time talking about that.

Thank you so much.

Ketel, would you like to walk through any of the staff memo that has been created by you and Tracy?

Sure, so again, Cato Freeman, Council Central staff.

I'll be pinch hitting here for Tracy, who's ill today.

So you do have in your packets a memo from us dated April 15th that primarily highlights some of the process going forward.

Today is an initial briefing by the Office of Housing and the Office of Intergovernmental Relations on the Fort Lauderdale redevelopment plan.

a lot of background here, but looking forward to a June 10th, 2019 full council vote.

The next step will be a fuller briefing on May 2nd, a discussion of issues on May 16th, a public hearing on May 21st, that's an evening public hearing, and a discussion and possible vote on June 6th, in anticipation of a June 10th full council vote.

Great.

So just to reiterate, today is intended to be a very high-level overview of what to expect in the next coming meetings.

We do hope that the viewing public and our council colleagues get a chance to join us at the upcoming briefings that will be on May 2nd and the public discussion on May 21st will be very interesting as well.

Would you like to walk us through your presentation?

We'll walk you through.

I am really excited to be here to kick off the introduction of our 2018 Fort Lawton redevelopment plan.

This is a tremendous opportunity that has taken over 14 years to get to this point.

And what I'm gonna do really briefly in my few minutes is to walk us through those 14 years and then end with a teaser about the vision at Fort Lawton that brings both significant parks and recreation space and affordable housing for homeless people, low-wage working individuals and families, and homeownership to the community in Magnolia.

You're really going to do 14 years?

14 years.

We're going to do it in two slides, though.

Get comfortable.

I lived it.

So just for orientation, I want to remind us that Fort Lawton is a 34-acre site.

It is currently owned by the U.S.

Army.

There is a lease agreement.

It is leased by the city, and it's located in Magnolia.

You can see the picture above there.

It is adjacent to Discovery Park, it is not in Discovery Park, and it is presently occupied primarily by parking lots and buildings, as you can see in those photographs.

In 2005, when this journey began, the BRAC commission listed this property as surplus.

And then in 2006, the city was officially named the local redevelopment authority.

And that really meant that we were responsible for both creating, developing a redevelopment plan in close coordination with the public, and also soliciting and evaluating notices of interest.

And on this point, I wanted to flag that The federal regulations around the BRAC process really emphasize the extent to which we do outreach and engagement with homeless service providers.

It also includes notice of interest for other public benefits, but is heavily emphasizing our work around supporting homeless people.

And so the initial notice of interest process was helpful to identify homeless service providers who were interested in being part of the partnership at Fort Lawton.

Between 2006 and 2008, there was significant amount of public engagement as part of our inclusive and thorough process.

There were over 15 public meetings.

There was a tour of the site and a BRAC workshop that included both the homeless assistance providers and the community at large, including Magnolia residents.

Based on that engagement, In 2008, we drafted and City Council adopted the Fort Lawton redevelopment plan at that time.

And there was a resolution approved by City Council that let us go ahead with the application to federal agencies to acquire these sites.

As you see in that right-hand picture, the plan that we submitted was in fact approved by the federal government at that time.

There was then a lawsuit in Superior and Court of Appeals which upheld the determination that the city had failed to follow its environmental review as under SEPA prior to council adoption of the plan.

That really paused and stalled the process because it would require us to then go ahead with SIPA.

And at the same time, as you may recall, there were significant changes in the economy by virtue of the recession, and it really caused us to reassess and reimagine the plan that had been adopted, primarily the reliance on a market rate housing component, which was the underpinning of part of that plan.

So as you'll see in the refreshed plan or updated plan, all of the carryover pieces remain the same about serving homeless households and our partnership with our community partners, Catholic Housing Services, United Indians of All Tribes, Habitat for Humanity and Parks and Recreation space, but it changes the concept of the market rate housing to produce more affordable housing and more parks and open space.

It was in 2017 during this long process that the federal government was getting about how long it was taking our city to move on this, make progress on this.

And so by virtue of that, we entered into a lease agreement, which set some terms and conditions and responsibilities and a timeline for us to then move forward and take action.

And notably, as part of that lease agreement, there was a deadline by January, first 2020, which is now not too far away, for the city to have done a series of things, including have a plan approved by City Council, submitting that updated plan to HUD for approval, and submitting a request to the Army for acquisitions of the property.

When we began the refreshed process in 2017, really building upon all of the fundamental community engagement and underpinnings of the plan that were established in 2008, we did some more work.

In 2017, we did a complete SIPA scoping process and an EIS.

Finally, publishing the FEIS, that included public meetings, public comment period, and updates to the plan several times based on all of that engagement.

Then there was an appeal to the adequacy of the EIS to our hearing examiner, and after several months in November of 2018, the hearing examiner determined our FEIS to be adequate.

It was after that that we then drafted the plan.

The plan is substantially similar to what was included in the FEIS, is as required, and carrying forward much of the components from the original 2008 plan while adopting it for updated economic conditions.

And that is the plan that we're excited to work with you on in the next few months.

Emily, do you have a sense of how many meetings in total, including focus groups, you have engaged in?

I would imagine it's around 20?

Yes, because there was approximately 16 to 18 from the 2008 process, and then there was at least about four to five for this process.

Great.

Thank you.

So just ending with the vision at Fort Lawton, and we're really excited to move forward.

This is a publicly owned land.

To reimagine it as an affordable and a livable community that creates opportunities for people with low incomes to live in this community in which there is very little affordable housing presently.

The key components of this plan, just reminding folks that over 60% of the acreage would be dedicated to parks and park-related uses.

Although I'm from the Office of Housing, a significant portion of this plan is about delivering parks and open space.

The other...

Let me ask you a quick question.

So, unlike, unlike Magnuson, we don't, we don't own the land.

The federal government continues to own it.

No, under the BRAC process, what we'll be doing and asking for public benefit conveyances.

So, for housing for seniors, the homeless seniors housing, we get 100% discount.

Some of the other housing, we get percentages discount and for the open space, we get 100% discount.

So, we'll be applying to like the Department of Interior, HUD, and other federal agencies to get discounts or land for free.

Okay, so but is the end game to own it?

Yes, it'll be owned by the city.

Okay, so.

And then unless we work out something with our partners where, say like for Catholic Housing Services, we could transfer the land to them or the habitat.

I think it's likely for the homeless housing that it would be city-owned with a long-term lease to the entity.

For the workforce housing, that's still up for discussion of how it gets transferred.

And for the habitat for humanity homes, it would actually have to be directly transferred to that entity because there will be ownership of the land by low-income homeowners.

So just again, excuse me for being so simplistic.

Looking at Magnuson and I've actually read the deed at Magnuson and what uses and how that got changed and you had to go through interior and all that.

Are we looking at some, what point in time would we say that the city of Seattle is going to own these 34 acres?

Well, they'll be conveyed to us once we, they'll be conveyed to the city when we submit the application, not the redevelopment, but separate applications to the agencies.

And then they have use requirements on them for like say a 30 year period with the exception of the park and open spaces in perpetuity.

So, but the minute they transfer the deed over to us, once we submit the public benefit conveyance applications or do the negotiated sale, it's our property.

Our hope is that in 2020, the conveyances are effectuated.

Okay, that's okay, good.

So that's kind of what I'm getting at.

So by 2020, with the public benefits on the conveyance piece, that's when we'll hopefully, the city will own it and we'll continue with those stipulated uses.

Exactly.

Okay.

So the 60% is for parks and park related uses and the remainder includes a range of affordable housing types and uses including a building of supportive housing for homeless seniors that includes on-site services.

portion of the property for affordable rental housing for low-wage working families and individuals at 60% of area median income and below, that's roughly $60,000 for a household of four.

And affordable homeownership opportunities for low-income homeowners through Habitat for Humanity's model, which is affordable to households up to 80% of area median income, roughly $80,000 for a family of four.

And we're excited as we move forward to talk with you and both our community partners who are really going to help bring this plan into implementation and to discuss more of the details of the plan in the future.

Great.

Any other questions, Council Member Juarez?

OK.

Thank you.

So again, this was intended to TF a series of conversations that we're going to have in this committee going forward following the years, 14 years of process and engagement, the more recent 20 meetings that you've had, including last year and the year prior.

I am very excited that this legislation has been transmitted to our committee.

We have, as a courtesy to our council colleagues, distributed a binder yesterday that includes all of the materials we've received from the Office of Housing, and we will look forward to having A conversation going forward about the creation of the variety of affordable housing options, again, for vets and seniors, for first-time home ownership options, for affordable rental units.

I want to reiterate the preservation of 60% of the land for open space and parks.

We're going to have a deeper dive into this conversation on May 2nd, and I want to flag for our colleagues We will be joined at the table by the Office of Housing, the Parks Department, the United Indians of All Tribes, Catholic Housing Services, Habitat for Humanity, and we'll get an overview there of really what's in the detailed proposal.

We'll also have a chance, if we'd like, to add a few things, ask some questions, see what else we could potentially do within the limitations of the existing EIS.

And we will have a chance to hear more about the legislation at the May 16th and June 16th Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee with the intent to have a possible vote on June 6th.

I want to remind folks that there is going to be a public hearing in the evening on March 21st right here in Council Chambers that we'll be inviting folks to come in and have a discussion with us then.

May 21st.

Sorry to interrupt you.

May, okay, May 21st.

Sorry about that.

We can't go backwards.

We're only going forwards with this project after 14 years.

I want to also let folks know on May 21st, there's going to be a child care provided at the hearing.

So I want to make this accessible to all of our residents throughout Seattle.

And feel free to reach out to our office.

Thank you, Farideh Cuevas, for being the point of contact.

You can reach out directly to me or to Farideh.

You can find us on our website and let us know if you need that accommodation.

And also interpretation.

We make sure that we create an accessible committee here.

Go ahead, Council Member Juarez.

I have a quick question.

I apologize for not getting back to you.

See, I always require page numbers on my slides.

You're going to have to start requiring.

That drives me crazy.

But anyway, this is why it got past me.

When you, on the last page, when you have vision for redevelopment and you list the core components.

So what happened with this?

I know with the Seattle Public Schools, what are we doing with them quickly?

I kind of know because we were involved in it to some degree and I was involved because of parks and the athletic play fields, but how much space is the Seattle Public Schools partnership and what is the use of that and does that go into the public benefit piece?

Yeah, so we are working closely with Seattle Public Schools.

My hope is that they'll be able to join as well.

And the intent there is to avail the opportunity for them to access approximately six acres of the site to create two multi-purpose fields, athletic fields.

They would be moving forward likely under an educational conveyance to have that property conveyed to them for the purpose and use of an athletic in the event that they choose not to go ahead with that conveyance, then it would be taken over by our parks department.

And again, for our incredible audience through Seattle Channel, you can find all of these materials, including the redevelopment plan and the companion zoning legislation posted to the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee website.

So you can access all those materials prior to our upcoming committee meetings.

So with that, we know the Office of Housing is having a staff appreciation day coming up and want to convey our appreciation for all that you do.

So please pass that on in your meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here.

Okay, let's move on to item number four.

And as we do that, if we could be joined by our friends Dave Westberg, Vera McMillian-Jimerson, Mike McBee, Dan Eder from central staff as well.

You are all welcome to join us at the table as we read into the agenda item number four.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 119499, an ordinance relating to paid sick and safe time, extending paid sick and safe time to employees of the Seattle School District.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us again at the table.

We're really excited that you could be here.

Thank you to 609 Friends.

And Dan, if you want to start with introductions, we'll just go down the road for reading into the public record your names.

Sure.

Dan Eder, Council Central Staff, Deputy Director.

Mike McPhee, Business Manager, Local 609.

Great.

Vera McMillan-Jemerson, Child Nutrition Services.

David Westberg, Retiree.

Excellent.

Well, thank you all for joining us.

And as you know, I got to pull the microphone close.

You can move these all around.

Make sure your green button's on so we can hear you.

We want to get into this legislation.

We had the chance to hear from folks at 609 two weeks ago.

Thank you so much.

And really been engaged in this conversation for over a year.

This is something that I felt was a long overdue conversation around how we make sure that not only are folks getting access to the letter of the law, which is access to paid sick and safe time, but that folks actually have the ability to call on someone.

if there is a lack of enforcement so that nobody gets retaliated against when they use their sick and safe time so that people know exactly that they have someone who is helping to monitor the benefits that we work so hard both at the state and local level to implement in law and also through benefit agreements.

So really excited to have you guys here.

Dan, I know you have a central staff memo that you have helped to create for us.

Do you want to walk us through that or do you want me to, you want to go first?

Okay.

As you mentioned, the central staff memo is linked to today's agenda, and I'll just briefly walk through the content.

The city's paid sick and safe time law has been in effect for several years.

More recently, state voters approved initiative 1433 creating statewide paid sick leave benefits for qualifying employees.

The city updated its paid sick and safe time law to be fully consistent with the state law's requirements.

The state law I'm sorry, I'm speaking now about the state law.

The state law allows municipalities to adopt regulations that exceed the state's requirements and the city's paid sick and safe time law does in several regards include higher level of requirements.

Seattle Public Schools is required to provide sick leave benefits that are compliant with the state law.

However, Seattle Public Schools is currently exempt from the city's paid sick and safe time law because the city's law expressly exempts all local governments besides the city of Seattle.

In brief, the current bill would have the effect of changing the city's paid sick and safe time law such that it affirmatively applies to the Seattle Public Schools.

The staff memo notes that there's a potential amendment clarifying the intent of the bill, and I understand that the sponsor will speak to her amendment when the time is right.

Excellent.

Thank you.

So we want to open this up for an opportunity for you all to help frame up the issue that we're talking about today as well.

Really, Vera, we're excited to have you at the table.

Haven't had a chance to see you in person yet, so thank you.

Thanks to Dave and Mike for coming back as well.

So we will turn it over to your team to tee up the conversation you'd like to have, and then we can talk a little bit more about the legislation.

Go ahead, Vera.

Hi, thank you for having me.

Like I said, my name is Vera McMillan Jimmerson, and the first thing I would like to talk about is a year ago, March, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer.

I am a survivor, however.

I've been with Seattle Public Schools for 18 years, and I love it.

After running out of my sick leave, I received a phone call that told me that I no longer held my position at my job, that I could come back as a sub and reapply for another open position if one was available.

Okay?

So at this time, I am truly fighting to have one more day.

One more day with my family.

I understand that the bus drivers, our milk carrier, and other people outside the district that deals with our schools in particular, they're covered by this amendment.

Why not us?

We need protection.

We need to be protected.

And I hope that my story is just one of many.

And I'm so happy, Dave, that you invited me to come down so I can share my story with me, with you guys, but it's not the first.

But I hope it would be the last of, you know, that we have to go through something like this to ask to be protected.

Barrett, thank you so much for sharing the story.

If I can follow up on that.

Again, this is an issue of equal justice under the law.

And, you know, the four elements that you, the chair, laid out pretty clearly in introductory remarks that we've included in our emails and communication with council members are ones that were generated for us by our outside attorneys, or not outside attorneys, by our attorneys.

What's the difference, the question was, what's the difference between 1433, the state program, and the city's implemented program that took place last June or so.

That's when I asked the question.

And that's when our attorney came up with these four important elements that we're not expecting to break the bank and we're not expecting to call upon the city to solve very many problems for us.

Last time I was here, we talked about five people that I could think of.

There's one other person, but that's about 1% of our members.

And so it's relatively infrequent.

But when it does happen, people like Vera need to have someone to call upon so that she doesn't anguish.

If you were on the other end of that phone call that Vera made at the end of October when she heard about having to reapply for her position, with the needle in your arm, I believe, in a port,

I had just left chemotherapy.

I mean, Vera and her niece were screaming and howling.

They were anguished.

And this isn't just on the phone with me.

This is, you know, when you turn the lights off at night and when you wake up in the morning, this is a constant concern.

And Vera put it really well.

She was fighting for one more day.

And this is about supporting working families and having some empathy and sympathy with primarily immigrant, primarily women.

low-income, low-wage employees that all work within the city limits of Seattle.

And for anyone to suggest that they may oppose it seems somewhat counterintuitive to those ideals of social justice and economic protection.

So...

Thank you, Dave.

You're welcome.

Appreciate that.

Mike, anything else to add?

Nothing else to add.

I think that Dave and Vera have summed up our position pretty well.

Thank you.

Thank you three for both being here again and for working with us for a very long time to try to bring this forward.

Councilmember Herbold, thank you for being here and you have also been a champion and engaged with the folks at 609. Is there anything that Councilmember Juarez or Councilmember Herbold that you have as questions before I talk about the amendment to the legislation?

No questions.

I appreciate you being here and sharing your story once again and I'm sorry that you have those experiences from asserting your rights as a worker.

I wanted to share too, it's just, I know that's a personal story.

I had cancer three times and the first two times was the whole chemo baldhead thing so I know what that's like and so I empathize and I understand what you're saying.

I want to thank Councilor Mosqueda and you guys for coming here today for sharing what we had gotten some briefing and with Dan's memo to try to understand the law behind this, you know, what's a certified worker, what's a non-certified worker.

So please don't construe any of my comments or concerns or questions that I don't understand or I don't care.

It's that a lot of times we want to do the right thing, but we also want it to legally be upheld.

We want it to be not just a resolution or an ordinance we pass.

thinking it's the right thing, knowing that we're going to go to court and we're going to lose.

We try to have really good laws that do the right thing, that withstand judicial scrutiny, and we want to do them right.

And so, I don't know if you've ever, if you know me, I'm a little bit more conservative about making sure that we do it right.

I don't like to just fly by the seat of my pants.

I like to do research.

I like to look at evidence.

I like to look at facts.

I like to look at the law.

And then I want to put on my legislative hat and say, okay, how do I get there?

What are the challenges and what do I need?

How do I rewrite something or challenge something or work with the city attorney's office on how we get there?

And we've done that.

We've, you know, some things we win, some things we lose, but this is really important.

because this, as you shared, this comes down to healthcare.

This comes down to people's lives.

And so, and that's something the law doesn't always reflect with law and intent.

They're gonna have a fight about who's a certified employee and who's not.

That's what this is gonna come down to some degree.

And so for me, I'm still in a learning phase, reading the information, and the leadership of Councilor Mesquita has been great.

She's been educating all of us.

and the city attorney's office has, as well as Dan giving us the memo.

So there may be more questions.

And so again, thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

And since we have delved in a little bit into some of the legal challenges that this proposal may result in, I think it might be appropriate to talk a little bit about whether or not there are non-legislative options that we could pursue as well.

Dan, could you talk a little bit about those options?

Sure, I think one of the options that has been floated as a possibility would be as an alternative to legislative action, changing the city's paid sick and safe leave would be an agreement that would be akin to one that the city has previously entered into with a school district.

both parties to agree on terms for the city to enforce some provisions that guarantee employees of the school district get access to the sick leave benefits to which they are either legally entitled or are entitled to under their collective bargaining agreement if they are a representative employee.

Thank you.

And one way of responding to that is that we do this all the time in law.

Sometimes the facts don't fit the law and the intent, so we engage in what we call interlocal agreements, where I use this analogy a lot when I represented tribes.

Tribes would be fighting with counties and cities about who has jurisdiction, and I use the line, You know, when there's a polluted watershed, we get sick.

It doesn't really matter who has jurisdiction.

It's got to get fixed.

And one of the tools that we used in Olympia, and we use them statewide and everywhere, are interlocal agreements where, you know, we agree that there's a difference, but we agree that the goal is for the greater good.

And if you can get the Seattle School District in the city of Seattle to agree to some type of interlocal agreement to cover non-certified employees, for me as a lawyer just, and again, we're just still preliminary, that's always a safer and better route because then you have discussion and you don't get into collective bargaining and other issues, rather than passing an ordinance that isn't going to be upheld, the way we look at the legal landscape now.

And that's what my concern is.

That's great.

I appreciate both of your comments, and I appreciate your answer Dan I think one of the things you said councilmember Morris was we need a fix and at this point We've been working on trying to identify a fix for over a year I know that the folks that 609 have been working on this for longer than that as someone who's worked on developing public policy for know, 15 plus years in the halls of Olympia and here, I am absolutely open to continuing to identify various paths to get to our end goal.

Today, I would love for us to consider the amended legislation that we have in front of us.

I'm always, you know, willing to continue to, my door is always open to have these discussions, but for me, I think that this piece of legislation offers us a fix, especially as amended.

One of the issues that you've heard so eloquently from the folks at 609 is that they have, as the law allows at the state level, allowed for us to offer benefits greater than the state floor.

And one of the challenges, though, is as we've done that, and you've mirrored what the city has done, actually you've done better in some places, You still are being challenged in your ability to access the very leave that you've already negotiated.

And if you were working anywhere else within the city of Seattle, you would have the guaranteed right to access and have your sick and safely protected, free from retaliation, free from intimidation.

guaranteed your job back.

That's critical.

And that's actually coming from the health perspective.

That's very important for your recovery as well.

So for me, I'm really excited about the opportunity to bring forward the amendment that we're going to talk about here in a second.

Always continue to engage in conversation with you all.

I appreciate the central staff memo and the creative thinking here.

And if I might transition into the amendment that we're talking about, because I think it helps us really identify the workers that we're talking about.

Dave, before we get there.

If I can, the workers that you're talking about that the amended version of this ordinance would apply to are those at the school district that have to work several jobs in order to afford to live.

in Seattle, and we're glad that many of our members remain in Seattle.

We'd like them to be able to.

And so, appreciate your comments as well.

Excellent.

Well, I'm going to hand out the draft so that everybody has it.

Great.

Looks like everyone has it on this side.

One of the key things that has come up in our conversation since the legislation was introduced is the intent.

And the intent, as David said, and thank you for putting both a face on this issue, both in terms of your description of the policy, but also, Vera, thank you for helping to come and help us remember what we're talking about in terms of the meat of this policy.

These are workers who are cleaning the yards at the school grounds, who are serving food at the school grounds, who are our non-certified staff, And we wanted to put this legislation amendment in front of you to really clarify that it was the intent to focus this legislation on our non-certified staff.

Any questions about the amendment?

Okay.

So before we consider the actual legislation, I'd like to go ahead and move to amend Council Bill 119499. Second.

Any other comments on the amendment?

They love it.

Okay, good.

All those in favor of the amendment to Council Bill 119499, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

None.

Abstentions?

None.

Great.

So the amended bill is now in front of us.

Are there any other comments about the bill before we move to consider the bill as amended?

Okay.

So I'd like to move that the committee recommend passage of amended Council Bill 119499. Second.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

None.

Abstentions?

One?

Great, thank you.

So the bill has got the approved votes to move out of the committee, a vote of two yeays and one abstention.

Thank you so much for the explanation earlier, Council Member Juarez, appreciate that.

And we are very excited to be able to say that this has moved out of this committee.

Really appreciate working with you.

Vera, thank you so very much for coming forward.

Yes, and we'll continue to stay in touch with you as we talk about next steps because this issue is not going away.

And as you said, you want to be the last story, not just a story in the long history of this issue needing to be addressed.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you, Vera.

Thank you, David.

Okay, and I'm sorry, thank you very much, Dan.

Thanks for being here.

We have one more item on our agenda, and we have about 15 minutes, so I think we're doing good on time.

Farideh Cuevas, if you could read into the agenda our fifth item of business.

And while you're doing that, thanks for joining us at the table.

Lisa.

Agenda item five, resolution 31879, a resolution supporting a safe and responsive workplace in the city of Seattle's legislative department.

for a briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for being here for that last item.

Welcome to the table.

Lisa, thanks for joining with us.

I do want to read your name into the record just for formality purposes.

Thank you, Council Member Lisa Kaye, Council Central staff.

Excellent, thank you.

So we are on our last item of the agenda, and Council Member Juarez, you and I have had a chance to talk about the issue of safe workplaces, prevention from harassment and intimidation, let alone assault.

Our deep need and desire to make sure that we are not only preventing people from ever being in that situation, but also changing what it means to have appropriate or inappropriate behavior in the workplace.

We've heard stories time and time again from silence breakers and frontline staff within the city and also across the city about how they've been in dangerous, precarious situations, situations where inappropriate comments were made.

And sometimes those inappropriate comments don't rise to the level of being illegal, and that has often meant that inaction has happened.

And as our culture continues to evolve, as our understanding and our intolerance of inappropriate behavior becomes new in terms of norms across this country and in the city, we also want to be responsive as employers.

I've been really excited to be part of the interdepartmental task force across the A city that has looked at citywide policy changes that are needed to implement safer workplaces.

And as we create the Office of the Employee Ombud, as we create the Independent Human Resources Investigation Unit, one of the things that has really stood out is the need to make sure that the folks who are working right here in the legislative branch, separate from the executive's branch, that we also have the chance to look internal to our personnel policies to make sure that not only are they helping to prevent retaliation, intimidation, harassment, but that we're doing a better job of defining what type of behaviors we're talking about in today's day and age and that our personnel policies are truly reflective of our expectations and norms here at the city.

This is also a tough subject.

So I understand, you know, that especially with some of the news that came out yesterday, this may be a triggering topic for some of our community members.

And I think Council Member Juarez and the entire council have expressed that we are standing with those who are survivors, folks who've had Me Too experiences.

And I just want to say that for anybody who was triggered by both this conversation or the news yesterday, of unsafe or toxic workplaces who are processing their own experiences, we stand with you.

We also are continuing to work to make sure that our city, especially those who work for our city, everyone has a respectful and safe workplace.

And not only will we do that for city workers, we'll continue to do that for our partners across the city so that this is a great place to work, to be able to start your career, end your career, have kiddos here, or retire here.

We want this to be a great place to be both in our city and specifically here in the legislative department.

I wanted to also recognize that the legislation in front of us mirrors some processes that we went through with or that our legislative partners went through last year where they identified a task force to come up with recommendations to change their policies and norms and expectations documents at the state legislature.

I believe it was Representative Nicole Macri through House Bill 4401 that was able to celebrate the implementation of the recommendations this year after a year's long worth of process that they went through and you know had we had the foresight to both do that and the IDT maybe we could have done it all at the same time but I think it was really important that we did the IDT first and then we can pull from some of those suggestions as we look at our internal legislative department.

So I will stop there because I'm really passionate about this.

I also, before I turn it over Lisa, I also want to say thank you to the folks who are on the front line.

We sent out a draft of this legislation over two weeks ago and asked folks from the departments that are represented within the legislative branch to give us feedback on what they saw and a number of individuals, frontline staff, middle managers came back to us and said we'd love to see X, Y, and Z reflected in your legislation.

We did our best to incorporate as much of the feedback as we received and so this is really already a collaborative process that we've put together to give us the foundation for coming together and creating a task force to change our personnel policies right here in the legislative department.

Lisa, I'm going to turn it over to you to walk us through the legislation and the central staff memo.

Okay, and I'll try to keep this relatively brief, given your time considerations.

Given that I took your time, I'm sorry.

No, no, no, you had a big agenda today.

So just this resolution 31879 has three sections in it.

So section one will describe the city council's expectations with respect to the behavior of each member of the legislative department, and that includes employees, elected and appointed officials, and contractors to the department.

Section 2 then goes on to state that members of the Legislative Department should be treated with respect and not subjected to inappropriate or offensive language, and expresses the Council's commitment to protecting Legislative Department employees from unlawful harassment by members of the public.

Finally, then, Section 3 creates an internal department working group that would be facilitated by a neutral third party to review policies, our existing policies, pertaining to workplace expectations and have that review done by September 1st of 2019. That working group would be sort of balanced between the management and staff, so you'd have representatives from both groups and would also have a representative from the council president's office.

Law department and the offices of the auditor, hearing examiner, and inspector general are invited to join.

Of course, the law department would be giving legal review to any amendments that would be proposed to the policies.

And then the working group would invite the Legislative Department's Race and Social Justice Initiative Change Team to review any proposed revisions to make sure that you had a full perspective on that.

That's the substance of the resolution, Councilmember.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Councilmember Morales, any questions from you or any comments?

Thank you so much, Councilmember.

So one of the things that we've been talking about a lot here in the last few weeks has been the situation that, you know, many of our staff and I think us as Councilmembers have been experiencing, which is both threats of physical violence and sexual violence.

This is, I think, legislation intended to create a safer workplace internal to the department, but also set some expectations for those who are engaging with our department, especially our staff.

And no one, especially our colleagues and our staff, should be on the receiving end of that type of violence.

And I think that this is not only an important element in terms of expectations of electeds, because we've also heard repeated stories from the state to the national level of inappropriate behavior that we want to both prevent and address in terms of electeds, but also for protecting our staff and protecting elected and we want to make sure that we're never in that situation where that's a permitted behavior.

Yeah, Council Member Morris.

The reason why at first didn't because I was trying to because the focus of your legislation obviously throughout it is the City of Seattle's Legislative Department and then on page two when we talk about be it resolved the City Council we conduct ourselves and then When you, what triggered for me, is when you talked about not only how we behave here on the legislative branch with our colleagues and people we work with, but when the public comes in.

And then you brought up the external forces that we deal with.

And of course, everybody has seen some of the things that we have been subjected to.

In the over three years that I have been here, I have been subjected to some of the most vile and sexist and racist names.

I've had death threats.

I've had people post stuff in my yard.

I've had people come here and call us horrible names and do horrible things.

So we really are talking harassment, discrimination, we're talking about bullying, and that is not a First Amendment right.

And I just want to make it clear that, you know, getting back to what Councilmember Mosqueda was saying and what we all hope is that this is a public space and it should be safe.

Everyone should feel safe coming here.

One of the concerns I have and I want to thank our security folks is that before the cameras come on, there are members of the public that harass our clerks.

on a continual basis.

And when the cameras are off, they sometimes continue to do that.

And I am kind of saddened that we have to pass a resolution to tell people how to behave, how to just be kind, just to have civil discourse.

And I don't know how we got here.

I'll have an idea actually.

It's neither here nor there right now.

But the resolution, I hope, is a step in the right direction and not just a paper tiger, that we really are resolved because we're now admitting that there is a problem.

And it has escalated beyond people just disagreeing with us.

It has escalated where we've had to have SPD come to our homes and make sure that we're safe.

And quite frankly, I just don't think that that can continue.

And my fear is that it will escalate.

And I hope that the public sees that.

I'm hoping that we are trying to set an example where we want to hear what people have to say, but that there are rules in a public space.

And I don't think you should have to have a rule that says, be kind, be respectful, don't bully, don't harass, don't threaten, don't give death threats.

My God, it's just common decency.

But I want to thank you for putting this together because now we're having an honest conversation that these issues are happening and now we have something to work from.

So I want to thank you for your leadership on this, Chairperson Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Having just had the threats of both physical violence and sexual violence, We want to set a level of expectation that while we won't tolerate that from outside, we won't tolerate it from inside.

Updating our policies to ensure that we both are protected and safe in our workplaces and that people know that when they come here They will be protected and safe and that includes folks who are wanting to come testify or wanting to come work here very very honored to work on this with you and If there aren't any more questions, perhaps we should consider this going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I would like to move to I would like to move that the committee recommends passage of Resolution 31879, a resolution supporting a safe and responsive workplace in the City of Seattle's Legislative Department.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

No opposed.

Great.

Thank you very much, Council Member Juarez.

The resolution 31879 has passed by a vote of this committee.

We will bring this resolution to full council on April 22nd for a full committee vote.

Again, thanks to the frontline staff, to Lisa for your work on this, and to the state legislature as well for initiating their process so that we could also follow in due order.

You know, one thing we should add is that when all of this has been going on, and it's been going on for a long time, well over three years for certain votes, I really want to thank the Seattle Women's Commission, the Northwest Women's Political Caucus, all the women organizations that have come forward with their own resolutions and letters of support to say that this is not okay.

You cannot target people on their gender and their race.

That is not okay.

So if they're listening, I just want to thank them.

There's some really good people that's reached out to us and have been supportive to us.

And thank you to the individuals who've also sent very kind messages and came to testify in the last few weeks, reiterating that point.

We know we didn't sign up for this, for an easy walk in the park.

It's tough work that we do, and we expect to be held accountable, but we don't expect to be put in danger or to be assaulted, and neither do our staff, and neither should anybody who works in the legislative department, from internal or external.

And a particular shout-out to our staff, because they field between 300 and 600 phone calls and texts a day, and I'd say for about three weeks, we heard and saw and read and had to turn over to SPD some of the most violent, sexist, misogynistic, racist things you have ever seen.

And I think it's sad that four news outlets asked for the information and only one person wrote about it, and that was Erica Barnett, where these other organizations all got the same material, but apparently that's not news.

So we are no longer sweeping that type of news under the rug.

We are exposing what is happening.

And Lisa, we would not be here without your hard work to get us this resolution.

Thank you for all of your research and for working with our office.

Thank you to Sejal Parikh, our Chief of Staff, for her ongoing work on this.

Federica Cuevas, I want to thank you for your ongoing work at the Interdepartmental Task Force and for your help to set up the Office of the OEO, Office of Employee Ombud.

All of these issues are gonna make a huge difference, so thanks for the work that you do as well.

And thank you to our security folks.

Thank you, security folks.

You're always so good to us for taking care of us, and I really appreciate that.

You always check in with us.

You always ask how we're doing.

You've escorted me to my car, and I really want you to know that you guys have been good to us, and I appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you, please pass that on to your colleagues.

Okay, with that, I think we are at the end of our agenda.

Are there any other items for the good of the order?

Seeing none, our next committee meeting will be on May 2nd at 9.30.

Labor Standards Advisory Committee appointments, the Seattle City Light Review Panel appointment, the Office of the OEO, the Employee Ombud Confirmation.

Just as a reminder, we sent out some, we asked for folks to give us draft questions by Friday, I think at 10 a.m.

tomorrow.

We have some questions that we'll be sending around for folks to add to if you want to take a look at what we have so far, about a half dozen.

If you could get us feedback by 10 a.m.

tomorrow, Friday, we will send that off to Dr. Khan and she will get back to us with her answers that we will circulate back to you all before May 2nd.

We'll also have the hotel workers industry folks who will be coming forward to share their perspective on our ongoing work to create hotel worker safety.

And lastly, we'll have the Fort Lawton land use full plan briefing.

We have some packed agendas going forward.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Hey, guess what though?

We are on time leaving today.

Thanks so much for all your work and for being here.

Appreciate it.

The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.