Seattle City Council Governance and Education Committee 12/8/20

All right, folks.

Good afternoon.

The December 8th, 2020 Governance and Education Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 2 o'clock p.m.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Chair Gonzalez?

Here.

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Here.

Council Member Sawant?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

All right, that's four present and one absent.

Thank you so much.

Okay, the city council rules are silent on allowing remote meetings and electronic participation at committee meetings.

To allow this committee to be conducted remotely, the council rules will need to be suspended.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow today's governance and education committee meeting to meet remotely and participate electronically.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and the committee will continue with this remote meeting.

Approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Folks, we usually do public comment now, but my understanding is we don't have anyone signed up for public comment and I'm looking to our committee clerk for my office to confirm that we have not yet had anyone sign up for public comment.

That is accurate, Chair Gonzalez.

Thank you so much, V. So we're going to go ahead and open up public comment and close public comment out, since we don't have anyone signed up to give us public testimony today, and go ahead and jump into items of business.

The first item, will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Council Bill 119967, an ordinance relating to the 2018 Families Education Pre-School and Promise Levy, amending the levy implementation and evaluation plan adopted by Ordinance 125807 to grant the Department of Education and Early Learning temporary authority to modify the implementation and evaluation plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

Okay, colleagues before I hand this over to deal.

I want to note make a note that normally we would have central staff at the table.

Brian Goodnight is the policy analyst from Council Central staff that is assigned to this issue.

But unfortunately, he is away from the office tending to a personal matter and won't be back with us until I believe the 10th of December.

So he did, however, let my office know that he worked with Deal in the background to address some technical issues ahead of transmittal of this legislation that we're about to be briefed on and discuss.

And he, in his due diligence, did evaluate the proposed legislation after those technical issues were addressed and identified no other policy issues from central staff's perspective for today's consideration.

So, without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Director Chappelle to kick off the conversation.

And Director Chappelle, V does have the presentation and is going to queue it up for us.

Take it away.

And we can do, Director Chappelle, if you can introduce yourself and members of your team who are with us in committee, that would be great.

And then we can go ahead and kick it off.

All right, thank you, Council President.

So who I have here with me today is Monica Liang-Aguirre, our Early Learning Division Director.

And we have Dana Harrison.

She's our K-12 and post-secondary division director.

And we have Marissa Roussel.

She's our Interim Director of Comms and Policy.

They'll be presenting with me today.

So thank you for that.

And you can go to the next slide, please.

So, once again, good afternoon, council president and all council members.

So, the purpose of today's presentation is to walk you through the executive's proposal, or should I say, proposed legislation amending the FEPP implementation and evaluation plan in response to COVID.

Next slide, please.

And the reason we are bringing this before you is because there is existing legislation that governs how the FEP proceeds may be spent.

These include the original ordinance that was approved by voters in November of 2018 and the FEP implementation evaluation plan, which was adopted by council in April of 2019. And the ordinance that created the FEPP specifies strategies that FEPP funds can be spent on.

And the implementation and evaluation plan also specifies some key program details and changes that require council engagement.

Neither of the ordinances considered the fact that a global pandemic would occur within our seven years of this levy.

So therefore, what we're doing, we're proposing legislation to these circumstances, excuse me, that respond to these circumstances.

And they're consistent with the ordinance.

We have engaged our FEPP Levy Oversight Committee on a proposal, or should I say on the proposed legislation here before you.

And we've also included a letter that includes their support.

You can go to the next slide, please.

So DILL and our partners, we've done a lot of work throughout 2020 in response to the pandemic, from launching the emergency childcare program to modifying all of our department investments to meet the public health guidance.

And we've kept children, youth, and families at the center of all of it.

So this legislation, it acknowledges prior actions that were taken by DEEL in response to the pandemic, and also it addresses emergent community needs.

So what I'm going to do now is turn this over to DEEL, to our Interim Director, Marissa.

She's our Interim Director of Policy and Communications, as I mentioned earlier, to review the proposed amendments with you all.

Marissa?

Thank you, Dwayne.

Next slide, please.

Great.

So the addendum for consideration today, as Dwayne mentioned, has been considered by our levy oversight committee.

And I'll wait for this next slide to come up.

Great.

And so we just want to state as an overarching description of the proposal that the actions taken are consistent with the goals of the FEPP levy as adopted by council and approved by voters.

All of our actions are consistent with the latest public health guidance and state mandates.

And in bringing forth these policy recommendations, DEEL was very intentional about balancing student, family, and service provider needs.

And in all modifications we've made in response to COVID, those partners have been at the forefront of our thinking.

Next slide, please.

So, in the attached addendum, addendum number 3, we have included language that specifies the timeframe that this policy will be in effect.

And so we are proposing for these measures to apply only to the current school year of FEP investment.

So that's FEP year 2. The flexibility granted would end August 31st of 2021, unless we continue to grapple with the COVID pandemic.

And so we've included language in the legislation that says if King County remains in phases 1 to 3, of Safe Start Washington on July 1st, then the flexibility in this legislation would extend through FEP year three.

And the rationale behind this is that DEEL actually begins working on our contracts with partners in spring for the upcoming school year.

And so we want to make sure that we have enough time to be responsive to our partners' needs and to give families and students enough advance notice of any policy changes that will continue into the next school year.

For any changes made as a result of this legislation, we will notify the chair of this committee within 30 days.

And we will also include a list of any modifications made as a result of the legislation in our FEPP year two annual report.

I also want to note that the legislation includes a ratify and confirm clause effective September 1st, 2020. And this is because some of the modifications requested are already in place as the school year is almost halfway done.

So we want to be responsive to those changes we had to make expeditiously as we built our response to the pandemic.

Next slide.

Okay, and so here is a summary of the bullet points and addendum number three, and we've just gone ahead and included the full text from that attachment here for you.

For those of you who may not recall, the FEPP levy has four investment areas, so early learning, K-12, school health, And Seattle promise.

And so these first two bullet points are intended to be expansive to cover all of the investments in the FEPP levy.

So to give deal flexibility to adapt in accordance with public health mandates across all four areas and to expand the FEPP strategies that we are allowed to invest in to meet emerging community needs.

For the remainder of Deal's presentation today, you'll hear from our Early Learning Director and our K-12 and Post-Secondary Director who are going to speak more pointedly about the amendments pertaining to the Seattle Preschool Program and the Seattle Promise Program.

So I will leave it there for now and turn it over to Monica to talk about the Seattle Preschool Program.

Great.

You can go to the next slide, please.

Seattle Preschool Program.

OK, so as you know, early learning industry workforce has been at the forefront of the fight in this pandemic, really responding very quickly to the emergent needs of essential workers.

As you know, and we're really grateful to our early learning providers who have really pivoted everything they do, who knew that remote preschool was a thing until 2020, but indeed it is.

And so, you know, our Seattle preschool program providers really had to pivot quickly and they worked.

to adjust our SPP programming and contracting to best meet the needs of their communities and children and families that they serve.

Providers were able to choose, I'm sorry, you can go to the next slide, please.

Providers were able to choose the model that best fit their individual circumstances, including their staffing capacity, the size of their facilities, and the needs of the community.

And so providers chose one of three of these models.

They either continue to deliver services 100% in person, and we do have some providers who do that.

We have providers that are doing 100% family directed or remote instruction.

And then we have other providers who are doing a combination of the two and doing some sort of a hybrid model.

I want to just publicly acknowledge the flexibility and creativity and the stick-with-it-ness of our providers to pivot their programming like this and short turnaround.

It has been really, truly inspirational to see what they've been able to do for their families.

Next slide, please.

So, in order to accommodate these changes, deal made some changes, both to the provider payment and the family tuition models in response in response to these changes, and they affect both our expenses and revenue, which obviously ultimately impacts the bottom line for SPP.

So firstly, we reduced the slot payment for our providers that were offering 100% remote programming.

We reduced it by 15%.

Although the providers were not offering in-person services, we know that their staffing costs are still the same.

The teachers were still working very hard to prepare and deliver meaningful instructions.

They had to support families in more intense ways than ever.

having to adapt to a whole new way of operating.

And of course, they have the facilities costs, et cetera, et cetera.

So we wanted to make sure that we were keeping providers as whole as possible, while recognizing that they do have some reduced cost by only being 100% remote.

So that was one of the decisions that we made, was to reduce the slot payment for 100% remote programming.

Then we also fought on the family side.

We also really gave consideration to the immense pressure that families are facing right now and recognizing that when we talk about preschool for three and four year olds, we're actually also talking about child care.

And that they go hand in hand and that many families now had to take on the responsibility of not only providing preschool instruction, but also still perhaps looking for child care on the side.

So, we made the change to have.

tuition waived completely for families that were getting 100% remote.

So if your child was not attending in-person at all, but was all doing it at home with an adult support from home, then the tuition was waived.

And then for families that were in hybrid programs or in-person programs, we decided to reduce the tuition by 50%.

And the thinking behind that was everybody's going through some significant challenges right now.

And we wanted to support families as much as possible, recognizing that it's not going to be the same type of programming as we had been able to provide previous years.

And also just to give families immediate relief and predictability in what they were going to be.

spending their money on.

So those were the big changes.

Those were the changes that we made that we're here to talk about today.

A couple of things that didn't change was the fact we did not change the slot payments for providers that were delivering 100% in person or hybrid programming.

So they're receiving 100% of their original contract slot payment.

And then for, we also did not actually change the requirements for tuition.

So all families that are above 350% federal poverty level, according to the implementation evaluation plan, are eligible to pay tuition.

That hasn't changed.

And the tuition that is calculated is still on a sliding scale.

So those have stayed consistent.

Next slide, please.

So this slide says a lot.

And I'm going to try to use two purposes here.

One is to give you an idea of the overall enrollment and the proportionality between the two different types of programs that we're offering.

And then I also just want to highlight the group of families that are actually directly impacted by this policy tuition change.

So just to give you a quick update on where we are in overall enrollment, you'll see that, Our full capacity is 1,925 children.

We are about at 80% enrollment this year, which is actually not very different from other years, but understandably lower because of COVID.

And about 80% of our children are identified at enrollment as BIPOC children or coming from families that identify as BIPOC.

You'll see also that we have the three different types of programs, the family-directed, the hybrid, and the in-person.

And that they are, in terms of the capacity, they're roughly a third, a third, and a third.

So our programs are pretty evenly distributed as are our seats.

And we've been watching that carefully to see if there is any sort of disproportionality in who is attending what type of program.

You'll see that the children, our BIPOC children are attending.

slightly higher in 100% family-directed versus in-person, which is the same proportion as overall seats that are available.

And we've been looking at that closely and also doing, we just conducted a survey with families to find out more about the experience of family-directed and hybrid learning.

And then I'd like to focus your attention to the last column, which is the families that are enrolled at 350% or above federal poverty level.

So these are actually the families that qualify for tuition and who are impacted by our change in tuition policy.

So, as you can see, a total of 382 children are eligible to pay tuition and 25% of those, which is approximately 25% of the total SPP tuition.

So of those, if you look at it, the ones that are at the top row, the 160 kids that are family-directed, those are the ones who got their tuition waived completely.

So 160 children had their tuition waived completely.

And the other two, the 109 and 113, are the ones that had 50% of their tuition waived.

OK, so now we can go to the next slide.

which shows you the budget impact.

And this is really just the relevant sliver of what our FPP revenue expenses are in terms of the contracts and the tuition.

And this table shows that the changes that we made in the tuition and the provider contracts mostly balanced out.

There's only about a $95,000 projected gap between what we were expecting and what we are anticipating now, what we were expecting pre-COVID and what we're expecting now, even though those changes.

So it just happened that the loss in tuition revenue and the decreased provider contracts just pretty much evened out.

And we still have $2.4 million in reserves in case the programming changes.

So as you know, if SPS, for example, who are the biggest provider that does remote instruction right now, if they decide to go back in person, as there's talk of right now, in March, we would have enough money to increase our contracts again to 100%.

So we are in good shape for that.

And that wraps up the changes in SPP policy.

So I will pass it off to my colleague, Dana, to talk about K-12, I mean post-secondary.

Thank you, Monica.

And then for colleagues, What I was hoping to do is be able to go through the entire presentation, just to make sure that Deal has ample time to get through it, because there's a lot of rich data in here.

And then we'll circle back and open it up to questions and comments about the entire presentation once we're done.

So thank you for letting me interrupt.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

And good afternoon, council members.

And thanks so much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Before I dive in, I do just want to acknowledge that while many of you are familiar with the Seattle promise program and its recent growth council hasn't yet had a formal briefing on promise enrollment trends.

So I am in just a moment going to speak to some of the fall enrollment data.

which you may have heard a little bit about last week.

This is a bit of a milestone in and of itself for us as first year students are the first cohort of grad with graduates coming from all SPS high schools and the first to experience all of the fully skilled levy supports.

So more on that in a moment.

But for now as Marissa shared earlier we're here seeking approval of an amendment to the FEPP levy implementation plan that would allow current Seattle Promise students 1st and 2nd years to access the benefits of the program beyond the two-year limit.

So currently, Promise Program supports, which include tuition support, equity scholarships for qualifying students, and the support of outreach and retention specialists throughout their college experience, only cover 90 attempted credits or two years of enrollment, whichever comes first.

So our colleagues at the colleges and those of us here at Diehl are in strong support of offering students expanded flexibility, given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And suspending the two-year limit and allowing students to enroll part-time or to defer enrollment to a later date is a responsive action to take, just given the unusual circumstances that 2020 has brought us.

And it's also consistent with the requests we've received from students, from families, and from our college partners themselves.

So we hope that you'll come to the same conclusion and that this is the right thing to do for students this year.

Next slide, thank you.

So sharing with you here, just a quick update on what's happening now.

So right now students are participating in an entirely virtual environment.

The Summer Bridge event was also conducted virtually and that helped prepare students in September for the start of virtual classes at the very end of September.

And as fall quarter began, the Promise Program welcomed its largest cohort of scholars to date.

That's 846 students have enrolled this fall, which is really exciting given the circumstances and speaks really to the tremendous adaptability and resilience of the students and the many staff members who have continued to support them through this.

You may have heard in the news and multiple outlets over the last month or so, there's been a drop experienced by a lot of community colleges and other four-year institution enrollment across the country as a result of the pandemic.

So it's really exciting to be able to say that we actually have grown.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

Okay, so here you see a little bit more specific of a breakdown of fall enrollment, including full-time and part-time enrollment, as well as the request to defer by class.

So in fall of 2020, Seattle colleges have enrolled 699 first-year students and 147 second-year students.

And so far total, we have 18 requests to defer enrollment as a result of the pandemic.

Next slide, please.

So the legislation under consideration would suspend the two-year limit on enrollment for current Promise Scholars, as I shared.

and allow them to fully benefit from part or deferred enrollment as a result of COVID.

Under normal circumstances, the implementation plan restricts promised student supports to 90 attempted credits for two years, whichever comes first.

And in mid-September, the colleges reported to deal, and we were hearing from students and families as well, that they were seeing a large increase in the number of students that were requesting to defer or to enroll part-time.

And consideration of this type of request to go part-time and not be full-time, which is part of the Promise Program, is permitted as it now stands for extenuating circumstances.

But this fall presented just a significantly higher volume.

And what isn't part of the provision now is that two-year limit.

By allowing students in the first year and their second year this year to extend beyond that, we're making sure that those critical Seattle Promise supports that are helping them complete their degree or certificate are still in place all the way through their program.

So this change not only helps the colleges accommodate the higher than normal number of exception requests, but it also extends the duration of the Promise support benefits for those students.

And as you saw previously, currently there are about 217 students who would benefit directly from this policy change.

What is unchanged is then the eligibility requirements for the program.

So meeting milestones along the way, they would be adapted so that it would match whether or not they're part-time or deferred, but they would still need to meet those milestones.

The maximum credits attempted remains the same, as does the need to stay in good academic standing, which is that satisfactory academic progress.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so the estimates I'm sharing here are based on the best available data we have to date.

But I do want to acknowledge that we expect some variability because financial aid information is fluid and reflects quarter by quarter, depending on the students that are participating.

So for now, extra tuition costs for part-time students is roughly $300 per quarter beyond their two-year Promise experience.

So to extend promise for one additional quarter, which is what you see in that middle column.

We estimate that to come at a cost of 6300 and to extend for a full year or three quarters, we estimate a cost of 18,900 And for students with a demonstrated financial need.

Equity scholarships provide additional financial support so that they can pay for things like food, transportation, housing, whatever it is that they need to help them pursue their education.

And based on the number of part-time students currently receiving this benefit, we estimate a cost of $49,000 for a one-quarter extension and $147,000 for a full year or three-quarter extension.

And then finally, retention specialists may be needed to support the additional caseload.

So as students enroll part-time or defer to the following quarter, it might shift our numbers a little bit, and we want to be responsive to that and make sure we're still providing the necessary supports for students.

And if that ends up requiring an additional staff member for one quarter, you see the cost reflected there for one staff member addition, and then the three-quarter column represents the need for two retention specialists.

And this is really accounting for unknowns around deferred students.

And if more students will request part-time beyond just this first fall quarter.

OK, next slide, please.

So thank you, Dana.

So this is actually in conclusion for our presentation.

Just wanted to share with you all some forthcoming council engagements in 2021. We do plan on coming back for our 2019, excuse me, 2019-20 20 annual report, which is the first year.

We'll come back and share about infant child care studies that's been conducted.

We'll have a RSJI and change team presentation and as needed, we'll definitely come back for a theft amendment.

So this actually concludes our presentation for today.

Thank you, Director Powell for for that.

Okay, colleagues, I want to go ahead and open it up for questions or comments on the proposed flexibility legislation as described by staff from DEEL.

Any questions or comments?

Yes, Madam President.

Oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry, I'm having technical issues real quick here.

Okay, I didn't see, I didn't see, I couldn't see your video, so I'm sorry if I missed you, but go ahead.

No, no problem.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

And thank you, everybody from the DEEL team.

It's really good to see all of you.

I did want to just raise something that I know you're well aware of.

But as we think about ways that we can support folks who need child care and assistance for families, their teachers, the kiddos, We know that your work has been essential in helping to provide much needed support during this COVID crisis and appreciate that we are talking about flexibility.

The need for flexibility is clear.

We also want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to help keep child care providers open.

Our child care provider just had a COVID scare last week, and I know it was really a hardship for all of the families who were working from home, but it was more of a hardship as well for the workers and for the organization itself.

So I'm looking forward to hearing more about what we can do regarding the long wait list pre-COVID, resulting in disproportionate hardship for women, people of color, low-income families, continue to worry about the new closures and how it will result in even greater disparities.

And I know, Deal, especially with your leadership, Director Chappelle, these are some of the concerns that you all have raised today and you've raised in the past.

And I just wanted to lift up the important work that you have applied, the lens that you've applied to this to make sure that we are looking at those racial equity issues and how it affects our lowest wage workers and also our smallest businesses, including childcare providers.

And I look forward to the continued partnership with you.

But if there's anything else that you all would want to highlight just in the public forum about the ways in which you're applying greater flexibility to help our child care providers stay open, I know that that information has been really well received and we really appreciate it.

And just wanted to tee that up for you.

Well, thank you for your support and we appreciate everything.

Monica, do you want to share anything, uplift anything before we close out?

You got to take yourself off mute, Monica.

Only been doing this for nine months.

I still make the same mistake.

Um, I think, um, I know, um, Dwayne shared with you our recent, um, copay relief, um, that we, that we did for our CCAP families.

So waiving their copay for November, December, um, as an immediate relief for families.

Um, so we continue to work with our providers and, um, to, to, you know, support both them and families.

And so it's a constant balancing act, and we're doing our best.

So I look forward to sharing with you a lot of the recommendations that will be coming forth in the new year.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, I would say that on that point, you know, part of what we did through the last budget process, not this one, but in 2019, is advance a set of statements of legislative intent and some actual budget actions to provide deal with some additional resources in order to work with consultants and other folks around I'm hoping that that is still going to be the case.

some of the work product that we've had there.

That's going to be a big part of the committee's work in the first quarter of next year is really digging into some of those recommendations and some of that analysis.

It's obviously going to continue to be a need.

It was a need before COVID and it continues to be a need now.

I think DEEL is to be commended for all of the good work that they've been doing and the hard work that you all have been doing to really partner with our service provider, child care provider network, including SPS, to try to mitigate the impacts of closures during this period of COVID.

So, really appreciate that work.

Any other comments or questions?

Council Member Strauss?

Thank you, Chair Gonzalez, and thank you, Director Chappell, Monica, Marissa, and Dana.

This has been a very helpful presentation.

I first got to work on the 13th and 14th year college program in 2015 when I was staff for Senator Frockt and working in partnership with then State Senator, now U.S.

Representative Pramila Jayapal.

So I've been long excited for this first full cohort to come through, and I just really want to call out and appreciate your focus on flexibility, especially around deferment and being able to plan for the deferment and that bow wake that may come in a year or two to still be able to provide this promise to students that might not be going to school right now.

I just overall want to thank you and really want to focus in on the flexibility and thank you for focusing in on the deferment aspect.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Any other comments, colleagues?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Please, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

It's so good to see you, Monica.

Anyway, just quickly, thank you so much for this work.

As, you know, we were some of us were around when we were unveiling the promise program up at Ingram in our work with Nathan Hale and North college.

And this continues to be a very popular program still gets talked about when I talk to the 2 principals at both high schools.

and the work that we're doing, and also under the leadership of President Gonzalez with the deal, and the whole idea of having this flexibility legislation really speaks to us just trying to stay on top of everything in the midst of this pandemic-fueled recession and everything else that's come with it.

So thank you for your leadership, Council President, and thank you, Mr. Chappelle, as always, for bringing it.

And again, it's really good to see Monica.

Thank you.

Thank you, Debra.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

So, 1 of the things that we didn't have an opportunity to really dig into that I, that I do think is worth lifting up is the.

The enrollment demographics that we're seeing as it relates to the Seattle promise program, you know, this is a new program for the city of Seattle that is being administered by deal.

And when we first supported it, we wanted to make sure that there was a huge attention and focus on RSGI to make sure that there wasn't any unintended consequences or disproportionate impacts to students of color who might otherwise be accessing what was formerly known as the 13th year program.

And so I am really pleased to see some of the numbers in terms of race and ethnicity, Coming out about who is currently enrolled in terms of the cohort of 2020, we didn't see the disaggregated enrollment numbers in this presentation, but I want to assure you all that we do have disaggregated.

uh, numbers, um, uh, with regard to, uh, different demographics, um, race and ethnicity on, on that.

And I think, you know, director Chappelle, if I can ask you and your staff to share that memo, um, with the full committee, I think that would be really, really helpful to make sure that everybody has those desegregated numbers.

One of the things I will say is that the, the numbers related to the, Asian category or demographic are still not disaggregated.

They're all together in one lump.

And I don't know if we have the opportunity to do cross tabs to further disaggregate the category of Asian students who are part of the cohort.

But if there is, I would ask for that modification to be made to the memo.

And if there isn't, then I think we need to have a conversation about about the city's commitment to disaggregate numbers within the API category so that we get a better indicator of who is accessing the programs and who is not within the 2020 promise cohort and beyond.

look forward to that memo, colleagues, in terms of further desegregation.

But the numbers in terms of who is accessing the program is really great.

And I think I'm really excited to continue to see how that expands.

I will also say that I am really pleased to see that we are moving in a direction through this legislation to allow for part-time attendance.

That was something that I really wanted to see occur in the original proposal, but we decided to take a slow and steady approach instead.

And this legislation allows for us to be a little bit more intentional with allowing part-time students to participate.

And again, the numbers of those who are interested in enrolling and participating indicate that there is a significant number of folks who are interested in the part-time option and who are still academically succeeding and performing.

And so I think that that's going to be an important data piece for us to collect to see if we can continue to support those students who have academic interest and ambitions but who only have the capacity to do part-time for other reasons in their life.

So just wanted to lift up those things as it relates to the Seattle Promise and appreciate Council Member Mosqueda highlighting the issues around early learning in particular.

Lots lots lots of work to be done there.

And and looking forward to having you all back in committee next week to talk about some, or not next week, I'm sorry, not next week, next year, to go through the list of all of the other things that I know we have in the queue for briefing and discussion on the FEPP levy.

So let's go ahead, and if there's no other questions or issues on the legislation, Council Member Esqueda, please.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Just taking a deeper dive into the disaggregation issue that you flagged, one of the things that I've been also hearing from other departments, and I want to see if this is true within DL since it relates to that, is are we disaggregating how many Latino community family members we're serving?

Because I had heard that trying to get information about Latino community services across various city departments has been challenging for some of our community partners.

And I wanted to just use this as an opportunity to see if that is true as well within DEEL.

Let me follow up with my data team to see if that is, and then when we follow up with you, I'll be able to answer that question specifically for you.

Dana, and I'm looking at you just specifically, I mean, unless you know that right now.

Yeah, we, so maybe this goes both to your question, Council Member Esqueda, and also to Council President's question about the Asian disaggregation.

It's something we definitely have been pursuing with our partners.

We do have to do that in concert with them in terms of how the data gets collected in the first place, but it's this conversation we've started with them that we can intend to continue to pursue.

At the moment, we don't have it, but we hope that in our future work with them, we'll start to put in place systems that allow us to collect that and then share that information with you.

Currently, we do capture, if people identify as Hispanic or Latino, that data is captured.

What is not captured is any sort of sub-categorization or sub-demographics within the Hispanic slash Latino category.

similar for Asian populations.

There is just as Asian as a broad category, but doesn't further identify, you know, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, et cetera, et cetera.

And so I think, so I think, you know, there's interest, if there's ongoing interest in sort of further refining that data, then there's an opportunity to do that work in partnership with DEEL.

But of course, as Dana just mentioned, our data is only as good as that of which our partners are actively and proactively collecting.

And of course, we also have categories of multiracial and other race and missing or not reported information.

And so there's there's, you know, that the information is, um, as accurate as, as, as it can be for, um, you know, just on the reality that we're relying on people to self report.

And, um, and so, um, I think it would be helpful if we, if deal shared this memo with council members and if there's ongoing concerns around how we're capturing that data, um, there's an opportunity, I think, to engage the department on, on, um, ideas around how to how to refine the process.

Okay, well, looks like we have concluded our conversation on this bill.

I do want to call this bill up for a vote.

I think deal is looking for us to to hopefully address this bill today so that they have some certainty and moving forward operationally on flexibility that they're requesting in the FEPP levy investment.

So I'm going to go ahead and call this up for a vote.

So I'm going to move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 119967. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Are there any additional comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee's recommendation that the bill pass?

Juarez?

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Gonzalez.

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the committee will recommend to the full council that the bill pass.

We will consider this at our December 14th City Council meeting at 2 o'clock p.m.

or thereabouts.

Thank you so much again to all of the leaders within DEEL.

Really appreciate your time and attention to this and your hard work on behalf of Seattle's families.

Thanks, Dana.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you all.

All right.

See you all later.

Bye.

Adios.

Hasta luego.

How many different ways can you buy?

Okay, so we're going to move into item two.

We only have two items on today's agenda, so I think hopefully we'll move pretty quickly through the second item as well.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Agenda item two, Council Bill 119968, an ordinance relating to lobbying regulations.

expanding lobbying regulations to cover grassroots lobbying campaigns, correcting typographical errors, correcting section references, clarifying regulations, and making minor amendments, and amending Chapter 2.06 of the Seattle Municipal Code for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thanks, V. All right, so we have some guests in our virtual meeting today.

We have Wayne Barnett, who is the director of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, and we also have Nicholas Brown, who is the chair of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

We also have Lish Whitson with us from Council Central staff, who prepared a very thorough and high quality brief for council members to get up to speed on this proposed legislation.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Lish, who is going to walk us through his memo and make himself available for any questions.

And then we will hear from from Director Barnett and Chair Brown on the proposed recommendations from the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission in this council bill.

Lish, take it away.

Great.

So this says ethics regulations date to 2008. They are focused on attempts by members of the public to influence city legislation.

Currently they require that lobbyists who perform direct lobbying, which means talking to elected officials and members of the mayor's staff or the legislative department in an attempt to legislate or change or influence legislation, need to register with the Ethics Elections Commission and they need to then submit quarterly reports as do the any people who are hiring them to perform those lobbying activities.

The proposed legislation is the first major update to those regulations since they were adopted in 2008. They incorporate a concept called grassroots lobbying, which has been in state law since 1973. They require that lobbying of department directors and those directors direct reports be be included in lobbying reports and, uh, qualify as lobbying activity.

And, um, they require that if a lobbyist, uh, works on a political campaign, um, for city elected office, that they, uh, disclose that activity and, um, that, that in kind or paid work, um, as part of their lobbying, um, reporting.

Um, To dive down a little bit deeper into the definition of grassroots lobbying, it's an effort by members of the public to influence legislation, not by directly talking to elected officials, but instead by encouraging members of the public to lobby their elected officials.

The definition of grassroots lobbying sponsor includes groups that spend at least $750 in a month to carry out a campaign or $1,500 in a three-month period.

And with that, I think I'll hand it over to the executive director unless council members have questions.

Councilmembers, any questions for Lish before we hear from Director Burnett?

Okay, I'm not seeing any hands being raised, so let's go ahead and hear from our guest from the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, please.

All right, thank you, Council President.

At this point, I'd love to turn it over to the chair, Nick Nicholas Brown.

I should point out Nick is finishing his one and only term as chair of the Ethics and Elections Commission.

He's rotating off at the end of this month.

He's been a wonderful chair and I do want to recognize his service to the people of Seattle.

So this is likely to be his last official action as chair.

So I'm going to let him say some remarks first.

Thank you, Wayne, and thank you Council President Gonzalez and all the members of this committee.

It's good to be back before the Council again.

I think the last time and only time I was present before you was when I was being appointed.

So this is a nice circular end to my term on the Ethics Commission.

It's been a pleasure to serve.

I just want to provide a high level sort of context for how this came to the commission's consideration.

I think Mr. Winston provided a nice overview of what the legislation does.

This issue around changing the Seattle ethics code around lobbying first arose, I think back in 2017, but was brought to the commission's attention in early 2019. Originally, what the commission first started reviewing and considering changes to were the lobbying provisions around people who wear two hats and serve both as lobbyists and also work on political campaigns and trying to bring some additional transparency and awareness to the public of those roles.

So we initially considered testimony and changes regarding that issue.

And then as we started to dive down, a little deeper into the code, which was, as pointed out, had not been amended since adopted in 2008. We started to try to find ways to bring the city's ethics code more in alignment with state ethics law.

And so we imported almost word for word the provisions around indirect lobbying, better known as grassroots lobbying, and put those or recommended that those be put into the Seattle code as well.

You know, this for many years has not been regulated.

There are a number of ways that large amounts of money gets spent to lobby to influence legislation, not just directly to elected officials, but to the public to have the public lobby directed to the elected officials.

So, as we consider this bill over the last couple of years, we thought it was good opportunity to bring.

both alignment to the state law and also just more transparency awareness about how legislation was made.

And so those went into the council bill that's before you.

Wayne, I'll turn it back to you if you have any direct questions or specific questions we didn't get into.

I would just add one other facet of the review to the chair's synopsis, which was that we also looked at our peer cities from around the country to make sure that we were that the lobbying law in 2019 was as good as our compatriot cities around the country.

And I think that was largely behind the move to regulate lobbying executive branch officials as well.

I think that is something we learned from our review of San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and other large cities was that As you all know, legislation largely begins at the department level.

So we wanted to make sure that that was captured as well as lobbying of the council as well as the executive.

Yeah, like I said, I think the most important thing to underscore here is that the timing of this is very interesting.

We did send this over.

I think it was approved by the commission last December.

We waited until the council had organized itself for 2020. Council President Gonzalez was nominated to lead the council to send it over.

So it came over in January.

And with the pandemic, strangely enough, that here we are in in December of 2020 when it's getting its hearing.

So I just want to underscore that.

The small other point that I would just add on to that to what Wayne said is looking at our peer cities, there are obviously a wide variety of approaches that are adopted across the country around changing ethics code.

And many cities outright prohibit or ban the types of things that are contemplated.

in this legislation, but rather than prohibit lobbyists from serving due roles, for example, we decided amongst the commission that the best approach was to bring more transparency to these issues and this type of work, rather than prohibit this type of work.

But there are different approaches that other sister cities have taken, but we decided that prohibition was a step too far from our recommendation, but transparency was a net positive.

And really that just gets the code into alignment of the original intent of the 2008 ethics legislation to promote full disclosure in order to protect the openness and integrity of our legislative process.

And that was a guiding principle for the work that we did.

Really helpful context for conversation today.

So I do want to open it up for any questions or comments.

Again, colleagues, it is my hope that we can vote on this legislation today, assuming folks are ready to do so.

I think the legislation is pretty straightforward.

And I do want to apologize for a year long delay in getting this bill heard.

I know that the commission has had a longstanding interest in addressing some of these lobbying issues.

But for my maternity leave in the first part of 2020, then followed by the pandemic immediately thereafter, we would have addressed this probably in the first quarter of 2020. But be that as it may, here we are.

We have an opportunity to to consider this legislation and to, as Chair Brown just mentioned, we have an opportunity to really align ourselves with better practices and standards as it relates to lobbying requirements in our code, both both in terms of other sister cities, but also in terms of what the regulatory framework is at the state level.

So I appreciate the opportunity for us to have this conversation here and to consider these recommendations from the State Elections Commission.

Any comments or questions from my colleagues?

Council Member Juarez, please.

Just quickly, Madam Chair.

I was looking at the fiscal, the budget, or the fiscal note, summary and fiscal note, and I just wanted to ask a question.

And I don't know if that goes to Mr. Brown, or to Lish, or to our other friend.

I already forgot his name, Wayne.

And again, about the budget piece that you're talking about, does this mean that we're going to be looking at a third quarter supplemental request to, so you have a strategic advisor to investigate, would provide sufficient staff, so we would need fully loaded costs for these positions.

So, currently, you don't have the staff to implement this.

No, we do not.

As you know, elections in the last 10 years have grown far more competitive and far more tested.

And previously, the strategic advisor who was mainly in charge of our elections code compliance was able to do both that and lobbyist compliance.

But in 2021, that's just not a feasible hope.

That's an excellent question and customer wars.

Um, normally when we pass this kind of legislation, we, we, we try to be equitable and, and also allocating commensurate resources to the agencies.

Um, you know, a lot of these regulations are, as we all know, um, as good as the enforcement arm of it is.

And so I do feel a responsibility, uh, for the city council to address the resource issues that, that are a reality for the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

They now have the Democracy Voucher Program.

They have these lobbying regulations.

There's just, and a whole host of other things that come along with some transparency.

There's also the Clean Campaigns Act portion of legislation that we passed in January that also passed.

And so I think there is an important conversation that needs to be had either in the fourth quarter supplemental or in the first quarter of 2021 to advance what I think is a modest budget request for another strategic advisor for the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission to continue to be able to keep up with both the lobbying and the election regulatory enforcement work that they're charged with performing.

And Madam Chair, I bring that up just as kind of a side note, because with the social media piece in the AG suing Facebook and everybody on posting a political ads and trying to enforce that piece, you're not going to be able to do it with just one or.

I think, and I would support you in that.

Well, in light of all the other, everything that's gone on in the last six months, but in light of that as well and the challenging of that and how you're going to enforce the social media platforms for violating and posting political ads and how you're going to enforce that.

We were just looking at what the AG had filed against, is it Facebook and Twitter?

So you're going to need to, you're going to have to ramp up there, Wayne.

So I will support you in that.

And I know the budget chair's listening.

We're just waiting for her to signal.

I do want to sort of in full transparency to the public and in fairness to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, I do recognize that there are additional resources that are needed and we are resource thin at the city given the COVID-related economic crisis that we're currently experiencing.

But I think that this is a high priority for the integrity of our elections and for the integrity of our legislative processes.

And I think it's a nominal amount of money relative to the full budget, and that we should be making efforts to prioritize this.

Now, neither Chair Brown nor Director Burnett have lobbied me or asked me to make these requests.

They have pointed out that they don't have the resources, but they have not lobbied me or asked need to to champion those additional resources but I do want to say that I think it's important for us to do that either in the fourth quarter or in the first quarter of 2021. Yeah well Lish got it in there so good job Lish.

Any other comments?

I see Council Member Strauss and then Council Member Mosqueda please.

Just quickly, I had the opportunity to spend time with list yesterday to review the memo and I want to thank Chair Brown, Mr Burnett.

This is good governance legislation, very straightforward, clean and crisp, and I'm looking forward to supporting it and supporting the chair and the budget chairs and Councilmember Juarez's support.

I guess I haven't heard from the budget chair, so remove that last bit.

But I would support moving resources to help you enforce and promote the programs within Seattle Elections and Ethics Commission.

So thank you all so much for this good governance legislation.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Esqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Council President.

And I just want to note, hello, Wayne, good to see you again.

Sorry for the back and forth.

Appreciate all the work that you're doing, especially recognizing you got national attention on you.

And again, want to lift up the awesome work that you and Polly and your entire team have done to really lead the way in democracy vouchers, but also how an ethics and election office can function and really have a meaningful impact.

So just want to say hi.

Good to see you again.

Appreciate the work that your office has done.

And I'm going to ask just a few questions.

Council President, I apologize if these have already been answered, but just so I have a quick high level summary.

The definition of lobbying or lobbying, it just seems a little bit confusing to me.

Can you tell me what the difference is between, quote, officers or employees or agents of legislative department or working in the mayor's office?

What is the purpose of working, the working in modifier?

I think that was meant to.

I'm sorry, who was that?

Ulysse?

I think it was our friend, Council Member Juarez.

Oh, OK.

I didn't say nothing.

I'm sorry.

There's a little bit of sound in the background.

Oh, I'm sorry.

OK, I did.

Just a little.

Yeah, there we go.

Go ahead, Wayne.

I believe the purpose of that was to, because the mayor's office, there are some people who interpret the mayor's office to include the Office for Civil Rights and the Office of Intergovernmental Relations and those other offices.

I think the working in the mayor's office was really intended to make clear that the legislation was intended to reach those people who were on the seventh floor of City Hall.

That was the purpose for that modifier in relation to the mayor's office.

All right, that's helpful.

Just two more questions.

The second one is, in the summary and fiscal note, it says the addition of grassroots lobbying registration requirements will also increase the risk that ad hoc groups of people and organizations may inadvertently run afoul of the city's lobbying regulations and suffer penalties for noncompliance.

Can you tell us more about who these organizations and people are who will now be included, and what education, outreach, and other support are we including for these organizations?

This gets at some of the questions I was thinking about regarding stakeholdering, who was involved in this process, so that we can see how it can be applied.

Right.

And you know that I believe that fiscal note was written in light of 2020 and what's happened in 2020. And I think one of the things that our office is known for is we are not a gotcha office.

We're not out there trying to penalize people.

We're not out there looking to impose penalties.

We're looking to make sure that the public gets the information that the law entitles them to.

We've always thought that the best way to do that is by educating and holding the hands of people who are subject to our laws and making sure that they get the assistance they need to comply.

So that's I think that's what we're looking at there.

Thank you.

And Council President, just the one last question here in terms of timing, is this Is this something that, Council President, you'd like for us to sort of discuss and consider for today, and then we'll be voting at the next committee meeting?

What's your hope?

I'd like to vote this out of committee today and have it go to full council on Monday, the 14th.

Okay.

Um, I thought that perhaps there was an opportunity for a delay to the next meeting.

Um, and I apologize for that.

It sounds like a wires may have gotten across.

Um, with my understanding of the timeline here, I think the questions that I have about stakeholder engagement and how folks.

who are advocates but also lobbyists, how they are able to digest this information and then provide us with some feedback.

I just haven't been able to get that yet directly from the folks that I've been reaching out to.

So is this something that you were hoping, Director Burnett, would be on the books for 2021 to affect the 2021 election cycle?

Um, actually, like I said, we initially sent this over last January with the hopes that we could have 2020, which is an off election year to really ramp this up.

Uh, 2021, as we learned yesterday, is going to be another hotly contested election year.

So.

This is not landing at the best time for us.

I'm just gonna be frank about that.

We will have a lot of energy this year going to the 2021 elections.

So I think we've already, this does have a six month effective date, right?

So I don't think it's even scheduled to be effective for six months, just to give us the time we need to get all of our ducks in a row.

Did that answer your question?

I hope so.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, I think that that helped answer my question.

So if this were to pass committee today, full council on Monday, then you have a six month ramp in to make this both effective and you plan to do outreach and education with various stakeholders and affected parties over the next six months.

Yes, yes, to the extent we can, like I said, to the extent we're not overwhelmed with elections work.

So that's also part of the puzzle.

We'll be getting that new person on board devoted to the lobbying law.

Okay, great.

And just since we're, oh, go ahead.

Sorry about that.

Sorry, Councilwoman Musqueda.

I was going to add that I know the commission is also considering and anticipating some changes to the democracy voucher program as well.

That will require additional outreach and education to the public and the campaigns that work on those issues.

So there's going to be a combination of issues that are substantive and meaningful changes next year, at least recommended by the commission.

So I would just echo Director Barnett's a priority in terms of getting as early as a head start as possible because I do think the education period is proven to be really helpful for those affected by the changes that we recommend.

I think the commission's goal was to have this in place for 2020. We are now a year behind and that's just a reality of what our situation is.

I want to make sure that Wayne and Nick, we get an opportunity to hear from you directly, that there is a lot of, the council in particular, and I think the mayor's office and departments do this too, there's a lot of what we refer to as stakeholder engagement, or some people refer to it as stakeholdering.

I kind of dislike that word, but I'll use it for purposes of this committee.

And so I think, you know, I think it's fair to say that in those stakeholder engagement processes, there is a mixture of people.

There are some people in those stakeholder environments who are actually lobbyists.

Some of them are registered.

Some of them are not, but they are, they are lobbyists who are engaging in our stakeholder process of outreach and engagement.

There are also people in those stakeholder engagement processes that, um, that are just advocates or volunteers or activists within their communities who are engaging with council members at our request because we want to get their input.

My understanding around the grassroots lobbying regulations is that that changes nothing as it relates to direct interaction between those individuals and council members because the grassroots lobbying regulations that we're considering today are about how lobbyists who spend a certain amount of money in a particular period of time are lobbying members of the public to mobilize those members of the public to influence legislation.

So can you just help us sort of understand that distinction, right?

There's the direct contact between the elected official and interested people.

That's a stakeholdering process.

And then there's what lobbying groups do to mobilize members of the public and influence the court of public opinion to contact us directly or indirectly for purposes of influencing the outcome of legislation.

Yes.

I mean, I think you're right.

I think one of the unfortunate realities is that when the state adopted this law back in the 1970s, it was called grassroots lobbying.

I prefer, I think the much more appropriate term is indirect because it is a contrast to direct lobbying.

Direct lobbying is someone, you know, paid by someone, you know, knocking on your doors saying, you know, hey, we'd love you to support this legislation.

Indirect lobbying is them putting on a program of education for the public saying, you know, please call the council president and tell her you don't like Council Bill X or you don't like this tax proposal or any of those things.

So grassroots is, it's an unfortunate name because I think we all have very positive connotations for what we, when we think of the word grassroots, but it is, it's just indirect lobby.

It's not them contacting you directly, it's them encouraging others to do so and spending money to do that.

That's kind of the other key thing.

Yeah.

And the indirect lobbying that is being encouraged, the person who actually clicks on the link and sends us that email or makes that phone call, doesn't have to register as a lobbyist.

It's the people who pay for the campaign, the indirect lobbying campaign, who are under this legislation would be required to register and disclose their expenditures and where they're getting the money from so that there's increased transparency.

And we all know who's footing the bill for the indirect lobbying.

Yes, exactly.

And how much that bill is.

And how much that bill is.

And currently, that is not what's happening.

Right now, indirect lobbying happens unfettered, with no disclosure of money, or who is responsible for the expenditure.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay, and then can you just really quickly describe for us again what the triggers are.

For for who would be required to.

To make the disclosure under the indirect lobbying proposal.

Yeah, so it applies to.

any person, which under election law and other laws means companies, nonprofits, organizations, who spend at least $750 in a month or $1,500 over the course of three months on a lobbying campaign.

And that's consistent with the state thresholds.

Excellent.

And again, I just wanna make sure that people who are interested in doing indirect lobbying but aren't paying for the indirect lobbying, nothing's changing for those individuals, right?

So like somebody who calls in to give us public testimony doesn't suddenly have to register as a lobbyist or somebody who's doing indirect lobbying.

If you post something on your Facebook page encouraging your friends to call the city council on an item, you're not going to be covered by this threshold.

Because I think the policy concern is, are we creating, does this legislation, portion of the legislation, would it create a chilling effect?

to those people who want to exercise their First Amendment rights to give public testimony, give public comment, or otherwise influence legislation.

So if it's just whoever, whoever, who has 20 of their closest friends, and they did a phone tree, and they called everybody to lobby us, that would not.

I think the concern is, would there be a chilling effect to just sort of the natural you know, natural organizing of community to advocate for a particular thing.

Council President Gonzalez, I think you've summarized it correctly.

The piece that both Wayne and Lish have added is the expenditure piece.

It really is getting at the money and transparency around the organizing efforts to influence legislation.

And if a group of volunteers are organizing a phone tree, for example, as you've indicated, to simply reach out to their elected officials, that is not going to be fall within the gambit of this law.

It really is just getting at organized efforts and where money is spent by those efforts to influence the elected officials and legislation that they're considering.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate the additional clarification on some of the things.

I do think it can get a little confusing when you're reading this because it's Because of the word grassroots lobbying, it makes it seem like it's about the person who takes up the request to lobby, when really it's about the people paying for the campaign that we're asking be disclosed.

So to me, that's really important.

It is consistent with some of the legislative actions that this council has taken around increasing transparency, particularly around political campaigns.

and other electoral issues.

And so I really do see this as an important piece.

And I recognize that in some instances that this will impact people who may have favorable opinions of some of the things that we're doing.

But just because the position is favorable doesn't Does it mitigate the need for the public to have the right to that transparency of who is effectively the fiscal sponsor of that indirect lobbying to members of the public?

And so I feel like it's really important for us to advance this as a further tool to maximize the integrity of our elections and our governance system at the city, and of course, from the city council's perspective, we are certainly subjected to a lot of indirect lobbying from a lot of folks and sometimes it's a little unclear where that's coming from.

So I am happy to support this legislation and to be listed as the prime sponsor.

And I feel very prepared and ready to support it today and to ask the full council do the same on Monday the 14th.

So barring a motion to hold this, I'm going to make a motion for us to consider it.

Council Member Waters?

I have one quick comment, and I do support what you shared, Council President, and this is in alignment with state law.

And I think the other issue on the policy piece is Washington has always been what we call a blue sky state.

for state and certainly for the city and transparency and lobbying direct and indirect has gotten more sophisticated.

And I think it's important that we know who gets paid when they come to City Hall.

So you're right.

It's unfortunate that because people hear the word grassroots and they think that we're trying to do this chilling effect of people who are just coming for these issues that are important, actual grassroots.

But you're right.

It's the indirect lobbying piece and who's getting paid that I think we need to address.

So I'm happy to support that today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

I go ahead.

Sorry, you know the drill.

Thank you very much.

I do want to appreciate the council president and director Burnett for bringing this forward.

I also agree that it's in alignment with what much of the city has done and protections that we have at the state level.

I unfortunately thought that we did have a little extra time, so I had sought some additional feedback.

So I am supportive of the direction.

I am going to abstain today with the intent to get those questions answered by Monday.

But I think that this is a great direction that we're headed in to create additional I just want to give you that background for my vote today.

of December.

So I think that was published on Friday with the agenda.

So I apologize if there was some other message being sent besides that.

But happy to continue to have conversations with you in the background as you get information and as any other issues might arise.

So For now, I'm going to go ahead and call this up for a vote, since I think it looks like we have concluded debate.

So, council members, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 119968. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Are there any additional comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the bill pass?

Juarez?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Abstain.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Gonzalez?

Aye.

That's three in favor, none opposed, and one abstention.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the committee will recommend to the full council that the bill pass.

This will be taken up, as I mentioned, on December 14th at our regular City Council meeting at 2 o'clock p.m.

Thank you so much to Director Barnett and Chair Brown for being with us and for making these recommendations.

Really appreciate it.

If any other issues come up, we'll make sure to touch base with you in the interim and look forward to seeing you down the road.

Thank you both.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

OK, colleagues, that is the last item of business on our agenda.

Is there anything else for the good of the order?

Hearing none, I really want to thank you all for hanging in there.

It's only 3 o'clock, but it feels like it's almost 8 p.m., given the lack of sunshine.

Thanks to V for clerking today and for our IT folks and clerk's office for being with us.

There is no further business to come before the committee.

The committee will be adjourned.

Thank you.

We are adjourned.

Bye, everybody.

Bye.