Council Briefing 4292024

Well, hello there, everyone.

Today is April 29th, 2024. The council briefing meeting will come to order, and the time is 2.01.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Saka?

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Niner present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of April 22nd, 2024 will be adopted.

And hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

All right, we don't have any presentations, proclamations, or executive sessions today, so we'll move right along.

At tomorrow's council meeting, we'll have 18 items on the introduction and referral calendar, including the weekly bill payment ordinance, an ordinance updating definitions on cannabis businesses to match state law, three appointments to the Seattle King County Advisory Council on Aging and Disability Services, an appointment to the Women's Commission, an appointment to the LGBTQ Commission, an ordinance allowing Seattle Public Utilities to acquire properties for the South Park Water Quality Facility Project, an ordinance related to abatement of unsafe buildings, an ordinance adopting a surveillance impact report on the use of automated license plate reader technology, an ordinance allowing the Museum Redevelopment Authority to refinance bonds, six appointments to the Seattle Arts Commission, and an appointment of the general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light.

A lot going on.

The consent agenda will include the weekly bill payment ordinance, eight appointments to the Seattle Human Rights Commission, and three appointments to the Seattle Women's Commission.

And then there are these following pieces of legislation.

Council Bill 120750, establishing the Connected Community Development Partnership Bonus Pilot Program.

Council Bill 120773, relating to extensions of tax exemptions as part of the Multifamily Housing Property Tax Exemption Program.

and resolution 32135 adopting Seattle Parks and Recreation's 2024 Parks Development Plan and authorizing the department to submit the plan to the State Recreation and Conservation Office.

All right, moving right along.

There are no proclamations as I said earlier today.

So we'll begin our discussion on the preview of council business.

And this week's roll call will start with Council Member Moore.

So I leave it to you and then you can pass it along.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council President.

So, as you know, there are 11 appointments on tomorrow's City Council's consent agenda from the Housing and Human Services Committee.

Also on the agenda is Council Bill 120772, which is an MFTE extension for participating projects that are otherwise set to expire at the end of this year.

We did have a good conversation in committee about that bill.

And then the next meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee is next Wednesday, May 8th.

An update on KCRHA.

The CEO Search Committee met last Friday and is set to announce the top two candidates to the public this Wednesday, May 1st.

The King County Growth Management Affordable Housing Committee is set to meet this Thursday.

And then in district, last week I hosted a standing room only public safety forum at the Bitter Lake Community Center.

I wanted to extend my thanks to SPD, to Chief Smith, SDOT, and King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski for serving as panelists and being available to answer community member questions.

We got a lot of positive feedback, and it was a good opportunity for the community, I think, to vent some of their frustrations.

Note that the Mayor's North Seattle Public Safety Forum will be held on May 9th from 6 to 7.30, and it will also be at the Bitter Lake Community Center.

And that is my update, unless anyone has questions for me.

I'm seeing none, so I'll turn it over to Councilmember Morales.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Let's see, where are we starting?

There will be one bill from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda, Council Bill 120750, the Connected Communities Bill.

pilot program that we have been discussing.

We have the last meeting, at the last meeting on April 17th, we had 28 items, 26 design review appointments which will be coming to, which came We'll be coming to full council for a final vote.

We had the briefing, sorry, a hearing on the Georgetown Height Amendment, Council Bill 120749. That will be in this week's Land Use Committee meeting for a vote.

And then, as I mentioned, the Connected Communities pilot, which we had a final discussion on in committee last committee meeting.

That legislation, as you know, would establish a term-limited pilot program to remove red tape to development with low- to moderate-income housing and neighborhoods serving equitable development uses.

This is a no-cost opportunity for us to leverage our incentive zoning power to repair harm in neighborhoods that have had racially restrictive covenants.

It requires performance, in other words, actual development of affordable housing at 30%, which is almost three times as much as MHA.

And these developments create opportunity for development vital to workforce housing that is not currently funded by our Seattle Housing Levy.

Unfortunately, the legislation was voted out with the recommendation not to pass.

We will be hearing it tomorrow, however, and I will be bringing an amendment which we had attempted to add at last week's meeting.

Colleagues, I'm sure you can understand the frustration in the vote on this bill.

This is legislation that my office has been working on with central staff and with OPCD for two years to support community members, community organizations in achieving their development goals as they would like to see.

It's another tool in their tool belt to increase affordable housing, which we all agree we need.

As I said, I've been working on a substitute bill to address concerns that were raised by my colleagues.

Those concerns were voted down.

Those changes were voted down three to two.

And although the legislation was voted out with the recommendation not to pass, as I said, I'll be bringing it to council tomorrow with the intention of placing it up for a vote.

We all know we're in a housing crisis.

We can't wait any longer to pass legislation that could make building affordable housing easier.

It is a term-limited pilot project that could demonstrate the real opportunity for the kinds of incentives that could make partnership between community organizations and developers easier to facilitate.

And it is something that we have been requested to bring by the very community organizations who feel like they could benefit from it and that their communities could benefit from it.

So for now, for colleagues who are not on the Land Use Committee, if you would like to discuss the bill, please let me know.

We will be voting on it tomorrow.

As I said, the next Land Use Committee meeting will be on May 1st.

This coming Wednesday, we'll discuss the Georgetown Height Amendment Bill, and we'll be hearing a joint annual report on the Race and Social Justice Initiative from OPCD and SDCI.

There's no legislative action on this item.

Other updates for me, I did join Councilmember Kettle at a South Precinct visit, I believe it was two weeks ago now.

We've been meeting with central staff on the budget.

I had my monthly meeting with SDCI recently, and last week met with the Seattle City Light Interim Director, Lynn Dell.

We also had a briefing from the Office of Housing on the MFTE legislation.

I participated with our own Seattle channel, Brian Callanan, on Council Addition, and we had a briefing on the transportation levy.

District updates.

My staff attended last week the Housing Development Consortium Luncheon, where, funny enough, my Connected Communities legislation was noted as a win for the housing community.

We had in-district office hours at Yesler Terrace.

We attended the grand unveiling of the new Muslim Housing Services down on Rainier.

This weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in a leadership workshop with Young Women Empowered, which is a district two organization that supports teens with mentoring and leadership opportunities.

I also took a tour of Crisis Connections and we met with Congressman Smith's office surrounding the 988 issues that community members are having and looking to find ways to make sure that we're supporting community and Crisis Connections as one of the entities that supports receipt of those calls.

And finally, my staff attended the base cohort graduation, the Building Art Space Equitably graduation that is part of the Cultural Space Agency organization that we support as a city.

That is all I have, colleagues, if there are no questions.

Councillor, I figured I'd speak to your bill during your section of council briefing rather than coming back to mine.

Colleagues, I will be bringing an amendment to full council tomorrow regarding connected communities.

Just starting off with an apology outright because I do not like to bring amendments to full council.

I think the committee work needs to be done in committee.

You will see this, and I share this up front and outright because I have one council member on our dais that asks to over-explain, and I think it is helpful because in the past, we have had incidents where we've turned full council into a committee meeting, and it's...

It's not helpful because this work should be done in committee.

That said, here we are today.

I am bringing forward an amendment that I had attempted to have ready in committee.

I didn't have it ready and that was my fault.

The amendment that you have, and it's posted to the agenda, and I'll pass it out to anyone that I haven't connected with already, essentially takes the religious bonus bill that we passed a number of years ago and inserts it into Councilmember Morales' connected communities.

The religious bonus bill is a demonstrated good bill.

We've seen a number of projects throughout our city use this bill to create additional housing in a really good way.

If you have any questions for me, happy to answer them, but I'll make sure that you have a copy of it.

Thank you.

Did you say it is currently or will be attached to the agenda?

I believe it is or will be.

I had a 1 p.m.

deadline of today.

That's what I know.

Okay, good.

I've been looking forward to seeing that.

I understand.

Thank you very much for for those comments and we're still talking about connected communities.

I just want to note that I have a different perspective on the discussion of amendments at full council because I recognize that it's been done one way in the past and then before in the more distance past it was done in a different way.

Here's my thinking.

Not everybody is on the Land Use Committee or any other committee that's not a committee of the whole.

And so if members are engaged in the issue and aren't able to attend the regularly scheduled committee meetings, because besides they can't even vote there, I believe that it's proper to give people an opportunity to promote, I mean, to present an amendment and for us all to discuss it.

I mean, we don't have very many options for the public to hear what we're thinking and discussing.

And so there's committee, there's briefing, and then there's full counsel.

And so I don't mind, just for everybody, I guess this is a short way of saying, I don't mind if people bring...

AMENDMENTS TO FULL COUNCIL BECAUSE I THINK THAT IT'S OUR JOB TO DELIBERATE ON LEGISLATION AND TO DO SO OPENLY.

SO JUST GOING FORWARD.

LET'S SEE.

COUNCIL MEMBER MOORE.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

I JUST WANT TO ADDRESS THE COMMENTS.

I'm going to have to stay very calm.

I just wanted a heads up that I will be carefully reading the council rules to utilize tomorrow if I feel that there are any ad hominem attacks being made on fellow council members who chose not to vote this bill out.

I would respectfully request that my colleague, my esteemed colleague, refrain from making any comments on the motivations of the council members who chose not to put forth a recommendation for this bill.

Thank you very much.

I hope we can keep it a civil and respectful disagreement on policy and refrain from this vilification of your fellow council members in the media.

It is uncalled for.

It is unprofessional.

We can have a respectful difference of opinion.

without meaning that we are evil or corporate shills, or we have no concern for our fellow human beings, or we're opposed to affordable housing.

None of that is the case, and I am tired of that being the narrative that I hear coming.

And so I'm just, again, I'm going to stop because I'm losing my temper, but I want this to be a respectful conversation tomorrow based on policy, not personality, and no...

impugning of my or my fellow colleagues motivations.

Thank you.

Are there any other comments before we move on to Council Member Rivera?

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember Nelson, Council President Nelson.

I want to say I very much appreciate the comments of my colleague, Councilmember Moore.

I've said and I will continue to say that we can agree to disagree without attaching ill intent to our colleagues.

We are going to disagree on policy decisions.

We might even all agree on what needs to happen, but we're going to disagree on how we get there.

And I think that the disagreeing on how we get there is legitimate and it's inherent in all our positions and in every city council across the country.

folks disagree on the policy on how to get somewhere even when they they agree on what is needed and this ability to Respectfully disagree is really important in any governing body because it's really how we really best serve our constituency across the cities, so I really appreciate your comments councilmember more I And then for my report this week, I will say I attended the Ravenna Bryant Community Association's meeting.

As I said last week, I'm getting through all the community councils in the district, and I got to learn more about what's going on in their neighborhood and what particular concerns that they have.

Also, as a member of the Levee Oversight Committee for the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levee, I attended an all-day retreat on Wednesday to discuss results from the last education levy, from this past, I mean, education levy, and also plans for the future.

Hopefully, next year, there'll be a renewal of the Families Education Preschool and Promise levy.

It's important to me that as we ask residents, and you've heard me say this before, as we ask residents to vote for these levies, that we show them how their monies were spent and how that levy delivered on its promises.

And so you'll hear more about this in upcoming conversations.

Colleagues, if you have any questions, please, my door is always open for conversation and to get more information about this levy and any of the work that the committee, I'm so lucky to chair, is doing.

Thursday, and speaking of the committee I chair, Thursday was the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, which I chair the meeting of.

where we heard about the, from Seattle Public Libraries, we heard about the Seattle Reads program.

The pick for this year, for 2024, the book pick is Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sour.

It's a science fiction novel from an esteemed black author who has ties to the community, who's sadly no longer with us.

But it is, she has since, this is the first time I believe I heard SPL say last week that this honor has been given of picking of the Seattle Reads book posthumously.

And we also discussed at committee of the libraries, there was a report, an annual levy report on how the levy is doing, both staffing and the financial outlook from this levy.

My staff and I also attended the comp plan open house at Eckstein Middle School in Wedgwood.

It was very well attended.

I was pleased to see, and I had the opportunity to meet excuse me, I had the opportunity to talk to several constituents about their views on the plan and I will continue to promote amongst the district.

There's a couple other opportunities for feedback as well as emailing your feedback straight to the department.

It's really important for constituents to give the feedback on this really important 20-year comp plan.

I wrapped up the week by meeting with several business owners in the district to hear about their concerns and how we can best partner with them to make sure that they are thriving in the midst of all the issues they're experiencing, not the least of which is public safety issues.

the district.

This coming week, tomorrow, I will do a ride along with members of the unified care team, the uct.

We will view some areas in the district that are in need of services and attention and I will get to see firsthand and up close how the team works.

And I've said in the past, UCT, we've partnered with them.

They've been great partners in addressing some of the issues of the district.

Wednesday evening, I'll be attending the North Precinct Advisory Council, along with council members Moore and Strauss, who have districts as well in the North Precinct.

On Thursday morning, I'll attend the Growth Management Policy Meeting of the Puget Sound Regional Council.

Just for some general context, the PSRC helps guide decisions about regional growth, transportation, and economic development planning within King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.

And today I actually met with PSRC and had, or the head of PSRC to talk about, you know, some of the things that we throughout the region are dealing with on the growth side, just the fact that the region has grown so much in such a short period of time, all the issues that have arisen because of that and how we, Seattle, can work with our regional partners to address that growth.

So I'm very honored to be part of that growth management policy committee.

And I look forward to further participating on that.

We'll be holding offers hours this week at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford, which is always a lovely place to visit.

And on Friday morning, I'm really looking forward to holding my first small business public safety walk.

We will be visiting businesses along the Northeast 55th Street, which have recently been hit with a string of break-ins.

Chief Diaz and Captain Agard with the North Precinct will be joining us, as well as representatives from Seattle Public Utilities, the Office of Economic Development, and the Department of Neighborhoods.

And I look forward to reporting back next week on what I learn.

That is all, unless someone has questions.

Otherwise...

On to you, Council Member Saka.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Colleagues, this is a big week for the transportation levy renewal purposes.

This week, the mayor is expected to, well, we're expected to see legislation, specific concrete legislation from the mayor's office that would place a transportation levy before voters.

Colleagues, as you very well know, a few weeks ago the mayor released his initial draft proposal, essentially a framework for what a levy proposal could look like.

And so this week, at some point, we are expecting to see the final draft proposed levy renewal package from the mayor's office, which really kicks off our process.

Next week, on May 7th, we will have our very first Transportation Select Committee meeting at 10.30 a.m.

It'll be immediately following our fairly short existing Transportation Committee meeting.

And that meeting on the 7th will kick off two months of committee meetings and public hearings, culminating ultimately in a July vote to send the levy package proposal to the voters.

At that meeting, we will, at the select committee meeting next week, we'll hear directly from SDOT and the mayor's office about their transportation levy proposal.

We'll also hear directly from members of the Levy Oversight Committee.

To your great point a moment ago, Councilmember Rivera, really important to have a strong understanding about the performance of existing levies before putting a renewal before the voters.

So we endeavor to have the chairs from the Levy Oversight Committee to come in and report out on exactly that point.

And you may have already seen central staff's initial memo on this topic, but no doubt there will be further memos forthcoming in the coming weeks ahead, so stay tuned.

Separately, tonight and Wednesday at 6 p.m., my office will be coordinating two additional One Seattle comp plan open houses in my district, one in the Admiral neighborhood and the other in Georgetown.

with OPCD staff presenting and want to thank the mayor's office and OPCD for their engagement on this and making sure we have a good process in allowing folks in D1 the opportunity to further weigh in via one of these open houses.

And then I'll also note later this week, on Thursday, I will be taking a tour of the SDOT Operations Center.

Again, this is going to be on Thursday, and this is the exact center where SDOT manages traffic signals in real time and monitor traffic cameras and conditions in real time as they evolve and monitor and make decisions accordingly.

And so I'm really excited to do that.

It's a very short walk to the center from City Hall here.

It's directly across the street at the Seattle Municipal Tower.

So looking forward to that.

Been on a mission, as you know, and briefings and...

But to talk directly with workers on the ground and get the frontline view of what's going on and...

at least from my perspective, to hopefully better inform kind of how we show up on the policy and decision-making front.

So, really excited for that.

Finally, I will note that, good news, the Low Bridge in West Seattle is open.

Low Bridge is open.

I think the work was completed last night.

It did open slightly later than anticipated.

It opened at 9 a.m.

this morning, and I sort of was by there earlier this morning, and there were still some barricades out, and I saw a number of cycling commuters that were confused and turned around, and presumably it also impacted a lot of the cargo and freight truck drivers who heavily use that low bridge as well, but...

And I coordinated with SDOT and found out that it was finally able to open this morning at 9 a.m.

So good news is there, hopefully tomorrow, there will be no more snafus with commuters and truck drivers, et cetera, because that's a critical egress route to the rest of the city that a lot of people use.

So in any event, I will end there.

Unless, colleagues, you have any questions or comments, welcome your feedback.

I'll pass it on to you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thanks, Councilmember Sack.

I'm looking forward to the Select Transportation Committee.

I'll say the nerve center that you just talked about in SDOT is one of the two coolest things that goes on in SMT, in my opinion.

The other is the power marketing floor at City Light, where they buy and sell energy in real time.

Hopefully you'll come back because you might get stuck there.

It's so interesting colleagues Within the purview of my committee on the introduction referral calendar You will see that there is a council bill one two zero seven seven three Regarding a Seattle's guarantee of the museum development authorities bonds We will be having this Briefing in FNC and vote in select committee.

Top line here is we have the opportunity to refinance these bonds at a lower interest rate.

Our next finance native communities and tribal governments committee is this coming Wednesday, May 1st.

We will be briefed on a number of bills.

The bills that we will be briefed on are the Human Services Department Aging and Disability Services Office lease, which is in Renton, and yes, there's a very good reason for it.

We'll have Council Bill 120773, the Seattle Guarantee of Museum Development Authority's bond legislation.

We have Council...

I have the wrong council bill number here, but the exceptions ordinance to the 2023 budget, which address unanticipated expenses.

We'll have council bill regarding the carry forward, which is different than exceptions.

So exceptions were already spent, carry forward is money that is encumbered that still needs to be spent this year.

So those are the bills.

We will be voting on the museum, We will be voting on the exceptions and carry forward in our next select budget committee on May 15th.

So if you are not on the finance native communities committee, this is how I always like to have my bills briefed twice before voting.

So that's how we're doing it.

We're gonna brief on these bills in finance, vote on them and select.

In our Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee this week, we will also have our budget review presentation by central staff.

Now, this is a briefing that I could have put into Select, but in the interest of time, A, to get it out sooner, and B, to give people more time to digest, and really there's just not enough time in our lives, we are having this presented in Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

This is the next step in our deep dive review and examination of our current budget.

You hear me say this every week, we've never done this before.

We've never done a five year look back.

We have almost exclusively looked at incremental changes year over year.

This is a central staff has not created this document before.

It's a lot of work.

There's going to be areas where we go further, which is why it's important to get this out now.

And it's really important, colleagues, for each of you to look within the departments that report to your committees.

As I said at our last meeting, this is a team sport.

Not one of us can do it on our own, and we need everyone to be looking into their own departments.

This is part of what I'm calling favorably our select summer series.

Since we have never had select meetings this often ahead of budget, except for in 2020. And so this is part of our select summer series, which will, again, we're gonna be going into different lines of revenue, different, and this is where we're really focusing on departments.

So as always, everyone is welcome to come to Finance Native Communities this Wednesday at 9.30 a.m.

And if you're not there, please get briefed on the bills that we'll be voting on in the next select budget committee.

But this is really a lot of work.

Councilmember Kettle joked with me earlier this week of why wasn't I at public safety when seven out of nine members were there?

And it was because I was in budget meetings.

There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.

So sorry, Councilmember Kettle, I'll be there next time though.

In other news, My external committees, we had a really amazing time this weekend with Sound Transit, opening of the two line, the starter line from South Bellevue to South Redmond, eight new stations, largest single expansion in Sound Transit's light rail service since we opened the one line.

It was amazing.

You could feel people's, they were so excited to see this new line open.

I'm really excited that next spring we will open up the line to get to downtown Redmond.

Next year, we will cross Lake Washington as well, connecting here into the city of Seattle.

And I'll put on your calendars right now, August 30th.

Yes, it is during council recess.

August 30th is the expansion into Snohomish County up to Linwood from Northgate.

I really hope that you all join me there.

It's just such an exciting time.

It really demonstrates the connectedness of our region and how close we are to one another.

Light rail provides us that opportunity to get between each other's houses without getting stuck in traffic.

This week, I will also be attending the Association of Washington City's Ad Hoc Bylaws Committee on Thursday.

This is part of my duties as AWC representative for the city of Seattle and colleagues, you don't have to be one of the board members from the city of Seattle to participate with AWC.

AWC provides opportunities to work with colleagues in different jurisdictions, understand what works for them, how our city is the same and different.

I really, Highly suggest if you have the opportunity to get involved to do so.

I've already been talking a lot, so I'm going to skip over most of my D6 stuff other than to say I host office hours every week, virtually and in person at my District 6 office in Ballard.

I also had a very Seattle event on this weekend with Finney Neighborhood Association, where they had an event in an event tent in their parking lot.

There was a foot race for the best desserts, group-led improv by the Memory Care Group, and so much more.

It was quintessentially Seattle.

And Finney Neighborhood Association works for both Finney and Greenwood Operating Group.

their blue blue building the brick building in finney as well as the greenwood senior center in greenwood they do so much great work and it was really great to be with them that any questions colleagues seeing none i'll pass it over to councilmember wu

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

So this week for committee, I'm excited to learn more about the six mayoral appointees for the Seattle Arts Commission.

We also hear from Seattle City Light on the biannual energy conservation target for 2024 and 2025 and 10-year conservation potential for a possible vote.

We had a briefing last time.

I'd also like to take this time to remind my colleagues that confirmation materials for the Seattle City Light Interim General Manager has been sent out for your review.

We will plan to have a public hearing the first week of May.

We look forward to hearing your review by Friday.

And so last week was eventful for City Light and sustainability.

I mentioned briefly last week that the state of Washington was a recipient of the Solar for All grant.

We met at Hinoki-Yesler Terrace and got a tour of their solar PV panels on the roof, and communities like Hinoki-Yesler will continue to benefit from funding like this to make electricity affordable.

Seattle State Light also co-hosted a three-day grid resilience and climate conference called ExiliX.

I welcomed a group of committed scientists, energy and policy experts who will leverage the learnings and connections from the summit to take back to their communities.

I also met with the Washington chapter of the People for Climate Action Coalition and learned about their goals and hopes for our environment.

Tuesday, we met with the Seattle Housing Authority leadership, discussed their plans to increase our city's supply of affordable housing, also attended the Cultural Space Agency graduation, and was so inspired to learn about the graduates and their goals as artists for the community to claim their own space.

Thursday also attended a tour of the Seattle Convention Center Summit Building and learned how the building generates foot traffic in the town Seattle, which leads to over $7.3 billion in spending from out of state attendees.

So also, in addition to my team attending the D4 Comp Plan and D5 Public Safety Forum last week, I also attended the D7 Town Hall.

Thank you to Council Member Kettle and to Chief Amy Smith and to Council President Sarah Nelson for a great discussion.

In the subject of public safety, I also got to do a ride along with our community assisted response and engagement team, also known as our CARE team.

As my colleagues have heard me say before, I've done two overnight ride alongs with SBD in North and West Precinct and now CARE and learned so much in how those different agencies operate and learned that we need to allocate resources in a way that makes sense with regard to all public safety approaches.

So I encourage my colleagues to do ride-alongs, whether it's with SBD or CARE.

It's a great way to see firsthand what our public safety and police go through to hold up our neighborhoods and communities.

And if there are no further questions, I will pass this to Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

The Parks Utilities Technology Committee will be held Wednesday, May 8th at 2 p.m.

next week.

Last committee meeting, we pass a resolution for the open space plan for Seattle Parks.

Don't worry, this is not the final.

It's only the process and procedure in which our Parks Department will be able to apply for funds And we'll be working with you all and our Parks Department to identify capital projects within our city.

They will come to council later on for us to vote.

The agenda for next week for our Parks Utilities Technology Committee will be, one of the items will be on the agenda is Seattle Public Utilities and their audit information and their process and you know, all of the updates that they have regarding that.

And we're still working on the other items, but that's just a sneak peek in the best committee meeting for our Seattle Council.

No one laughed at that and that's fine, but it is the best committee meeting, thank you.

Our regional committee, didn't have any regional committee, none last week or this week, but in community, Capitol Hill Safety Walk, wanna thank the GSBA and the Capitol Hill Business Alliance for the opportunity.

I'll be honest with you, I was really embarrassed about some of the issues that are going on on the hill, embarrassed and just a little unacceptable about you know, what's going on.

And I know that our city can do better, and so looking forward to working with community partners and people for us to do a lot better than what we are experiencing right now.

And I know that there are a ton of organizations and groups and small business owners who want to contribute and want to help, just, you know, looking for some direction.

And so, hopefully, we can help provide some of that, and we can kind of just get things going.

also had an opportunity to tour.

It was in, actually, Councilmember Morales' district.

I know she's visited there, Rainier Valley Leadership Academy, and had an opportunity to go to the school, and they actually call their students scholars.

So that's, I'm gonna get that correct.

Scholars is what they call the students and had the opportunity to meet the staff and it was really a beautiful experience.

Also saw, met with our office of the waterfront.

I could not take a tour because that Friday I had walked half of my boot off So I am off crutches, but I was limited to only walk so far.

But the Office of the Waterfront, I know that a lot of the projects that they started on were long before we all got here.

And next year is their last year of the last push of the hoorah for our phenomenal waterfront.

And looking forward to them celebrating.

They have been a quiet force kind of under the ground of progressing forward with the waterfront.

And I think it's very proud of the progress that we made.

And I think for a world-class city, we want a world-class waterfront.

And I think that's what we're going to have in the next couple years.

I'm looking forward to that.

My highlight on Saturday, my favorite, was I attended the GSBA Scholar Brunch, and I met a senior, his name is Sam, and he received a scholarship, and he is gonna go to aviation school to be a commercial pilot, and he told me he wants to fly for Alaska Airlines.

So I did hit Alaska Airlines up on social media and posted Sam's photo.

So hopefully we can make that connection.

This week I'm also attending, and I'm really excited about this, the Jewish Family Services Food Bank.

They're on Capitol Hill and...

And in between, I guess you would call it Central District, but you could argue it's Capitol Hill.

It's kind of in the convergent zone of Capitol Hill and CD, but I'm excited about that tour.

They do a phenomenal job with just family services, but they really, a lot of people don't know they run a really great food bank that they service everybody in the community.

And what a lot of people don't understand is some Food banks are restricted for zip codes about who they can service.

This food bank services every single zip code, does not matter, and I think that's really important to know because some people drive from different food banks to supplement their food, and this food bank offers for any zip code, so it's all access, which is really important.

On Tuesday, I will be meeting with Garfield High School.

That's the mayor's public safety forum.

That's at 6 p.m.

at Garfield High School.

I know there's been a lot of issues going around the school and in the central district.

So looking forward to meeting with family and not family, but families and students and.

teachers and people that live in that district who now get a full access to our mayor's office, our different first responders as well, and different city departments for them to ask questions and information.

I think it's really important.

So really happy about joining the mayor and the other city departments on that.

And without further ado, I will go ahead and pass it off to one of my favorite council members, Council Member Kettle.

Well, thank you very much, Councilmember Hollingsworth, and thank you, everyone.

Just moving forward, our next committee meeting is on the 14th.

This is because the first of the month is on Wednesday, so transportation and public safety and the like, we get a shift, if you will, schedule-wise.

And that meeting on the 14th, the vacant building legislation, also ALPR, Automatic License Plate Reader, plus potentially another issue related to SPD staffing.

And this gap in the schedule has allowed for a visit to the north precinct tomorrow.

This will be the fifth of five precincts that I've visited.

And to Council Member Morales, yes, it was two weeks ago that we met with the south precinct because last week we had a great visit to the southwest precinct.

to hear from their perspective of things in the Southwest Precinct.

So I'm looking forward to going up north tomorrow to complete that.

Also tomorrow, after the precinct tour later in the night, we have our, finally, I think we're the last of the seven districts to get our OPCD One Seattle ComPlan open house.

So ours will be held tomorrow at the McClure Middle School.

which would be a great opportunity for everyone in D7 to come and hear about the comp plan and provide input.

So thank you to OPCD for that.

And also thank you, OPCD, I should say, for relocating it from here in City Hall, which is on the very fringe of D7 and also downtown, to make it more accessible to other parts of D7 by having it at McClure Middle School.

So thank you very much for that.

Wednesday, Allied Arts of Seattle is holding an event on 3rd Avenue.

And it's important to highlight the great work that Allied Arts of Seattle is doing.

And then on Friday, speaking of touring and waterfronts, I have the Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects Tour on Friday.

So that would be a great opportunity to learn what's happening on the waterfront.

Very important for District 7 and the city overall.

Looking back, actually starting this morning, had a great visit with Benaroya Hall.

I definitely recommend my fellow council members tour Benaroya Hall and some of what the work that they're doing moving forward to improve the experience, some of the things along inside the hall itself, some of the things related to Third Avenue, to kind of increase their visibility and the issues that they face.

You know, one thing I should highlight both with the Allied Arts of Seattle and Benaroya Hall is how important our arts and culture community is and how important it is to support them.

I think a lot of times because it's a non-profit or there's different kind of, you know, relationships and, you know, like that we kind of forget about how much support they need and how we as a community really need to support them for all that they do to our community.

for our community, particularly as it relates to bringing people into the city.

It's so important, you know, not just from around the city, but for those that travel from outside the state and really around the world.

Also looking back, I mentioned the precinct visits, but on last week, we had our Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board meeting where we talked about the budget for the Puget Sound Regional Council.

I attended with Council Member Saka.

Important discussion regarding Climate Control Act impacts, if that was to A lot of funds that come from that are designated, and if that was to go away, that would have severe impact.

So there's a lot of, you know, contingency planning thoughts, if you will.

I should note, too, the Puget Sound Regional Council's General Assembly will be on May 30th.

Also last week, and Councilmember Wu, thank you very much for giving you a little preview of this, is we had our first District 7 Town Hall.

Really a great opportunity for District 7 to hear not only from their District 7 representatives, but as mentioned, Councilmember Wu, thank you so much for attending, but also Council President Nelson, thank you very much for attending.

I also like to thank, as Councilmember Wu mentioned, Care Chief Amy Smith, who participated and emceed, essentially, and provided great insight from her perspective as she sees the issues of the day, because obviously public safety WAS A MAIN ISSUE FOR THE TOWN HALL.

I ALSO WANT TO THANK THE COUNCIL COMMS TEAM, THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT COMMS TEAM FOR THEIR SUPPORT.

REALLY APPRECIATE THE HELP and also Seattle Channel for being present.

It is on Seattle Channel if you want to watch it with your family, like Councilmember Hollingsworth did.

So thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for watching my D7 Town Hall.

It's really good.

I also want to thank the Queen Anne Community Center.

It's great viewing, by the way.

I look down there and I'm getting these looks.

I'm like, great viewing, D7 Town Hall.

As...

as said by Councilmember Hollingsworth.

But it was held at the Queen Anne Community Center, so I really want to thank Gina and the team there at Queen Anne Community Center for their support, and most importantly, for those D7 constituents that attended.

Thank you so much.

And I just wanted to end on one last, and this was on last Friday, I did a tour of Uplift Northwest.

It's so important to support organizations like Uplift Northwest who really look to take that extra step, find, and their motto is like the dignity through work.

So they find and work with individuals who are having their challenges, homelessness and the like, and really look to support them in terms of getting them into the workforce and And again, the dignity of work concept and thought is so important.

So I'm really thankful to the work that Uplift Northwest does, Gina Hall and her team.

And again, another thing for those on the dais, if not toward the Uplift Northwest location and the organization, please do so.

With that, Council President, I will turn it over to you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for that update.

Just a second here.

I'm scrolling up.

All right.

So the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee has nothing on the agenda tomorrow.

And I want to first start off my remarks by saying thank you to all my committee members who stuck it out through three and a half hours of a very long committee.

and a half of that I believe was public comment and then there was really deep discussion on a couple of the other issues.

So I will recap what happened.

So at last week's committee meeting, the committee unanimously recommended confirmation of two mayoral appointments, appointment 02850 of Dr. Marissa G. Baker to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission and Appointment 02833, reappointing Kristen Haas to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

And then we also continued discussion of two bills I'm sponsoring to address two pressing current issues, SPD staffing shortage and declining app-based worker income.

So starting with the first one, Council Bill 120766 would move the positions responsible for our overall officer recruitment strategy from the Seattle Department of Human Resources to the Seattle Police Department so that national best practices and innovative new approaches can have a chance to be vetted and advanced by people who know the world of police recruitment and are most invested in and responsible for their implementation.

So that is one of the things that this legislation would do.

The bill would also allow for crucial and targeted improvements to be made to the officer hiring process.

Now this is the purview of the Public Safety Civil Service Commission and the Seattle Department of HR.

So basically applications for civil service positions come in and they first are processed by SDHR and then they advance to the individual departments.

So the bill would address things that are currently impeding our ability to compete with regional jurisdictions to refill our ranks.

Seattle's residents and small businesses deserve nothing less than our absolute 100% full attention and in all of our efforts to be devoted to fixing whatever it is that's holding us back.

And these, in this case, are some bureaucratic hurdles, snafus, things that are set up in a way that is not optimal, and we have the power to fix these things.

I was talking to, I'm glad, Council Member Rivera, you mentioned your meetings with businesses in District 4. I was, you know, I'm thinking about this conversation over the weekend that I had with Gabe Galanda, who was talking about small businesses along 35th that are besieged, that are continually hit with...

with break-ins, new crimes, et cetera.

There was a report on King 5 over the weekend.

It just seems relentless.

And everybody points to the fact that, well, you know, we don't have enough officers to patrol more frequently, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm sure that there are ways that we could deploy our, perhaps, analytical or analytics and to maybe target certain areas of the city in different ways.

But the bottom line is, yes, Staffing is a problem.

We continue to lose more officers than we can hire.

And this is something very simple that we can do about it.

And so I'm putting this forward.

We had a great discussion.

I didn't hear any major concerns.

The legislation will be in committee on May 9th for hopefully a vote.

And if you all have any amendments, you're welcome to submit them, I believe, by close of business on May 1st.

So that was one item.

And the second item that we discussed was Council Bill 120775, which is an effort to reverse the damages resulting from the implementation of a flawed law.

First and foremost, the sudden and drastic reduction in app-based worker income.

I think I can safely say that if there's one thing anybody agrees with, it's that this drop in income is the direct result of the network companies establishing a...

Some of them, not all of them, but network companies establishing a Seattle regulatory fee.

It goes by different names, but of about $5.

So nobody is...

I don't think there's any argument that this is what catalyzed the changes that we're seeing right now.

The question is, what are we going to do about it?

So I also must note that nobody should be surprised about this because the network companies during the stakeholder process and during deliberations that took about three months in the Public Safety and Human Services Committee in 2022, We heard that over and over again from network companies, that this would increase their costs, and they would likely pass on those costs to customers, and even $5 was bandied about as a potential amount.

So here we are now.

So what are we going to do?

And unfortunately, Council back then decided, you know, I don't, it's unclear exactly why for me, but, and I'm not in their minds, but I believe that it was excitement about passing another first-in-nation regulation, decided to ignore those warnings, and this is what we've got.

So, here we go.

And it is hurting the very people that the original law, the app-based worker minimum pay standard, was designed to benefit.

So this legislation before us addresses that issue.

And so we've heard a lot of different, I'm just repeating this for the benefit of the public who might not be up to speed on what's going on.

We also have heard from restaurants that are experiencing an average of about 38 percent decline in revenue.

And then, of course, we hear periodically from our constituents that they can no longer afford to order food out.

And this is, of course, hurting the people that most rely on these services, which are the elderly and disabled, but then also pretty much everybody else who has come to rely on these delivery services.

What are we going to do about this?

Well, there are calls to to wait longer and see how this turns out after a longer period of time after implementation.

There's also really, and I understand, I do have to say I understand the impulse to blame the network companies.

I've already established that we understand what catalyzed this.

I understand the impulse to blame the companies and also demand to see their data so that we can assess their performance.

profit margins so that we can figure out whether or not they're just trying to pad their revenues or if there really is, you know, a damage to their bottom line.

But to what end that exercise and who will it benefit?

That is my question because it's been about three months and people are suffering and I do believe that we have to get something done.

So there have been, well, I will get to one of our potential one of the things that's been addressed.

But what I want to do, ultimately, is make that fee go away.

And the only way that I can see doing that is to put forward the compromise proposal that's before us right now, which will get us to that end result.

And so that is why I'm pushing ahead.

I do want to correct one piece of information or one, some information about how this proposal will work and some of the information that was presented by central staff during the discussion because it got a little bit confusing there.

So I want to address what is a pay period?

Okay, so the bill would switch from a per order standard of pay to a per pay period standard of pay and here's how it works.

Under a pay period standard, app-based workers will receive offers while logged in to their apps as they would normally.

And then prior to a worker accepting an offer, the network company must include information on estimated time, estimated miles, approximate locations of work stops, approximate location of the delivery point, and business names where there is a work stop and also a guaranteed payment amount for each offer.

So they see a dollar amount and they can choose to accept it or not.

The guaranteed payment amount is not tied to a set per offer formula as the current law is.

And it's going to be flexible.

Offers for jobs that many drivers may not initially want to take, for example, I would imagine a delivery during rush hour over a bridge or something like that, those offers might be higher.

Offers for jobs that most drivers would want might be a little bit lower because there are many drivers that might want to accept that.

The point is to allow flexibility to make sure that companies can meet the market demand at the moment.

Now, if a driver accepts an offer, the driver will be paid the guaranteed amount, and at the end of a pay period, the total of all the guaranteed payments for every completed offer, plus any monetary bonuses or incentives we can talk about, the name of those things later, are all added up to determine a payment amount.

And if that payment amount is higher than the minimum payment required by the bill, which is $19.97 per hour for the total time worked plus $0.35 per mile, then the driver keeps that full amount.

If the sum of each guaranteed payment plus any incentives or bonuses is less than $19.97 per hour for the total time worked plus $0.35 a mile, then the company has to make up the difference in a supplemental payment.

So that is how it works.

And then tips are on top of everything else.

So that is in, I believe that you will be having some explanatory information in your inboxes soon.

That's how the pay period is projected to work, and it establishes certainty based on the time engaged and also our existing minimum wage law.

So that's how that works.

And I want to address something else.

Some people have asked, including people, including city staff, why don't we just ban the companies from charging the additional fee altogether?

you know, and make them eat the additional costs that the current pay-up law imposes on them.

And that makes, that does make sense.

And they note, with varying degrees of correctness, that there is a precedent for this, which was when council placed some limits on the amount that companies can charge restaurants for the use of companies' platforms.

And if you remember last year, this was, this piece of legislation was processed in my committee.

And we're referring to the amount, to the 15 percent Well, it was a 15 percent cap during the pandemic, but and then that was proposed to be extended.

And I'll talk about what came out in the end.

First of all, council did not ban companies from charging more than 15 percent to restaurants.

Council said that if the companies provide only basic services, then it can be capped at 15%.

But council also said that in this legislation that was passed said that if the companies provided additional services, they can charge a higher amount to restaurants for those services.

So think of premium placement on apps, screens or other kinds of promotions or whatever.

So they can charge more if they offer more than the basic service.

So during discussion last week, New York City's minimum wage law was brought up.

And that law doesn't allow the flexibility to charge more, flexibility that our law does have.

And New York City is now trying to defend itself, I think still, or at least was before, in federal court against a lawsuit over whether that cap on fees charged to restaurants violates the Constitution.

So my whole point is that I believe, I must believe, that if it had been possible to cap what costs the network companies can pass on to consumers, that Working Washington and City Council and the Office of Labor Standards and anybody else who was invested in the outcome of the original payout bill would have done that.

Otherwise, we wouldn't be in this position right now.

So I'm not a lawyer.

I really don't know what is possible, and I'm already too far out over my skis right now, but I do want to address what seems...

what is and is...

an obvious question to ask, why don't we just get rid of the fee?

Well, that is my understanding of why not, but also there was an opportunity to do so when the warning was made that this would be the outcome anyway.

I am wary of doing anything that could disrupt the compromise on the table because I am focused on getting more money in people's pockets right now.

So that is what's motivating me and I think that This is a practical solution, and we ultimately have three before us as Councilmember Saka, so clearly put it.

Our options are do nothing, and I agree with you, sir, that that is not an option, at least for me, and also I think that would be a disappointment to the folks that we've seen showing up every single week.

Another option is repeal the law.

Well, that has its own, that's concerning as well.

And then the other, the last one is fix the existing law.

And I heard Councilmember Kettle, you were saying something about good governance, meaning that we are able to have the humility of looking at the outcome of our legislation and then making it necessary.

So that is what we're trying to do here.

And this will also be in committee again on May 9th.

And any people's amendments are due on Wednesday at five o'clock as well.

So any questions?

All right, you're tired of this topic.

So anyway, that is what I've got to say about that.

And other highlights in my life include Council Member Kettle, you mentioned your and several people have your town hall.

That was that was really great to be able to meet new people in District 7 and also very well run town hall.

So thank you very much for hosting that.

Thank you very much, Council Member Wu, for going.

And of course, Chief Smith did a fabulous job of moderating.

So I learned a lot from your constituents.

This week, I have got a, tonight I'm going to the Seattle Police Department Southwest Precinct third roll call.

So I'm looking forward to that.

I have not visited the Southwest Precinct.

And on Tuesday, I'll be having an introductory meeting with Seattle City Lights Interim General Manager and CEO, Don Lindell.

And I presume other people have gotten that invitation.

I'm looking forward to talking with her.

Are there any comments or questions or other business before us?

Council President?

Yeah, go ahead.

Nothing on your report.

Okay, perfect.

I realized I had forgotten to share another update about Sound Transit stemming from last week's board meeting.

We had so much fun and excitement this Saturday that it eclipsed a in-depth report at the Sound Transit board meeting about choosing the preferred alternative in the South Lake Union area.

Right now, the Ballard section of the West Seattle-Ballard extension, they have been split into two different EISs.

West Seattle is already in the process of the final EIS.

Ballard is not.

some issues in Chinatown International District that were addressed last year.

And right now we are grappling with the final statements regarding South Lake Union.

And so what I said to my fellow board members is that the numbers that were presented this last week at Sound Transit Board are still under refinement.

So Please, I just asked my colleagues at Sound Transit to reserve judgment until we found the correct numbers because a lot of work has been getting done regarding how much time it would take to look at a Fifth and Harrison station as compared to where we are right now, which is Seventh and Harrison.

There's a lot more information.

I'm not gonna take council briefing to talk about it, but just noting that it will be before the System Expansion Committee and then back before Sound Transit Board later this month for final decision making.

If you have more questions, I'm happy to chat anytime.

That's what I wanted to know.

When was the final decision?

So end of the month, right?

Because I was, I was, I'm not tracking that.

So thank you very much for that update.

Depending right now, I believe that the schedule is for the, and I'm going to get this date wrong, but I believe it's May 22nd.

It is definitely that week.

looking at a calendar would be the 23rd.

I was off by one day off memory, looking at that.

But again, you know, I want to make sure that staff at Sound Transit has the time to review all of the necessary information to present us with as accurate as possible information.

I think everyone is pining to have a decision made so that we may move forward.

Thank you for that update.

Appreciate it.

Anybody else?

All right.

Okay.

Seeing no further business, I will go ahead and adjourn this meeting.

It is 3.08.

Thank you, everybody, for your updates, and we'll see you tomorrow at full council.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.