City Council Meeting January 16, 2024

The January 16th, 2024 meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2 0 1. I'm Sarah Nelson, president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Moore.

Present.

Council member Morales here.

Council member Rivera present.

Council member Saka here.

Council member Strauss present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Ketzel.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Eight present.

Thank you very much.

Moving on, I'm not aware of any presentation for today, so we will just proceed to the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to items on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar or the council's work program.

However, agenda items one and two are quasi-judicial and the council rules prohibit public comment on these two items.

Madam Clerk, how many people do we have signed up today?

We have no one in person.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- We have three present remotely.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON Okay.

We will proceed then directly to the remote public comment.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Madam Clerk I'll now hand this over to you to read the instructions.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Thank you.

So the remote public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes.

Each speaker will be called on in the order in which they are registered on the website.

A reminder to the remote speakers, prior to speaking, once I call your name, you'll need to press star six to begin speaking.

Our first remote speaker is Oliver Misca, and she will be followed by Yvette Dynish.

Go ahead, Oliver.

Hello.

Congratulations, newly elected members, and welcome back to those who are returning.

For the record, my name is Oliver Miska.

I'm a lifelong Seattleite who spent most of my time on Capitol Hill.

I'm here speaking to Ordinance 12-07-39 regarding the rezoning of a lot that includes the Conover House at 1620 19th Avenue.

Sadly, I'm here just testifying in vain a bit to save part of Seattle that is pretty much condemned to be destroyed and forgotten.

I used to live at 1620. Could you please pause?

I'm sorry.

Could you please pause?

What item are you speaking to?

Please repeat that.

Ordinance 120739. Regarding the rezoning of the lot at 1620 19th Avenue.

I'm sorry.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept public comment on quasi-judicial matters.

So I will have to ask you to...

Okay.

Well, the house is being destroyed under false premises, and unfortunately, it's been blocked to be preserved as a historical land.

Clerk?

Go ahead.

Point of personal play.

This is a quasi-judicial matter in which we are receiving ex parte communications.

Clerk, I would ask that if the public commenter cannot speak to a different item that we cut the microphone.

And we will also need to confer as to whether or not we need to disclose ex parte communications regarding this item going forward.

ELLIE WILSON- Oliver are you able to Oliver excuse me I just want to make sure.

DIRECTOR HERSEY- I could hear that.

Yeah I can hear that.

Thank you.

I hope there remains to be transparency but I just was there was a misunderstanding if there was public comment on this.

But yeah I encourage transparency moving forward.

Thank you.

ELLIE WILSON- Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Hain.

Excuse me.

Our next speaker is.

Yvette Dinish, and she will be followed by David Haynes.

Yvette, go ahead, please.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Yvette Dinish, Rainier Beach.

Regarding public safety, the council recently addressed the rash of stolen keys that were being used to commit crimes.

Recently, I was at a resource for up in Renton, and the city of Renton is giving out free key of locks to all those who want them.

I'm just suggesting if the city of Seattle can find in their budget it would be a great proactive approach to all these keys being stolen and it will give these community members some peace of mind.

And that's my comment.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Thank you.

Our last remote speaker.

Our last remote speaker is David Haynes.

Go ahead David.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

It's been seven weeks since the election results, and we should have had a more expedited process.

I think you still have to change the city chapter so that we, as the people, can have an election within like a 90-day period instead of council.

With that said, I would like to just address the Mandatory Housing Act, the affordable housing requirements.

It seems that in the last few years, a lot of developers were allowed to just pay into a system and not make affordable housing from their for-profit first world quality housing.

And it put the money into a bank account that was earmarked specifically and only for the nonprofits.

Some of whom are politically connected who don't really make the best housing.

And I just hope that like the favors that are being offered in this rezoning keep them honest when it comes to expecting them to allow for affordable housing within their development, instead of paying into the system and then raising the rates on for-profit unaffordable housing, because we certainly need a great American housing build out.

And it would be great if council could make a law that kind of incentivized and almost demanded that the banks, the corporate banks prioritize housing, and commercial buildings and schools and libraries with robust floor plans to give the people a better choice and real equity and an offset of all this obsolete, flawed real estate that seems to have been watered down in the integrity from the land use committee that accommodates the banks who own this real estate that had to be closed down during the pandemic that now has built all of this slum type of floor plans in the middle of the gutter of the streets in Ballard and elsewhere.

to help them generate revenue.

And it's just not fair that we have a modern third world real estate empire that has double, triple mortgages that are just shaking the people down.

Okay, shifting into in-person public comment, we have Mr. Joaquin Garrett.

Good afternoon.

KY King Garrett, third generation community builder from Central District, lovely Africa town.

Just want to highlight in the wake of many celebrations in the name of Dr. Martin Luther King County, some of the realities of the state of affairs here in Seattle.

Martin Luther King County.

Currently, you have 17% of black students at math proficiency.

You have less than 1% of venture capital going to black businesses.

We have zero black developers or black GCs independently doing a project of scale of 100 units or better.

I think there's 0% black commercial property ownage in downtown Seattle.

On the port industrial area, maternal death rate of black women is three times as high as white men, and black males also represent a disproportionate number of the victims of homicide.

I think these realities, these statistics illustrate a reality that is more Jim Crow apartheid and a far cry from the beloved community that Dr. King spoke towards and envisioned.

With that being said, I think this council has the opportunity to move us towards a new normal rooted in equity.

But in order to do that, first we have to acknowledge the reality of where we are.

and then commit to bold interventions and reparative investments that can move the Dow in another direction.

The question is, what type of city will this be at the end of your term or second?

And it's important to also understand and disaggregate the statistics as it relates to multi-generational black community members who have endured under the redlining and urban renewal and many policies and practices that has disenfranchised and caused $100 million investment to happen.

And look at the $27 million, which was kind of co-opted.

Thank you very much.

Toilets that are not going to move the Dow are making this a beloved community that the rest of the country can learn from.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jim Buchanan.

Good afternoon, everyone.

First, I would like to thank Councilwoman Morales and Councilwoman Hollingsworth and Councilman Strauss.

I think he just left for having recent meetings.

I'm here really to focus on the participatory budget.

On what, uh, Joaquin just ended out with.

We do understand that what the origination of what that is for, and we kind of got the measures on what is for now.

We need to reverse that, and that needs to be for what the original ask and demand was.

So we're asking the council to get together to look at that and to do the right thing.

We know a lot of times, you know, it's not easy to do the right thing.

And, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King, as we all celebrate him, I think a lot of people do on a surface level.

But for us, it's much deeper than a surface level.

And what he says is there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular.

But one must take it because their conscience tells them it's the right thing to do.

We will move all the way through this.

The community is engaged.

We will continue to gauge.

Like I said a few weeks ago, we're on notice.

Thank you.

That concludes the public comment.

Thank you very much.

We've reached the end of the list of registered speakers and the public comment period is now closed.

Okay, moving right along, we will now, if there's no objection, the introduction referral calendar will be adopted.

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

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

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

And please note, we do have an executive session immediately following the last item of business on the agenda, so council members, you'll need to leave the dais and log in at your desk, just FYI.

Okay.

Okay, we'll now consider the proposed consent calendar, which contains three items, the approval of the minutes for January 2nd and January 9th, and also appropriating money for claims from January 1st through January 5th.

Are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent agenda, consent calendar?

Yes, Council President, I'd like to remove the January 2nd meeting minutes from the consent calendar.

Thank you.

Agenda item one, minutes of January 2nd, has been removed and will be addressed separately.

I move to adopt the consent calendar, excluding item one.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar, excluding item one.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Aye.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar items excluding item one are adopted.

Item one will be considered under items removed from the consent calendar toward the end of today's agenda.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

Thank you very much.

Okay, moving on to item one.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, clerk file 314400, application of Danielle Goddard Weinstein, A plus U to rezone property located at 1620 16th Avenue from low I-3 to neighborhood commercial 365. The committee recommends that the city council grant as conditioned the clerk file.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Strauss is former chair of this committee.

You're recognized to address this item.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm going to address this item and the council bill that is attached to it.

I'm also going to ask that we postpone this vote for one week so that we can ensure that we have cured the potential ex parte communication that we just received at public comment.

I couldn't really hear what that person was saying.

It took us all a while to realize that he was talking about the rezone rather than the bill that he wrote in the public comment sign-in sheet, which said that he was going to speak to a bill about paying our bills.

And so I just want to first give a quick overview of these two bills and the contract rezone process.

And if it's all right with you, we'll postpone these votes for a week.

That is fine.

Great.

Thank you.

And so colleagues, I know I was intending to share this at council briefing a few weeks back.

We had a lot of presentations that day and so we didn't get to this.

Contract rezones in short and high level information are taking a parcel that has two levels of zoning and making it one level of zoning.

It is illegal for us as a city council to make a zoning change on one parcel.

That's called spot zoning.

It is, people are able to get a zoning change for their parcel by going through the contract rezone process.

That's what we have before us.

For this to occur, that change of zoning goes through, the merits of that decision are heard by the hearing examiner, which is why we as a council members, we are the judges.

So that's why it's quasi judicial.

And we have to make our decisions based upon the facts presented to the hearing examiner.

which is why the public comment today was problematic because that is information that is outside of the stream that is channeled through the hearing examiner.

So the hearing examiner makes a decision, the bill is transmitted to city council where we then ensure through the property POTA, Property Use and Development Agreement, that all of the terms and conditions outlined by the hearing examiner are contained within the bill.

And so we have two different bills that accompany this.

One is a clerk file, and that adopts the city council's conditions and decisions.

And then the council bill is what implements the rezone, changing the land use map and accepting the applicant's property use and development agreement.

ensuring the council's conditions will be met.

So that's why we have two different files associated with it.

And anytime you hear the words quasi-judicial, that is when you must make sure that you're getting the information from the proper channels so that we avoid ex parte communication as we are quasi-judges, quasi-judicial positions when taking up contract rezones.

I'm sure central staff has much more information because...

That's their job.

I'm just doing the best I can today.

So with that, I don't know if I need to make a motion to postpone.

I move to postpone clerk file.

I'm pulling it up right now.

Clerk file 314400 and Council Bill 120737 until the January 23rd meeting.

Second.

Okay.

If there is no objection, Clerk File 314400 and Council Bill 120738 will be postponed until January 23, 2024. 37, not 38. Oh, 37. Excuse me.

Yes.

120737 will be postponed until January 23rd, 2024. I'm hearing no objection.

Those will be postponed until that date.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments?

Nope.

Okay.

Well, that is...

We're getting toward the end of our business here, so let me read the, let's.

We have items removed.

Right, yeah, I'm getting to that part, yes.

We have had an item removed from the consent calendar, so it's now time to address that separately.

You are recognized to speak.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you very much, Council President.

As I read through the minutes, I noted what I believe was an error, so I would like to amend the council minutes from January 2nd, or to correct the minutes, I guess, under the vote for council president by changing Council Member Hollingsworth to Council Member Kettle as the council member who nominated Council Member Nelson to be council president.

Oh, good, you caught that, too.

Just kidding.

Thank you very much for your close attention to the minutes.

I just want to make sure you get your credit.

Okay.

Are there any other changes anyone would like to make to the minutes?

Okay, then, hearing none, I move to adopt the January 2nd minutes as corrected.

And hearing no objection, the minutes of the January 2nd are adopted and corrected.

All right, moving on.

There are no resolutions for introduction and adoption today.

Is there any other business?

Not seeing any other business.

Normally, colleagues, this is when, if you know that you have to be absent for a future meeting, you can, this is at the time of the meeting when you would say, All right.

So, we will now proceed to the executive session.

Before that, however, since we do have a wrapped TV audience, let me just remind people that the public forum for the position eight vacancy will be this Thursday, January 18th, from 5.30 to 7.30 here at City Hall.

So that's just a reminder.

And with that, we will proceed into the executive session.

Hearing no further business, we now move into executive session.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that council reserves questions on policy for open session.

I expect that the time of the executive session to end by in about a half an hour, so that would be 2.52.

Okay.

We will say 2...

Let's just say 3 o'clock.

All right.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I'll announce the extension and the expected duration.

At the conclusion of this executive session, this city council meeting will automatically adjourn, and the city council is holding a special meeting on January 22nd at 9.30 to continue our discussion on the council vacancy appointment process.

The next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be held on January 23rd at 2 p.m.

The council is now in executive session.

Council members, please log off this meeting and log into the executive session Zoom meeting.