Seattle City Council Briefing 4/28/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is April 28th, 2025, and the council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.02 p.m.

Council Member Saka is excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Solomon?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Here.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

And Council President Nelson?

Present.

Nate present.

Thank you very much.

All right, if there's no objection, the minutes of April 21st, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

All right, President's report.

We have no proclamations, presentations, or executive session today.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are eight items on the introduction and referral calendar, and they are Council Bill 120974, the weekly bill payment ordinance, Clerk file 314541, full unit lot subdivision of Northgate Homes LLC to subdivide one development site into 18 unit lots.

Appointment 03145, appointment of Kai Smith as member Seattle Ethics and Election Commission for a term to December 31st, 2027. Appointments 03146, 47, and 48 of Lawrence Alexander III, Davis R. Powell, and Katie Hall as members of the Seattle Film Commission for a term to April 23rd, 2028. And appointment 03144, appointment of Patrice Tillsdale is member to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission for a term to April 30th, 2021. I will have to get back on that because the paperwork has not been forwarded.

A note on this.

We confirmed two of the three appointments to the LSAC last Thursday in the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee.

And we only did two because it was brought to our attention that the term end date of appointment 3143 will expire before it reaches the City Council on May 6th.

So that one requires that the mayor's office submit another appointment packet with the subsequent term dates.

So that's why this particular one is on the IRC this week, and it'll go straight to full counsel for confirmation with the other two.

And then finally, we have Council Bill 120975, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, addressing signage, clarifying requirements, and supporting efficient permitting processes for light rail transit facilities.

The consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance in eight items, five re-appointments to the Seattle Women's Commission, three re-appointments to the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council.

And then finally, there are three pieces of legislation from committees.

From the Sustainability, City Lights, Arts, and Culture Committee, we've got Council Bill 120952, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department authorizing the department to establish eligibility requirements for customers participating in the Renewable Plus Program.

Council Bill 120053, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department accepting the following easements for electrical distribution rights in King County.

and placing said easements under the jurisdiction of City Light Department and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

And finally, Council Bill 120954, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department accepting the following easements for electrical distribution in King County, placing said easements under the jurisdiction of the City Light Department and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

All right.

As I said, there are no proclamations or letters to sign today.

So we'll go straight into our preview of council actions and council and regional committees.

And we begin with Council Member Salomon.

Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Council President Nelson.

Just give a quick update regarding land use committee items.

We will have a special meeting this coming Wednesday the 30th at 9.30 in the morning.

A couple items on the agenda for that day are ADU state compliance updates.

We do expect to vote on those on that time.

We will also have a briefing on Department of Construction and Inspections Light Rail Essential Public Facilities Amendments.

Again, this is related to light rail expansion.

items.

This past week, I did have staff that was able to tour the Fort Lawton site this past Friday.

We also had staff attending the press conference to support the right-of-way encampment resolutions program alongside with council members Moore, Rink, and Strauss, as well as King County Council members.

I did have a chance to meet with Seattle Public Utilities and their Clean Crew Solid Waste and Sanitation staff about ongoing Litter abatement issues in the Chinatown International District.

I had an opportunity to also visit with the Nisei Veterans Committee and toured the Memorial Hall, and if any one of you has not yet done that, it's something I'd definitely recommend.

The incredible rich history that they have available for everyone is definitely an eye-opener.

And as a We also had meetings with Climate Pledge Arena, did a town hall this past Saturday at Sephardic Bakur Hulam.

and really good interaction with that congregation.

And we attended the Alliance for Education Gala on Saturday evening, which is also a lot of fun.

And just this morning, we attended the staff announcement or the announcement regarding law enforcement staffing and the increases that we're able to see there.

And I appreciate sharing that space with you, Council President, as well as...

you know, uh, council member, uh, kettle.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

That guy.

Uh,

And we also just had a briefing from the Seattle Office with the LGBTQ Commission.

Going forward this week, a number of meetings, including meeting with the Office of Labor Standards, Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Policy Board, Office of Civil Rights going to be attending their open house this coming Tuesday.

And actually, we'll have an opportunity to have a brief meeting with former city council member Jane Nolan on Friday afternoon.

And before I relinquish, I do want to make two more remarks, one being that council members Saka and Kettle and I have been talking about how are we going to commemorate Memorial Day this year.

And the Nisei veterans told us about the 80th annual commemoration of the 442nd regiment combat team that will be happening at Lakeview Cemetery at 10 a.m.

on May 26th.

I think our presence there would be a good way to, again, honor veterans as a whole, but those veterans specifically.

Finally, I do want to express my condolences and my sympathies to the Filipino community of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest broadly.

In light of the tragedy that happened in Vancouver this past weekend, 11 people dead as a result of someone plowing a vehicle through a crowd at a gathering.

Fortunately, there is a suspect in custody, but my heart goes out to the families who suffered that loss and the broader Filipino community as a whole.

Thank you very much.

If there are no other questions, I will pass to my council member on the very end there.

Thank you, council member Solomon.

Colleagues, great to see you this afternoon.

From the finance native communities and tribal governments, as well as the select budget committees, I will say that we don't have committee this week.

Today is the fifth week in the month.

We do have committee next week.

We've already been engaging in ongoing conversations about the downturn revenue forecast.

We will be meeting next Wednesday, May 7th, likely discussing some of this.

I'll have updates for you about the exact agenda at next week's Monday morning briefing.

If you would like to attend, It is Wednesday, May 7th at 9.30 in the morning.

We do not have any bills coming before full council tomorrow.

And from my external committees, some updates about Sound Transit.

This last week, we did pass motions regarding the West Seattle extension.

These are not the baseline.

This is as well, we still don't have the record of decision yet.

The work does continue moving forward.

I am happy to share with you some of the concerns that I heard from colleagues on the sound transit board.

And last week, the motions passed.

That's the good news.

Bad news is that there will be planned service disruptions through downtown to replace a rail that is within the tunnel that has cracked.

And so that rail...

So the regular service has resumed, so apologies.

Thank you for your patience while we replace that cracked rail in the downtown tunnel.

Biggest news is not this Saturday, the following Saturday in Redmond, we will be opening new stations, and these will be the first Sound Transit 3 projects that will have a ribbon cutting.

Festivities begin at 1030. The ribbon cutting should be at about noon, and there are going to be activities all day.

Just because it's east of Lake Washington doesn't mean we can't go.

I strongly suggest, and I will be there as well as a Sound Transit board member.

So we're very excited about this.

And I think Councilmember Solomon touched on it, but there will also be, and I see on the introduction referral calendar today, the bill being referred to your committee, Land Use Committee, Council Member Solomon, regarding streamlining of permit activities around sound transit.

Colleagues, if we took every single one of sound transit, the ST3 investments, and made it an individual permit, as in the same way that we would with any other construction project, the list would be so long, the binder stack would be so tall, and the process would be so inefficient.

And so this bill that's coming before Council Member Solomon's committee is instructed not to change any of the regulations, not to even reduce any of the appeal processes that anyone has the ability to appeal about an issue, rather to streamline the entire process so that we can save some money in building this very expensive project and make sure that the process on the city side does not delay the implementation and the opening of this transit facility in our city.

That's my Sound Transit update.

In District 6 and more, I was happy my district director could join the Salmon Bay Park reopening that happened yesterday.

That playground is looking amazing.

As well as I hosted office hours last week, and I'll be hosting office hours with these six residents this Thursday.

Thursday within, not quite my D6, but I guess I'm always trying to annex the animal shelter.

Animal shelter reports through FAS to my committee.

On Sunday, June 8th, the shelter will be hosting their annual 5K fun run and walk.

Proceeds help further the shelter's mission to provide critical services for our community's most vulnerable animals.

Colleagues, that is my report for now.

You'll expect to hear a lot more next Monday because, again, that forecast that we received earlier this month is big and bad news.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any questions?

Seeing none, I'll pass it over to Council Member Joy Hollingsworth.

Council Member?

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Anything to go to Redmond?

any reason to.

They have a really great dog park, Mary Moore Dog Park, which is the Disneyland of dog parks, if I might add.

Parks, Utilities, Technology meeting will be Wednesday, May 14th at 2 p.m.

We will continue our continuation of the Seattle Public Utilities legislation discussion.

It will just be a discussion as we continue to navigate some of the questions that a lot of my colleagues had and as they are trying to loosen up some of their expenditures for people that are building.

So it should be a really great discussion and looking forward to continuing that process.

We also have the Comprehensive Plan meeting, which will be April 30th at 2 p.m.

Special Committee of Comprehensive Plan.

I'll read the whole thing.

My apologies.

And it's going to be one of our favorite subjects on the agenda, trees.

So that will be from our executive office talking about trees, which will be great.

And then also next week, May 7th, we have another meeting, again, of our select committee at 2 p.m.

As well, that agenda has not been set.

Colleagues, just a reminder, we are navigating through the interim legislation that we...

for House Bill 1110 before we move on to part, I don't wanna say part two, but the next phase of this process.

So just a heads up there.

Last but not least, didn't have any regional committee updates, but I definitely wanted to thank Council Member Moore in her committee where she talked about food access last week, brought it to the table.

Just a quick little information thing is that the federal administration cut back on a billion dollars from local farms to school.

It was a big program that schools were able to provide and buy from local farms.

How did that affect King County?

It's about $9 million that came down into our school system and food banks.

And unfortunately, that cut impacts a lot of local farmers because now they have to buy from big farmers.

When you buy from big farmers, those farmers only get 15% of the funding of the money because you have distributors and so forth.

If it's a local farm, they get 100% of those dollars.

And you're able to also localize your food source and economy.

And so I just wanted to thank Council Member Moore for having that in her committee because There is a food cliff coming for our community and I see it and I hear it every single day from folks and people how the average cost of food right now is $2.31 per pound.

And that has gone up 25% year after year after year.

And so anyways, I just wanted to flag that because I know that is something that I'm very passionate about, but I just wanna thank Council Member Moore for bringing that up.

It's the one, besides just people paying for rent over 30% of their income, food is the next biggest driving cost for people.

And right now there's a lot of people struggling.

So thank you, Council Member Moore for bringing that up.

And I will now pass it off to Council Member Kettle.

I had a couple of questions.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Um, thank you.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Um, and as I mentioned, I'm more than would love to work with you on that issue and other food issues.

So please feel free to bring those to my committee.

If, if, Possible I had two questions for you one is Well, this is not a question.

It's a statement I just wanted to be clear that I have yet to my office has yet to receive the sly that I requested on trees And that was due April 1st So all that information that I had requested from SDCI regarding how the implementation of the tree ordinance is going has not yet been provided to my office.

So please just keep that in mind in the presentation that's coming this week.

And then the other question I have is I've heard through the grapevine that potentially two appeals have been filed in King County Superior Court relating to the hearing examiner's dismissal of the six appeals.

Have you heard that?

Can you confirm if that's true?

What's the process in terms of how does that affect our deliberation schedule?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh, thank you.

Council member Moore, uh, wasn't aware of the slide for SDCI.

So thank you for letting us know about that.

Um, uh, the second thing regarding the appeals, I will double check with my team regarding what the timeline is.

I know that they have a right to appeal their, I don't want to say to appeal their appeals, um, that they, Is that correct?

That they appeal their appeals.

That sounds right.

So anyways, I will double check with my team regarding that process and what that looks like for timeline.

So far, I know it doesn't affect our interim legislation and our, you know, in that process, what we have so far set.

And we're working still on the second part of the dates and working with council president's office for that second part, but I'll double check today.

Yeah, thank you very much, because I have put off meeting with community because of the appeals, and now this would be an opportunity for me to do so, but I don't wanna get into trouble, so that information would be super helpful.

Thank you.

No, understood, but I got you.

And I'll pass it off to Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

I wanted to start, we have our Public Safety Committee meeting tomorrow.

Thank you for all those, for that adjustment, using the fifth week of the month to do that.

I was out last week.

Tomorrow's meeting's gonna be centered on our accountability partners.

It's very important to give them the voice and an opportunity to speak to the issues affecting their organizations, the Community Police Commission, the Officer Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability.

There will be some personnel actions with the CPC.

And then with OPA, we'll be getting the updates from the organizations, but we also have bringing in the chief of police investigation ordinance that needs some tweaking.

This kind of goes to our review of how things are done and how to better set up the organizations for success as they move forward.

And so that will be on the agenda tomorrow.

For this week, I do not have any external meetings.

In terms of committees and the like, I should qualify that.

Today I was at the police hiring event with the mayor and others to include council president Council member Solomon.

It was good to be there with those two.

And it's really important because it reflects the hard work that we've done and in partnership with the mayor, but the work that we've done here on council, I noted in my remarks the two pieces of legislation that came out of the Council President's Committee, Governance Accountability, recruitment, and also incentives.

And I also mentioned Council Member Hollingsworth because there's been some technology pieces, call you and throw a phone and the like, coming out of her committee in addition to those that have come out of the Public Safety Committee.

And this package of bills is really, generally in public safety, but also with SPD staffing, has made a difference.

And then the work we've done, I noted that It's not just about passing legislation, but going to roll call, going to committee meetings where SPD precinct may be represented or just on the street.

And so it was really important that the work reflect that work.

I won't go into the numbers here, but there's dramatic increase from where they've been recently.

Separately, this week, I'll be meeting with different groups.

Obviously, ComPlan, I'll meet with How's Our Neighbors tomorrow, WHEEL on Friday, and Union Gospel Mission on Friday.

And then separately, I'll be having a walk with DSHS, the state's social and health services department, because they have a location.

They're at, essentially, Second and Lenora in Belltown, so I'll be doing a Belltown walk with them.

Next week, we do have the Regional Water Quality Committee meeting.

I serve with Councilmember Hollingsworth on, the RWQC, the Regional Water Quality Committee, and then the PSRC Transportation Policy Board, which I serve on with Councilmember Saka.

separately in terms of community.

There will be a South Lake Union Community Council meeting on that Tuesday of next week, and the Queen Anne Community Council has theirs on Wednesday of next week.

The last thing I just wanted to say, I'm glad I mentioned the Southlake Community Council.

As you know, because I've talked about it before, we have our District 7 neighborhood councils.

District 7 does have some strong community council representation.

We even now even have a downtown community council, which is really important.

But each of these organizations really needs people who just stand up and volunteer and you know, their time and effort.

And I will tell you, District 7 is well represented by a lot of people who are very well educated, very vast professional careers and expertise and other strong attributes that makes them very much advocates for their communities.

And it keeps me on my toes, I'll be honest.

And one of the people, and I say that with all sincerity, by the way, one of the people that kept me on my toes, amongst others, came out of the strong Southlake Union community, and I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to John Person, who, represented the South Lake Union community, the neighborhood so well, worked so hard over the decades of his time in South Lake Union, and volunteered his time and effort, his skills and everything that was John.

And so I've had many meetings with him where he advocated for the community, he advocated for the neighborhood, he advocated for those that are well off.

I didn't mention it, but District 7 probably has the more affluent a number of folks too, but looking out for others, and that was a strong part of what John was looking to do, and he recently passed away.

Last week they had a memorial for him.

I could not attend since I was not in town, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you, John, for your work, but also thank you to the entire community in South Lake Union who worked with him land use issues, but I will tell you the community, since it's been built up, is now focusing its attention on parks and other areas, and I welcome that, because like I said before, it keeps me on my toes, and nobody would do that better than John Person, so I just wanted to say thank you, John, and rest easy.

I will be followed by, absent any questions, Council Member Moore.

Thank you very much, Council Member Kettle.

So on tomorrow's full City Council agenda, there are eight appointments from the Housing and Human Services Committee.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for May 14th.

We're still finalizing the agenda, but at this point we're planning to hear from Shokim Kilmende, the founder and CEO of Housing Connector, on the amazing work that they are doing to keep people housed through a robust rental assistance program that works with mostly non-profit landlords, but some for-profit landlords, and also the additional sort of case management services that they are providing as part of those services.

It's been a really successful and effective model.

And I remain very committed to making sure that we are having a robust rental assistance program.

So looking forward to hearing their feedback and the model that's working.

We will also be planning to hear from KCRHA with a formal introduction to the now-newish CEO, Kelly Kinison, and also potentially hear an update on KCRHA's extreme weather response this past winter.

which was quite successful.

Obviously more to be doing and done, but compared to the years before, sort of the glitches had been worked out.

So great to hear about that success.

Last week I attended the press conference with PDA amongst my colleagues, calling on the state to continue funding the right-of-way encampment resolution program, which has been an immensely successful program.

I also attended the Bitter Lake Earth Day celebration, which included the opening of the playground and play fields.

which I note are accessible.

They were designed to be accessible to all users.

So great to see principles of universal design being utilized.

I'd like to see more of that across the city.

I also attended Seattle's coordinated effort against sexual exploitation monthly meeting, which was enlightening.

And on a personal note, I attended a fundraiser for Ukraine over the weekend.

And one sort of astonishing fact that I was unaware of is that Ukraine has the most landmines of any country in the world.

So one of the things that they were seeking funding for related to being able to demine.

Anyway, it's a stark reminder of what's happening out there.

in that particular conflict.

This week I have my regular office hours in Lake City as well as a community safety meeting regarding the ongoing chronic challenges faced by our neighbors on 33rd Avenue relating to the ongoing open drug use that's happening there, the chronic encampments and loitering that's occurring.

This is across from the Seattle Housing Authority property in which many Low-income families are doing their best to provide an environment for them and their children that is safe and free from having to be exposed to these sorts of challenges, and yet we continue to not be able to provide that sort of public safety that they and everybody else in that community deserves.

So we will be having a discussion about how we can do a better job I also want to, and I would just also note that we continue to see challenges on Aurora Avenue around dealing with the commercial sexual exploitation that's happening up there.

We've been getting some good law enforcement activity and some soap orders have been entered.

But again, we need to have a broader enforcement effort.

We're making progress on getting training up for the police officers.

We're also making progress on getting services in place for the people who are engaging in the sex trade up there, most of them unwillingly.

We are looking at opening and expanding emergency bed availability so people have a safe place to go.

But again, that remains a challenge and that's something that I would really ask my colleagues and the rest of the city to look at creating a strategic and full force enforcement effort along the Aurora corridor so that we can provide the safety and quality of life that everybody deserves to have up there, including the people that are struggling on the streets.

But there's a lot of opportunity that's going missed because we are not grappling with the public safety challenges along the Aurora corridor.

So that's just my continuing to acknowledge that there are a lot of challenges there that we need help beyond the council to address.

And at this point, if there are no comments or questions, I'll turn it over to Council Member Rank.

What is the status of those cameras that were going to be installed?

Yeah, so the cameras, my understanding, are set to go up at the end of this month, beginning of May.

But again, that's been a long...

They keep getting delayed for a variety of reasons relating to ordering and then...

not being in the right size for the polls and all of that.

So hopefully we will have cameras up and operational in some time in May.

Thanks.

Council Member Moore.

I just wanted to thank you for highlighting the challenges that we're facing in your district in the north of Seattle.

Something that I'm aware both through you but also separately from a lot of different individuals or groups and This is, you know, part of our job is to highlight these pieces and to engage with the executive of the Seattle Police Department, work with our precincts.

It kind of goes to what I said in my remarks today at the police hiring event that, you know, it's not just about passing legislation.

It's also about going to roll calls.

It's about doing the community meetings with the precinct representation and then just being on the street, you know, like we were on Aurora.

a little over a year ago or under a year ago.

So thank you for highlighting that.

And obviously, my role is to keep the press on so that we can look to build on the technology pieces, build on what I was talking about earlier with SPD staffing, because at the end of the day, that's really what's going to make a difference in terms of making some progress on the challenges that you're highlighting.

So thank you for highlighting that for the community.

Yeah, thank you for that, and I agree.

Absolutely, we need more police presence up there.

We need more staffing.

We need more care as well, the alternatives.

And I do want to say that I have found the North Precinct captain and the officers up there to be very cooperative and willing partners.

There's a sort of...

There's just a lot to overcome and new patterns to get into place, and additionally, the lack of resources is a significant challenge.

So it's not from necessarily on the street level, a lack of will, but we do need a vision in addition to additional resources.

And enforcement.

And we need enforcement, but we need a vision for the enforcement strategy.

just like we need a vision for our homelessness strategy, right?

It can't just be piecemeal.

There needs to be a vision because it is an ecosystem and it is a corridor up there.

So anyway, Council Member Kettle, thank you for all the work that you've been doing as public safety chair.

Oh, sorry, I'm done.

Looking for the roll call here.

Councilmember Rink, I believe.

Yes, Councilmember Rink.

Thank you.

I want to start my remarks off today by acknowledging the tragedy that happened in Vancouver this weekend.

My heart goes out to all who have been affected by this tragic incident at the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival.

This was a block party created in order to honor Datu Lapu-Lapu and symbolize cultural harmony in British Columbia.

And we recognize that a day that was supposed to recognize togetherness has now turned to deep sorrow and unimaginable loss.

And we invite our community to attend vigils that will be in the Seattle area over the next week.

The community vigil at the Filipino Community Center will be tomorrow night, so April 29th from 5 p.m.

to 8 p.m.

And a resting place will have a vigil tonight, 5 to 8 p.m.

And I'll be joining at that one if anyone would like to join alongside me for that while we...

express our condolences and certainly want to make sure that we stand with our local Filipino community as we weather this tragedy.

I also want to speak to and follow up on public comment from last week's council meeting.

We, for those who were a part of that meeting, we may recall a resident from district one who came to provide public comment.

And he shared with us something that I think we can all agree is completely unacceptable, a bullet hole in a car seat.

We know that gun violence continues to be a tremendous challenge for our community that has caused so much pain and harm.

And when my office engaged with him, he had a simple request for us.

The street lights that had been out for a month in areas of High Point to have their power restored.

A simple ask.

Certainly something to note was that he noticed that there had been a correlation between street lights being out and shootings in the neighborhood and nearby the park.

And with the work of City Light, we were able to get crews out the next day restoring power.

So I wanna shout out Bridget from City Light.

And for working with my chief of staff, Tim, shout out to Tim for working closely with this resident to make sure that we had communication throughout the process.

And I also wanna give a shout out to the staff from the offices of District 1, District 6, and Position 9 as well for your staff working with mine to make sure we are navigating this challenge.

I think it's worth noting we have a long way to go when it comes to addressing gun violence in this community.

I think we all know that.

And with the conclusion of the state legislative session, we did see the passage of some important legislation related to gun, really making sure that we're keeping guns out of the hands of individuals who want to cause harm, legislation such as permit to purchase, which I know was a top priority this session for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.

These are things just to celebrate.

in full acknowledgement that we still got a long way to go.

But for today, we're getting the lights turned on.

So wanted to recognize and thank again the staff that worked with our staff and thank again City Light for being so responsive to this clear community need.

And building on that, when it comes to the work of our committee, my committee, Sustainability, City, Light, and Arts and Culture, will meet this Friday, May 2nd.

We will have two presentations.

The first will be on the Office of Sustainability and Environment's Fresh Bucks program.

And then we will also have an additional presentation from the Office of Sustainability and Environment on the Environmental Justice Fund, and a final appointment to the Seattle City Light Review Panel.

In related to committee work, I joined the mayor's office last week in announcing an executive order to update our city's climate action plan.

We announced this down at the Mini Mart City Park in District 1, and we're joined alongside with SDOT, City Light, Green New Deal Oversight board members, members of SDCI.

Really, the full city could be represented in that space.

And it was an amazing event being able to launch this work and we will be taking up this work in partnership with the executive in committee over the next year and really looking forward to working with the executive to make sure we deliver on a plan that gets us to carbon neutral by 2050 and making sure that we're living up to our promise of being the Emerald City and paving the way for a greener future.

In terms of external committees, there will be a special meeting of RPC tomorrow.

It's anticipated to be a very short meeting.

I think we're just doing a technical correction to a previous action.

to make sure that we have the parks levy go to ballot on time.

And then closing us out, wanna recognize that April 30th, that's two days from now, will mark, April 30th, two days from now, will mark 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War.

And I would like to invite community to join Friends for Little Saigon and the Little Saigon Creative for the Saigon to Seattle 50 years after war event.

The work in this film, art exhibit, and booklet voices are just some of the lived experiences of people in King County commemorating April 30th, 1975. Friends of Little Saigon hopes that this work will inspire all who join in commemoration to reflect on the resilience and growth of the Vietnamese community and looks ahead towards the future of hopefulness as it continues to grow.

And in closing, as a reminder, May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Month.

And I hope we can bring forward a proclamation in recognition of that.

And then this Wednesday is Denim Day as a reminder as well.

So make sure you get your denim going on.

This is building on the proclamation we also passed this month in recognition that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

And Denim Day in particular is a specific day in recognition of a ruling that came out of a French court that pointed to a survivor's clothing and what she was wearing in her assault.

So Denim Day is a day in recognition.

of really calling attention to the pervasiveness of sexual violence and really calling attention to the harm of victim blaming.

And so I invite you all to join me in wearing denim that day.

And then lastly, this Thursday is May Day.

I invite you all to join in our community our labor community in particular.

I know there will be a number of demonstrations across town and opportunities to stand with workers.

Workers' rights are certainly in a challenging place in this moment.

We continue to see an onslaught on union organizing efforts and workers' rights.

We've seen a lot of attacks on immigrant workers as well as a part of this mass deportation agenda.

And so I encourage you all to take some time, stand with our workers across the city.

It's going to be a great day of solidarity.

And with that, Council President, I will turn it over to...

I just wanted, before going on, I wanted to thank you for mentioning the follow-up to the person, I believe, well...

who made public comment, it was quite moving public comment, and he, your office responded, my office responded, he got a lot of, well, let's just say that City Lights phones were probably ringing off the hook there for a bit.

But it really does drive home that when there are simple solutions, like replacing light bulbs so that we don't create these dark places that are opportunities for wrongdoing, you know, we should jump on that.

And I know I spoke with COO.

Marco Lowe, and he did mention that City Light is focused on doubling down on the inventory of burned out street lights and is ramping up efforts to make sure that they are replaced and on a predictable schedule.

So sometimes out of a negative occurrence, some positive things can Can happen anyway, sorry to interrupt the flow of conversation if there are no further Comments council member Rivera.

Thank you council president and I will say though our colleague is not Available for this meeting today council member sockeye know has been working on this issue since he actually was directly impacted by the events of that evening and so I wanted to mention that on his behalf and And I know that his office, this is his constituency, his office has been very hands-on as well.

Oh, I didn't realize that was the same event.

Same event, I believe so.

And I will say, colleagues, some of you mentioned the unfortunate events in Vancouver.

And I wanted to recognize our director Jennifer Chow from the Department of Neighborhoods who sent us information about the vigils that are taking place that Council Member Rink just gave us information about and also just thanking Director Chow for her and her team's partnership with communities, especially the Filipino community right here in Seattle who, you know, though this happened in Vancouver, Canada, obviously they're our neighbors and community here is very, you know, this is upsetting this tragedy.

Want to thank Director Chow and her team for all the work that they do in community with community for community.

Also wanted to talk on the public safety front.

Been working with the mayor's office and the Parks Department and Seattle Police Department about the crime around Magnuson Park.

We've seen now the activity that started last summer has already started to ramp up with the warmer weather this year.

I will say that I'm very appreciative to the mayor's office in Parks and the police department for their memorandum of understanding that got signed last week for an activation starting at Magnuson Park, similar to the activation of that happens at Golden Gardens and Alki at Magnuson Park starting Memorial Day weekend.

Though the activity has already started, mayor's office is working with SPD and parks to be able to address activity between now and the beginning of that activation.

So they will be lending police and as well as park ranger presence at the park.

to address the activity that's happening there.

And so I am looking forward to this activation starting Memorial Day weekend.

Of course, I had requested for it to start earlier in order to be responsive to constituents.

And, you know, as we've noted in the past, some of this is a resource issue related.

I appreciate your comments, Council Member Moore, for you have similar things that are happening.

happening all over the city, and I want to recognize that as well.

And toward that end, we're having issues happening at Gasworks Parks, also in the district I represent.

There will be gates that are going to get installed there to try to mitigate for similar concerns at Gasworks Park.

All of this is happening, and I know that the mayor's office and SPD and Parks is giving attention to all of these activities, especially as the the warmer weather comes in all our parks actually seem to be, um, uh, feeling the impacts by this type of activity at all the parks.

Um, but I can speak to the ones that are in the district that I represent and that we're, uh, giving attention to.

And just to say, I am advocating daily with, uh, the mayor's office SPD and parks on, the activity in the district, and I do share your gratitude, Council Member Moore, for the attention that North Precinct has given my district, your district, and I will say in general that, you know, North Precinct services the biggest community across the city and you know they're doing a lot and I want to acknowledge that they're not resource to the extent that any of us would like them to to be those of us whose constituents are serviced by that precinct so wanted to say that moving on last week I joined the mayor for his announcement of the families education preschool promise levy, the FEP levy.

You know, I shared with all of you during our one-on-ones throughout the executive added our priorities to the levy and I'm really grateful to have seen that.

You know, the levy doubles our child care investments, does a very robust investment in SPP.

Um, uh, continues, uh, K through 12 investments to support academic health and safety of our students.

Uh, it continues our promise investment.

And one thing that I'm really proud of that I've said before colleagues is this pathway to trades, um, which is this piece, uh, uh, to encourage kids, um, to look at, uh, careers in the trades, um, Currently, through the Promise and our partnership with the Seattle Colleges, there are certificate programs at the colleges, but they don't include all certificates, all kinds of trades, I mean.

And so this pathway to trades will explore other accredited trade schools.

So if there is a trade that a child wants to go into, but it's not offered by the colleges, that they're able to do it at a trade school.

And this, of course, is meant to be complementary to our great partnership with the Seattle colleges.

And it's something that is really near and dear to my heart.

And I am really excited that that's in there.

And so moving forward on Thursday, we have our select FEP committee where the mayor's office is going to come to talk about these investments in a little more length than I'm talking about today.

But of course, if any of you want to reach out to me and have a conversation about the FEP levy, my door is open to have those conversations one-on-one as we continue to do the work toward putting this hopefully on the ballot for this November.

Also, last week and this week, I'm continuing to meet with constituents in the district related to safety issues in the district.

And I should have also mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, I did a community safety walk with SPD and and the fire department and the mayor's office with Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light.

with our Department of Neighborhoods and other partners in the U District to talk about some of the safety issues in the U District.

And I really appreciate all the departments, including the SPD, the mayor's office and the fire department for joining our walk and being responsive to constituents.

This week as well, I'll be dropping by the Seattle Office of Civil Rights Open House later this week.

And lastly, I will say that I will be attending the PSRC Growth Policy Committee meeting that I am a member of.

And unless anyone has any questions, I will turn this over to you, Council President.

I believe you're next.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right.

I was going to ask a question about that, but I'll take it offline.

All right.

Let's see.

Last week at the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee meeting, I basically shared an overview of the SPD recruitment and retention report for the second half of 2024, and that is...

And those numbers were also celebrated this morning at a press conference, including of course, well, we joined Council Member Kettle, Public Safety Chair Kettle and I joined the mayor and other folks and Chief Barnes at a press conference too.

just really highlight the promising results where it was announced that SPD has hired 60 officers so far this year, which is up from 10 at this point last year.

And on that note, I want to thank Victoria Beach, who has done amazing work with the before the badge program.

And I apologize for not calling her out earlier today because she works directly with the recruits as they are getting to know so many aspects of our city so that they are prepared to reflect the values of Seattle and do so mindfully of our diverse communities and also just have more of an understanding about our whole accountability system.

portion of the success of the numbers that we're seeing can be attributed to the work we've done on Council on implementing hiring bonuses, increasing, well, making compensation more competitive, improving retention and recruitment processes.

But seriously, it's an all hands on deck effort.

And it's just a layering on of efforts showing that it really does take a village.

and a lot of work and time actually to build back the numbers that will enable the department and also the city in general to meet the expectations of our constituents for a safer, more livable city.

All right, let's see.

I'll skip this part.

So moving into the meat of last week's meeting, as I noted earlier, we considered three appointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission, and two of the three were recommended for confirmation unanimously.

And that one and the third one will come to the full council meeting on May 5th.

The next meeting of the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee will be on Thursday, May 8th.

The agenda will be fairly full and it's still being finalized.

Last Thursday, I met Roberto Jimenez, CEO of the Social Housing PDA.

and explicitly stated my commitment to helping set the organization up for success.

I think that there is no reason to believe that because council put on an alternative on the ballot that, well, I won't speak for you all, I'll just speak for myself.

We owe it to the PDA and to the PDA the people of Seattle to ensure that this organization is successful.

Because there are significant resources allocated to this and a severe need for more housing.

On Saturday, I joined residents and workers from across the city in weeding, mulching, and picking up trash at Seattle's first officially established park, which is?

Yes, right.

You would know that, of course.

Denny Park.

The effort was organized by the Seattle Chamber and Together Washington and was supervised, of course, by the Parks Department.

This coming Thursday, May 1st, also known as International Workers' Day, I will be attending the Office of Labor Standards business outreach event at the Chinese Information Service Center, and this is aimed at bringing information about Seattle's labor regulations directly to workers and businesses because that is the best way to ensure compliance is to educate businesses and, well, employers in general about the laws on the books.

And then finally, I will say that next Thursday, I'll attend the 2025 Seafair Military Breakfast.

Perhaps I'll have some company from the dais there.

and my staff and I will be attending the Visit Seattle annual meeting next Thursday.

I do want to bring to light an article that was in the Seattle Times this past weekend, and it was titled, if you haven't read it, I'm pegging this for your attention.

It was titled, Seattle Nonprofit Rolling Out Potential Game Changer for Fentanyl Addiction.

And the Game Changers is a new protocol that's being pioneered by DESC to start people with opioid use disorder on low doses of injectable, slow-releasing buprenorphine to gradually acclimate their bodies to the potentially life-saving full dose of the drug, and it's also injected.

And all in all, it heads off cravings and severe withdrawal things.

symptoms for up to a month, at which point someone can opt to go on for a second dose.

And early results show that more than 70% of the people who started buprenorphine via downtown emergency center Downtown Emergency Service Center's new method made it to their second month of treatment, more than tripling the numbers that the homeless nonprofit has seen before under the previous regimen.

So this is, again, you have to take stock of the positive things that are happening.

into seemingly intractable, but not necessarily challenges like gun violence or opioid use disorder.

Always look for the positive when we see positive things happening.

So get a chance to read that, I encourage it.

That's it for me.

Any questions?

All right, seeing none, is there any further business before we adjourn?

All right, hearing no further business.

It is 2.59 and this meeting is adjourned.

Thanks everybody.