Seattle City Council 6/29/2020

come to order.

It is 2.01 p.m.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, President of the City Council.

Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Drows.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Mosquera.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Presentations, I'm not aware of any presentations, so we'll move to approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the City Council meeting of June 29th, 2020 have been reviewed.

If there is no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed.

I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes.

Moving on to adoption of the referral calendar.

If there is no objection, the proposed introduction and 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 no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Okay, we will move on now to public comment.

At this time, we will open the remote public comment period for items on the City Council agenda, introduction and referral calendar, and the Council's 2020 work program.

There is a separate public hearing on Council Bill 119814, which is the 2019 annual action plan amendment which will begin shortly after this general public comment period.

I ask that everyone continue to be patient with us as we operate this remote public comment system in real time and navigate through its usage and improvement.

We are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune the ability for members of the general public to provide us with public comment remotely, and we are always looking to add new features that allow for additional means of public participation in our remote council meetings.

It does remain the strong intent of the City Council to continue to have public comment regularly included on our meeting agendas.

However, the City Council continues to reserve the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following way.

The public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered for public comment, but are interested in giving public comment, you can do so until the end of today's public comment period.

You can do that by going to our webpage, that's at Seattle.gov forward slash council and look for the public comment sign up tab in order to sign up.

Or you can always submit your comments to us via email at council, that's c-o-u-n-c-i-l at Seattle.gov.

Once you've given your public comment, I'd ask that you please hang up and choose to listen in on one of our listen live numbers, which is listed on our published agenda.

Or you can always watch on Seattle channel, which is channel 21. Of course, you can always watch it live-streamed on seattlechannel.org as well.

So we are going to go ahead and open up the public comment period.

Again, we're going to go for 20 minutes today in the general public comment area.

And then we ask that you remind us of your name when you begin speaking, tell us what you are calling about, and then provide us with your public comment.

You will hear a chime at about 10 seconds.

That means that you've got 10 seconds left to wrap up your comments.

If you do not finish wrapping up your comments within the allotted time of two minutes, your microphone will be automatically muted.

For those of you who have called in today to give us public comment, you will hear a prompt that says you have been unmuted.

That's your cue to go ahead and start providing us with your public comment.

So let's go ahead and get started.

We will take public comment until about 2.30 p.m.

And our first speaker today is Sujatha Romney, followed by Josh Castle.

Sujatha.

Hi.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Sujata.

I'm calling today with regard to Governor Inslee's statewide mandate to wear masks in public.

The order has been in effect since Friday.

However, majority of people on the streets of Seattle and its suburbs do not wear masks.

The Mayo Clinic and the CDC have both written about the role of masks in slowing down the spread of the virus.

Epidemiologists at the University of California, San Francisco are going to the extent of saying that even 80% of people wearing masks in public is as effective as a strict lockdown.

I urge the city council to work proactively in helping the public adopt this and ensure that this becomes a habit, including actions like setting up kiosks at popular places, outside grocery stores, et cetera, and handing out free masks to people who aren't wearing one.

Your leadership will also help the suburbs in the greater Seattle area follow suit.

Do this now and save lives.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sujatha, for calling in today.

Next up is Josh Castle, and then we will hear from Elena Perez.

Hi, my name is Josh Castle with Lehigh.

We are calling on council to reject austerity.

With the political will, we can in fact fully fund the things we need to to bring more people inside, protect more people from COVID, and reverse the severe effects of lack of affordable housing homeless sweeps displacement gentrification and racist policies.

How do we do this.

By supporting the progressive taxation bills.

Using the most sweeping sweeping package possible to tax Amazon and big business support the call by African-American faith leaders in the letter you received to fund a thousand new affordable homes for residents displaced due to gentrification.

Demilitarize SBD and reduce their budget.

Reallocating $200 million by investing in Black and Brown communities.

and housing services education and employment programs.

Using Federal CARES Act and the Commerce Shelter Grant, fund 20 new tiny house villages to get as many as 2,000 people inside, including 10 villages in this year's supplemental budget and 10 in the 2021-2022 budget.

We urge you to also add $156,000 to the budget to provide more food for villages for the 200 residents in four villages that currently don't have this funded.

Thank you.

Thank you, Josh, for calling in.

Next up is Elena, followed by Amanda Allen.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

I'm Elena Perez with Puget Sound Stage.

In response to this morning's session, Council Member Juarez, we absolutely can and should tax our way out of a $300 million budget shortfall that disproportionately harms Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.

and low-wage workers by taxing multimillion-dollar corporations.

We urge council members to pass Jump Start this week with increased revenues and permanent funding for essential services, Green New Deal priorities, and 10 percent dedicated to the Equitable Development Initiative.

Council Member Peterson, any amendment taking this to a public vote should include a report detailing who will end up filling the budget shortfall if billionaire corporations do not, along with a racial impact analysis.

Voters deserve to know which low-wage workers, small businesses, and homeowners will bear that burden.

Thank you.

Thank you, Elena, for calling in today.

Next up is Amanda Allen, followed by Teresa Homan.

Hi, thank you, Councilmembers.

This is Amanda Allen.

I'm a resident of Ballard, and I wanted to show my support or express my support for the defund FPD by 50% call that's been made.

I understand and have seen through data in my work of the exclusionary housing policy that our city has had a history in.

I've also seen the impacts of racist policing, bias policing, All of these things have led to disparities in the overall success and well-being health of our BIPOC communities.

Pick any factor out there, any statistic, and you will see how BIPOC communities suffer.

We need guided and thoughtful investment in BIPOC communities.

I really want the council to look at not just ways to generate new revenue, but really to look at ways to defund SPD.

so that we're fundamentally changing how we interact, serve, and support all of our communities.

Cops are expensive.

We can reallocate some of the work that they do to lower paid folks, like the cops that are now currently taking reports, directing traffic, doing some criminal investigation that could be given to civilian workers.

But most of all, I'm really interested in people counselors people with crisis intervention experience mental health intervention experience to be the ones as our first responders in particular cases.

Again just want to express my support for defunding SPD by 50 percent in the 2021 budget.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in this afternoon.

Really appreciate it.

Next up is Teresa Homan, followed by Andrew Constantino.

Hi, my name is Teresa Homan and I am with the Low Income Housing Institute.

I thank you for your support and ask that you add 20 new tiny house villages so that we can shelter another 1500 to 2000 homeless people and help them find housing.

We ask that 10 villages come from this year's supplemental budget and 10 from the city's 2021-2022 budget funded through the Federal CARES Act funding and the State Department of Commerce shelter grant.

As you know tiny house villages are an immediate response to homelessness and we can build them quickly and relatively inexpensively.

We also ask that you support the call by the African-American faith leaders to fund 1,000 new affordable homes for residents displaced due to gentrification in the Central District.

And finally, we ask that you defund the police department by $2 million and fund food for the villages that don't have enough.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Andrew.

Hello, I'm Andrew Constantino, site coordinator at Georgetown Tiny House Village.

The Georgetown neighborhood is classified as a food desert.

There are no grocery stores within walking distance of the village.

We were lucky to be able to go to the gas station to get a few things, but it isn't very healthy.

We started receiving one meal a day during the coronavirus crisis, thanks to Operation Backlunch.

This meal allowed the most vulnerable villagers to stay close and self-isolate.

I'm asking you, the city council, to fund Operation Backlunch to continue giving us and other villages this needed meal for the rest of the year.

Thank you for your support.

I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in this afternoon.

Andrew is the last person who is preregistered and showing up as present on my sign up sheet.

So that concludes our general public comment period for this afternoon.

So we'll go ahead and close out the period of public comment and begin on items of business on our agenda.

First up is payment of the bills.

Will the clerk please read the title into the record?

Council Bill 119813, appropriating money to pay for the claims for the week of June 15th, 2020 through June 19th, 2020 and ordering the payment thereof.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I will move to pass Council Bill 119813. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Hearing no comments will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Rouse aye Herbold aye Juarez Juarez Lewis aye Morales aye Mosqueda Mosqueda.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Linda can you please call Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Juarez one more time.

Sure.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation?

Committee reports will not be presented today.

We don't have any legislation on today's agenda from committees.

We do have a public hearing and a resolution.

We will go ahead and now shift into our public hearing, which is the first agenda item on today's items of business.

I would ask that the clerk please read the short title of item one into the record.

Agenda Item 1. Council Bill 119814 relating to funding for housing and community development programs adopting a substantial amendment to the City of Seattle 2019 annual action plan amendment to the 2018-2022 consolidated plan for housing and community development and authorizing its submission to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

Before I open up the public hearing on this item, I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Mosqueda, who is the sponsor of the bill, to provide us with some introductory remarks.

Councilmember Mosqueda, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, council colleagues.

As we made the public aware of this morning, today is an opportunity for us to have a public hearing on item number one, Council Bill 119814. As you heard the clerk describe the title, this legislation adopts amendments to the city's 2019 annual action plan.

To detail how the city will spend approximately $8.9 million of federal funds allocated to the city through the Housing and Urban Development Department for COVID response.

This includes community development block grant funds, emergency solutions grant dollars, and housing opportunities for person with AIDS grant or the HOPWA fund.

These funds were appropriated by the Council through Ordinance 126074 and Ordinance 126084, passed in May.

Funds have been allocated to the Human Services Department, Office of Housing, and Office of Economic Development to prevent, prepare, and respond to coronavirus.

These funds will support emergency rental assistance, grant payments to small businesses and meal programs for people experiencing homelessness.

And in order to enter into the grant agreement with the Federal Housing and Urban Development Department and receive the funds of the city, jurisdictions have been directed to amend the most current annual action plans to reflect these appropriations.

You will note that we approved the 2020 annual action plan in May.

However, since the grant agreement for the 2020 action plans have not yet been executed by HUD, the 2019 annual action plan is still our current plan.

Therefore, we must amend that plan to receive these housing and urban development COVID emergency funds.

The legislation is considered part of the budget rebalancing package.

However, it is scheduled for a vote on Monday, July 6, because adoption of the amended AAP or annual action plan is required before these funds can be distributed.

Thus, this afternoon's public hearing on the amendments to the 2019 annual action plan.

Thank you, Council President.

We are going to go ahead and move into the public hearing at this point.

I will call on speakers in the order of pre-registration.

The online registration will remain open until the conclusion of this public hearing.

The rules applied to the public comment period also apply to this public hearing.

Each speaker will be provided two minutes to speak and a 10-second warning to wrap up their comments.

Speaker's microphones will be muted at the end of the allotted public comment time of two minutes.

Public comment related to Council Bill 119814 is only being accepted at this public hearing.

Speakers are asked to begin their comments by stating their name, and I will go ahead and call now on the first speaker that we have signed up for public hearing, who is Hattie Rhodes.

Hello, I am Hattie Rhodes, formerly of the Georgetown Tiny House Village.

I have seen that not only do tiny house villages provide a safe and dignified place for those experiencing homelessness, but it's been an invaluable program during this COVID-19 pandemic.

So villagers still had access to restrooms and showers and laundry and case management still available.

And so we want to fund at least 10 more tiny house villages using these available federal funds so that when we look back on this time, we have something to show for all of our efforts in the spending.

Tiny House Villages are adaptable, community-driven models, and they'll help us weather many other storms.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much for calling in today.

I don't have any other preregistered folks who are also present on the line on my spreadsheet.

So I'm going to go ahead and close out the public hearing.

So again, at this time, I do not have anyone remotely present to anyone else remotely present to speak on Council Bill 19814. And I just before I close this out with staff to please confirm that there is not a member of the public in the queue before closing the public hearing.

That is correct.

Thank you so much for confirming.

Really appreciate it.

Being that there is not a member of the public remotely present for this public hearing anymore on Council Bill 119814, this public hearing is now closed.

The bill is scheduled for a vote at the July 6th, 2020 City Council meeting, and the Council is still accepting comments via email at council, that's C-O-U-N-C-I-L, at Seattle.gov.

Again, we will go ahead and move along now to our next item of business.

So, adoption of other resolutions.

I'd ask that the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item two, resolution 31949, in support of fair, direct, and federal emergency support to reopen and rebuild local American economies, and stating that a fully funded Seattle is essential to economic recovery.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I will move to adopt Resolution 31949. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 31949. Council Member Herbold, you are the sponsor of this resolution, so I will recognize you in order for you to address this item.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you as well to Council Member Mosqueda for sharing my report on this City's Our Essential Resolution at the council briefings meeting this morning in my absence.

This resolution calls on the federal government to recognize the central role that cities are playing right now on the front lines of the coronavirus public health emergency and to provide direct, flexible financial assistance to cities.

The public health emergency has had significant impacts to the City of Seattle.

We're all aware of those many, many impacts the viewing public, it's worth listing some of those that included in the resolution as far as impacts to city government.

The City of Seattle is facing a $300 million budget shortfall from the COVID-19 emergency due to the city's expected revenue loss.

The City of Seattle has increased emergency expenditures for rental assistance, grocery vouchers, small business stabilization grants, expanded shelter services, and personal protective equipment and coronavirus testing for first responders.

The city has redeployed departmental staff to the emergency response at a cost of almost $46 million, with additional overtime of $8.5 million.

Again, that's redeploying people from the work that they normally do as city employees to really focusing that work on the front lines, assisting the staffing needs of a lot of our community-based organizations helping folks.

This crisis is especially impacting Seattle's most vulnerable communities, including undocumented residents, communities of color, and people living unsheltered.

Many of us on council have voiced our support of moving forward in a way that invests in the communities most affected by the coronavirus in order to speed our economic recovery and help households regain their footing as fast as possible, and that means rejecting an austerity mindset and reactive cuts to programs that are currently providing a lifeline for so many Seattle residents.

Federal assistance direct to the city and with enough flexibility to meet our unique needs would help us make those investments that will speed our recovery.

This resolution is part of a national campaign by the National League of Cities to request $500 billion in direct financial aid and economic relief from the COVID-19 pandemic for local governments over the next two years.

An amendment circulated this morning adds the mayor's concurrence.

And if it's appropriate, I would like to now move to amend Resolution 31949 as presented with Amendment 1 that was recently distributed.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Is there a second?

second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the resolution as described by Council Member Herbold.

Is there anything else that you'd like to say about this very simple amendment?

I'm just happy to learn on Friday that the mayor would concur on the resolution.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 1?

Hearing no additional comments on Amendment 1, I would ask that the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 1.

Herboldt aye Juarez aye Lewis aye Morales aye Mosqueda aye Peterson aye Sawant aye Council President Gonzales aye.

Nine in favor.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

Are there any further comments on the resolution as amended?

Okay, hearing none, Council Member Hurdle, just want to thank you for bringing forward this resolution.

I think it also complements the CARES Act 2.0 letter that OIR asked us to sign this morning in council briefing.

So thank you so much for bringing forward the resolution as well.

Okay, let's go ahead and vote on the resolution.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution as amended.

Browse.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The resolution is adopted as amended and the chair will sign it.

I'd ask that the clerk please fix my signature to the legislation.

Other business.

Is there any other further business to come before the council?

Seen and hearing none.

Colleagues, this concludes the items of business on today's agenda.

Our next city council meeting is Monday, July 6th.

2020 at 2 p.m.

That is it for us here.

I hope that you all have a wonderful afternoon.

We are adjourned.

Thanks, everyone.