Council Briefing 7/27/26

Yeah, we could do it.

They don't have the rights for that financially.

So they have to...

Hey, good afternoon.

Today is July 27th, 2026. The council briefing will come to order.

It is 2.03 PM.

Clerk, will you please call the roll.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Council Member Foster?

Here.

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Lynn?

Here.

Council Member Rink?

Council Member Rivera?

Present Council President Hollingsworth Here Seven Present Awesome and Councilmember Strauss is excused and so is Councilmember Rank as well.

If there's no objections, the minutes of June 29, 2026 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Today, colleagues, we have one presentation from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

There are no proclamations.

There are two executive sessions at the end of this meeting, and there are nine items on the introduction and referral calendar.

we are going to begin and I want to thank Director Hashemi and then also Sam Reed from the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and they will begin their briefing colleagues just to set them up and I apologize I didn't I should invite y'all to the table earlier my bad Director Hashemi but a lot of you have all asked for updates from our Intergovernmental Relations Department so thank you all, especially Councilmember Kettle said that wanted more frequency of updates and so as you all know we have and Councilmember Strauss is present for the record as you all know we have had our figuring out our flow with council briefings and there's a ton of legislation that is getting passed through and so wanted to make sure that we're utilizing our council briefings accordingly, and this is one of those meetings where we have our Intergovernmental Relations Department.

So, Director Hashimi, Sam Reid, thank you for joining us.

You all can get started with your presentation.

And colleagues, if you could hold your questions to the end so we can get through it, and then I will call on you for questions.

Director.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Hollingsworth and Council members.

Thank you for having us today.

I'm Mina Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

And I'm Sam Reed, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Sam joined OIR in late April after serving 10 years at the Department of Neighborhoods, most recently as Deputy Director, and we are very lucky to have his expertise and his passion now at OIR.

And we're excited to be here today to brief counsel and the public on our work.

The Office of Intergovernmental Relations, or OIR, represents and advances Seattle's interests across local, regional, tribal, state, federal, and international governments.

We lead the city's intergovernmental advocacy, offering strategic guidance and working closely with the mayor, city council, city attorney, and all city departments to shape policy and funding strategies at every level of a government to ensure the city's interests are represented in critical decision-making venues.

We oversee the development and alignment of the city's federal and state lobbying agendas and strategies to ensure coordinated, effective lobbying and we partner with governments, agencies, and stakeholders to advance shared policy priorities and secure critical funding.

OAR manages key memberships that strengthen Seattle's influence and access to policymakers at the regional and national levels, including Association of Washington Cities, Puget Sound Regional Council, the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, and more.

Next slide, please.

As of April, 2026, OIR is fully staffed.

In addition to Deputy Director Reed, we are also pleased to welcome Government Operations and Protocols Coordinator, Patty Camacho.

OIR's work is organized into six lines of business, which you have on the slide here.

Leadership, administration, and public development authorities, and then federal, international, regional, state, and tribal relations.

and will share a bit about all of these areas in today's presentation.

I'll just give a brief overview of each of those lines of business as kind of a refresher.

OIR represents the city of Seattle's interests at the national level by managing internal federal priorities and engaging with the congressional delegation, federal agencies, national organizations, and other US cities.

At the state level, OIR supports the city of Seattle's interests with the state's legislature, governor, and agencies through internal coordination, direct lobbying, policy development, funding requests, and strategic advocacy.

We also facilitate the development of the city's state legislative priorities in partnership with the mayor and city council and provide required written and in-person updates throughout the state legislative sessions.

On the regional front, OIR represents and advances Seattle's interests with regional agencies and local governments, including King County, Port of Seattle, Sound Transit, and other regional entities.

We coordinate and provide staffing support for elected officials and departments engaging with regional bodies and work to ensure that the city's positions are clearly communicated, strategically advanced, and aligned with city policy in all regional forums.

OIR also advances government to government consultation and coordination between the City of Seattle and federally recognized tribes.

We work to ensure tribal sovereignty and treaty rights are recognized across city projects, policies, and programs involving tribal interests, as well as provide staffing and support to elected officials and departments on all issues involving tribal governments and Native communities.

We also engage with Seattle's large urban American Indian and Alaska Native population and partner organizations to strengthen connections to city resources and decision makers.

Internationally, OIR represents and supports Seattle's interests with foreign consulates, international organizations, global delegations, and visiting dignitaries, and we provide staffing and support to elected officials and departments for all international activities, visits, and policy issues, as well as manage Seattle's sister city programs.

Lastly, OIR also facilitates the coordination of the city's public development authorities by working to maintain relationships with the PDAs, building collaborative partnerships and aligning strategies.

In partnership with the Office of City Finance, we also provide monitoring and oversight to ensure financial transparency, compliance and strong governance.

Our PDA coordinator position is an investment aimed at ensuring the city has a strong connection to these high profile tax funded bodies focused on issues as important as affordable housing, historic preservation, cultural space, economic development, commercial space management and community development.

Well, it's hard to believe that we are already back there, but OIR is hard at work preparing for the 2027 state legislative session, ensuring that Seattle's priorities are positioned early and effectively.

We are actively collecting legislative priorities from city departments and the mayor's office, and we're in the process of meeting with council members to gather your policy and funding priorities as part of our agenda building process.

Throughout the summer and fall, OIR will also be meeting with state legislators, partners, and key stakeholders to begin socializing policy concepts and strengthening support for Seattle's priorities.

This early internal and external engagement helps us build momentum before the legislative session begins.

Then OIR will finalize a draft state legislative agenda and submit it to the City Council for your review and approval, and this agenda will serve as our unified framework for advocacy in Olympia.

Looking ahead to next year, I'll note that many state legislators are either up for reelection or retiring, which means the makeup of the 2027 legislature remains uncertain.

OIR looks forward to keeping Council updated as the year progresses.

Turning to regional, earlier this spring, the King County Transportation District approved a .1% sales tax for transportation.

Initially, all funds would have gone solely to unincorporated King County roads.

Seattle, working alongside the Sound Cities Association, pushed hard for cities to receive a share.

At the June 12th meeting, an amendment was proposed to pass through 12.5% of the revenues but capped Seattle's share.

The city successfully advocated for removing that cap entirely.

Without the change, Seattle would have received about $1.9 million a year, and with it, our annual share rises to about $4.7 million.

Council members played an impactful role lobbying the county, sending letters, making calls, and speaking at the final meeting.

Thank you.

At the end of May, the Sound Transit Board adopted an updated system plan and work plan.

Seattle's two representatives to Sound Transit, Councilmember Strauss and Mayor Wilson, played important roles in the process.

The work plan includes follow-up actions across key areas, including policy planning, transit operations, capital delivery, and finance.

Highlights include developing cost-saving opportunities, updating the regional long-range transit plan and advancing high-capacity transit studies.

Work is underway on key legislation needed in Olympia to support the ST3 program, including expanding bonding authority.

And finally, King County Executive Zahalai has transmitted legislation to implement the 0.1% behavioral health sales tax.

This measure renames the existing mid-tax as the King County Behavioral Health Bridge.

The Regional Policy Committee will review this proposal in the coming months with the Department of Community and Human Services preparing briefings for Regional Policy Committee members.

And although it seems like a lifetime ago at this point, we just wanted to highlight some of OIR's support and implementation of World Cup planning here in Seattle.

So we helped field requests and multiple visits from the governments of Australia, Belgium, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, including advanced visits earlier in the year.

We maintained direct communications with the countries of Egypt and Qatar.

Although visits did not materialize, we maintained communications with those countries.

We connected the local organizing committee individually with all the consulates who were playing in Seattle so they could conduct their own outreach with the individual countries.

We also connected the American Muslim Advancement Council and the Muslim Association of Puget Sound with Visit Seattle to pursue sharing of culturally appropriate resources with visitors from Muslim majority countries.

In addition, OIR and the Office of Emergency Management worked with King County Emergency Management to hold emergency planning workshops for West Coast Consuls in both January 2025 and earlier this year.

And these were focused on managing mass casualty incidents involving foreign nationals.

and on a special note of kudos for our international team, emergency management content that we previously developed at OIR for foreign missions was actually used by the US State Department to encourage San Francisco and Santa Clara to offer similar trainings ahead of their own 2026 World Cup planning.

Our tribal relations staff also helped facilitate Seattle Police Department outreach to tribal law enforcement agencies as part of the mutual aid strategy for World Cup.

As a result, Suquamish Tribal Police Department and Nisqually Police Department had officers at all Seattle World Cup games.

We also helped facilitate two virtual sessions focused on human trafficking in India country.

One session tailored to leadership of tribal governments and another tailored to native community partners.

Presenting partners included the Washington Attorney General's Office, the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs, Washington State Patrol, SPD and several direct service providers that work with tribal and urban native communities.

These sessions reached 200 attendees representing tribal governments, social service providers and tribal enterprises.

And finally, on the World Cup note, we wanted to end with a couple of updates that show how some of our past work we've told you about was on display during the World Cup activations in Seattle.

On June 25th, OIR organized a tour for Congresswoman Jayapal to highlight the city's work revitalizing Third Avenue.

We highlighted projects with the Seattle Department of Transportation and the Office of Arts and Culture.

Congresswoman Jayapal has been an important partner securing earmarks, supporting World Cup appropriations, and championing downtown workers.

And the tour helped reinforce the importance of continued federal support for this work and highlighting cross-departmental successes.

Council members may also remember the City's efforts on House Bill 1515, which was passed in 2025, which was essential for our World Cup fan zone activations.

The City developed and led this legislation, which allows walk-around alcohol service in fan zones and sip and stroll service at Pike Place Market.

OIR worked closely with Seattle Center, Department of Transportation, and Office of Economic Development, partnered with Representative Julia Reed and built a coalition of local governments and small businesses to get the bill passed in 2025. The legislation expires in 2027 and we're already coordinating next steps with city departments.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

That concludes our presentation and we'd be happy to take questions.

Awesome.

Thank you, Director.

and colleagues, we'll continue.

I know I'll pause here to see if people have questions, but we'll continue to get feedback from you all about what kind of information you want to see.

This was the first one, just trying to get a little bit of everything, but getting information from you colleagues about what information I got you, what information that you want to see from OIR that will help you as we navigate the year.

So we have Councilmember Kettle is first and then Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Director Mishimi, for being here and for the work that OIR does.

I will admit I have been advocating for a at least quarterly presence, an update on the issues that are facing.

And, you know, part of this comes from frustration, like, you know, the King County transportation piece, you know, reading in the Seattle Times and some others as well.

just so we are ahead of the curve, basically.

But I do want to start with federal relations, maritime.

I recently went to D.C.

with the Port of Seattle, Commission President and CEO, and OIR was working with their counterparts in the port in support of that.

Very important effort, and continues to be, by the way.

There's going to be more work there.

Also on international relations, 40th anniversary of Galway, but it's really everything Ireland.

And in fact, I need to connect with you because looking to bring an ambassador to Seattle, I haven't had a chance to email you and the team some public safety stuff going on.

and also Quebec.

Little events like that make a big difference, and having city representation at the higher levels is really important.

So I was happy to be that elected, that senior person at that event, which is predominantly in Washington State, but again, it was held here in Seattle, and I think it's important for Seattle representation.

So I appreciate the work that's being done.

with international relations and the state relations too, like we reordered the public safety pieces, the lab, forensics lab work in support of what the city attorney is looking to do on DUIs, so very important and across the board.

I do say, though, I do want to say it's important for issues when they come up in Olympia, for example, that they're brought to the relevant, at the very least, the relevant committee chair.

So for example, last year in the fall, the ALPR bill, the automatic license plate bill was being worked and it was socialized on the executive side, but it did not come to me.

And I didn't learn about it until I read it in the Seattle Times.

And that's unfortunate because obviously with the swap out of administrations, I mean, I could have been engaging on that and then by the time I was, it was too late.

and that's an example where, you know, anything that goes to the executive on public safety, for example, should be coming to my committee and as chair to me.

So then I can gauge, you know, there's other things too, like, you know, standby.

I suspect there's going to be a new HB 1265 coming for the next session, you know, when we're trying to address the issues on Aurora.

And so we need to do that.

And we need your engagement even if there's a lack of synchronization between the executive and the legislative branches.

We're not gonna be in sync on everything.

I think there's a lot of stuff that we are in sync, but there's definitely gonna be areas where we're not.

But that cannot be a hurdle.

I mean, you just, at the end of the day, need to be dual tracked.

And so, you know, that's my concern sometimes because there's a desire, and I understand it, to have like one voice coming out of Seattle, but I don't think that's always gonna be possible.

And so again, to close though, I do really appreciate the work across the board, particularly Stacy on the international side, because that's an important area, an area that doesn't get as much attention and support that it's doing, so I'm trying to do my part there.

But the other areas are really important too, the regional, but the state piece, from a practical legislation, the state piece, Olympia, and then getting early heads up is so key.

So I just ask that and so thank you and welcome to the team.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

Welcome.

It's good to see you, Director Hashimi, or Mina, and welcome, Mr. Reid, Deputy Director.

I have a couple questions.

First of all, thank you for putting into context the work that you do about policy and funding strategies, because I think sometimes the public doesn't know that that's what you do, and that's our connection with you, with what you're doing in Olympia.

In the coordinated, effective lobbying, state, regional, Indian country, and Washington, D.C., So my question to you is this and Council Member Strauss and I had an opportunity again to be in Washington DC in February for the National Congress of American Indians and as you know that's a representative over 500 tribes touching on every issue from environmental housing, social services, public safety and not just state, state tribal relations or litigation but all those broad issues that affect Indian country and money, you know, we'll see it in some of our other presentations.

regarding when federal money comes into the county or the state and then is of course contracted to work with tribes and it affects the city of Seattle as well.

So I guess my concern or what the question I have is when we're in DC and every time I'm in DC I meet with Leslie Polner.

You know Leslie.

And I haven't seen anyone from OIR as of yet going out to Washington DC.

They meet four times a year.

I always go in the February meeting because that's the meeting where the tribal leadership are there with their lawyers, lobbyists.

They put out a really good agenda and nailed down the issues, including litigation and also right now dealing with data centers, tribal jurisdiction and public safety and the fentanyl crisis that's going on everywhere and the money that they need for housing and addiction services.

So what is your update with meeting with Leslie Polner in Washington, D.C.? What's going on there?

Thank you, Councilmember.

I appreciate it, and we appreciate your advocacy as well as Councilmember Kettles in D.C.

on our behalf, too.

You know, to be direct, this is just a place where budget cuts have kind of hit OIR, so our travel budget is pretty limited, and so we would like to be in D.C.

more, and that would be a high priority for us, would be an event of that nature.

So currently our team has been in D.C.

I think twice this year and Leslie herself comes out here as well.

So we have lots of connections to our lobbying team in D.C.

But it's those sort of on the ground relationship building and opportunities to meet with our federal delegation.

We would love more of those and we take any opportunity we can.

Okay, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but NCAI held their annual meeting in Seattle last fall.

And I moderated a panel with all Native American elected leaders in the state legislature.

So it wasn't just issues that are relegated to Indian Country or Native folk.

I didn't see anyone from OIR there, and that was local.

Unless you were there, I apologize if you were there, because we also hosted a couple of receptions.

Our tribal relations director was there.

Francesca?

Who?

Francesca?

Oh, Francesca was there?

Yeah.

She must have been, huh?

Okay, maybe we weren't all in the same- I'll double check on that, but yes, we were registered for that conference.

Okay, so what I would have liked to have seen is something from OIR to say that Francesca went to NCAI in the fall, and these are, because we all had the breakout rooms and panels.

Yeah, we're happy to update on that.

Yeah, so we can have an update, and I know tribal governments and indigenous-led organizations, nonprofits are in Council Member Strauss's committee, and you know, we have the IAC, the Indigenous Advisory Committee.

So if we could have something from IR, like what Francesca, whatever happened, something back, and I'm still pushing hard to make sure that we make the tribal piece part of regular governing in the city of Seattle, that it's in there with the feds, the state, regional, city, county, all the stuff we do.

So if we could have something back as a report or within the report to Seattle City Council, that would be helpful.

I actually got a lot of work done on the Skagit Relicensing stuff while I was at NCAI in the fall and met with a lot of leadership on all those issues about energy data centers.

That's how I learned so much more on the moratoriums.

So if we can have like that be a regular, whether or not you're in DC or the next time they host, that would be really important.

I'm guessing that Francesca also attends AT&I as affiliated tribes.

Okay, great.

But we're not getting those reports.

So if we can have this in your PowerPoint, that'd be great.

And then that way I say, oh, Francesca went to AT&I, she went to NCAI.

So now we know how Seattle was represented and what our issues are because we have a lot of issues that have to do with in Seattle City Light and parks and notwithstanding litigation, a lot of the issues regarding public safety.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

No, that's good feedback.

We'll definitely incorporate that into our presentations.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, council member.

Juarez, are there any other...

Oh, Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Not actually a question, just a comment to follow up on Councilmember Juarez's question just to share with colleagues.

As of last week, I am now a member of the Association of Washington City's Federal Priorities Subcommittee.

So just wanted to share that news.

Really excited to serve in that capacity.

And I know we'll be meeting twice this fall and would love to make sure that I'm partnering with all of our Council offices and OIR to serve well in that role.

and make sure that we are collaborating to uplift those, uplift, to ensure that we highlight the priorities that members have here.

And also wanted to share, we're doing some ongoing work around some transportation infrastructure committee and maybe joining National League of Cities in that role.

That's to be determined at this point.

But wanted to make sure all of my colleagues had that update.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Are there other comments or questions or anything?

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Just to say that I serve on the legislative priorities for the Association of Washington Cities.

We met last week to do our introductory meeting on what cities, you know, what they're gonna be tracking in Olympia this year.

And of course, like us, everyone's concerned about revenue and how to be able to meet our service needs across all our cities.

So that's top of mind for them.

along with a lot of the other things that we care about.

So I will be giving you more information as that moves forward and we finalize the agenda.

But just to share, and I had this conversation with you, Director Hashemi, this past week, we met to talk broadly about my experience in Olympia last year.

Really appreciate the dialogue and the conversation about that.

And just one thing that Association of Washington Cities does that I think is really helpful is they truly prioritize.

They take the top three or four priorities.

And that's really what, as an association, they focus on.

And then, of course, that's not to say that different cities aren't tracking different issues or legislators themselves.

But it's really, if everything's a priority, then nothing becomes a priority.

I really appreciate the way that they do that work, which is truly prioritized because it makes it really difficult for staff to be able to track 500 bills if we're not really prioritizing.

So I'm just going to say to us here, which I've been guilty of in the past to add more things to the agenda, but just for this coming year, my plug would be in my experience with AWC is if we truly prioritize things, it really does help when our staff is helping in Olympia to do that advocacy on our behalf.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

I don't have any questions or comments.

I know I'll be getting feedback from my colleagues, understanding like information that they want updates on just so we have a clean format.

And this was great start and just really appreciate your time.

I don't know if y'all have any closing comments, Sam or Director Hachimi?

No, thank you.

We appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to be here and look forward to seeing you next quarter.

And as always, happy to follow up on questions and ideas in between.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And colleagues, just a reminder, they will be meeting with you all to talk about priorities for 2027 because it is right around the corner and want to get those in there.

And then we will figure out the cadence for next year regarding how many times they are coming to update us because we know the legislative process moves very, very fast.

So really appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Okay, so now, colleagues, there's no letters of proclamations for signature today.

We are going to begin our quick discussion.

And just a reminder, we do have two executive sessions, but we are gonna have blue sky, because I know people, there was a lot of stuff that happened over the weekend.

I know people want to address those.

situations as well but also want to make sure that people kind of know about the legislation that's being transmitted and stuff that's cooking up whatever you have in your committee I think it's good that we kind of update each other because a lot of legislation has passed through council in the last couple weeks we've been just chugging along so we are going to begin our next discussions preview of City Council actions and I'm just going to jump to my left if that's okay if not I'll go to my right if you're not ready Councilmember Rivera I don't want to put you on blast no no okay and then we'll just go to the challenge awesome thank you that's what I love to hear Councilmember Rivera challenge accepted challenge accepted Council President colleagues as you all know last week we passed out a select committee the

Families Education Preschool Promise I&E Plan Implementation and Evaluation Plan.

I want to thank you all again for all the work that went into your review and your thoughts around that I&E Plan, and I look forward to voting on that out of Council tomorrow.

Councilmember Saka, I'm aware you have.

Thank you for sharing an amendment.

Colleagues, if there's anything else, please let me know ASAP today.

It's helpful not to have surprises day of.

And as you know, I'm always available to work with you on all the things that you care about and that we care about collectively.

I will say I had a really good meeting today too with Superintendent Shuldiner and our director.

and our trustee director, Duane Chappelle, just to touch base on all the things related to the FEP Bione.

I also last week, I sit on the WIRA 8 salmon recovery council meeting.

We had our meeting last week.

And then I just wanna quickly mention, because I know it's on everybody's wing, on all of us this morning, we're the tragic, incidents of the weekend, including yesterday at the Seattle Center, but also on Aurora and Capitol Hill over the weekend.

All of this gun violence has of course me and all of us.

It is tragic, it is senseless, it is avoidable.

and so you all know it just has, continues to booster my resolve to do a strategy here in Seattle.

You've heard me talk about it and I'm gonna say it again, the National Network for Safe Communities out of John Jay College has had amazing results in other cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia and Boston.

40 to 60 percent gun violence reduction, we need to do that here.

I feel really strongly about that.

If there is something that we could be doing here to reduce our gun violence by 40 to 60 percent, we should be doing it.

period, full stop.

So I'm going to keep calling on us to work on something.

I intend to bring a resolution and something through the budget in order to work directly with the national network.

I'm going to say that the national network, this is their effort.

We cannot do their effort here because they own it.

They'll own the rights to that.

and we can't be doing things halfway here because unless we implement it in the way that they are recommending, it won't be a full-fledged effort and it won't have the results that they have had in other cities.

So you'll be hearing more about that in the days to come, colleagues.

I appreciate that we are all grappling with this and I do feel that this is something that is worth us trying here in Seattle, all of us together.

It's not gonna take just the council and the mayor, but it's gonna take community and all the county departments and agencies to come together, including the prosecutor and the city attorney, the US attorney, public health and others to really do a bold effort here to really address this in Seattle.

Like you, I am really tired, and it's weighing on me all the lives that are lost and the lives that are ruined who are committing these crimes.

So it has a huge impact all the way around, and if there is something that we can do very robustly, we should be doing it.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Next is Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Well, good afternoon, colleagues.

I, too, want to start off by saying, extending my condolences to the many victims of last night's tragic shooting at Seattle Center.

Three people tragically lost their lives.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families and all those, their loved ones and all those impacted from last night's tragedy.

We are clearly at a point where thoughts, prayers, and condolences are not enough.

We need stronger action here within the city of Seattle, within the region, within the state, and certainly at the feds.

There's too many guns on our streets, too easy to have a gun and access a gun.

stronger coordination and action is needed.

So I appreciate that some initial efforts and actions have been taken, and tragedies like this remind us that there are plenty more work to do.

And just as the council member who oversees the Seattle Center, from a ledge perspective in my committee that I chair, I remain firmly committed to doing that work.

I want to thank my council member colleagues who was in close touch with last night as the incident, you know, was rapidly evolved, the circumstances rapidly evolving, including council president, council member Kettle, chair of the public safety committee and whose district this happened to be in.

Appreciate the collaboration.

Also the mayor's office, who's basically the gatekeeper of this information and sharing and being collaborative and sharing out what they knew.

Plenty more work to do.

All right, on the substantive committee front, colleagues, given that we have officially concluded the select committee on the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, our normal steps committee work resumes as well, officially known as the Transportation Waterfront and Seattle Center Committee.

We held a special meeting this morning a successful special meeting this morning where we voted and passed an ordinance for permission to construct the sky bridge that connects two council districts, as well as the U Alley street vacation as well.

Our next regular SEPPS meeting will be held on Thursday, August 6th at 9.30 a.m.

Still finalizing the agenda there, but stay tuned.

Now, quickly talk about a community event or two.

Last Friday was really excited to participate in a Cleaner Elk Eye cleanup on the border of the City of Seattle and unincorporated King County, but we stayed exclusively on the City of Seattle side, where we help remove...

So me and my team, D1 office team, joined Eric Bell, the leader, founder of Cleaner Alki, the community group that we funded last fall during the budget process, to help remove things like overgrown plants, weeds along the sidewalks and the public right-of-way, supporting the tree canopies, picking up garbage, litter in the South Delridge business district near fresh flowers, great coffee and pastries, by the way.

But right there along the South Delridge business district along our city limits, again, at Roxbury.

Very excited and honored to be able to participate in that with my teammates and community and got a lot accomplished.

So come on by to Fresh Flowers.

There's a great barber shop right around that same area.

There's other small local businesses and enjoy the businesses there.

They need our support.

That is all I'll share for now, mindful of time, but I do welcome any comments or questions from any of you all, colleagues, if there are any.

If not, we'll pass the baton.

Councilmember Strauss, and we're just going right to the left, and Councilmember Wrazio, bounce it over to Councilmember Foster.

Thank you.

Like many have said, the tragedy at Seattle Center last night was absolutely heartbreaking.

Like everyone across the city right now, my thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones and everyone who was impacted and we know that's not enough because action has to come out of tragedies like this.

Yesterday should have been a joy for everyone, and instead it was the worst day of so many people's lives.

This violence, along with all gun violence, was preventable.

And we need to be making more concrete actions to get the guns out of kids' hands.

We need to get the guns out of the hands of people who are going to make impulsive or premeditated decisions that harm each other and harm our community.

I want to thank our first responders for going into harm's way.

Thank the people in the videos that I've seen from the scene last night who rushed to help people get away from the gunfire.

This is a tragedy that we cannot allow ourselves to normalize.

Seattle is strong, our community is strong.

I know we will grieve, we will remember, and we will recover together, and that recovery requires action because we must turn this tragic moment into change.

because for too many people, last night will be a part of their lives for the rest of their lives.

And we need to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to prevent it from happening again.

Moving into my committee reports.

Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee, the biggest thing, something happened last week in committee that I've been trying to do for three and a half years, I think.

We finally got Council Member Juarez in committee.

I'm trying to bring some levity as a transition from some very heartbreaking comments, but Council President Emeritus Juarez was sure to let me know that I was taking Native communities and tribal governments once she left, and it's been a privilege and an honor to get to steward this work and last week we were doing the first of two rounds of our Tribal Nations Summit recap and we got to see a video with Council Member Juarez in there and that was really nice.

Next week we will be having our second presentation on our commitment areas from the Tribal Nations Summit and we will be taking the votes on the reappointments to the Indigenous Advisory Committee.

We had them presented this last committee and we'll be taking the votes next week.

I want to move us into the mid-year supplemental budget, which was briefed last week.

Thank you to everyone who submitted amendments by the mid-year supplemental deadline, which was last Friday.

So if you've not gotten them in, Not a good situation, but come talk to me.

The deadline was last week for a good reason.

And that good reason is we will be voting on those amendments next Tuesday at our 9.30 a.m.

meeting.

And so if you do have amendments, please make sure to get them done so we can post them on the agenda.

We will also be outside of Native Communities Tribal Governments Finance Committee.

We will be having the revenue forecast next Friday, August 7th.

This is not a committee that everyone sits on, but I'm sure you're all just as excited or nervous to hear the news that comes out of that committee.

So we will be sure to share that information as soon as we are able to.

In District 6, I want to thank Councilmember Rank and her team for organizing the Jimothy proclamation this last Sunday and the arts festival that was a product of it.

We were able to declare this summer to be the summer of Jimothy, the Jimothy summer.

And Bergen Place had, what I heard, 300 people with many different pieces of art, many different local artists, and a piece of stained glass won the prize.

So thank you to Councilmember Rankin and your team for organizing.

I had office hours last week.

I'll have office hours next week.

This week is a rare week where I'll be meeting with resident groups outside of official office hours so that we can have a little bit more time to talk.

I'll, again, have office hours next week, so if you'd ever like to meet with me, just go to my website and click Request a Meeting.

Thanks colleagues, that is my report.

If there are any questions, happy to take them.

Seeing no questions, I'll pass it over to Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Like my colleagues here, I think we're all a bit somber here today about these continued gun violence.

And we should also note that we also had a shooting in Capitol Hill.

Of course, Seattle Center, Capitol Hill, Aurora, and of course we had our youth down at Rainier Beach as well.

I think we know the clarion call there and what we have to do and to continue to be vigilant in protecting Our community, our children, our neighborhoods are just across the board.

I can't tell you.

Thoughts and prayers aren't enough.

So I think we all know that.

Moving on, I want to thank Council Member Hollingsworth or Council President Hollingsworth and Council Member Kettle for keeping us updated last night in real time that showed real leadership and letting us know what was going on.

I really appreciate that.

also want to thank Chief Barnes for reaching out and Sarah Smith at SPD for also keeping myself and my team updated what was going on when the press conference was when there would be a release when the meeting was the meeting this morning and of course the mayor's office a few phone calls this morning Again, I know that Councilor Kettle will have more to say but it doesn't really matter when somebody loses a life and we have these type of shootings whose district it is in because we all live in this city and bullets are bullets wherever they are and I just hope we can remain and show the citizens and the residents and the people of the City of Seattle, I hope they have confidence in this body and in the Mayor's office and how we address it.

Thank you.

Okay, so I'm gonna go to my committee real quick here.

We have a meeting this Wednesday, August 5th.

Oh yeah, it's meeting this Wednesday, August 5th at 2 p.m.

In committee, we will consider the three following items.

A Seattle City Light Ordinance to update the Voluntary Green Power Solar Program.

The Seattle City Light Ordinance to execute the First Amendment to the Boundary Hydroelectric Project Relicensing Agreement relating to the FERC boundary.

resolution for state recreation and conservation office 2026 grant application authorization and we will be voting on all three items.

Wednesday the 19th, August 19th, there'll be a meeting of the Parks and City Light Committee, or I'm sorry, that meeting is canceled.

The final committee meeting that I will chair will be Wednesday, September 16th, and that's just to clean up some matters that have been kind of stacking up that we can manage during budget, and I hope my colleagues will be there for me.

This weekend, Saturday, August 1st, is the Lake City Summer Festival and Parade.

The festival starts at 10.30.

This weekend, Rise Above, along with Garfield High School alumnus and former NBA player, Brandon Roy, will be hosting a number of events centered around Native youth.

That's going to be exciting.

We have the events include five major events.

I'm just going to pick up the first five.

We have Hoops on the Pier, Friday, July 31st from 9 a.m.

to 1. That's at Pier 62. Three on three basketball tournament, Saturday, August 1st, starting at 9, Pier 62 and Pier 58. Little Dribblers Clinic, August 1st, same time, August 1st, starting at 10, Pier 62. Special Olympics Showcase, Saturday, August 1st, starting at 1, Pier 58. And Saturday evening, we'll include a premiere of the Lenny Wilkins documentary, Cornerstone, The Lenny Wilkins Story.

And with that, Council President, that's all I have.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Juarez.

We'll toss it over to Council Member Foster.

Can you just go right to your left?

Thank you so much, Council President.

I will just start by saying, as others have already said, I think the, not just the shooting last night, but the several shootings over the last several days, you know, on Aurora and Capitol Hill, and then yesterday at Seattle Center, have all just been devastating.

And I think that in particular for the folks who were at Seattle Center last night, I want to express my own appreciation for the first responders who were there and who went in to keep our residents safe.

I also wanna say, I think it's important that we continue to make sure we're making resources available and appreciate the work that's already happening at the city for folks who were present last night and will be experiencing the impacts of that shooting and the trauma.

And I think that is ongoing work for us as well as the ongoing work on the violence prevention and gun prevention and especially the youth violence prevention work that we need to continue doing as a city because we just have to get to a different place together than where we are right now.

So I appreciate all the comments that have already been made there.

So with that, I will go into a couple of updates from my committee.

And I will start first with colleagues, today is the day that any amendments are due if you have amendments for the junk fees legislation.

So as a reminder, we've heard this in committee several times now, and we will be holding a special meeting next week where we intend to vote on amendments and vote the bill out of committee.

I know there was a lot of things going on between FAP and the transit measure and et cetera.

We wanted to make sure to give this bill the time and attention that it deserves.

So hopefully you have spoken to HB already if you have amendment concept ideas.

If not, please do that as soon as we get off this dais so we can make sure we have time to discuss those.

I will go over to my homeowner protections bill that our office has been working on.

We are really excited that that passed out of committee last week.

Given the number of things that we have on the agenda tomorrow, we will be bringing that to full council the week following.

And so this is the bill creating the do not solicit list for homeowners to ensure that we have better homeowner privacy and protection here in the city.

and part of the work around anti-displacement with homeowners that I've been working on.

And then lastly, I appreciate you Council Member Strauss for the reminder in terms of mid-year supplemental amendments and colleagues you will see and just daylighting this now, I'm really excited and really proud and I'll share more next week via email communication with your offices, but I just wanna give you a heads up that you'll see an amendment for me in the mid-year supplemental office has been working really closely with the Rakes Foundation over the last several months to develop a partnership with them for investment into youth homelessness prevention and diversion.

So I'm really, really excited about that, and you will see a proviso to that effect.

So just wanted to give you all a heads up so that you're hearing it from me first.

And those are my updates.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry, Councilman Berlin.

Thank you, Council President.

I also just want to speak about the gun violence, especially the impacts to our youth.

You know, we've, in Southeast Seattle, experienced youth gun violence greater than any other part of the city.

It's been devastating for Rainier Beach in particular.

And...

There are obviously many levels of failure, failures to regulate weapons of mass destruction that for some reason at the federal level, at the Supreme Court level, seem to fall on deaf ears.

Maybe that's not the right analogy, but it's enraging.

It's unbelievable.

But we can't give up hope.

That is the one thing we cannot give up.

We have to keep fighting for common sense, gun law reforms.

We can't have automatic weapons just everywhere in our community.

There will always be people who do awful things, but we don't need to give them automatic weapons to do those awful things.

We can stop the prevalence of automatic weapons in our society.

We had automatic weapons bans a couple decades ago, and somehow we lost it, but we can get those back.

And so...

But we also need to do better with our youth.

We didn't just fail everybody in our city and region that was there yesterday and those who were and killed and injured.

We also, if it was a youth that did this, we also failed that youth.

And his or her family, again, not trying to rush to judgment, but if it was a youth, we failed them too.

I think we need to take responsibility for coming up.

We have to view this as a public health issue.

When there's one act of gun violence, it spreads.

It is contagious.

and we have to take all measures to put an end to it and that's going to require all of us, that's going to require all levels of government, all our different departments and agencies to help us here.

Rainier Beach is ground zero for this.

So we've got a lot of work to do and I look forward to working with each and every one of you to making this a priority.

Regarding committees, as you all know, we have our CEPA bill tomorrow.

Lots of amendments coming.

I have a couple friendly amendments.

I think there are other amendments that, and we have a legislative or executive session here coming up.

but look forward to the robust discussion tomorrow and please do not hesitate.

I'll be trying to get some last minute discussions in with folks one-on-one but please don't hesitate to talk to me if you have any questions or concerns about the bill.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Like all my colleagues, our colleagues, I join you in passing condolences to the loved ones of those past, and also thoughts for those that were injured and those that were running and had not experienced anything like that before.

Everyone, it was a traumatic and tragic situation.

But really, it was just the next chapter, the next tragic chapter of a book of gun violence, particularly as it relates to youth.

And it's a challenge for us.

It's a challenge to provide a comprehensive approach, a challenge to provide hope when there's none.

and as Council Member Lynn said, there's a lot of work to be done and I think we need to do it.

And we have to have structure, we have to have a plan, we have to execute it.

And so I thank my colleagues who've been working in this space, on the committee to include Council Member Rivera, but others.

My conversations with Council President and basically everyone here on this.

I do want to say I did receive a call from Deputy Mayor last night and I did join him at Seattle Center and I was there.

I wanted to note that in a lot of ways it was still an active operation because of the concern of a suspect in person of interest at the IMAX theater at that location.

And I should note too that Seattle Center itself was secured to include some adjoining streets, but then there was a second level in the area around Pacific Science Center and the IMAX theater.

And so I thank Seattle Police Department for the work that they did in order to do that.

In terms of that immediate response too, I think it's really important to highlight the work of the Seattle Fire Department and how they rushed to aid those that were injured and to get them to Harborview.

One person decided not to go to hospital.

Another person self-reported to UW Hospital.

But the work that Seattle Fire Department medics, the paramedics, the work that they did was incredible and so quick.

And the response for both Seattle PD and fire was immediate.

I do want to say, too, that I was there, I spoke to Assistant Chief Davis.

I have great confidence in him, also captains that I spoke to.

And given that this is West Precinct and Seattle Center is the beat, if you will, for the West Precinct, I know a lot of officers there and I spoke to them.

And they had a good security plan for this, which is an annual event.

they were in position, but sometimes events like this with the gun violence, it shows up out of nowhere and because of all the reasons where we have young people who take these actions and take them in in such a way that they spray bullets across, that creates additional casualties.

but the work that they did, SPD, was good and again the issue of the potential person of interest at the IMAX theater created a situation where they were looking to get that set.

I think that's an important point to know in terms of timelines and I say it with that in mind.

The work that, again, on scene with Assistant Chief Davis and the entire team was good, and they have my confidence, as does Chief Barnes, in terms of what he's done, the team he's assembled, the work he's done setting up, the work that was carried out by his team yesterday.

That said, Another public safety side, we have Public Safety Committee meeting tomorrow where we're going to be looking at public drug use and possession, the ordinance related to public drug use and possession, very important to the work that we're doing.

And we will have a few amendments tomorrow for the ordinance, but we'll also have PDA, Purpose, Dignity and Action, PDA and their Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program, and then also SPD.

to speak to the issues of drug markets that are impacting all seven districts.

So that will be tomorrow.

I'm not gonna go into the calendar stuff except to just highlight one.

On Wednesday, I'll be at a reception for the Freedom Plain National Tour.

This is a great opportunity for us as a city to see what is you know, our founding fathers, what makes America, America?

And as part of this freedom plane and the documents they're gonna bring, there's gonna be an original engraving of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Association from 1774, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton's and Aaron Burse's Oath of Allegiant.

the Treaty of Paris from 1783, secret printing of the constitutional draft form from 1787, tally of the votes approving the Constitution in 1787, and the Senate markup of the Bill of Rights in 1789. These are all very important, you know, part of our history and they will be here, here in Seattle.

Seattle is the last stop of the Freedom Plane.

That's our 250th that kind of mimics the train, the Freedom Train that traversed the country back in 1976. And MOHAI will have these documents from starting from, for public viewing, from 30 July until 16 August.

I will be remote next week, Council President.

And the last thing I wanted to say in a very positive note, Freedom Plane is very positive, but I also wanted to close by saying last week on Friday I met with Jazz Ed in South Lake Union, a nonprofit that is looking for music education for our children, our young people.

And it was beautiful.

The work that they do is fantastic.

and again, tying it back to the beginning and tying it to the challenge of young people involved in gun violence is that hope and having something to strive for and to be.

I think of jazz ed.

I think of music education.

I think of music and I think of that for our young people.

So I just wanted to highlight that nonprofit and the work that they do.

And should I add, too, the support that they receive from Amazon, which is something that I think most people don't realize.

A lot of nonprofits in our city do get great support from Amazon.

So with that, Council President, that's my update.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Colleagues, thank you for all your updates.

I'll jump right into the governance report.

Governance and Utilities Committee will meet for a special meeting this week, which is Wednesday, July 29th.

We will vote on Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light Emergency Assistance Bills.

And then we'll have a possible, sorry, possible vote on SPU 2027-2029 Rate Path.

And here are two informational items from ITD as well, which is Information Technology Department.

Our next governance meeting will be on August the 13th.

So it will be next month, August the 13th.

And for everyone, our last day before recess will be August the 21st, Friday, August the 21st on Friday.

So we have a lot of legislation coming down.

Colleagues, I'm just co-signing to all the stuff that you said about the Seattle Center and the shootings that are going on in our city.

It's not just the Seattle Center, it was Capitol Hill this weekend, Friday and Saturday.

Last weekend it was also in the Central District.

We also had 24th and Jackson, 23rd and Jackson.

We also had Lake Washington Boulevard and Madrona Park, Leschi.

We also had stuff going on in the South End and Council Member Lynn's District and Rainier Beach.

And we also had violence going on in Aurora.

And I believe that every neighborhood should every neighborhood warrants the response that we have been giving now to the Seattle Center and then also to Aurora.

And big thank you, as my colleague said, to Seattle Parks, excuse me, to our Seattle Center folks, the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire, and the EMTs who were on site immediately, who were riding on bikes around in the vicinity and who were able to do aid quickly to a lot of the victims as well.

And also the people that responded on the ground immediately.

So just really big thank you because when you saw people running away, you saw police and fire running towards the gunfire and the situation to help people.

Big thank you to that.

Obviously I know people want to hear what Councilmember, I think Strauss and Saka had talked about, which is people want to see action.

They want to see people moving their feet and doing things and implementing.

And so we are here ready to work and help.

I think probably the most tragic thing out of all this before we go into our executive session is that these are young people.

And that's like the one thing that I know we all take to heart is when our young people are doing things.

Thank you colleagues for that.

We are going to now transition into our executive session.

If there's no further business, we're going to move into our executive session.

Hearing note.

Oh, sorry.

My bad.

There was your hand raised.

I didn't see it before we move into executive session.

Is that an old hand, Council Member Juarez?

Old hand.

Okay.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much.

I just need to ask to be excused from the August 18th council meeting.

Awesome, if there are no, is there any objection to Council Member Foster being excused?

You are excused, thank you.

Okay, awesome.

So hearing no for their business, we're now gonna move into executive session.

Hearing no for their business, we're now moving to executive session.

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

This purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential and actual litigation.

The council's executive session is opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorney and authorized by law.

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

I expect the time of the executive session to end.

Ooh, it says five, so at 5 p.m.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce an extension and obviously it can end earlier than that as well.

At the conclusion of this executive session, the council briefing will automatically adjourn.

The next scheduled briefing will be August the 10th.

Colleagues, August the 10th at 2 p.m.

The council is now in executive session.

Thank you.