Seattle City Council Briefing 4/6/20

Good morning, the April 6th, 2020 council briefing meeting will come to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Unmute.

Clerk, we are not able to hear you call the roll.

Council Member Lewis.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Juarez.

I am here.

Hi, I'm here.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

And Council Member Strauss.

I'm here.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

Council members, the council rules are silent on allowing electronic participation at council briefing meetings.

To continue participating remotely, I'm going to move to suspend the council rules through May 4th, 2020 to allow this meeting to occur while participating through electronic means.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow electronic participation at council briefing meetings through May 4th, 2020. Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and council briefing meetings will be held with council members participating electronically through May 4th of 2020. We'll now go through the approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of March 30th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Really quickly, President's report wanted to give folks a quick update on committee schedules through May 4th, 2020, which is the period of time that we understand the stay home, stay healthy order from the governor is intended to last.

I want to thank each of you for thoughtfully engaging with me in my office in a dialogue around your time-sensitive legislative priorities.

I think council-wide coordination among council members will really ensure that we're able to conduct important policy work that is COVID-19 related or necessary and routine to council business while not overloading the legislative department's collective capacity during this period of remote participation and telework, period.

Since engaging each of you in these conversations, the circumstances of this pandemic and its impact on our daily lives and how we do business has drastically changed.

In light of Governor Inslee's stay home, stay healthy order and to account for the council's collective bandwidth, asked that chairs work with the Council President's Office regarding the scheduling of future committee meetings as it relates to timing and agenda topics for those meetings.

A good example of this is Council Member Lewis.

We just recently coordinated with his office the need to have a special meeting of the Select Committee on Homelessness, given the recent news that there are hepatitis A outbreak concerns and, in addition, I think our collective ongoing concerns about how the city is or is not adequately responding to the COVID pandemic crisis as it relates specifically to the unsheltered population.

I wanna thank Council Member Lewis for working with our office on identifying that unique circumstance in which a select committee can occur that is related to the city's emergency response.

So you all should have received an invitation on that and I'm sure Council Member Lewis is gonna speak in his briefing.

So I would just ask for ongoing collaboration from all of you as your needs come up.

We have engaged with Council Central staff and with the clerk's office.

They've made a request that any sort of committee meetings that are scheduled in the future be done on Wednesdays in order to minimize impact and the need to have essential workers here at City Hall.

for purposes of supporting those committee hearings.

Again, I think engaging with my office, central staff, and the city attorney's office, we will ensure that we're adhering to the governor's proclamation, which does put restrictions on localities, including the city of Seattle, of what legislative actions we can take.

Actions include committee meetings, even if it's not a final vote on legislation.

The governor's proclamation indicates that the only type of legislative action we are allowed to take during this period of time, in large part because the public cannot be physically present at city hall to engage in these conversations, are things that are necessary and routine to the city's business, and also items that are directly related to the emergency response under the mayor's civil emergency or the governor's civil emergency.

I think many of you have been made aware of that governor's proclamation.

And again, my office along with central staff in the city attorney's office and the clerk's office are working together to ensure that anything that is slated for a committee meeting or for a final action or any action by the city council is going to comply with that governor's order.

And so making sure that I work with all of you on making sure that we have good traffic control to be able to manage the council's capacity and compliance with that proclamation would be helpful.

So most of the feedback I got from you all indicated that most committees do not need to meet in April, with some rare exceptions.

However, a couple committees may need hearings in May in order to deal with time-sensitive legislation.

Again, we're asking that, and we'll circle back with individual council members on how to coordinate with our office and central staff before scheduling these.

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, the city clerk's office has provided me with guidance for the scheduling of special committee meetings.

We hope to be able to follow that guidance to the best of our ability.

The city clerk's instructions included only allowing special committee meetings to occur on Wednesdays, as I mentioned earlier, and instructions for providing advance notice to the clerk of potential meetings.

And then the clerk's guidance will allow us to minimize the amount of essential employees that have to be physically present here at City Hall.

in order to effectuate these special meetings.

Lastly, I'll just say that as it relates to public comment, I've had good conversations with the clerk's office and we are looking at hopefully being able to test some technology that will allow us to hear some version of public comment via Zoom.

And my hope is that we will be able to have that and ready to go on Monday, April 20th, during our full council meeting then.

But we are working with our technology department and the clerk's office to test some of these technological tools that are available to us before we go live.

So it's, I really do appreciate the clerk's office and technology department's staff for working with my office on identifying how we can best reintegrate public comment through technological means in order to comply with the governor's proclamation around his prohibition of having people physically appear at city hall.

So that's it for my president's report.

I'm happy to answer any questions about that piece, and if there's no questions, we'll move on to the first presentation of the day.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I really appreciate the update you offered on organizing public comment.

As you know, this has been a real priority for my office.

I would also renew my urging that I discussed with you in our phone meeting and also in my follow-up email to you.

that we suspend the rules as far as what people are allowed to say in public comment.

I think it would be absolutely appropriate and necessary that at this moment the City Council allow all public comment relevant to the COVID-19 crisis at every meeting.

Thank you Council Member Sawant.

I heard your request on that point.

I will not be supporting a blanket suspension of the rules.

I think it's important for us to maintain consistency with the rules.

And I intend to sort of follow what the approved council rules are as it relates to public comment.

Again, I think we have to be very careful and judicious here.

We are under an emergency response period.

We are also under a proclamation issued by the governor about how we can conduct our business.

in light of the fact that the public cannot physically convene in chambers in order to engage in public comment.

And so I think we have to understand that that proclamation isn't just a non-binding resolution.

It is, according to the law department, binding law on us.

And so while I am really working hard to figure out how we can provide the public some mechanism to be able to re-engage in our business.

I'm also weighing that with the understanding that we have these new legal obligations through May 4th under the governor's proclamation, and I think suspending the council rules at this juncture is just not judicious.

Can I please follow up?

Sure.

Thank you.

I do not agree with you that this is what I am requesting is any kind of blanket suspension of rules.

I don't I don't agree with that characterization at all.

In fact, it is very much consistent with what the governor's office has said, which is that The work of the City Council and other elected bodies should now completely focus on legislation that is relevant to relieving the complete crisis that working families and small businesses and our most vulnerable and marginalized have been subjected to because of the COVID-19 crisis.

I'm making a very specific request that our city council public comment be allowed to incorporate public testimonies at every meeting that are relevant to the COVID-19 crisis.

I don't see how that is inconsistent with what the governor's office is saying.

And if we need to have a session with the law department in order to clarify any details around this.

I would be happy to initiate that, but I do not agree that we should just simply reject this question of allowing public testimony on the crisis in this period.

And I think that this is not just my request.

This is, I think, is necessary for the council to enact because precisely because people are in so much crisis and for so many weeks they have not had real access to the city council and lastly I would note that the governor's order that the elected body should focus on the COVID-19 crisis-related issues was specifically connected to the concern that public testimonies are not allowed at this moment.

And so if we are able to address that, I don't see what the concern would be.

But I would be happy to initiate a law department discussion in order to clarify the details, but I do think that we need to pursue that.

Well, it sounds like your request has changed in just the last few minutes.

So I'm totally in agreement that public testimony needs to be reintroduced.

I disagree with your initial pitch, which was that they should be allowed to talk about anything that they want, regardless of what's happening.

No, that was not what I said.

I said they should be allowed to speak.

May I finish?

I wasn't interrupting you, but I appreciate the same courtesy.

So what I heard you say was that you wanted public testimony to be reintroduced, A, and B, to allow that reintroduction to be unfettered.

In other words, that they could testify about anything related to counsel business.

I disagree with that approach because I believe we need to maintain some level of order to our meetings.

And just because I agree that there needs to be order doesn't mean that I disagree that there should be public testimony.

We will continue to follow the council rules.

If there is an item on the agenda that is related to COVID, absolutely people are going to be allowed to provide public testimony about that particular issue.

But we're not going to just open up the floodgates and allow people to just testify about whatever it is they want to testify about.

We have to maintain some level of consistency.

with our goals in order to facilitate compliance with the governor's proclamation and to make sure that we continue to have some semblance of order as it relates to our council business.

I would like to follow up because I just wanted to clarify that as far as my email to you was concerned, yes, you're absolutely accurate that what I had primarily requested was the introduction of public testimony.

And I'm really happy that we're in agreement.

But this morning, I am actually extending my request not only for public comment, but to allow people to So, yes, I am extending that request, but I don't see what the problem is.

So what if I am, you know, a renewing.

The request I have to extend the request, I think we all should be doing what my office is doing, which is really keeping pace with the crisis and readjusting our priorities.

I mean, initially, we talked about eviction and foreclosure moratorium, which was absolutely correct.

But a week later, that was not enough.

And that is why now we are fighting for suspension of rent payments and mortgage payments entirely.

So the nature of this crisis is that we have to keep thinking and renewing what we are talking about.

And that is what's happened.

In the last few days, I've recognized that we also need public comment on any COVID-19 related things.

I do want to clarify again that I'm not saying that people would be allowed to testify on anything under the sun.

It is about COVID-19 crisis, but I don't think it should be related to just the legislation that's being discussed on that day.

And as far as floodgates being opened, Council President Gonzalez, the only floodgates that have been opened are the enormous multifaceted crisis that people are in.

And that is why I am making this request that we allow people to testify on anything that's COVID-19 related, not just the COVID-19 related legislation that's on the council.

I just want to clarify that.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from my other colleagues?

Okay, hearing none, that concludes my president's report.

So we'll go ahead and move into the briefing and discussion.

It's agenda item three.

We're going to hear a presentation from our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

related to state and federal COVID-19 actions.

I want to thank the team from OIR for being with us this morning and for and for doing so remotely.

I really appreciated receiving the recent memorandum from Sierra Hallett Brown, really outlining many of the different things we can expect in the federal stimulus package.

I think many of our constituents are uniquely interested and intrigued by what we can expect to see from the recent stimulus package that actually helps working people and folks who are really feeling the impact, the negative impact of this global pandemic.

And I'm really appreciative of OIR's willingness to be with us and including Leslie Polner from Holland and Light, who's calling in from, I think, DC.

to be with us this morning.

So without further ado, I'm gonna hand it over.

I will let folks know on the line that Brianna Thomas from my office just sent out a updated PowerPoint presentation from the OIR team.

There's one slide that is different than the attached agenda.

We'll make sure to update the agenda so that becomes public record, but wanted to make sure that you all were aware that that is in your inboxes.

timestamped at 945 AM for you to follow along.

So without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to the team at OIR.

Who's going to kick us off at OIR?

Okay, Lily, you'll have to unmute yourself.

There you go.

Okay.

Can you hear me okay, everyone?

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning, Council President Gonzalez, Council Members, Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and presenting with me today, I'm joined by Sierra Hellett-Brown, our Federal Relations Director, as well as Leslie Polner, our Federal Lobbyist, who is based in D.C., and our State Director, also Robin Kosky.

And although, as many of you know, the state legislature is no longer in session, and Congress recently passed their CERD Supplemental Stimulus Package, or the CARES Act, we do anticipate the Washington state legislature will reconvene at some point later in the spring for a special session.

And Speaker Pelosi is also working aggressively to advance a fourth stimulus package as we speak.

While her stated goal is to move something quickly through Congress by the end of April, I believe, please keep in mind that both timelines at the state and federal level are fluid, and we will continue to keep you informed as we learn more.

It was great seeing those of you who are able to tour the field hospital at CenturyLink, and we've appreciated a strong partnership with King County, the Port of Seattle, and the Northwest Seaport Alliance, who helped make that possible by providing us with storage trailers, container equipment, and other items at Terminal 46. Stacey Jellick, I also wanted to note, our International Affairs Director, has been working with our sister city, Chongqing, the China Relations Council, and other Chinese partners to identify testing kit and PPE vendors internationally.

And lastly, I wanted to thank you all for the very comprehensive list of questions Council submitted.

We're going to try our best to answer most of those today.

Given some of them are focused a little bit more on implementation and specific department priorities, we'll have to direct you to those departments to answer some of those questions that we will not be able to answer today.

And I did want to note that there is a federal COVID funding task force.

Actually, it also incorporates state funding that Adrian Thompson, our policy director, is heading up in conjunction with many departments.

I will now turn it over to Ciara, our Federal Relations Director, and Leslie Polner, our federal lobbyist based in D.C., to walk through some of the issues in their presentation today before we turn it over to Robin Kosky for a state legislative update.

Lily, thank you so much.

Before you hand it over to other folks to talk, I just wanted to remind my colleagues consistent with what we did last week.

If you have a question in order to sort of avoid us speaking over each other, you can just raise your hand because I can see all of you.

If you have a question and for Council Member Juarez, if you have a question, you can just ping me really quickly and I'm happy to allow you to ask a question.

Either raise your hand on the screen if you have video so that I can see you and put you in the queue.

You can also use the chat function to tell me you have a question, but please do not use the chat function for any substantive posing of questions or conversation, just for, only for purposes of letting me know that you have a question.

So as soon as we get an opportunity to ask those questions, I'll make sure to give you that opportunity.

Thank you.

Please take it away.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you.

So Leslie is going to go through the bulk of the presentation and walk you through some of the first, second and third supplemental packages that have happened.

But I just wanted to take the moment to talk with you all about what we've done previously.

So we've sent a letter to the mayor has sent a letter to congressional leadership and we cc'd our congressional delegation for the third supplemental.

And that was a process of getting priorities from the entire city, all of the departments that are working very closely at the federal level right now, which are most of our departments.

So we are engaged in another process for a fourth letter that we hope potentially council might be able to join the mayor on.

I know that a lot of you are looking for opportunities to engage.

So we'd love to work with you on that, whether that's joining this letter or that's some additional opportunities going forward.

We definitely want to make sure that council's voice is represented in this and that you all have the opportunity to weigh in, in a way that's meaningful to your offices as well.

So we've been giving you all the updates we have, but if you have other questions or specific issues, I know that the questions you sent in for this presentation, Lily mentioned we might not be able to get to all of them, but we'll speak to quite a few of them throughout the presentation.

And then we'll follow up with you on the rest of them.

But I'm just going to kick it over to Leslie Polner for her presentation, and then we can take some questions throughout if you have them.

So thank you.

Great.

Thanks, Sierra.

And nice to see all of you, even under these really challenging circumstances.

As the council president mentioned, we have a slide presentation.

So if you want to, is that being pulled up on the screen right now?

Perfect.

Next slide, please.

So as you all know, we've had three packages that for DC have moved at lightning speed.

The first round was an $8.3 billion supplemental.

The second round was the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

And then of course, the third round was the recently passed $2 trillion CARES Act.

Next slide.

So round one was really, I think just as Congress was beginning to realize the magnitude and scope of the crisis, largely focused around the public health response, some funding for SBA, but really mostly for vaccines and for CDC.

And we should note that, again, because things are moving so quickly in DC, some of this funding is just becoming available now.

Next slide, please.

Round two was really focused around the paid leave requirements, and it created a new emergency family leave medical leave program and an emergency paid leave program.

Private businesses with less than 500 employees and all public employers were included.

Also included a billion to help states process increased unemployment claims.

Next slide, please.

So for the paid leave requirements, as many of you know, private sector employers with fewer than 500 workers and government entities have to provide as many as 12 weeks of partially paid family leave under the Family Medical Leave Act to care for a child whose school or daycare is closed.

Employers also had to provide full and part-time workers with two weeks paid sick time, including for a quarantine order.

The Labor Department has quite a bit of flexibility, and they were able to exempt small businesses with fewer than 50 workers from the paid leave requirements.

And the paid leave is mainly financed through tax credits.

Refundable tax credits are available to employers to cover costs under the law's leave programs.

Notably, government entities were not eligible, are not eligible for these tax credits.

And that is something that we may seek to address in the fourth package that mentioned is now under discussion.

Next slide, please.

So, of course, recently we have the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that passed.

And the centerpiece of that legislation is direct payments to individuals.

And so residents with a gross income of up to $75,000 are eligible for the full $1,200 payment.

There's an additional $500 per child provided.

And then that benefit begins to phase out until folks with incomes exceeding $99,000.

For many individuals, the goal, of course, is to try to get this money out quickly.

And so the idea had been that the IRS would use taxpayers' 2019 or 2018 tax returns.

That is, of course, turning out to be far more complicated as we deal with homeless individuals, individuals who may not have needed to file a tax return.

And so Treasury is now trying to work through how to get checks to those individuals as well.

Next slide, please.

In addition, the CARES Act provides a fairly dramatic increase in unemployment insurance.

It provides an additional $600 per week payment to each recipient of unemployment insurance for up to 13 weeks.

Unemployment insurance is available to individuals, even individuals who may have already been on unemployment insurance or already exceeded their unemployment insurance benefits for the year.

And in addition, the unemployment insurance is available for workers in the gig economy and part-time workers And that guidance was actually released to states late last night.

Next slide, please.

Another piece of the CARES Act is an expansion of SBA's loan program.

So $350 billion is available for the new Paycheck Protection Program, the PPP, that provides 100% federally guaranteed loans to employers who maintain their payroll.

PPP loans and guidance became available last week.

Proceeds can be used for payroll costs, health benefits, employee salaries, interest on mortgage, rent, utilities, and interest on debt.

Next slide, please.

Borrowers are eligible for loan forgiveness for up to eight weeks of payroll.

Can you shut the door, please?

Sorry.

All the loans are being processed through current SBA lenders, and they are eligible to become lenders for PPP.

Treasury also has authority to add new lenders, although this is actually turning out to be a fairly complicated process, given just the sheer deluge of claims that are being filed right now.

Next slide, please.

$562 million was also made available for economic injury disaster loans.

And these are low interest loans of up to $2 million with principal and interest deferred for up to four years.

People applying for these loans are also eligible for an emergency advance of up to $10,000 to small businesses and private nonprofits.

And it should be noted that this is a grant, not a loan, and does not require repayment.

And then $17 billion is available for small businesses with non-disaster loans.

These are businesses that already have SBA loans, and so they will not have to pay principal or interest for six months.

Next slide, please.

The other piece that's really important for the City of Seattle is the Coronavirus Relief Fund.

And this is $150 billion to provide direct assistance to states and localities to use for expenditures that have been incurred as a result of the coronavirus epidemic.

And it guarantees a minimum of $1.25 billion for each state.

One of the pieces that we worked really hard to get included was to ensure that cities would be eligible for direct payments from Treasury And the legislation says that localities, counties, or cities with populations over 500,000 are eligible to apply directly to Treasury.

We are working closely with the Treasury Department on this guidance.

We were part of, the city is part of a letter that went to Treasury last week, urging them to allow these funds to be used to help cover um, budget, budget, definite deficits or revenue losses that have occurred as a result of social distancing measures.

Um, and Treasury has said that they expect to put guidance out on the funds and the use of the funds, um, within the next two weeks.

So we expect to see that sometime next week.

They're aiming to get these dollars out, uh, by April 24. Next slide, please.

The funding also provided $750 million for grants to Head Start, as well as $3.5 billion for child care development block grant programs.

Next slide, please.

It also provides increases in food nutrition.

There's $15.5 billion available in additional funding for SNAP.

One thing to note on that is that the legislation did not increase the benefits per family or per individual receiving SNAP, and that may be also something that we should look at for the next package going through, given the incredible strain that many families are finding themselves under.

It also provides $8.8 billion for child nutrition programs, as well as $450 million, which does not even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg on the need for the emergency food assistance program.

Next slide, please.

There's also $5 billion made available for community development block grant.

$2 billion has been distributed through the regular formula program within 30 days.

And that funding has already been released to the city.

$1 billion is going to states based on a new formula that has not been released yet, but that will factor in public health needs, the risk of transmission of coronavirus, and other factors determined by HUD.

And then $2 billion to be allocated directly to states and local governments, also via a new formula to be developed by HUD.

$4 billion has also been provided for homelessness assistance grants.

$2 billion was distributed through the regular program formula, and that funding has already gone out.

And $2 billion will be distributed through a new formula, again, based on coronavirus impact and potential impact in communities within 90 days.

Next slide, please.

In addition, as you may have seen, it officially codifies some of the rules that the administration had done through executive order.

It basically says any homeowner with an FHA, BA, USDA, government-backed mortgage, who's experiencing financial hardship is eligible for six months forbearance.

We're finding, of course, that there's a little bit of a challenge with this program, given that not everybody knows you know, if their loan is government backed or not.

So that is something that HUD is trying to work through.

In addition, renters who have trouble paying rent also have protections under the bill if they live in a property that has a federal subsidy or federally backed loan.

Again, a little bit tricky.

Not all renters know if their landlord has a building that is backed by a federally guaranteed loan.

Next slide, please.

Next slide, please.

There's also funding for Department of Homeland Security.

There is $45 billion for a FEMA disaster relief fund that state and local governments are eligible for.

$100 million for assistance to firefighter grants, primarily for PPE.

$200 million in emergency food and shelter grants.

$850 million is available for burn jag formula grants.

And that funding has already been released.

Next slide, please.

And then funding came for DOT directly to transit agencies, $25 billion for transit infrastructure grants to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.

And these are also going out through formula.

Next slide, please.

These are just some key dates.

I think one thing to note is that many of these programs are going to expire rather quickly.

Small business paycheck protection program will expire at the end of June.

The additional UI expires at the end of July.

And so for many of these programs, I think what you're beginning to see in Congress, particularly with House Democrats, is the realization that this crisis is going to be with us for a while.

and that the funding that's been provided while an important first step is not nearly enough.

Next slide, please.

So as Lily had mentioned, the House has already begun working on a fourth coronavirus bill to both address the issues that the country is facing as well as to make some of the technical corrections that are going to be needed for the CARES Act I think when the speaker had initially begun proposing this bill, there was hope that we were nearing the end and that it would be time to pivot to more of an infrastructure economic stimulus package.

In the last four days, I think you've seen leadership move away from that concept of infrastructure and really an acknowledgement that we're going to need more of a CARES Part 2. package that will re-up unemployment insurance, expand food assistance, expand emergency shelter grants, and really to deal with what we've been sort of referring to as those survival programs.

And then at this point, it may be too soon to think about a stimulus.

That said, as Lily mentioned, we've been having a number of conversations within the city to get ready, because at some point, a stimulus is going to be appropriate and needed.

And given how things have moved in Washington, we want to be really ready for that.

So we've been working closely with departments to identify their infrastructure needs, looking back at, for example, some of the programs that have been created in ARA, looking ahead to things that we may want to try to push the envelope on and to be ready for that as well.

So I'm going to stop there and happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Leslie.

It looks like we have a question from Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

Two questions.

The first relates to the payroll protection program.

We're hearing from small businesses that what they're hearing from lenders is that they're waiting for guidance.

And since they don't have guidance yet from the federal government, they aren't actually ready to accept claims locally.

And so business owners are worried that they're going to miss an opportunity.

because the awards are first come, first serve.

So just looking for advice that you might have for us to be able to give local small business owners who are waiting to apply.

And then my second question is, on one of the slides, You showed CDBG funding that has already been allocated according to the regular formula, as well as homeless assistance grants.

And the number on the screen was, I think it was about $9.5 million for both categories.

Is that a Seattle allocation for both of those categories?

It just wasn't clear from the screen, but that seems to align with the words that you were saying.

Yes, so that is the Seattle allocation.

And then in terms of the PPP, so those loans became available last week, last Friday.

Guidance has now been released for that, and so there's been quite a rush.

Our understanding is, of course, given the pent-up demand, it's been pretty difficult applying for those because there's so much need.

So, uh, small businesses should not be, uh, should not expect to be told anymore by the lenders.

Don't apply.

We haven't received the guidance yet.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh, thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any other questions from my colleagues?

Okay, there we go.

Sorry, I couldn't see.

I asked you all to raise your hands and then my screen was too small on the video and I couldn't see you guys.

Council Member Sawant, please.

Thank you.

Just a question to ask if the staff here know anything more than what we've heard on the news.

Yesterday we heard that Boeing will extend the shutdown, which is very important because we were starting to hear from Boeing mechanics, extremely concerned about what would happen if they carried out the originally announced order to the workers, which is that they would be going back to work on Wednesday, which would have been absolutely disastrous.

So it's good that they're extending the shutdown.

But the Seattle plant is reporting that instead of paying the workers, as the company has for the past two weeks, starting Wednesday the company will force the workers to take either a vacation or sick time or apply for unemployment, which strikes me as manifestly unjust to the workers, especially considering that Boeing had The executives, you know, had 10 billion cash on hand at the beginning of the year after burning through 43 billion in cash for shared buybacks in the previous three years.

And now, as a result of the I think and all the burden on the taxpayer through the regressive tax system.

So I was wondering if you had any more information on that, and is there pressure being put on Boeing executives by elected officials in Congress from Washington state to do the right thing here?

Thank you.

So I can look at exactly the package that Boeing should expect to receive.

There is certainly, I would say particularly among Democrats, a real concern about how much corporate executives are going to make, particularly if they access federal funding.

And that was actually sort of a central part of the issues surrounding the CARES Act.

If you recall, Republicans had initially introduced had initially introduced a bill that had very few guardrails on it.

And part of the negotiations that Democrats went through was to really try to increase those.

I think a number of Democrats have said it well, though, that this isn't, you know, the final bill that was approved isn't the bill that they would have designed themselves, but was the one that they felt like they could get across and then still get benefits to families and individuals as well.

but happy to follow up with any information on what's been provided to airlines specifically.

Thank you, that would be great.

Any other questions for Leslie, for my colleagues?

Okay, so.

Madam.

Yeah, Council Member Mosqueda, and then we will hear from Council Member Herbold, and then I saw that Lily raised her hand as well.

Oh, so sorry.

I didn't realize that you saw me.

I have mine on my little screen as well, so I don't see you up there.

Thank you for calling on me.

I appreciate it.

Leslie and all the team at OIR, thank you very much for this very comprehensive overview.

You know, one of the things that we've been interested in is the funding for building housing, and I know you referenced that.

have talked a little bit about how that could potentially be a longer term infrastructure package or a new iteration of this CARES package, so appreciate that.

Is there anything that you can emphasize for us on the operation and maintenance dollars that would go to existing permanent supportive housing?

I say that because we hear from so many people working in assisted housing or permanent supportive housing.

that they don't have the operation and maintenance dollars.

They're losing staff because of either illness or just increased capacity in shelter and permanent supportive housing.

So that's where we're really lacking dollars in the moment where I think the biggest crisis is in addition to needing the funding to build more affordable housing.

Thank you.

And I think that that is such a great point.

I mean, I think that that is exactly some of the things that we need to be looking at in the next package and that we need to put front and center.

Um, again, as I think as, as this crisis, you know, grows in magnitude and also just in length, people are beginning to realize all of the implications.

And so I think that is something that we, we should really emphasize.

I've also, you know, we've been in really close contact with our delegation and they have specifically asked if there are anecdotes, examples, um, or data they understand, you know, all three are really, really helpful.

So if there are examples that we can provide from some of our, affordable housing providers on operations and maintenance and the kinds of challenges that they're facing, I think that'd be really appreciated.

Thank you so much.

We will pull together a summary, and if other folks are hearing similar concerns in your offices, perhaps let us know, and through our office as the chair of housing, we'll compile that for you if that sounds good.

That'd be great.

Robyn, do you have additional information to provide on that particular question?

I do, Council President.

Council Member Mosqueda, Office of Housing has been working very closely with housing providers, as you know.

And we have actually done a survey that we sent out to all of the housing providers that we work with normally.

And they're getting back questions and answers to us about their impacts on their budgets and things like that.

And we would be happy to share that when that's finished.

And also, I will say that we're also looking for opportunities to see where any of this federal funding might be able to be used for that, and are also looking at additional opportunities, as Leslie said, for the fourth package.

So your concerns are well taken and heard.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Robin.

We will go ahead and move over to Council Member Herbold now.

You're on mute, Council Member Herbold.

Another quick two-part question.

The first question, you had mentioned earlier that on Friday there has been guidance as it relates to the economic relief options available to gig workers.

I'm wondering if you could just give a real quick high-level overview of what that looks like.

And then as it relates to round four issues, I just want to flag that one of the things that I'm hearing locally, that there is a national effort to get recognition of the increase in domestic violence incidences during COVID-19.

Here in Seattle, the police department has identified a 22% increase in calls And whereas in the $2.2 trillion package, there was some additional funding for domestic violence hotline, as well as funding implementation of the Domestic Violence Protection Act.

The National Network right now has a $100 million request in, and I just want to flag that.

jurisdictions across the nation are working to document the increase that they are experiencing in domestic violence calls like we're beginning to do so now here, too.

Thank you.

Great.

Well, so a couple of items.

So on the guidance that was released, it was actually released last night on gang and part-time workers, labor seems to be trying to recognize the complexities of workers in the gig economy.

And so they are very clear about sort of, you know, if you were filing a 1099 or if you don't have a place of employment, like some Uber drivers may not, trying to address all of those cases.

We have actually sent those out to the city and happy to have OIR send those to you as well, so that your team can take a look at that.

And then on the domestic violence front, that is an issue that we are hearing across the country, from cities across the country as well, and the resources that are going to be needed to address that in this incredibly complex time.

So again, I also think that that is something that we should really consider for putting forward as a priority for the fourth package.

Thank you, Leslie and Council Member Herbold.

And I see Lily has her hand up, so take it away.

I just wanted to recommend per Council Member Herbold's question around some of the small business relief and accessing that funding, which it sounds like is not an uncomplicated process.

The Office of Economic Development has, they have started a hotline for small businesses and they also do a weekly call.

So I just wanted to recommend that any of the business owners who are contacting you, that they're a great resource and they're doing a lot to wrap their arms around the small business community.

Thank you, Lily.

Any other questions from my colleagues?

Or comments?

Okay, I'm not seeing anyone raise their hand or hearing from folks on the phone who don't have video feed.

I just, you know, Leslie, I wanted to get your thoughts on something that is of concern to me, which is that a lot of our immigrant and refugee neighbors have been left out of this stimulus package.

And on a call that some of us were on last week with Congress members Adam Smith and Pramila Jayapal, we heard from them that some of the dollars coming from this stimulus package through the state are actually could be considered unrestricted and utilized to support immigrant and refugee community members, including those that are either DACA recipients or otherwise undocumented.

And just wanted to get a sense from you about whether you've done analysis on that particular aspect of the federal stimulus package, and if not, if that's something you'd be able to do.

Secondly, as sort of a follow-up to that, I'd really like to try to figure out how we can express the city's support for making sure that we're including all immigrant and refugee community members in future stimulus packages.

Yeah, no, so I think, again, this is another issue that is really concerning to a number of cities across the country, is that whether it's on free testing, making sure that immigrant and vulnerable communities have access to that.

There's definitely a list of items that we have been looking at that we're happy to send and would love your thoughts on as well to build on because, again, the packages have not done a great job in supporting immigrant communities.

There has been some discussion, just for awareness, and this may already be on your radar, about accessing benefits and whether or not that would or would not count on public charge.

And we actually put together, our firm has put together a brief on that specifically, which happy to send your way as well.

And then in terms of state dollars, that's something, Lily, I think that we can coordinate on pulling together with the state team.

Great.

I would actually like to see that brief on the public charge aspects.

You know, we've had some sort of minor temporary relief on that front as a result of the pandemic that's happening.

But I think it would be really helpful to get a good understanding of where the lines are being drawn by the feds as we look at figuring out how to engage in the next stimulus package you know, battle, frankly, is what it feels like.

Actually, this morning as well, one other piece that we can send around, NILC did an outstanding brief of things that were included and things that need to be asked in the next, for in the next package, and we can send that around too.

Wonderful.

I think, I think many of us would have strong interest in seeing that briefing.

So if you can get that around to us, that'd be great.

Will do.

And just one last piece from me is, you know, I think that oftentimes when we think about our work at OIR, it's very, it can sometimes be temporal, in other words, if we're in active legislative session at the state, we're actively engaged with our OIR team in terms of lobbying and active lobbying efforts with a sort of defined lobbying agenda.

I think it's important for us to understand from OIR, and Lily, this question is probably most appropriately directed to you, sort of how you are envisioning moving forward through the next several months as it relates to how the city is leveraging its resources in your office to continue to lobby and advocate both at the state level and the federal level as it relates to many of the things we saw in the stimulus package.

package, but I think there are certainly some other potential policy issues that might arise either at the state or federal level.

And just to respond to that, can everyone hear me?

I, um, so as we brief the council through the legislative session, we're doing that on a weekly basis, given at the state level, we'll likely be moving into a short special session.

Um, we will schedule things as needed as there's relevant information for you all right now.

They're not, you know, the state legislature has not, they're not convening and they're not actually making policy, but as they gear up towards that, um, and right now we're trying to inventory the, outstanding needs at the state level, which Robin will speak more to in her state presentation.

On the federal level, as Leslie and I have talked about, it's a game of hurry up and wait right now.

So while we have been pushing, pushing, pushing for priorities to include in letters that we send to Congress to be relevant and included as the House develops their package, given some of the pushback from other members at the federal level, we know that That is, it would be a real challenge to move something in late April.

So as those things start to build and we need direction from you all in terms of your priorities, we will make sure to do that proactively, I think, versus doing a weekly briefing right now because the legislature is not in session.

But as needed, we will continue to schedule briefings with you all to keep you updated.

Thank you, Lily, and I appreciate your willingness and your team's suggestion to try to coordinate some of our interest in the federal and state issues through my office.

Happy to continue to serve that role.

Obviously, council members are free to reach out to you directly as well.

But I think it's really important for us to continue to be engaged in some of these quickly, in some instances, quickly, rapidly moving issues at the federal and state level.

Any other questions on the federal presentation before we move on to Robin?

All right.

We're going to move into the next set of information.

So I think it's Robin that's going to present at this point.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez, and thank you, everyone.

I wanted to start off my presentation with just thanking some people at the state level who have been really extraordinary in responding to this crisis.

The governor's office staff have been, you know, working around the clock to get funds and to get a handle on this crisis.

And as I'm sure everyone has seen, the governor himself, you know, I feel very grateful for all the work that they're doing.

Also, lands commissioner Hillary friends has been offering help to the city in any way that she can is, you know, trying to avail us to resources that she has access to and has been incredibly helpful and really just stepping up in a way that is amazing.

The Department of Commerce as well has also just stood up a way to get grants out that are very flexible to counties around the state.

And they had that ready in just a couple of days.

The staff has just been incredible.

And, you know, I think recognizing that this is a crisis and that we as local governments really need flexibility.

So just want to appreciate them and relate to you all that they're certainly working on behalf of our city and our city's residents as quickly as they can.

As Lily said, we assume that there will be a special session at some point.

We don't know when.

We're thinking maybe it will be in June after the next revenue projections come in.

The governor did briefly address that.

He was asked to press a question by the press at the press conference that was held on the extension of the stay home, stay healthy order.

And he said that, you know, he's been in conversations with legislative leadership and that they will call a session if they need to.

And they've actually figured out a way to vote without being too close to one another as well.

So I think that was sort of an indication that he believed there would be one as well.

Speaking of the governor, he vetoed quite a big number of line items in the budget on Friday in an effort to try to address new programs and kind of stick to the basics as much as he could to try to, you know, circumvent what is of course going to be some serious budget shortfalls that everyone assumes will be coming in the near future.

He vetoed 147 new expenditure items in total over three years that resulted in $445 million in cuts, $235 million in fiscal year 2020, and then $210 million from the next biennium.

Some of the things that fell to this, I will get you a more thorough list.

It was Friday afternoon we did these vetoes.

We haven't gotten a chance to analyze everything in detail, but I will certainly give you a list of the items as they impact the city.

One large item was that there was a $50 million for the climate resiliency account that was cut, $100 million for new school counselors, postpartum Medicaid coverage was also cut.

That was enacted in Senate Bill 6158. It is true, though, that no one during the COVID-19 crisis will be terminated from Medicaid, but they will be terminated at the end.

And we got some initial information from some of our contract lobbyists indicating that they didn't think that the health care authority would end up pursuing extending that 60-day Medicaid coverage right now, given the lay of the land with the budgets.

The fruit and veggie benefit was also impacted.

There was a Pacific Science Center maker and innovation lab that got cut There was an incentive for affordable housing to allow an exemption from real estate excise tax if you're going to sell a building and keep it as affordable housing.

That was vetoed because it had a budget impact.

And unfortunately, the C-PACER bill, House Bill 2405, also the funding to eliminate that, the funding was eliminated for that program as well, although counties still could enact a C-PACER program if they wanted to.

I wasn't going to talk a lot about House Bill 2965 because that was covered extensively in the memo that we sent to you.

That is the bill that was passed in the last hours of the legislative session to give $200 million.

to address the COVID crisis and that we have seen some of that money be released already that I'll talk about a little bit later.

I did want to talk about unemployment insurance because I know that a number of you have concerns about the state implementation of that.

So I think, you know, one of the impacts that we're seeing is that there's just an unprecedented amount of claims, you know, in a very different way than the Great Recession, because it's all happened in a matter of weeks.

There have been 350,000 new claims in the month of March, and just the week of March 22nd, there were 182,000 claims.

So obviously, the Employment Security Department is struggling to respond to that.

That 182,000 number is seven times the peak week during the Great Recession and 41% over the week before.

So just giving you an idea of the scale that they really are.

you know, dealing with something that is unprecedented.

They are working on expanding capacity.

They are hiring additional workers to process claims.

They're reassigning other state workers.

Microsoft also stepped in to add capacity to the Employment Security Department website so that it wouldn't crash.

So that was rather extraordinary of them to do that.

And they have, employment security has said that it's going to take them about three weeks or at least I think two weeks from now for the $600 extra benefit to be implemented and also to figure out how they process gig worker and contract worker claims more easily.

Let's see.

Okay, so there's also some work being done with some of the unions and other unemployment insurance advocates on seeing if there isn't something that can be done at the state level around immigrant and refugee benefits since they were left out of the federal legislation.

And there may also be some opportunities for advocacy to make sure that the gig worker coverage is as broad as possible.

I think, you know, there's a very good webpage that I think you can direct constituents to with COVID-19 that I provided a link to in the brief.

You could also direct people to the Unemployment Law Project, and they may be able to help.

But just, you know, also flagging that, of course, they are also inundated with people needing assistance.

I think that the place that they can be really helpful is if people don't have a phone call in with benefits or if they don't have a computer, or if it's a gig worker who has been denied.

I think that's the place where they can step in to be helpful right now.

Sorry.

Yes.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but just two things.

One is on the unemployment issues.

I know that the Unemployment Law Project has sort of been the place we've been sending most people to.

And as you alluded to, there are they're probably beyond their capacity.

There's also a really good website called www.washingtonlawhelp.org that is quite good in terms of easily digestible FAQ styled information for for folks who want to just get a better understanding of what their rights and responsibilities are for unemployment insurance.

So I wanted to put that out there as a resource as well.

Oh, that's great.

Thank you very much.

I didn't know about that.

I will start telling people about that.

Just a couple of additional things I wanted to touch on quickly.

As I mentioned, the Department of Commerce has gotten this emergency housing grant out on the street.

They made $30 million available to counties around the state.

20 million of that came from shelter enhancement money that was included in the regular state operating budget.

And then another 10 million was out of the money that came through House Bill 2965 through the rainy day funds.

They hope that they will be able to get that $20 million reimbursed possibly through FEMA or other means so that they will be able to still have that $20 million available for shelter enhancement, but they really just wanted to get resources on the street as quickly as they could.

That money can be used very broadly for COVID response, for quarantine, isolation, sanitation, pretty much any shelter or housing related need that you can think of.

King County is receiving $10.7 million through that fund, and the city did coordinate with King County on that ask, so we do expect that some of the resources will benefit the city of Seattle.

I did want to just touch on foreclosure and mortgage forbearance.

Leslie talked a little bit about the federally backed loans, but of course there are some people whose loans are not backed that way.

The governor has strongly encouraged banks to offer forbearance and halt foreclosures, but I also understand that there's work being done to consider negotiating with banks to come up with a package of items that could be offered to people so that each bank would be offering the same things.

I think that makes it a little bit easier for people to know what they might get or might be able to ask for.

And, you know, it gives advocates a little more to hold with helping people.

California has done something similar to that.

So we're hopeful and are working on that to encourage that to happen.

And then finally, you know, there's also a statewide eviction moratorium.

Obviously, the cities of Seattle goes for longer and covers more things, covers late fees.

There's some ongoing advocacy to get the state moratorium to also cover those late fees and then to also extend it.

And, you know, what I'm hearing from housing advocates is that they do expect that to happen.

There's also a statewide conversation around rental assistance.

I know that you have identified that as a need, and the Office of Housing recognizes that as well.

I think we'll have some announcements in the coming days, but we all recognize that that's another area that we'll need to address in the near future.

And that's all I had, and I would be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Robin.

Any questions or comments from my colleagues?

Council President, this is Council Member Juarez.

I have a question.

Please, Council Member Juarez, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

First of all, Robin, thank you so much for drilling down on the state piece and the governor's response in the Rainy Day Fund.

On page 23 of your PowerPoint, and then you spoke to this a little bit, on the foreclosure and postponement of mortgage forbearance that we are looking at efforts to negotiate with banks, et cetera, what would those conversations look like and how can we help locally, because as you know, the state regulates the relationship with banks via federal law.

So how does the City of Seattle, Seattle City Council, work or enter this conversation kind of like boots on the ground?

How do we get this done?

That has been the issue that we've heard, not just with, well, with renters, with mortgage, with small businesses, Can you give us a little bit more information or maybe timing on how we can be helpful?

Thank you.

Sure.

So I think Lily and I are going to have a convert.

We're planning to try to have a conversation with governor's staff later today.

So I would like to check in to just see where they are, you know, with figuring this out.

And then we could certainly get back to you on where you could be the most helpful to advocate for something like this.

You're correct, you know, it's a little difficult for a state approach, and I think California went pretty much as far as they could.

You know, it is voluntary on the bank's part since they're mostly federally regulated.

But at least having, you know, a number of banks doing the same thing I think is just very helpful to consumers.

So we'll get back to you on that, Council Member Jorges.

Council President, may I follow up?

Yes, you may.

Thank you.

So if you're going to have these conversations, thank you, Lily, as well.

We want to make sure that we reward and encourage and post wide, far and wide those banks that are working with small businesses, renters, mortgage holders.

So we can list.

This is your bank.

This bank is working with the city of Seattle and the residents or the King County in looking at foreclosure, postponement of mortgage and forbearance.

So I'm hoping what we can see out of this is at the end of the week that we can put out to our constituents.

These are the banks that are participating and talking to the city of Seattle to help small businesses, renters, mortgage holders, et cetera.

Do you think that that's a reality?

Yes, I do.

I think that would be great.

And California did that in a nice way.

They have a listing of all of the things that the banks have agreed to on their website, very clearly listed.

And then they have another page where they show all of the financial institutions that are participating, broken down by major institutions, state chartered banks, and then credit unions, et cetera.

And so that's a great way for people to see visually who's being supportive.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments for Robin or the rest of the OIR team?

Okay, looks like we have exhausted the questions and that concludes this part of the agenda.

So once again, thanks to our team over at OIR for quickly pulling together this presentation and for being willing to be with us this morning to give us this really helpful information.

So, Lily, anything else you want to add before we let you all go?

No, just that we will continue to work through the list of questions that we receive from you all and may direct some of those specifics to various departments.

But we really appreciate your time today and look forward to briefing you again soon as things start to gear up for the special session and the fourth package moving through Congress.

Thank you, Lily.

Thank you all for being with us.

You're welcome to to disconnect at this point.

I'm sure you are eager to do so.

Thank you so much.

Bye, everybody.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Okay, so we're going to go ahead and move quickly into the preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

So I will go ahead and call each council member by district number starting with district one and then ending with the two city at large positions eight and nine.

So just wanted to go ahead and kick that off.

So we will go ahead and begin with District 1, which is Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

There are no items on today's full council agenda related to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

As far as activities that I've participated in in the last week, on Wednesday evening, I did a virtual meeting with the District 1 Community Network where we talked about the council's actions during the COVID-19 response over the last four weeks.

and I spent some time going through my committee assignments and work plan.

Last week we also had our first client group meeting with SDOT around the West Seattle Bridge.

Over the weekend, Some additional work was done to the alternative route coming up off of the First Avenue Bridge and up through Highland Park.

Two weeks ago, they installed the traffic signal for vehicles.

And over this weekend, they added the pedestrian signals.

And so that's very welcome.

Also, just want to mention that as it relates to trying to work to get a handle on the federal relief efforts of Congress, as Council President as Gonzalez mentioned earlier.

Some of us participated in a briefing with Congress people, Pramila Jayapal and Adam Smith last week.

And then on Sunday, I, and I believe at least Council Member Morales, perhaps some other council members, participated in a phone call with Local Progress, the national organization local officials to talk about our actions specifically related to housing and homelessness in the light of the COVID-19 crisis and comparing victories and work yet to be done.

I also want to make note, as I think we all know, last week we received the unfortunate news that the state Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Appeals ruling for the tax on high incomes.

Our legislation was a tax that on incomes of $250,000 for a single filer of a tax of 2.25% or $500,000 for couples.

The ruling does leave the lower court ruling intact.

And I know that the executive as well as our own council central staff are looking to determine what the intact lower court ruling might mean for us here in Seattle.

as far as options that we might want to pursue.

And then lastly, I just want to announce that an organization near and dear to my heart, which I used to be a board member for, Neighborhood House, will be doing their 114th anniversary event this Wednesday morning, and they're doing it virtually.

And I hope you all can join me in attending.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold for that report.

Any questions or comments for Councilmember Herbold?

Okay, hearing and seeing none, we'll go ahead and move to District 2, Councilmember Morales.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

The Community Economic Development Committee has no agenda items today.

I do want to thank everybody again for your support last week, last Monday, in passing the resolution that calls on Governor Inslee to impose a rent and mortgage moratorium and calls on the federal delegation.

Since then, I participated in a national press conference with other elected officials from across the country who are trying to do similar things in their municipalities.

including elected officials from San Francisco, LA, Atlanta, New York.

And it was just, it was good to know that there are so many folks across the country who understand that this crisis really requires us to think big about how we want to protect our constituents.

We, let's see, I think that's it for this afternoon.

Well, Council Member Sawant and I, Also had a press conference this week about our progressive revenue bill, and we will be discussing that this afternoon.

Proud to be hosting the field hospital that we talked about earlier in my district.

Medical staff from Fort Collins, Colorado, and from JBLM have established a 270-bed facility at CenturyLink.

Several colleagues did a tour that last week.

The facility is for non-COVID patients to try to ease some of the burden on our local hospitals.

And I want to thank the medical team there and all of the staff who are helping operate that facility.

On Friday, we had our first virtual town hall.

So I want to send a huge thank you to the comms team, to the IT team, and for my own staff for pulling it off.

we helped clarify some of the COVID-19 responses from the local level but also included some of the information that we've been receiving about the state response and the federal response and really just tried to answer questions from district to constituents who are looking for information about what all of these different responses mean and we will continue to do that over the next few weeks having these virtual town halls as long as we are in the position of having to do it that way.

And then we also restarted our constituent meetings.

We meet every Friday, had been meeting in person with folks, but we're now doing that via Skype.

And we will continue to do that every week as well during the civil emergency.

I believe that is all I have for this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any questions or comments for Council Member Morales?

Okay, seeing and hearing none, we'll go ahead and move to District 3. Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Good morning, everyone.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

And last Friday, my office forwarded to all Council Members the legislation that Council Member Morales and I are sponsoring.

to tax Amazon and other big businesses to provide emergency COVID-19 relief to working class Seattleites immediately and to fund public jobs program, building affordable housing and for a Green New Deal in subsequent years.

Council Member Morales just mentioned we had a press conference We had community members speaking at the press conference, including Violet Levati, the executive director of the Tenant Union of Washington State.

And we also had Matt Smith, who is an Amazon cargo handler at the Kent station, Kent delivery station of Amazon.

At today's City Council meeting, as Council Member Morales mentioned, I will be moving to amend the introduction and referral calendar of the City Council to introduce the bills relevant to the tax Amazon legislation and to refer them to the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, which I chair and Council Member Morales vice chairs.

In this coronavirus emergency, We, I think we all agree elected officials have a duty to act immediately to support desperate needs of working class people created by the crisis, but that involves moving concrete and bold legislation like this one, because our working people and community members need action, not words.

And so this legislation will fund basic life support in this year, 2020. And in 2021 and subsequent years, it will fund a massive expansion of permanently affordable rent control, social housing and major investments in our Green New Deal program.

This work, which would end up creating thousands of jobs as well, which is what workers will need desperately when They get through the worst of the pandemic itself, but then we are going to be left with a deep recession, which comes with massive unemployment.

And we're already seeing the incredible consequences in just a few weeks.

And as far as this year's funding is concerned, it would be $200 million for immediate cash assistance for up to 100,000 households that are low income and impacted by this crisis.

This legislation was produced by our offices in collaboration with the grassroots tax Amazon movement, which has been fighting on this front for over three years now.

Hundreds of people have participated in rallies and action conferences.

This was before social distancing, but they've had the opportunity to vote on the substance of the proposal.

And last Thursday, my office held a virtual town hall to talk about this legislation and to hear from workers in different industries.

including healthcare about their needs in this emergency.

Between Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch live streams, over 300 people joined us for that town hall on Thursday evening, and we will be using similar technology to host a watch party for today's city council meeting so that activists and organizers and working people at home who want to be part of the movement can see the council vote on the introduction of the tax Amazon legislation.

I know many people care deeply about this issue.

In the last week or so, And this is something that my staff member Jonathan Rosenblum has emailed to you all.

5,450 community members signed the petition urging the swift passage of this legislation.

Since then, that number has gone up to 5,482 the last time I checked this morning.

And as I said, I've sent the petition with signatures and comments to all council members and your staff members.

I would really urge you all to read at least some of the 370 pages of comments.

Many of the comments are from your constituents in your districts.

And so I really hope that you get a chance to see what your constituents are saying about why they think this tax is important.

And also in the last few days, 1,120 people have emailed the council to urge council members to rapidly introduce this legislation, refer it to the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, and pass it into law.

I hope council members will support this from community members.

In addition, we just this morning got a solidarity video from Jordan Flowers, who's one of the leaders of the Courageous Walkout Action.

by the workers of the GFK8 warehouse of Amazon on Staten Island in New York.

You can see that video on my council office Twitter.

The workers who are fighting for clean conditions and for hazard pay and for paid sick leave at the Amazon warehouses in New York are supporting our Amazon tax.

And I will say other points about the details of the legislation for our council meeting in the afternoon.

But I just wanted to join Council Member Herbold in commenting on the tax-rich legislation.

As was mentioned last week, the Washington State Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of the tax-rich legislation that Councilmember Herbold and I had sponsored and passed in 2017. This is extremely disappointing because if the state Supreme Court had agreed to review the legislation and had ruled in the city's favor, this legislation would have generated over $100 million a year by a tax that only applied to incomes of people making more than $250,000.

for a year, but this also shows that the establishment and institutions under capitalism are preoccupied with the interests of the wealthy, not the needs of working people, even during this pandemic.

Because the Supreme Court refused to review this legislation, the terrible 1935 Supreme Court decision that income is considered the same as property, and that means that it cannot be progressively focused on taxing rich people instead of workers.

I really think the council should urgently look into any option for exempting working class people under the current legal framework, as has been recommended by the Transit Riders Union and other activist organizations, and if possible, renew the tax the rich legislation on that basis to raise money progressively.

However, we should also be clear that the other impact of the Supreme Court refusing to review this legislation is the other property tax restrictions also apply, which means that it is extremely limited.

And I want to be absolutely clear that the – whatever avenues exist through that cannot be a substitute for the Amazon tax, which is a clearly progressive legislation that will only tax the largest corporations, not workers, not for ordinary homeowners, not small businesses.

And lastly, but not least, I wanted to end with a message that I'm hearing from health care workers throughout the region on the front lines of COVID-19.

I've heard from, importantly, from a nurse named Emily Barnes, who is a member of the Washington State Nurses Association and has spoken at our town halls.

And she is an ICU COVID-19 nurse.

And as she and her colleagues are saying, early mitigation via social distancing is having a good impact in Washington state.

But ironically, that is precisely why we will start seeing corporations and also some of the corporate politicians starting to say that workers need to go back to work because it is working.

But that is exactly the wrong thing that we'd be doing.

So that's why I wanted to also commend Boeing Mechanics who spoke out.

on Boeing's potentially disastrous decision that they should go back to work on Wednesday.

Luckily, that has been rescinded because of public pressure and the potential of a public outrage.

But we will see that kind of push from corporations.

We will start seeing that increasingly.

So I just wanted to make sure that we as a city council play a role in making sure that the mitigation continues via social distancing for months from now, actually, according to what the health care workers are saying.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Are there any questions or comments for Council Member Sawant?

Okay, hearing none, I just wanted to quickly respond.

I'll sort of speak more to this this afternoon, but I just want to make sure that my colleagues and the public understand that I'm not going to support Council Member Sawant's motion to refer this revenue bill to her own committee, which is the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

I am in favor of adding this revenue legislation to the interest and referral calendar, but as Council President, I believe that it would be appropriate to refer this legislation to either the Select Budget Committee or the Finance and Housing Committee.

So I have, you know, had an opportunity to directly communicate with Council Member Salon about my decision, my desire to want to see this go to either of those two committees with a preference for the select budget committee.

So I think that I just wanted to take a quick moment to communicate with all of you in council briefing today what I've communicated in terms of my rationale for doing so.

Again, as I mentioned in March, I directly communicated with Councilmember Sawant that if the legislation went through the ordinary introduction and referral process, then I would I choose to refer her and Council Member Morales' revenue legislation to the Select Budget Committee, which is chaired by Council Member Teresa Mosqueda.

That direct communication included my rationale for that referral.

And again, I'd like to share that just really quickly with each of you now.

First, I indicated to Council Member Sawant that if provided the opportunity, I would refer this legislation to the Select Budget Committee rather than the Finance and Housing Committee since she is not a member of the Finance and Housing Committee, and Council Member Morales is only an alternate to that committee.

In contrast, the Select Budget Committee includes all nine council members, and the Budget Committee is approved to hear all legislation pertaining to revenue generation and the city's budget.

It is typical for sponsors of committees to have their legislation referred to a committee that is not chaired by him or her.

For example, when I worked together with Councilmembers Herbold, O'Brien, and Mosqueda to co-sponsor the Progressive Tax on Business in 2018, that legislation was referred to a committee chaired by Councilmember Bagshaw.

Second, this proposed legislation is significant and merits an all-hands-on-deck approach.

The Select Budget Committee, which includes all of us, serves an important structural purpose.

Again, recalling our work on the 2018 Progressive Tax on Business, I learned firsthand how important it was to have on deck the best thinking of all nine council members.

I believe that is true now as well, if not more so, considering that we are projected to have at least a $200 million deficit in this year's budget process.

So I hope that we can work together as a full council on making sure that we get the best thinking on this legislation.

Third, although the currently proposed spending plan includes a lot of different aspects of council's programmatic priorities, this legislation is at its core a revenue bill that I believe is appropriately considered in the select budget committee and in a committee that is responsible for city finances.

And as I mentioned earlier, City Council did previously unanimously approve our committee structure in early January, including appointing Council Member Mosqueda, who is the chair of the Finance and Housing Committee and the Select Budget Committee to be responsible for the city's finances, including revenue legislation.

So this is why I believe it would be most appropriate to refer it to the Select Budget Committee.

I don't think it's appropriate to undercut Council Member Mosqueda's critical role as our budget chair.

in this critical period of time.

And in my conversations with Budget Chair Mosqueda, and I'm not going to endeavor to speak for her, but I'm confident that she is prepared to work with Councilmember Sawant and Morales to establish a work program that gives this legislation and any other revenue legislation do consideration, and I hope that my colleagues will work together with her to make sure that we are facilitating an important policy discussion on such a serious piece of legislation.

And I know that I, like many of you, remain as committed as ever to make sure that we are finding progressive revenue solutions, particularly on the heels of the ruling from the Supreme Court on Council Member Herbold's legislation related to the progressive income tax.

So I want to, again, urge my colleagues to join me this afternoon in supporting a motion that both adds this legislation to the introduction and referral calendar and refers the legislation to the Select Budget Committee.

Council Member Salon.

Thank you, and I appreciate your comments to clarify your position on it.

I just wanted to clarify my position.

First of all, I don't agree that my request to be able to chair my own legislation is in any way undercutting any council member, least of all council member Mosqueda.

As I said in my letter to you, which I have not, in my second letter to you, which I have not had a response to yet, which is, and I look forward to response even now, is that if council members agree with me that the coronavirus crisis is a huge crisis and we should be acting boldly and courageously to alleviate this crisis, then I can't imagine why the council would not wholeheartedly support this legislation and also On that note, wholeheartedly agree that I can share the legislation in my own committee.

I also offer, just to clarify, I've also offered to Council President Gonzalez that we create a select committee, and I'm happy to chair or co-chair that committee.

I agree with you that all council members should be weighing in.

So I think there are avenues where we can do this.

And I think that precisely because there is a deficit because of tax revenues going up, that we need to tax those entities that have the money, which is big business.

So I'm not clear why the deficit is a reason that we should be doing what you're suggesting, which is actually going to undercut the movement.

I mean, if we really support the movement that has been fighting for this, then I believe that it should be a committee that is chaired by me and Council Member Morales or a select committee that is chaired by me and I'm happy to co-chair it with Council Member Mosqueda.

I really believe the only entity that is being undercut in all this is the movement itself.

And I also want to do, a note that in my letter to council member council president gonzalez i have uh presented evidence to disagree with the points that uh that the the the legislation that is under question should be discussed always and is always discussed by um the committee that is relevant to it.

That's not true actually.

Council President Gonzalez herself created a select committee just for one legislation.

Just recently before we went on stay-at-home work, Council Member Mosqueda chaired a legislation that actually belonged in my committee, Renter's Rights Committee, but it was a legislation she had sponsored, so I never objected to that.

But I think it should be totally okay for council members who sponsored it and who care about the legislation to be able to chair it.

I don't see an objection to that.

And I've also not made a practice of bringing these issues to this degree.

For example, my tiny house bill was discussed in the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments, which is chaired by Councilmember Lewis.

But I did not really object to that that much because we were clear that our movement was at a point where we had built enough enormous pressure on the council to win that legislation.

But this is very different.

This is a major legislation.

We are already seeing pushback from the Chamber of Commerce.

We've seen a screed written this morning by the Seattle Times editorial board.

I really don't know how to interpret the fact that this legislation, the council president insists on referring this legislation to a committee over the objection of the legislation sponsor.

And I will make these points at the city council meeting as well.

And I really urge that council members allow the movement to have a voice in this process.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant.

I mean, I know we're going to debate this this afternoon.

I don't want to belabor the point now, so I think I've made my rationale and my points as clearly as I can and happy to expand on them this afternoon in terms of how I hope today will turn out, which is adding the significant piece of legislation to the introduction referral calendar, but referring the legislation to the Select Budget Committee.

So I'll speak more to that this afternoon, but don't think we need to add any more currently to the discussion.

So other, at least I don't feel like I need to add any more.

Are there any of my colleagues who would like to speak to this issue now?

Council Member Herbold.

I just want to underscore one point that you made, Council President Gonzalez.

The employee hours tax legislation that I and several other council members sponsored a couple years ago now, went through the committee chaired by Councilmember Bagshaw, who was not a sponsor of the bill, and that was the Finance Committee.

previous to that in 2017, the state, the city high earners income tax sponsored by myself and council member Sawant went through The then Finance Committee, chaired by Council Member Burgess, also at the time not a sponsor of the legislation.

Council Members want to make the distinction that this is major legislation and so that it should have a different approach because it's major legislation.

I consider both of those bills that I just referenced major legislation.

And I think they were appropriately heard in the committee that our council rules established for processing legislation that is associated with the committee work plan that we establish by our council rules at the beginning of every year.

If we are going to have some new set of rules for certain types of legislation sponsored by council members who may not chair the committee, I think we need to take that up.

in deliberation around the rules, not on a sort of a one-off basis.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilor Solano?

I just want to clarify that this is not some one-off basis that any council rules are being upended.

As I said, there are concrete examples where legislation have been considered in committees that are not routinely responsible for those topics, and those examples are existing.

And I think that this is one of those cases where even though the budget committee might have a purview on this, and I don't dispute that.

I think the whole point about this legislation is that it is of such tremendous importance that it touches various sectors.

I think I could make equally powerful arguments about how this legislation belongs in the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

I think all of those arguments would be legitimate.

But ultimately, again, I wanted to clarify my insistence that this be heard in a committee chaired by me is not based on those kinds of details about which committee discusses what topic, but more that I think for the movement to have a real voice, I simply fail to understand why, if the council supports this major legislation, and if you all are in agreement, as you all say repeatedly that you're in agreement that we need to do this, then I don't understand why there would be an objection.

As I said, I've also offered that we can do a select committee, which would incorporate all nine council members, and that I'm happy to co-chair, not just chair it exclusively.

And also, I just wanted to clarify, you know, there was a reason why the Chamber of Commerce did not come in with every force possible against the tax deduced legislation that Council Member Herbold and I had co-sponsored and that the Trump Proof Seattle coalition, grassroots coalition had fought for, because they knew that the legislation would get stuck in the Supreme Court and they did not face an immediate crisis.

I promise you, if the courts had cleared the way for it, then there will be an, you know, the Chamber of Commerce would land like a ton of bricks against this and start spreading misinformation and lies about how this was going to be a bad idea.

The reason we're going to see a different situation here, just as we saw during the tax Amazon discussions in 2018, which many of you then ended up repealing, unfortunately, is that what we are proposing is completely legal.

And if council passed it, it would go into effect immediately.

And that is why big business, the wealthy, the Chamber of Commerce, the Seattle Times editorial board, they are already gearing up for a major fight.

And so I don't believe that this can be won without the voice of the movement.

And that is the argument that I'm making.

And I'll be, of course, reiterating this during the city council meeting this afternoon.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Salant.

Any other comments or questions about that before we move along?

Okay.

Hearing and seeing none, we'll go ahead to District 4, Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, colleagues.

Is it still morning?

Good morning.

I hope everyone's staying healthy and safe.

I really want to thank the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for the briefing on the $2 trillion federal economic stimulus and financial relief package enacted by the federal government.

It's good to hear that there's going to be a fourth package on its way.

Very interested in the unemployment insurance payments for forgivable loans to small business, and the $340 billion to local government.

As we know, the federal government, with its national tax base and unique legal authority to spend money without balancing their budget, will be a key to surviving another economic downturn.

Transportation and Utilities Committee.

On this afternoon's full City Council agenda, there are no items from our Transportation and Utilities Committee.

Regarding bridges and the West Seattle Bridge, I want to thank Council President Gonzalez for enabling us to hear that update last week at Council briefing from Seattle Department of Transportation regarding the West Seattle Bridge and Council Member Herbold's leadership and tenacity on behalf of our constituents We are in frequent contact with SDOT on the West Seattle Bridge and we hope to schedule a return visit to the council by SDOT toward the end of this month, which is when they expect to complete their assessment and have more of a plan in place.

Free parking, as you know, there was an announcement to allow free parking during the COVID crisis.

And with the need for social distancing and reduced transit services during this public health emergency, I support the mayor and SDOT's efforts to allow free parking on public streets so that frontline and essential workers can be where they need to be to assist Seattle during these trying times.

This Friday, also, the City Auditor released an audit of Seattle City Light.

This performance audit was initiated by Council Member Theresa Mosqueda, and it's found on the City Auditor's website.

It's also on my blog and at Council Connections.

And this was done to investigate and try to resolve problems with extremely high bills that customers throughout Seattle suddenly received from Seattle City Light.

when they were implementing major changes to its meter and billing systems.

Council Member Mosqueda, if you'd like to speak to this as well now, feel free.

Mr. President, is that okay if I speak to this now?

Yes.

Okay.

Council Member Peterson, thank you so much for the offer to jump in.

I want to thank you for your leadership and the partnership that we've had in working on this rollout of the audit from the auditor's office on Seattle City Light.

You know, this is an important effort that I think underscores the reason that we have an oversight body that is independent from the executive's office.

In 2018, early in the year, right after I was elected, in response to a large number of calls and emails that I got from City Light customers who were reporting large, unexpected bills and difficulty with getting clear answers from the utilities customer service department, we requested an audit of Seattle City Lights customer care and billing system.

And a number of people who wrote in expressed concerns with getting bills that were $100 or $200 more than expected.

Some were getting calls about $1,000 more than expected.

And this was a real problem that we wanted the auditor to inquire about.

So this report is in response to the audit request that we submitted in 2018. The report on Friday really talks about the investigation and the 17 recommendations that they came up with to decrease the number of unexpected high bills received by customers, to make sure that there was improved handling of customer complaints, to make sure that it was clear and easy to understand for customers.

I know I saw one example of an explanation that was about a six-page email So making sure that that's really digestible for consumers is important.

And making greater use of technology to help customers manage their payment and energy use.

We are also excited to see that there's lessons already being applied in City Light's temporary plan to create an escalation team so that they're handling any of those calls that are coming in and make it easier for customers to set up that payment arrangement.

So some of that work was put into place late last year and under the leadership of Councilmember Peterson, we're really excited to see how those pilot projects, I'll call them, are going into effect and can help reduce both the high number of large unexpected bills and the high anxiety that those are creating.

The report found that City Light's new billing system and advanced meeting resulted in customers receiving unexpected large bills and inaccurate estimates and delayed billing.

It also found that when customers sought to resolve these issues, customers were confused in the response that they received and found it difficult and inconsistent to navigate those.

So some of that information has been changed, I think, in light of this report coming forward, and some of it will also go into effect soon.

I really want to thank Seattle City Light for proactively updating their billing and communications practices.

Some of these efforts, again, went into place basically last October or September, and I think with the audit now in hand, we're gonna be able to see some of these policies really be firmed up with Councilmember Peterson's leadership, such as making sure that no customers are receiving shut-off notices.

That was something that we were committed to prior to COVID-19 being present in our community.

Now also, the mailed notices of unpaid bills first and foremost provide information on how to get help with paying their bills so that we're not instilling fear in customers when they see a shutoff notice coming in.

And the customer advocacy team that has been stood up at City Light really helps make sure that all folks are getting into the utility discount program that I know Council Member Herbold has had a large role in expanding and overseeing in her tenure on council as well.

Lastly, suspending the shutoffs and waiving late fees for customers who make payments towards their balance for at least six months the really important concept that we know other jurisdictions have taken into play.

And especially as COVID-19 is present in our community and there's a real unknown about whether or not people are going to get their jobs back and how much income assistance they're going to be able to get, it's really important.

So thanks to Debra Smith, the CEO from Seattle City Light for her collaboration and the City Light audit team at the auditor's office.

and Mr. Jones for their work.

They've been tremendous, and I think there's a lot more questions that I know Council Member Peterson is looking forward to asking along with me at his committee when we resume committees soon.

But just a huge thank you to the audit team for digging into these details.

When we started to get those calls, it was clear that there was a pattern, and I think that their report really provides a blueprint for how we can continue to address a large unexpected bill.

So thank you, Council Member Peterson, for letting me jump in.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, and we'll go ahead and hop back to Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

So regarding to working remotely, holding our virtual office hours, we had our afternoon, had calls with several constituents.

So please sign up on my website, and that's seattle.gov forward slash council.

You can find all the council members there.

And regarding regional committee activity, last week I participated in two regional transportation meetings.

the Seattle Shoreline Transportation Forum, and the King County Transportation Policy Board.

Along with leaders throughout the region, we collaborated to submit proposals to the Regional Transportation Grant Competition, which will ultimately be decided by Puget Sound Regional Council.

I was proud to stand with Council President Gonzalez to represent Seattle and support the research and recommendations of our Seattle Department of Transportation.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Final note for me regarding full council items, just wanted to put out there flagging concern or request as our teams of analysts work remotely and we're trying to avoid overworking them as they focus their energies on the coronavirus legislation.

That's truly an emergency.

I'd like to ask that we be given, try to be given at least a couple of weeks to review the necessary routine legislation that's unrelated to coronavirus.

As we know, legislation would normally be vetted by a subject matter committee where issues are identified, questions answered, amendments drafted.

So having that extra time between introduction to the full council of at least two weeks would be really helpful.

So I'm just putting that out there as an idea.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

We'll go ahead and make sure to follow up with you on that request of having a little bit more breathing room to digest and take a look at legislation that appears on the introduction and referral calendar.

Ideally, if we do this well, routine and necessary legislation isn't particularly controversial, but I can appreciate that sometimes some issues that are non-COVID related will pop up that might send up a flag.

So let's stay in communication around how we can best facilitate a quality review of things that appear on the introduction and referral calendar so that As we are working remotely, folks don't feel like they're being jammed in terms of making a quick decision on legislation that they're seeing for the first time.

So we'll make sure to follow up with you.

Council Member Herbold.

to track um the request from council member peterson in light of um the expectation out of the governor's office about what we are hearing during this crisis i was under the impression that we aren't supposed to be hearing um non-related legislation um am i is am i Overstating that, are we allowed to hear necessary and non-controversial legislation?

So there's two aspects to the governor's proclamation related to how we comply with the Open Public Meetings Act during a period of time where he has ordered, where he's prohibited the public from gathering, including at public venues like ours for purposes of giving public comment.

So there's again, two aspects.

The first aspect is that there's an exception for any legislation related to the COVID-19 emergency response.

So if the legislation is related to that, then we can take action on that legislation either through committee work or through a final full council vote.

That's the first piece.

The second exception to the governor's proclamation is if it's necessary and routine to the city's business.

That's a little vague and ambiguous, frankly, and we are working closely with the law department in evaluating all pieces of legislation that come through to get an opinion from them as to whether or not the proposed legislation for the introduction referral calendar falls into either of those two categories, but in particular the routine and necessary business.

So it is unfortunately a case-by-case analysis and evaluation.

It is part of the reason why last week I asked each council member to be conscientious of getting us legislation to the council president's office by Wednesday, no later than Wednesday, so that we have at least 48 hours to engage the clerk's office and to engage the city attorney's office in evaluating whether or not the proposed legislation would run afoul of the governor's proclamation.

So there are some limited exceptions to that governor's proclamation.

And we, unfortunately, in spite of our best effort to get a sort of blanket analysis from our law department, have been told that the best they can do is do a case-by-case analysis based on each piece of legislation that comes to the council president's office.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions or comments related to Council Member Peterson's report?

Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and move to District 5, Council Member Juarez.

And Council Member Juarez, you are on mute, so if you're speaking, we cannot hear you.

Okay, I'm unmuted now.

Apparently, my phone doesn't work right with the Zoom on the mute or unmute, but it looks like the little voice just told me I was unmuted, even though my phone says so.

But anyway, so there are no items for the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee.

Let me just kind of go through some of the issues that we've been dealing with in regards to parks and other committee issues.

The status of park closures remain the same.

Scaled parks and recreation parks and programming are closed for, um, obviously for group activities, but they are sharing creative ways to stay active and indoors.

Scaled parks, Twitter feed has some great ideas.

So I encourage you to check them out.

Recently, they tweeted a great resource for seniors looking for ways to stay active.

Many seniors would have otherwise participated in one of our programs, the rainbow recreation program operated in community centers.

Since the centers are closed, parks are referencing tons of online workouts that are free and require no, no or minimal equipment.

The Seattle parks and recreation department is partnering with higher capacity shelter providers to create more social distancing between individuals, which can help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Seattle parks and recreation staff have offered to work remotely at these community centers will be onsite.

to monitor use of the building, assess with administrative work, such as registration funds, program planning, et cetera, and serve as an onsite liaison for the partner agency.

A Seattle Park and Recreation custodian is assigned during the workday to do basic cleaning in other areas of the community center.

The Seattle Human Services Department is paying for a professional cleaning service to come in twice a day to clean the shelter space.

I want to thank Superintendent Jesus Agale.

He's been incredibly informative, focused, getting to me everything we need to know, what we need to do to keep these community centers open for our public.

You will find expansion spaces at the four community centers as such.

Number one is the Garfield Community Center.

It has 50 spaces.

It's operated by Catholic Community Services, the YWCA, and WEAL.

The second is the Miller Community Center with 50 spaces operated by Compass.

The third is Southwest Teen Life Community Center with 50 spaces operated by Parks and Rec.

And the last one is Loyal Heights Community Center, 50 spaces operated by Parks and Rec.

Before I slide into a quick D5 update, I want to thank Council Member Peterson for reading my notes last Monday.

Some of you also went, I had the privilege to tour the following safety precautions and proper social distancing, the CenturyLink Field Hospital with congressional and state representatives and the mayor.

I was just struck by how quickly and how amazing this group was in the Army's ability to build a 240 bed hospital in 72 hours.

It was wonderful to sit down and talk to the folks in the leadership from the joint base, Lewis and McCord, to find out how they set up these hospitals immediately and how they plan on not only having a triage, but a lab and nurses.

And I'm just grateful that it's there.

I had a chance to also speak with Patty Hayes, who's phenomenal, obviously.

And she walked us through what was going on at Shoreline.

how many beds there would be, and what other additional information she could give us regarding Seattle and King County.

Unfortunately, at the end of this week, we had some tragic news.

I'm saddened to report that we had another pedestrian hit and run in North Seattle.

Last Wednesday, the police arrested a 21-year-old driver after he fatally struck a pedestrian on Aurora.

The 70-year-old man was crossing Aurora Avenue near 125th Street.

The case is currently under investigation.

I want to thank Seattle SPD the chief and Captain Sano of the North Precinct, who not only responded to, I gave them a call, but they also talked to our staff about what was going on in that area.

And so we could offer that information to our constituents in our newsletter.

I want to add that few other items.

I'm sorry.

Let's see.

Okay.

So we've had discussions, and they've been really great ones, with United Way and Scale Foundation.

The funds were released last Monday, as you know.

And so we are working with concerns about some funding and some that were not funded up in the north end of food banks.

And I want to thank Gordon McHenry, who's been so responsive in getting back to us and working with our team and our staff to look at the second round of funding and fill in those gaps where certain communities were not funded.

So we continue to send out a almost daily newsletter to constituents, keeping them up to date on local, state, and federal issues to the best of our ability, particularly with the last CARES Act on the small business and how we're going to access the money through the banks for our small businesses, not just obviously in D-5, but citywide.

We continue to respond to phone calls and emails, and I continue to make personal phone calls with our local service providers and constituents regarding housing, small business, food banks, parks, you pretty much name it.

I want to thank Dean.

He gets me a list every morning of everybody I need to call, and I do that.

And on a personal note for the public, I want to thank my colleagues, because I know how hard all of you are working through our phone calls, our emails.

We're all working hard to address this lethal pandemic that has caused global chaos.

I don't think in my life, and I'm older than all of you, have ever seen anything like this.

And I actually was around when we were dealing with the HIV crisis.

It's sad that it takes a virus to bring us this close together.

It's very seldom that our civic priorities align completely with our moral priorities.

And I just want to thank my colleagues for all the thoughts and concerns and issues that when they call me up about how we take care of our city and our county and our state.

I don't think it's lost on anyone that we're up to in Washington State, almost 8,000 cases and over 338 deaths.

And I know that you all take that seriously.

And I just want to thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for that report.

Are there any questions or comments for Council Member Juarez?

Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to District 6. Council Member Strauss.

Good morning Council President and good morning colleagues.

This morning we do have items from the plan, the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee for introduction and referral to items one is a council bill 119769 which is emergency legislation I believe I've called each and every one of you about permitting during the COVID-19 crisis to ensure that housing projects can move forward.

This legislation extends the permit application timelines for the duration of the COVID emergency so that projects are not lost due to this stoppage.

It also allows projects that would have gone through design review board process requiring an in-person meeting to instead go through an administrative design review process, which can be conducted by SDCI staff.

One of the aspects of this is that there is one fewer opportunities for public engage public comment.

I've been assured that this can be done in a way that.

allows the public to be engaged in this process so that we won't lose that.

I intend to bring this to full council for vote next Monday on April 13th.

If you do have any questions about this legislation or amendments this week, please reach out to us by Wednesday on let either Noah, Ketel or myself know of any common questions or amendments that you would like to bring.

Happy to discuss this further with you on an individual basis as well.

And there's also file Council file 314447, which is an application for a contract rezone of a split zone site it's 7012 Roosevelt way northeast from low right question.

uh, from a low rise one to a neighborhood commercial to with a 55 ft height limit.

Uh, since this is a contract rezone, this item is now pending under Council's quasi judicial rules, and council members should avoid ex parte communication about the proposal beyond the covid response that we've been doing in our district.

I've been working engaging with farmers markets to ensure that they can open as quickly as possible and meet public health requirements.

We've been working with OED, OSE, HSD, the mayor's office, county, so many others to ensure that we retain the ability to have fresh food and produce at this time.

I've also been working since February quietly behind the scenes regarding what is occurring at Ballard Commons Park.

I've been working with city departments quietly, and as many of you have heard in this last week, there have been additional hepatitis a cases.

So last week, we convened a meeting with all departments department directors at who have oversight or jurisdiction within the Ballard Commons Park area.

And so we have identified what short-term, this week, solutions will be put in place and what long-term solutions need to be identified.

Thank you to Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Mosqueda for also raising your attention to the hepatitis A crisis currently occurring.

What I can tell you is that the navigation team will be out providing hygiene kits and outreach as well as public health will be out engaging with vaccines and additional outreach this week.

I think almost every day this week there will be folks on the ground addressing this.

I will be working with the mayor's office and different departments to identify what additional sanitization can be done, what additional bathroom facilities, what additional food and access to drinking water will be available this week.

Separately, on parking enforcement, thank you Councilmember Peterson and the mayor for closing the loopholes in the last executive order regarding parking enforcement.

My office was able to assist a resident retrieving their illegally towed vehicle.

and was able to get that vehicle back for that older gentleman who was taking our advice and not going outside, which is why his car had not been moved in 72 hours.

So thank you for everyone who has assisted in that.

Regarding, as some of you may know, some of my office's resources have been transitioned to assisting small businesses, navigating the different layers of resources that are coming down from federal, state, county, and city.

And so Peter in my office has helped over 40 businesses.

And we will continue to do that if you are a small business or know of a small business, whether it's district six or citywide, please don't hesitate to reach out to our office as we are assisting small business owners navigating these resources.

This week we will also be dedicating.

staffing resources to helping residents navigating the housing and human resources, resources that are available.

And so again, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, whether you're a resident of my district or others that are having difficulty navigating these different layers of resources.

Our office has been working hard for the residents of District 6 and citywide.

And we wanna thank all of our first responders, essential workers, and the people making the city tick.

I heard the garbage, the refuse, recycling, and yard waste being picked up today.

It's the small things like this that keep our city ticking.

Really wanna thank all of our public servants out there in the city today.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Any questions or comments for Council Member Strauss?

Okay, seeing and hearing none, we'll go ahead and move on to District 7, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

And can everybody hear me just to make sure before I get rolling, I see some nodding.

Very good.

A thumbs up from Council Member Strauss.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

There are no items on this afternoon from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

There will be a special meeting of the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments on Wednesday, April 8th, this Wednesday at 10 a.m.

That meeting will be done in our our temporary Zoom council chambers right here.

So look forward to seeing everybody here on Wednesday.

Just as a reminder, it is a committee of the whole of the entire council, so we need at least five of you present, and I hope to see everybody present.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the city's ongoing efforts that were touched on by Council Member Strauss in his report on standing up additional hygiene facilities to respond to the crisis, particularly for folks who are unsheltered.

It was one of the specific items that we enumerated in our resolution at the beginning of the crisis to stand up these additional hygiene facilities.

The city has been moving swiftly to secure mobile hygiene trailers, to provide showers, to provide sinks.

It'll be good to provide an update to the public and an update to council members on that work that is ongoing and that's coming along.

It is not specifically a meeting to talk about Ballard Commons Park.

I'm sure some of the themes around Ballard Commons Park will come up and be addressed in the committee meeting.

I want to join Councilmember Strauss in giving a shout out to his leadership on this.

You know, we know that hepatitis A is highly contagious.

You know, I think it's thanks to Council Member Strauss' work convening early with city departments, convening early with the NAV team, who through their outreach made the initial finding that there was hepatitis A present in the Ballard Commons Park to ensure a swift and fast response.

We know hepatitis A is extremely contagious, so I just wanted to say, Councilmember Strauss, that, you know, thanks to you, your work with the Ballard Improvement Area, your work with King County Public Health and with the NAP team, Undoubtedly, the spread of hepatitis A was not as bad as it could have been without a swift response.

And your office and your leadership deserve a lot of credit for that.

And I look forward to our ongoing efforts together as a council, working with the mayor and working with the NAB team and other city departments to continue our response to make sure that outbreaks of hepatitis A are identified quickly and contained quickly.

So thank you so much for that and I look forward to providing an opportunity for the entire council to hear updates from King County Public Health and from the executive on Wednesday to address this.

Moving on.

from the special committee meeting.

I did want to give a shout-out today to the Seattle Foundation and the Plate Fund.

I want to give a sub-shout-out, an additional shout-out, to Bethany Jean Clement on her great write-up in the Seattle Times of the Plate Fund today, which is a fund that has been set up by the Seattle Foundation to provide immediate relief payments to folks who have been laid off or experienced a reduction of hours due to the COVID-19 response in our restaurant service industry, which of course has been hit extremely hard by the crisis.

Just as a general public announcement, if you work in the industry, have experienced a layoff or a reduction of hours, and you make $62,000 or less a year, you're eligible right now for up to a $500 immediate payment through the Plate Fund of the Seattle Foundation.

That website is www.theplatefund.com, plate like a plate at a restaurant.

I also just want to give a shout out, too, to folks who are looking for philanthropic ways to help in this crisis through the Seattle Foundation, which has been doing great work at providing immediate philanthropic relief.

uh...

that uh...

you can go to the plate on dot com you can also donate to the plate on uh...

accounts as a donation to the seattle foundation i went there and donated this morning definitely encourage like-minded folks if you if you want to go and uh...

contribute immediately sin individual to a fund is providing direct relief to people on the front lines of experience in the front of this uh...

crisis uh...

go ahead go ahead to that website it's very easy to make a donation and the relief that it's providing.

As a last comment, I do have some legislation on the calendar this afternoon.

It's a resolution on convening a work group to just look at and report back at the end of the summer on some possible ways to stand up and bulk up our auditing capacity as a legislative branch.

I want to thank Council Members Mosqueda and Council Member Peterson for their work on the audit that recently came back on Seattle City Light, which proves the efficacious results.

that can come from working closely with our auditing department.

I'm proud of the work that they do.

I look forward to coming up with some strategies on how we can protect and expand the scope of work that they do by working with a team of professionals to look at that and come back with some possible recommendations for the consideration of the entire council.

And Madam President, those are my updates.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Any questions for Councilmember Lewis?

Okay, seeing none, all of you should have received from the clerk's office a notice and call of a special meeting for this Wednesday at 10 a.m.

I think it's very prudent for us to have a conversation as framed by Councilmember Lewis in the direct context of the crisis that we are currently facing that all of us are feeling the impact of, but certainly those who are experiencing homelessness are feeling it probably a little bit, a little at a different level than we are.

So I really appreciate the opportunity to convene and to have this conversation.

So thank you so much, Council Member Lewis, for your leadership on that front.

So we'll go ahead and move on.

So we will move on now to Council Member Mosqueda, position eight.

Thank you, Madam President, and good morning, everyone.

There are no items for today's full council meeting from the Finance and Housing Committee.

The scheduled April 7th Finance and Housing Committee has been canceled per earlier conversation.

I do have four COVID-related activities that I'd like to report out on.

First, a huge amount of appreciation to the workers from UFCW.

21 United Food and Commercial Workers, 21 who had been writing in with concerns from the worker perspective about customers in grocery stores being very concerned, upset, and financially worried about the bag fee being passed on still when they were not allowed to bring in their reusable bags for very good reasons.

We appreciate the grocery stores implementing those new rules so that there's not increased worry about spreading COVID with bags that are coming from individuals' homes.

However, the guidance that was initially put out did allow for the five-cent bag fee to be up to the discretion of various grocers.

And I want to thank, for example, Safeway, who had not implemented a passer of the five cents, but it was being administered in, I would say, inconsistently across our city.

So in conversations with Bob Hennessey from Seattle Public Utilities and also Council Member Alex Peterson was aware of the conversations as well, thanks to his leadership and support.

We had begun working with some of central staff to draft legislation to make sure that the five cent fee was not being passed on during this COVID period.

However, it was really appreciated how quickly SPU came to conversations around the impact that this potential guidance was having on frontline workers who are in a really tough position when people are stressed and coming in to buy groceries and then having a five-cent fee being passed on.

We don't want to discourage anybody from going and getting the groceries they need, whether it's because of financial concerns with the five-cent pass-through or just added stress for being in the checkout line at that moment and having another fee imposed.

really appreciate SPU's quick leadership, especially Mr. Hennessey for revising their guidance.

There will be new information shared on their website soon that will help notify people that the five cent bag fee is not going to be enforced at this time.

So again, thanks to Council Member Peterson for your touching base with our office on that and especially fast work to SPU and to the grocery workers at UFCW 21 who notified us of this concern.

More information will be coming out about that soon.

And thanks again to the department.

The second update is a huge shout out to the folks at the Office of Housing and Office of Labor Standards.

I know Labor Standards has been receiving a number of inquiries related to worker protections, unemployment insurance, passing those on to the state folks, and just general guidance for what to do right now.

Appreciate all of the work that they're doing.

hopefully from home as they feel a lot of those questions and concerns from workers on the front line.

A huge amount of appreciation to the Office of Housing, the Director, Emily Alvarado, for her work to make sure that we are front-loading any O&M or operation and maintenance funding that is available to any of our affordable housing providers and getting that in hand.

As folks have talked about, we've done as much work as we possibly can and we're going to be doing more work to support Small businesses, arts and cultural institutions, renters was brought up earlier.

We're doing a lot of work on that front, but the folks who are working in permanent supportive housing have the need for operation and maintenance staff and personnel to be ongoing, and right now with an increased number of pressures on their system, they're really trying to figure out how to frontload some of that funding.

So thanks to Emily Alvarado for her fast work in frontloading some of that money.

Hopefully, as you heard us ask about earlier, and support will be coming from the feds and ideally the state very soon, but thank you for your creative work to get that money out the door.

Third, I want to thank the folks at Sound Transit, Director Peter Rogoff and King County Executive Doug Constantine, Deborah Juarez, who's on Sound Transit's board, and the folks who've had any influence in Sound Transit's decision to help lead by example.

They have, as of Friday, sent out new guidance that says due to COVID-19 risks, Sound Transit is directing contractors to suspend almost all construction on its transit expansion projects across the region.

The very limited work that does continue will focus on tasks considered critical or necessary to ensure that sites remain safe and secure.

and this is a huge relief to all of the folks that we know have been writing in with concerns as construction workers.

We'll be talking later with folks at SDOT as well, and again, working with Council Member Peterson as this is in his committee, just wanting to flag that as we have rolled out policies to direct workers to stay home, we wanna make sure that there's consistency about how that's applied, especially to construction workers.

If it is not a matter of a life or a limb, I think that it is important for us to lead by example as a public contractor on public works.

With public dollars, we need to be showing that, especially in this industry, it is critical that we allow folks to stay home for their safety, for the safety of their family, because we know that between 25 and 50 percent of people who do contract COVID can be asymptomatic.

We don't want them taking that home to partners who have asthma or lung disease or heart disease or MS or who may be pregnant.

We just don't know what the symptoms could potentially be for their families and the general public's health, given that 25 to 50 percent of people who contract COVID are asymptomatic.

Shutting down construction sites, especially in an industry where we know people are very tough, they go in daily and they tough it out when they are sick.

We want to make sure that we take away that incentive for people to feel like they have to go to work.

Thank you to Sound Transit for leading by example and shutting down the vast majority of their projects.

We saw that same leadership from the governor and the Washington State Department of Transportation when they shut down the 520 bridge, for example, especially in these industries where we're used to folks, you know, sort of going in.

No matter the weather and no matter their health, we have got to protect their health by leading by example.

So I really appreciate the work that Sound Transit has done to immediately shut down some of the projects that are truly not essential and look forward to working more with our building construction trades folks in Seattle and at the state level to see how we can emulate that in other areas.

Lastly, we sent a letter last week, thanks to every single council member for signing on to that letter requesting that the governor use his authority under state law to place a statewide moratorium on foreclosures during and following the current state of emergency.

foreclosures on buildings such as multifamily structures can help make sure that if there are buildings that are being used by renters, for example, who can't pay their rent right now, that we recognize that there's thousands of property owners.

in multifamily and commercial properties that may be burdened by people not being able to pay their rent.

We want those renters to be able to stay in place without their income coming in, and we also want to make sure that we recognize that there would be an impact on the potential small landlords who have those multifamily structures.

So putting a moratorium on foreclosures, especially for those larger and smaller multifamily structures can help protect renters in this time.

I appreciate the governor's office for notifying us before the letter went out that the letter would be well-received and that they are working on a handful of policy items to help prevent foreclosures, especially for those multifamily structures and small landlords so that we can protect renters in this time.

I appreciate all of you for signing on to that as well.

And we'll let you know as soon as we hear back.

We know also Council Member Peterson, who helped draft the letter, has requested OIR to give us a heads up as soon as they hear anything as well.

So we'll make sure to pass that on.

And again, thanks to everything that everybody's doing.

I think just a few minutes ago, one of our council members said, thanks to the incredible work.

I think it was council member Juarez.

Thanks to the incredible work of all of you for your leadership in this time.

I wanna extend that thank you to all of our office staff.

We only have three to four office staff in each one of our offices.

And I know that we've been flooded with questions, concerns and real anxiety in this time.

There's a number of news reports out there about how hard it is to be constantly on conference calls and in front of your screen, and I want to just say thanks to our team and our staff in each one of our offices for all of your work to help make these meetings and our work run smoothly in this time.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Any questions or comments on Council Member Mosqueda's report?

That's a nice, concise response to another council member's report.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Okay, so I will go ahead and move really quickly through my report, because I know we're running extremely long today.

The Governance and Education Committee does not have any legislation on today's school council agenda that is subject to a vote, and our regularly scheduled committee hearings are canceled until further notice.

We do have two items on the introduction and referral calendar.

They are Council Bill 119770 and 119771. Both of these bills are technical changes and are responsive to city operations related to the COVID-19 crisis and emergency response.

The first bill, Council Bill 119770, is by request of the hearing examiner.

This legislation will temporarily suspend deadlines set in the Seattle Municipal Code for the duties of the hearing examiner and temporarily supersede a few sections of Seattle Municipal Code because of our current civil emergency that impacts the office's ability to conduct hearings.

So this legislation is necessary in order to allow the Office of Hearing Examiner, which is a part of the legislative department, in order to allow that office to effectively put a hold or a hiatus on in-person hearings.

So this legislation is really important to making sure that everybody's rights in the hearing examiner office are going to be preserved during the crisis, but also recognizes that the hearing examiner's office also has an obligation to follow the public health order.

So this is an important piece of legislation to facilitate the hearing examiner's desire to administer his office in the most responsible way that is consistent with public health orders during this crisis.

The second bill is Council Bill 119771, which was transmitted to the City Council by the Mayor's Office and the Department of Education and Early Learning.

This legislation will amend the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Implementation and Evaluation Plan to include emergency child care for frontline essential workers as an expenditure per the Mayor's Emergency Order issued on March 27th.

These services will be considered a FEPP service during the period of time of the crisis.

There are specific limitations as to how these dollars can be used in the mayor's emergency order, which was circulated last week.

And I solicited any objections to or potential amendments to that emergency order received none in response, so we will follow through on Council Central staff's analysis to allow that emergency order related to emergency child care for essential workers to go through as proposed by the mayor.

So this particular bill effectively makes sure that we are being transparent in the fact that we are utilizing these levy dollars in a way that is consistent with, um, with voter intent as it relates to the family's education, preschool and promise levy.

So, um, that will be something we will consider this afternoon.

Again, it's considered emergency legislation and specifically related to the COVID-19 emergency response.

Happy to answer any questions or hear any comments about my report.

Okay, seeing and hearing none, is there anything else for the good of the order before we adjourn?

Council Member Herbold.

You're on mute, Council Member Herbold.

Thanks.

Real quickly, I forgot to mention two things.

One, I just wanted to remind council members that last week they got an email from Lish Whitson on council central staff that includes the council bill 119766 sponsored by myself and council member Morales.

This is an emergency bill which would limit rent increases for small businesses and nonprofit tenants.

as well as require payment plans for overdue rent.

The plan is to bring this bill to full council on April 13th.

And so, Lish Whitson on council central staff has requested that any suggested amendments come to him no later than this Wednesday.

So I just wanted to make sure that that was on everybody's radar.

And then I also wanted to just mention something I should have included in my report, that as it relates specifically to jail issues with the municipal, both with the Seattle's misdemeanors that we have a contract with King County Jail, but also the overall King County Jail system, there is a new dashboard that has been set up So we can look at the reductions in the jail population.

That's at www.kingcounty.gov, forward slash departments, forward slash jails, forward slash covid-updates.aspx.

And as it relates specifically to Seattle misdemeanors, through our contract with King County Jail, our average daily population has reduced from about 180 people prior to COVID-19 to around 60 people now.

Myself and Council Central staff met with the ACLU and Columbia Legal Services and the Urban League last week to talk more about our collective interest in providing guidance to King County Jail for future reductions in the jail population, as well as looking to get information about the practices occurring in the jail currently, both for hygiene and to replace some of the programming.

that is necessary to replace because people aren't, the programs have been suspended and people aren't allowed visitors.

We have a series of questions that we have shared with the King County Executive.

We received an initial set of responses and said some follow-up and if anybody's at all interested in seeing sort of that back and forth between Council Central staff and the King County Executive.

I think, I know I've submitted questions and I think some of the council members have as well, but I'm happy to share that body of work with anybody who's interested.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Appreciate you bringing up those issues, really important.

Any questions or comments on the additional information?

Council President Gonzalez.

Yes, Council Member Escada.

I just want to reply to Council Member Herbold.

I would love to see those questions, Council Member Herbold, to the executive related to incarceration.

I know Council Member Morales and I have been working on a similar list of concerns and questions from the Public Health Board perspective and would love to just touch base.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions, comments, anything else for the good of the order?

All right, hearing none, that concludes our agenda for this morning's council briefing.

Thank you all for your patience.

And again, special thanks to our city clerk's office and to our technology superheroes who make it possible for us to continue to conduct council business.

remotely really appreciate all of the effort that you all are making.

That concludes our meeting once again.

So we will see you all at 2 p.m.

We are adjourned.