missing title

Okay, good afternoon, everyone.

Today is March 23rd.

The council briefing will come to order.

The time is officially 2.03 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Lin?

Here.

Councilmember Rink?

Present.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Saca?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Here.

Councilmember, uh, Foster?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

And Council President Hollingsworth?

I'm here.

Nine present.

Awesome.

If there's no objections, the minutes of March 16th, 2026 will be adopted.

Hearing none, but only a bell, the minutes are adopted.

Okay, now on to the president's report.

There is one presentation today from OIR.

Thank you all for being here in person.

We're looking forward to following up.

with you all.

We also, there are no executive sessions today, and there are nine items on the IRC, which is called the Introduction and Referral Calendar.

We have bills in minutes.

We have five appointments to the EDI board.

We also have two ordinance for mayor's office legislation.

We also have an ordinance to Seattle City Light regarding surplus property.

And then there are two votes, one bill from governance ITD Executing Cable Franchise Agreement with Comcast.

And we have one bill from land use adopting permanent FEMA floodplains regulations.

If there are no objections, well, there are no objections because we have OIR here for the presentation.

So we'd love to invite you all to the table.

We have Director Hashemi.

Thank you for being here.

We have Ana and Samir from Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and they will be giving us an update about session.

We know it was a short session.

A lot of stuff was moving through.

We know that there was a ton of information coming down the pipeline, and we always feel grateful that you all are able to come to just really organize it and make it palatable for people.

So Director Hashemi, I will kick it off to you to start your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Hollingsworth and council members.

I'm Mina Hashemi.

Hold on one moment.

Give the tech a chance to catch up.

Council President.

I know that we're doing a presentation today up here.

Do we need this screen turned on today?

I think for the presenters, I don't know if they're able.

Is it something that you would like turned off?

If possible.

There's no one in the viewing public today.

They've got a screen right in front of them and we do as well.

Okay, do you all need the screen up front, or you do?

Well, we can see on this.

Yeah, we can see on here, too.

Okay, awesome, all right.

Can we go ahead and shut off the screen above Councilmember Strauss, Councilmember Juarez, and Councilmember Saka?

Awesome, screen is off.

Thank you.

Now, if someone does come in, we will put the screen back on.

Is that okay?

Awesome, thank you.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Council Members and Council President Hollingsworth.

I'm Meena Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and this is...

Amir Janejo, State Relations Director.

Donna Johnson, State Legislative Affairs Director.

And I'm very excited to be joined in person by them.

Thank you for having us today for this legislative session wrap-up, and for dedicating time all session to engage with our state program in these briefings, as well as in our regular meetings with your offices, and for your partnership setting and advocating for the city's priorities.

Lawmakers returned to Olympia in January for a fast-moving, 60-day short session shaped by several powerful voices, a deeply challenging budget situation, complex federal environment, and the shadow of the 2026 election cycle.

Together, these dynamics created an atmosphere of urgency, narrow timelines, and heightened political stakes.

Against that backdrop, Governor Ferguson's proposed budget sought to close a roughly $2.3 billion shortfall through spending reductions and major one-time fixes.

The reality of the shortfall quickly consumed legislative discussions, and ultimately, the state's $79.4 billion operating budget relies heavily on one-time fixes reserve funds and cuts to keep the current spending plan balanced through the end of the biennium.

The deal struck by Democrats withdraws hundreds of millions from the state's rainy day fund, shifts money from other accounts, and trims spending in several programs, including reductions tied to childcare subsidies and delays or cancellations of planned expansions.

Lawmakers also set aside roughly $1 billion to cover rising legal obligations facing the state, one of the fastest-growing pressures on the budget.

Democratic leaders said this approach avoids deeper reductions to core services but acknowledge it depends on temporary solutions rather than long-term revenue.

The supplemental capital budget is an $889 million spending plan focused on construction and infrastructure projects statewide with significant investments in affordable housing, school construction, flood response, and clean energy.

The legislature also approved a bipartisan $16.6 billion supplemental transportation budget, funding projects through 2031 and focusing on preserving and maintaining transportation infrastructure while supporting job creation.

More on the budget shortly.

The gavel finally fell at 8.24 p.m.

on sine die, officially ending the 2026 legislative session and shifting the attention to the governor's desk.

Bills delivered to the governor more than five days before adjournment must be acted on within five days, while remaining bills allow the governor up to 20 days to sign, veto, or allow them to become law without signature.

OIR tracked 963 bills this year, up from 795 from last year's long session.

Short sessions are fast-paced and hard, and despite all of these dynamics, our state program delivered strong results in the city's priority areas, with the two in-house state directors beside me and the smallest contract lobbying team the city has had in any short session in recent memory.

They did an outstanding job, and I'm super proud to work with them.

Councilmembers, you will see a lot of text on these slides, but the presentation will focus on the most important and interesting details.

But we want these slides to serve as a resource for you to come back to, so bill details and funding breakdowns are included.

And with that, I'll turn the presentation over.

Thank you.

All righty, so we're going to start by going over where some of the Seattle priorities landed.

Starting with federal response, House Bill 2105 made it to the finish line.

This bill requires an employer to notify its workers within five business days of receiving a federal notice of inspection of employment eligibility verification forms, or I-9 forms.

House Bill 2165 deals with false identification of peace officers and Senate Bill 5855 deals with the use of face coverings by law enforcement officers.

Moving on to revenue, the first bill, Senate Bill 6346, is the millionaire's tax, and the bill imposes a 9.9% tax on income over a million dollars beginning in 2028, with the state receiving revenue starting in 2029. A big part of the discussion this session was where the revenue would go to, and so you'll see a list there.

5% of the funds will go to the Fair Start for Kids account, which is an account that funds childcare and early learning services.

The bill also makes a plan to fund universal free school meals in the next budget, expands eligibility for working families tax credit, increases the B&O tax credit for small businesses, and provides various sales tax exemptions, including repealing sales tax on specified services that were enacted in the last session in 2025. The grand total of the sales tax exemptions would impact the city budget and county budgets and other local governments.

And so the legislature also intends to provide $200 million to local governments to help their fiscal health in the next session.

House Bill 2442 also passed this year.

The portion of it that most impacts Seattle is allowing us to create a municipal fire protection district without reducing our statutory maximum tax rate or our general property tax levy.

In effect, allowing us to have a fire levy and also allowing the council to continue to govern that new district as well.

Secondly, that bill also authorizes a new local 0.01% sales tax to fund children and families.

That would be councilmanic as well.

For affordability, the legislature passed House Bill 1128, establishing a child care workforce standards board to ensure high quality child care throughout Washington state, as well as House Bill 2238. This bill is concerning the statewide food security program.

This bill breaks down some silos in state government as we deliver food programs to our residences and also tasks the Department of Agriculture for creating a statewide food security plan.

Moving on to housing, House Bill 1687 relates to the city's social housing developer and authorizes the state to treat the social housing developer the same way we treat the Seattle Housing Authority under the Housing Cooperation Law.

House Bill 2304 relates to condominium liability laws and allows those laws to also be applied to stacked, what are known as stacked flats, to incentivize development of that type of housing.

And Senate Bill 5156 requires the state building code to adopt standards for cities and counties to allow smaller elevators in certain buildings.

And Senate Bill 6027 modifies requirements for certain funding related to affordable housing providers, allowing more flexibility for use for operations and maintenance.

For public safety, we are excited to see Senate Bill 5880 pass.

This bill allows toxicology testing by certified or accredited laboratories for DUI court proceedings, as well as House Bill 2320. This bill is continuing on the state's regulation of 3D printed firearms, and this bill prohibits the manufacturing of certain firearms, as well as firearm components through the use of 3D printer or computer numerical control milling machines.

In the capital budget, we are excited to see the city receive $1.5 million to improve women's softball field equity by doing a dirt to turf field conversion at the Lower Woodlawn Park.

We are also receiving a little over $2 million for Seattle Center for a decarbonization planning of Fisher Pavilion.

as well as $6 million to acquire a site in the Montlake neighborhood to put affordable home ownership, or also known as Montlake Homes Project.

And then we are also thrilled to see that Mercy Housing is going to receive a little over $7 million for the affordable housing portion of the Lake City Community Center Redevelopment Project.

On transportation, $12 million was provided to the county and the city for addressing traffic impacts of Revive I-5.

The county had asked money for bus service, and the city had requested some money for incident response, traffic signaling, and demand management as well.

House Bill 2495 passed, which allows the city to remove vehicles that are obstructing the operation of the streetcar without having to resort to siting and towing.

And Senate Bill 6309 allows for some more streamlined permitting for high-capacity transit projects, namely Sound Transit.

The most impactful of that would allow the city to accept, review, and issue permits while Sound Transit obtains property rights.

For climate and environment, House Bill 2199 passed.

This bill is attempting to reduce the impacts of derelict vessels that are an imminent safety threat as well as an environmental concern for our waterways.

And then there was also a few Seattle priority bills that did not make it through the process, and they're listed here on this slide for your reference.

And we look forward to continuing to work on these as we head into next session.

Moving towards budget highlights, I'll start with the operating budget.

The most significant spending increases this year's budget were resulted from increasing caseloads, federal impacts, and also lawsuit settlements that the state had to settle.

The budget was balanced by a number of various account transfers, including $375 million from the public works assistance account, $880 million from the budget stabilization account, which is also known as the Rainy Day Fund, and also $800 million from the Left One Pension Fund as well.

Speaking of the lawsuit settlements, there was $1 billion were set aside for that in the next budget.

These are just for the state self-insurance due to those liability obligations.

There's new revenue in the state budget from cutting tax breaks for drug wholesalers, data center equipment, and insurers.

Some of the federal impacts include funding of long-term care coverage for noncitizens who are now losing access, and also implementation of work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP.

On the spending side, you can see I listed a number of additional funding for certain things that the city may be interested in.

I'll highlight the $15 million for grants to HUD continuum of care providers to maintain permanent supportive housing, also $3 million for additional attorneys for the tenant right to counsel program.

There was also $10 million for 911 program support and technology, and also $30 million for grants through an existing network of federal low-income energy assistance.

There are also operating budget reductions that we saw in the budget kind of across the board.

There is a reduction to law enforcement assisted diversion grants as well as recovery navigator program, some behavioral health related reductions as it relates to health engagement hubs, as well as naloxone distribution.

The Office of Firearms Safety and Violence Prevention in the Department of Commerce also had a reduction to their grants, and then a small reduction to public buildings' energy audits, and a large reduction to the Working Connections child care program.

In the capital budget, we saw some additional spending in terms of the housing trust fund, and you can see the breakdown there as it spans across permanent supportive housing, home ownership, and also an urgent repair grant.

We also saw additional funding for weatherization plus health grants and also additional grants for urban and community forestry.

In the transportation budget, the largest part of that was $1.3 billion for road and bridge preservation paid for by new bonds.

There's also $45 million for state and local flood-related highway recovery loans, and then also some ferry investments, including $31 million for the electrification of ferry terminals and $28 million for ferry system preservation.

Now I'll move on to other highlights in other areas, other bills that might be of interest, starting with budget and revenue.

House Bill, many of these you probably have already heard about, but we'll keep it quick.

House Bill 1408, which is the bill that would help certain community preservation and development authorities by diverting 30% of the sales tax from the two stadiums passed, and also House Bill 2610, which expands the nonprofit low-income homeownership property tax exemption to include rent or lease of property that is for other community-surfing programs besides housing.

In general government, House Bill 2034 relates to the transfer of the pension funds, the pension fund dollars that went to the operating budget.

And so that funding is deposited into the pension, a new pension surplus holding account, which then will be transferred to the state general fund.

and House Bill 1170, which requires providers of certain generative AI systems to include what is known as Providence data and content created by their systems.

It also requires government agencies to notify consumers when they're interacting with certain AI systems.

A couple more bills related to the climate and environment.

House Bill 1903 establishes a statewide low-income energy assistance program.

And then Senate Bill 6355 establishes a new agency, the Washington Electric Transmission Authority, to support the expansion of as well as upgrades to the electric transmission system and to be a statewide resource for the transmission system.

On health care and behavioral health, Senate Bill 5981 prohibits drug manufacturers from denying, restricting, or prohibiting the acquisition of a 340B drug, which are drugs covered by the 340B federal drug pricing program by specific health care providers or pharmacies under contract by that provider.

and House Bill 2242 authorizes the State Department of Health to issue immunization recommendations and guidance replacing the requirement that health insurers provide coverage for immunizations recommended by a federal agency.

Housing and homelessness, Senate Bill 6026, which I've brought up in the past, prohibits cities and counties from excluding residential uses in areas known for commercial development, and then also prohibits cities from requiring mixed-use or ground-floor commercial retail, with various exceptions and more flexibilities than the original bill.

Also, House Bill 2266 passed establishing and citing requirements for what is known as STEP housing, which is transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, indoor emergency shelters, and indoor emergency housing.

Continuing on housing homelessness, I'll flag Senate Bill 5937, which regulates the use of smart access systems in rental housing, which could be anything that uses biometric data.

And then also Senate Bill 6200, which restricts landlords from prohibiting tenants from installing portable cooling devices, also with certain exceptions.

On labor and commerce, I'll flag House Bill 2294, which essentially takes the restrictive covenant ordinance that the city itself passed last fall and takes it statewide.

And then House Bill 2355, similarly inspired by the city's domestic workers ordinance, establishes similar protections for domestic workers statewide.

A notable bill that passed as it relates to native communities and tribal governments is Senate Bill 6034. This bill is making sure that the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs is now in statute for permanent establishment.

And then a few more public safety bills here.

Senate Bill 5925, this is concerning the general powers and authority of the Attorney General's Office, allowing them to do civil investigative demands for the state and federal constitution, wage theft, as well as Keep Washington Working Act.

And then Senate Bill 6002 establishes a regulatory structure for automated license plate readers ALPR systems and the data captured by those systems.

And it also restricts the use of ALPR systems by state and local agencies, sets retention periods for the data collected, and limits the sharing of the data.

For social programs and education, House Bill 2523 makes improvements to the Community Reinvestment Program.

Senate Bill 5872 establishes the Pre-K Promise Account for the purpose of receiving gifts, grants, or donations made for the ECAP program.

And then Senate Bill 5963 modifies funding for the Passport to Careers Program for the Washington College Grant, which is meant to help homeless youth and unaccompanied minors have access to the Washington College Grant.

Transportation, I wanted to highlight House Bill 1980, which authorizes local authorities with approval from transportation agencies to permit private employer shuttles to use business access and transit-only lanes.

This bill only applies in King County.

And with that, happy to answer questions.

I'll also note that a lot of these bills have yet to be signed by the governor, and so, you know, and the governor certainly has the ability to veto some of these bills, and so I'll just add that disclaimer.

Awesome.

And, Director, any follow-up at all?

Okay, awesome.

Well, awesome.

Thank you, Samira.

Thank you, Ana, for that great presentation.

Thank you, Director.

I will pause here to see if any of my colleagues have any questions for the team.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you again to our state relations team for your hard work during this session.

It really did fly by.

So thank you again for your hard work, and thank you for continuing to come and provide Council these updates.

I just have two questions for today.

One is just if you can unpack a little bit more the changes to sales tax and transportation revenues and how there will be impacts to local governments.

How big are these changes?

When do they take effect?

I think there are impacts from the reversal of sales tax that was added last year.

So last session, the legislature passed Senate Bill 5814, which administered sales tax on certain services like advertising services, temporary staffing services, digital services, various services that were previously taxed under B&O.

and so those are going into effect this past year.

Under 63-46 would be repealed starting on January 1st, 2029. So at that point, any entity that gets revenue from sales tax would lose funding, the state included, but the state obviously is getting revenue from the millionaire's tax.

and local governments are not.

So counties, cities, transit agencies like Sound Transit certainly are standing to lose some money.

You know, I don't have necessarily a specific number for the cities anticipating a loss because it's kind of in flux right now, especially considering it just is starting to be implemented right now.

But certainly we've heard large numbers from the county in particular and Sound Transit in particular.

For the city, Because some of these services will be reclassified to B&O, we will get some funding from our local B&O.

And there still will be a net loss, but certainly for counties, Sound Transit, those services, that's just a pure loss for them.

And so it will be larger for those entities.

Hearing that you don't have the number with us today, what are the numbers that are being said by Sound Transit and the county at this time?

For King County, we've seen a number of upwards of $175 million for over two years.

And then for Sound Transit, I've seen numbers up to $100 million a year for Sound Transit.

Certainly very curious to see what that looks like for the city as we are coping with our own budget challenges.

And my second question is specific actually to transportation revenue.

It's my understanding that the state did take the step to issue bonds for roads projects, but the effort for sound transit bonding did not go through.

Could you unpack what's happening here or anything else to be aware of as it relates to transportation funding?

Well, I think with respect to the Senate Bill 6148, this is a bill that Sound Transit, the Sound Transit bond bill that did not pass.

I don't think we have necessarily a great answer or a clear answer as to why it didn't pass.

Certainly, I think it died in the House transportation committee.

There was an attempt to put it into the budget, though that was not successful.

It was in the Senate.

The Senate had added it in, but the House did not agree to that addition.

So certainly that was where some of the dynamics played out was in the House, which is where it came into some challenges.

And then I also know that initially in the House transportation budget, didn't include bonds even for road and bridge preservation.

And the final budget did include some bonding for those projects.

thank you for that um samir it's it's helpful to understand and of course i have my concerns about um now sound transit's ability to deliver on west seattle ballard link extension moving forward so i would like to stay updated thank you council president thank you all awesome thank you council member rink next we have council member foster followed by council member strauss followed by council member juarez and council member kettle council member foster

All right, quite the stack we have going on there.

You guys are very popular.

Thank you so much, Council President, and thank you for a fantastic presentation, and welcome back from Olympia.

I wanted to go back, Samir, to something you had on one of the earlier slides.

I believe I heard a $91.5 million reduction for working families, for working connections, excuse me, for childcare.

Was that correct?

And maybe that was Ana, your slide.

And can you just confirm for me, was that a reduction that's a statewide reduction for one fiscal year, for two?

That's a statewide reduction for the remainder of this biennium, so about one year left, and that essentially is driven by, they made modifications to the attendance policy and reimbursement structure for the providers, as well as removed some prospective enrollment-based payment structure plans that they had, so that helped kind of drive that reduction in budget saving for the state, so.

Got it.

And I was going to ask, do we know, and I was aware of the sort of the future-facing change that they made in this adjustment.

Do we have an understanding on the impact of that reduction here in Seattle and on our program?

Not explicitly, but I can certainly follow up after we get kind of a good analysis from the deal and others to really figure out how that trickles down to the city.

So we can follow up with you about that.

That would really value that.

Thank you so much.

And then I also wanted to ask about, with its Senate Bill 6026, and, you know, this was the, I think, Senator Alvarado's bill regarding commercial and ground floor commercial.

At the last point during session I tracked it, there was exemptions for affordable housing and also exemptions for development near transit, I believe.

Can you give us an overview, instead of me telling you what I remember, can you give us an overview of what the final exemptions and flexibility was on that bill?

Yeah, and there's various exemptions that I can send you the full list.

I'd say the ones that are probably most relevant to us are there are exemptions for station areas, so transit-oriented development, there are exemptions for historic districts, and then there's also a blanket exemption for 40% of areas outside of that and the city would have flexibility to choose where we would place that 40% of areas.

There's a few others too that are less impactful to the city, but I can certainly send you that list.

Okay, that would be fantastic as we figure out wanting to make sure we are supporting the balance of commercial availability and also ensuring that we have enough capacity in our system for housing and would be great to understand that flexibility.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Council Member Strauss.

No questions.

Just wanted to say after an entire short session, thank you for all of your work.

As my phrase goes, they have weekdays in Olympia, not because it's Monday through Friday, but because you get a week's worth of work done in a day.

Just want to say thank you.

Great after-action report, and can't wait to do it with you again next year.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you, Council President.

Just a housekeeping matter.

Is there a reason why we didn't get your PowerPoint ahead of time?

We'll send you the PowerPoint and also a full list of bills to that passed today.

Well, it would have been helpful to have that ahead of time.

I think we asked.

So we did our own packet, but I mean, you kind of whipped through some of these bills and we're trying to have what you just provided.

So if we don't have that, I can't tee up any questions.

I mean, that's kind of basic.

I don't know what good that does me to get your PowerPoint after we're done, but okay.

So basically, we did our own.

So we were tracking the AI bills, and since I don't have your whole thing here about what got passed and what didn't and what we relied on in looking at the ones for AI on the data centers, two questions.

On some of the other bills concerning some of the tribal issues, Medicaid coverage for traditional health care practices, I know that's something that we worked with Representative Leckanoff with and Esther Lacerote, Sailing Health Board, as well as other Native American providers.

and this wasn't in your, well, I didn't get a copy of your PowerPoint, so I wouldn't know.

I'm looking at HB 2297, HB protection of tribal data as well, HB 2685, also by Representative Lekanoff.

Those came back to us as going to the house rules and then in the X file, what does that mean?

Yeah, so you're referring to some legislation that was considered initially in the process, but unfortunately did not move forward.

So specifically as it relates to the Medicaid coverage, as you mentioned, and then the data bill that you mentioned, as well as, unfortunately, some of the tribal priorities that we had included in our legislation back in December, they were under consideration again this session, but then didn't move forward.

they will have to be reintroduced in the next biennium.

So we had three out of the 46 with Council or Representative Farvia on the one that did pass on the grocery stores, the restrictive covenants that we did first and then we worked with her on those.

And there was two other ones that did not make it.

Do you, is that in your thing or can you provide me an update with what happened besides what she tells me?

Yeah, she had three total bills related to grocery stores.

The one that passed, as you said, was the restrictive covenant one.

House Bill 2297 was a bill on tax incentives for grocery stores.

That bill had a hearing, but then didn't move off the House floor.

And then she had a bill related to public grocery stores, which had a hearing, but then also didn't move past the hearing stage.

And then we had one regarding HB 2496, Representative Stearns, that we worked with him on a tribal consultation for the energy facility and site evaluation, basically data centers.

That is waiting for the governor's signature, so what happens with that?

Do we just, you'll tell us when the governor will sign or has it been signed?

To my knowledge, that one hasn't been scheduled for Governor's signature yet, but he does have 20 days since it was passed by the legislature, so there's still a little bit more time.

In our report that we'll send, it'll include the status of where the bills are and which ones have been signed into law and which ones are still awaiting bill action.

If there's anything that goes awry with that, I can let you know, but I have not heard any concern on that from my standpoint.

But if I hear something notable, I can definitely share.

There are two other bills that we put into the tribal category, and then also some on the sexual exploitation.

House Bill 1265 by Representative Stearns, reintroduced, retained in present status, and then House Bill 2526 concerning prostitution, also by Representative Stearns, referred to appropriations on February 4th.

Can you get back to me, or what?

I believe both of those bills did not move forward.

Okay, so these are all ones that I listed, not only under AI, but also tribal issues.

So it would have been helpful if I had your PowerPoint, and then I could have said, hey, guys, looked at your PowerPoint, noticed that there's some bills that fell off that I'd like to know what happened.

My staff put together what they could, but they don't do this for a living.

So it would be nice if I could get this ahead of time.

I think we'd all appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

And I'll take the hit on that one.

I'll follow up and make sure that people have the correct information for these meetings so you all feel prepared on that one.

Council Member Kettle, followed by Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

And yes, I back up Council Member Juarez's ask, too.

But on the very positive side, I do want to note that the slides are all numbered.

Council Member Juarez, a legacy.

Councilmember Warris' legacy on the Council is that we always ask for slide numbers, which help because, first, thank you to, as Councilmember Strauss was saying, for all the work that you've done to include when we came down.

It really is helpful, and getting the insight and the different pieces, so thank you.

Now, given the numbers, can you go to slide 15?

you know one of the things is a question I have a general question is there's a lot of movements a lot of bills or things that happen in terms of like the operating budget here and individually they may say hey this is okay but when I look at this list cumulative effect of this as its impact on public safety and also the seam between public safety and human services and the like and these other areas has an impact and I just wanted to take a moment to highlight, a moment to look at these reductions that has an impact on our public safety posture across the board.

Maybe less so for energy audits, but in terms of the top part, these have impacts.

And so I guess a question I have in a general sense is, in terms of keeping that big picture, in terms of cumulative effects of these various budget actions on public safety, Is that part of the consideration in Olympia in terms of when they actually vote yes or no or move forward on a certain piece?

I can't necessarily speak to maybe what's going through the legislators' minds as they consider the budget that's before them or the types of challenging decisions that maybe the budget writers are thinking about as they have to balance the budget.

But I will note that we were definitely expressive of our concern around the cuts to especially like LEAD and Recovery Navigator Program because those are one of the funding sources that go to help fund our caseload for drug possession diversion.

as well as I think we signed onto a letter opposing the cuts to the firearm safety and violence prevention grants cut as well.

So we've definitely been on record as the city expressing our concerns as it relates to some of those cuts, but I think it's a challenging analysis that the legislators have to do around putting together a balanced budget, especially in resource-constrained times.

Thank you, very good answer.

Although I think it is good to step back and say, what is the cumulative effect of all those reductions?

Because we're making a press on gun violence, for example, or these pieces related to the scene, and this is like diversion, it's like right there.

And obviously we've taken action at the city level, but what the state does really impacts us across the board, and something I'm learning more and more as each year goes by.

and really the need for the state and the city to be in concert with each other, or at least aware, because it impacts on so many things, particularly this year as we go into a very difficult budget year.

But I just wanted to highlight, particularly from that public safety, the scene piece, so thank you for highlighting those specific bills that you were advocating for.

Can you also go to slide 27?

I think this is it.

Thank you.

Obviously, there were some discussions related to Senate Bill 6002 with Senator Trudeau.

I just wanted to note that you know, and look forward, you know, and this will be part of our committee meeting tomorrow in terms of getting in sync between our ALPR, one of the few that was still operating because it's very different, foot stomp, and to ensure that it's in sync with state law.

I just wanted to note, too, though, and it's not...

Yes, it is here.

You highlight two very important points, the retention period for the data collected down to 21 days.

I think this is very important, and I supported it because it helps guard, mitigate the risk as we see.

and also because with our real-time crime center, it allows the city to really work these issues as it relates to ALPR data to the betterment of our city.

So because of its stand-up, the 21-day can be worked around, I believe.

And also, the PDR exemption is massive.

And we'll speak to this a little bit tomorrow, but I think the combination in committee, in public safety committee, But I think the combination of those pieces and some other pieces, no doubt, with the bill, with those protections that we put into our bill, you combine those two, we've addressed the issues, the concerns that we have.

And we have a situation where We've mitigated the risk, but we're also gaining the benefit of the ALPR system.

And so that's one reason why I was concerned about a couple pieces related to the Senate bill, obviously, because we were in discussion about that.

But in total, I think the combination of those pieces that we built in, like with the work of Councilmember Rivera and former Councilmember Moore and some of the other amendment authors from the initial ALPR bill, tied to this piece, and I think it's a great combination to move forward on.

So, thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

We have Council Member Rivera, followed by Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, OAR team, for being here and for all the work that you did in Olympia.

I'm actually going to make some formal requests.

I know that you all track, there's a plethora of bills and really issues before the legislative session starts that we pass at council.

Here's the list of things that we care about, but that's always at the beginning of the session and we don't know what's going to get taken up or not and then there's some other things that aren't on our list that then get added later.

And last, well, this is the third year in a row where I feel like we have a laundry list of things.

We don't always know the things that aren't on our list that we should be really tracking.

Some of us are tracking different things depending on committee assignments.

So it would be really helpful to any of us that are tracking something to be able to have you add that to your, you know, list of, you know, here's what we're tracking, here's where things stand, because I think that that would be helpful as a body to have.

And then also, when these things, you know, once the legislative session is over, it'd be helpful to have, you know, these slides are helpful, but we don't have a lot of time in chambers, so I know you're running through things very quickly.

It'd be great to have more information about each of these things that did pass and how it impacts the city.

And I know we have central staff that's gonna be tracking some of these things, especially things that we need to come in compliance with.

That takes time and it would be helpful to know at this stage, here's the thing that passed, here's the impacts gonna have for the city and things that you have to and comply with timing.

You know, some things, whether it be helpful to know, and this has been signed by the governor or not yet, because that goes to timing.

And, you know, there's some things probably we will have to take up as a legislature and some things that we don't.

And that would all be helpful to also include in this, in a tracker or this slide deck, but with more details.

to really help because we have limited resources interaction with your office.

And I know you don't only help us, you help the mayor as well.

And I just want to make sure that we're not missing anything and that we are being as efficient but also as thorough with our communications together and with the information that's coming out of Olympia.

Because we're not working on that like the state is and everything that the state does impacts us.

and we are not always getting the day-to-day and the most accurate information that's coming out of Olympia.

And I don't wanna read about things in the Seattle Times.

I want you all to tell me the things that are happening because they may have more of a delay than you have on how things are moving through.

So for next year, I don't know how we can, I'm happy to engage in conversation with you on how to better engage as the legislative session is moving forward.

And then at the end, what would be helpful for us to have?

I'd love to be engaged in conversation with you all on that, but I want to get to a place where everything that is happening, we have kind of the latest and most updated and most accurate information.

And then on the compliance side, what is it that we need to comply with and by when?

I would love to respond to that.

As the government relations experts here, we do have to rely on departments and our attorneys and legal folks oftentimes to help us understand the full impacts of legislation, especially when it comes to city budgets that we don't manage.

perhaps in the future we could explore not coming so quickly after session to give more time to talk to the departments and actually complete that review but we're not usually the folks that can you know look at a certain piece of legislation and apply it to all of the programs in like one of the utilities for example But we also want to be responsive to getting you the summary after session as quickly as possible so you can get these sort of bigger, more interesting, the things that you're more likely to read about in the news.

We want to always try to share with you ahead of time.

That said, we can make sure to keep you more updated through the interim as we are working with departments to understand these impacts.

That would be great, Director Hashemi, because I understand there are a lot of folks that have to come together to work on and decipher how the impact it's going to have in the city and then the impact to us as a legislative body, things we need to pass.

At the same time, when a bill passes out, we know, well, you all know what are the points to that bill specifically.

They're not contained in the slide deck.

And I guess I'd like to see it on a slide deck or a tracker with the actual bullets.

You said some of it here today, but you have limited time.

and I know some of these pieces of legislation have various points like the ALPR, for instance.

What are all the bullets?

You know, what are all the things that got passed under that piece of legislation?

And it would be helpful to have you guys do it rather than I have to go now look up the Washington's version of legislature to see what passed out and what are all, you know, the memos that the legislative staff puts together.

to look up.

What are each of the bullet points for that particular piece of legislation so I can see the impact on the city?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President, Director Hashimi, Ana Samir.

Thank you for your presentation today.

Thank you, most importantly, for all the hard work throughout this long but still short legislative session, and appreciate all the hard work you all do to advocate on behalf of our city and advance our city's policy priorities in Olympia.

Question about the millionaire's tax.

I think that was one of the earlier slides.

I don't have my own slide deck, so plus one of that earlier comment.

But the millionaire's tax, first and foremost, I'll just share, really delighted to see that passed and really looking forward to You know, seeing the impact of that, I know it's going to have a tremendous impact.

And when we talk about, you know, some of the specific allocations of revenue for that new revenue, here you note that 5% of the funds will go to the Fair Start for Kids account.

And you list various other things, including what I was curious to learn more about is the funds, universal free school meals in 27 through 29. Question one is, what is the total anticipated allocation for that, for those program years?

And then two, does that fund all schools across the state with that revenue, or is that intended to be sort of like a pilot project or a program only at first?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So as you mentioned, it funds universal free school meals in 2027 to 2029. So this year's budget that was released is the supplemental budget finishing off the 25-27 budget year.

And so what they've done, since they have to write the next year's budget next year, is they put in the outlook sort of a placeholder for $140 million to fund universal free school meals.

I believe the intention is to fund it universally, so it should cover all, but we can kind of check and make sure that is indeed the case, but that is the intention, is to fund all school, free school meals.

$140 million for the 27, 28 school year, or for each of those two years reflected in 27 through 29?

I believe it would be for the biennium, so $140 million over two years.

Okay.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Are there any other questions, colleagues?

Well, thank you.

I will follow up with my only question, super quick, and we can take it offline.

The one from Representative Santos for the CPDA from the stadium.

What do we think, because I know there's only two.

CID, so Chinatown International District, and there's one in the Central District for those two.

Will those two be the only ones potentially, and if you don't have the answer to this, but the funds would be directed to those preservation development?

That's correct, those are the only two in the state.

Okay, yeah, that's pretty nice for them.

And then do we know what that revenue potentially is, the 30%?

It's around 3 million.

A year?

Yeah.

I can give you the exact number, but it's around 3 million a year.

No worries.

Okay, no, that's good to know, just like the ongoing funding potentially for those two groups.

So awesome.

Well, thank you all.

I don't have any questions.

I'll follow up with you all about that in that process, but that's good to know.

And I will stop there.

Is there any other questions?

Awesome, thank you.

So we know PowerPoint next time in advance for our colleagues, and I'll make sure to follow up just to make sure that we have that information.

And you did really great on the page numbers, so thank you.

Awesome, great work.

Okay, so colleagues, there are no signing of letters or proclamations, unless someone has one that I'm not aware of.

And then, now we're just gonna jump into our council and regional committees overview, and we'll start at the end with Councilmember Juarez, and we'll work our way to the right, if that's cool.

We'll just make it super easy.

Councilmember Juarez, you're online.

Thank you.

I didn't know I was going first.

This is great.

Surprise.

Surprise, surprise.

Let's see, the next Parks and Light City Light Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, April 1st.

I would like to have a vote.

You saw the presentation last Wednesday.

On the agenda is Seattle City Light's relicensing of the Skagit River hydroelectric power.

And we went through the briefing, and we have the settlement.

We had all the leadership here from Upper Skagit, Swinomish, and Soxowattle, and tribal leadership.

Thank you for council members that attended and asked questions.

I think it's probably the third time in this chambers I've ever seen tribal leadership actually sit at the table to talk about what is going on in their traditional lands.

And as council member Strauss has always said as well, government-to-government tribal consultation.

I think it was at its best, and I was very proud of the Seattle City Council and my colleagues that were here and were able to ask questions.

And thank you, Council Member Stiles, for providing the statement.

The tribes appreciated that.

Last week, I attended the expansion of the Refugee Women's Alliance Nook Early Learning Center in partnership with the Seattle Preschool Program.

I'm grateful to Rewa and Dr. Susan Lee, the Senior Director of Education, their partnership building early learning centers in D5, like this project and their center at the Tony Lehigh Building in Lake City.

I was joined, of course, by Mayor Wilson and our amazing Councilmember Rivera, who did a great statement.

I'm sure she'll talk more about that.

Senator Aviera-Valdez and Dr. Chappelle.

I also had an opportunity to meet later on with Joy Shigaki, I hope I got that right, CEO and President, and some folks from Friends of the Waterfront to get some updates on the waterfront, that is the completion of the waterfront project, and just some basics about the majority is privately funded, what monies, well actually not yet any money from the city, and some current public safety issues.

And again, I was a guest with Guy Chan at the Wing Luke Museum Saturday night at their annual dinner and auction.

The Wing Luke Museum was founded in 1967, is the only Pan-Asian art and art history museum in the United States focusing in the history, stories, art, and culture of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders.

And I was joined by King County exec, Gourmay Zahale, Seattle Port Commissioner Sam Cho, and of course, Councilmember Foster was there.

And I know the mayor was there.

I didn't have a chance to say hi.

And many friends and family.

I try to go to that event every year, and my husband, Michael Dupille, always donates glass art to the wing loop.

So, let's see.

This morning, I met with the acting superintendent, my dear friend, Park and Recreation's department, Michelle Finnegan, regarding not just what's going on in D5, but our community center, the housing, Green Lake, the pools, all the stuff that we got to get cleaned up.

And I let Michelle know that I'm here for eight more months, so we're going to try to get a bunch of stuff done before I get out the door.

Tomorrow, I'm actually pretty excited.

I will attend a seminar hosted by GeekWire, Agents of Transformation Inside the AI Shift.

I'll be joined with my policy director, Paul, and two of our central staff folks, Brian Goodnight and Mike Mixon.

I can never say Mike's name right.

Sorry, Mike.

Anyway, we're looking forward to that.

That's been my interest in tracking all that AI legislation in the data centers.

Let's see, I will also be meeting with Dr. Chappelle, Director of DEAL, to discuss the FEPP levy and implementation plan.

And I've already, I'm gonna have the meeting teed up again with the chair.

Councilmember Rivera.

Saturday, I'll be attending the Seattle Indian Health Board Adeline Garcia Community Service Awards.

My understanding is that Councilmember Mosqueda and I forgot who else is getting an award.

Maybe somebody can remind me besides Mosqueda.

I forgot.

Okay.

Anyway, they will be getting the Adeline Garcia Community Service Awards.

Oh, here they are.

It's right in front of me.

I'm sorry.

It'll be Anna Bean, who I've known her since she was a little girl, and her mom and her aunties from the Puyallup Tribe.

She's on the Puyallup Tribal Council.

And also our own Ron Allen, chairman, CEO at Jamestown Sklalom Tribe, who I've known With that, that's it, Council President.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Councilmember Warris.

Oh, yep.

Thank you.

Colleagues, I'll try to be brief, but we've got some packed information here.

First, we're going to do shelter legislation.

So in Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee, we are on a fast track with the budget legislation associated with the shelter expansion.

So I'm going to walk us through this next process.

If there are any derailments to the fast track, It's okay.

It's just I need to know sooner than later so that I can adjust our schedules so that we all work well together.

So we have Monday, March 30th.

This is this coming Monday at 9.30.

We will have the shelter presentation similar to what we've received previously.

And the reason that we're on this fast track is so that we can spend the federal dollars that are in this package from community development block grant that are required to be spent by June.

The test balloon that I'm taking today is, and I'm not asking for colleagues to say on the record right now how many amendments folks have, but I'm asking for folks to share with me.

They don't have to tell me what your amendments are, just I'm trying to take a poll of how many amendments are out there, because if there are more than five or six amendments, we will need to adjust the schedule.

Here's the schedule.

Monday, the 30th, is our first presentation.

Amendment concepts would be due the next day on Tuesday, and amendments would have to be finalized by that Thursday night, Friday morning for a committee vote on April 7th.

That is a shorter timeline than I'm used to.

It is a short timeline because of schedules and wanting to make sure that this bill moved forward quickly.

So after briefing today, if you've got an amendment idea, I ask that you share it with me just so that I can track for how much work are we getting done?

Because then on April 7th, We have a presentation regarding the Centennial Accord.

We also have the grant acceptance ordinance and these votes on the shelter legislation.

And that's what I mean of if we have a lot of amendments, I don't need to know what they are.

I just need to know how many there are so I can manage the flow.

That would then take this bill to the full council on April 14th.

So that's my report out and request out for Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee.

And Association of Washington Cities, the executive committee meeting is this Wednesday.

So Council Member Rivera, I'm gonna have to miss your libraries meeting because that meeting just showed up on my calendar.

I had to adjust some office hours because there was an evening public hearing that was put on the calendar at the last minute.

Colleagues, I will also say that we have a certificate of municipal leadership through Association of Washington Cities.

I've continued to do these trainings, and they're very helpful, as well as I know it's months away, but I know your calendars are full.

We have the conference in June in Spokane.

Strongly would love to have everyone there.

Sound Transit.

Last week, board members gathered in Tacoma for a board retreat to receive the three approaches from Sound Transit staff that would address the $30 billion financial gap.

That financial gap is not today.

The financial gap exists between 2035 and 2045. We need to get light rail to Ballard and West Seattle full stop.

End of sentence and period.

The three options that Sound Transit provided were focused on the first one, keeping active light rail extensions moving, the second, advance regional priorities, and the third, phase all extensions.

There were no approaches that had relation to ridership at all.

This left the Ballard extension on the chopping block.

Sound Transit confirmed if any of these plans were adopted, Ballard would be deferred indefinitely.

No date, no nothing.

And this is just the beginning of the conversation, not the end.

These approaches are to help guide the conversation over the next few months.

And I said then, and I'll say again today, it's completely unacceptable to defer Ballard indefinitely, not because I live there, but because the Ballard extension has the highest projected ridership of any light rail line to date.

That means ever.

That means the mile-to-rider and the dollar-to-rider cost ratio is the best in Sound Transit's portfolio.

I've asked Sound Transit staff to bring forward a fourth approach that prioritizes ridership levels.

In our West Seattle options, we received an option that got us to the West Seattle Junction, an option that got us to Delridge, and an option that deferred West Seattle entirely.

It was all but assumed that the Avalon station is off the table and also the South Lake Union station.

Every jurisdiction in the Sound Transit region received hard choices to make, and no one was spared.

For us, we still have the Graham Street infill station unbuilt, and this starting point of discussions, we're already losing Avalon and South Lake Union.

Colleagues, I have a lot more to share.

Understanding that we are in collective time, feel free to stop by, I'll fill in Any additional nuance.

And the last thing I'll say here is that the Seattle area is paying for the second downtown tunnel more so than our regional partners, even though it is the region that needs that downtown tunnel more than the city does.

On a positive note, we are accomplishing a very large engineering feat this weekend by opening the Cross Lake Connection.

So this is the first light rail ever built on a floating bridge, which is easier than building light rail on a tribal reservation, which we are also endeavoring to do.

And so this Cross Lake Connection is this Saturday at Sam Smith.

Yes, our very own Sam Smith Park at 9 a.m.

with service starting at 10. So feel free to come down and join.

In District 6, I threw the first pitch at Magnolia Little League this Saturday.

I did throw a strike, and it was such a great group of...

There was an hour's worth of parade coming down the hill of all the young folks playing...

little league in Magnolia.

I also hosted office hours at my district office last Thursday, and this coming Wednesday, I will be hosting a town hall at the Ballard Community Center at 6.30.

With that, I'll take any questions, and if not, I'll pass it over to Council Member Saka.

Did you throw a strike, Council Member Strauss?

I threw a strike.

All right, awesome.

First one ever.

No, my phone froze.

It never happened.

Yeah, I know.

Council President.

Oh, you have a question, Councilmember Kettle?

Yes, was that pitch from the mound?

It was.

At the same play field that I grew up going to during preschool.

People forgot that I went to preschool in Magnolia.

I don't think people have forgotten.

Councilmember Saka?

Madam Council President and colleagues.

First off, I have two or three kiddos sick at home right now, so I'm wearing this out of abundance of caution.

So I'll try and speak clearly and enunciate so you can hear me.

But on the steps committee front, we had a very robust, lively set of conversations during our Thursday morning meeting last week.

First and foremost, we heard from our partners at SDOT on three brand new levy programs that were funded by the 2004 Transportation Levy.

One was Neighborhood Initiated Safety Partnership Program.

Next was the People's Streets, Public Spaces.

And then third and finally, our Low Pollution Neighborhoods Program.

So super gratifying for me personally to be able to take a look, a granular look at some of these programs that we created during the formation of the levy a few years ago and how they're already starting to benefit the community.

This was followed by a community round table discussion on the impacts of sound transit displacement, particularly on our small businesses across the city, starting first with West Seattle and had great community partners at the table from a few small businesses that are directly impacted in North Delridge to the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund.

Sound Transit, of course, was there, briefed on their relocation and mitigation efforts.

amongst other things.

And on that, I'll just note that, so we had a great, terrific conversation about how we as a city, how we as a region collectively with Sound Transit and others can better support our small businesses that are directly impacted by light rail expansion across the city.

But one of the good things that we learned from that conversation is that some of the latest plans of Sound Transit would spare Jefferson Square in West Seattle.

And there's a grocery store at Jefferson Square, Safeway.

There's a number of other small businesses in Jefferson Square.

There's some of the best teriyaki in District 1 in Jefferson Square, Nikko Teriyaki, amongst other small businesses.

Some of their latest plans would spare certain areas of North Delridge that were previously directly impacted.

And so I think that is some good news overall that was potentially lost in some of the broader conversation.

So I wanna uplift and acknowledge that and celebrate that.

And also, the opportunity remains for us to better support our small businesses that are impacted by sound transit.

The next steps meeting will be next Thursday morning.

The agenda is still being finalized, so stay tuned.

In the community, I'll just highlight a few things of note.

First and foremost, had a terrific meeting last week with, The Cub Scout Pack 282 in West Seattle last Tuesday, I think it was.

Really excited to speak with a group of fourth graders about civic engagement opportunities.

I brought my own son who was in third grade along, tagged along with me.

So he got to be an honorary member of the pack for that one meeting at least and learn a little himself.

Thank you, Wiley.

but talked about voting, the process for voting, how it works, civic engagement.

And there was a few questions about rank choice voting.

And when we started talking about that, I didn't have all the answers, but more to come on that.

And so great to engage with our local Cub Scout pack.

Another exciting thing that I did really Really honored to be able to join and visit some of our small businesses in Georgetown.

I did a walking tour of some of the businesses down there in Georgetown, visiting all types, including art galleries, a chocolate factory, Vietnamese coffee shop, home furnishing stores, and even a tattoo parlor.

No, I didn't get inked up, at least not on Friday when I took that tour, but it was honored to be able to go visit, check in, and support, and joined by leaders in the Georgetown Business Association, including Deborah Boz and others.

So finally, I'll note, had a terrific set of meetings last week with our labor partners at USCW 3000, Great to check in with them to learn more about some of their priorities.

Amongst other things, we talked about the opportunity we have to address affordability, food access, supporting workers, and strengthening our consumer protections.

And so I was just really honored to be able to have that conversation with them and more to come.

but proud to be able to engage so closely and directly with the members of UFCW 3000. That is all I have.

I welcome any comments, questions, if any.

And if none, we'll pass the baton to whoever's next in the list if we're going right down the line.

Council Member Rivera.

No questions.

All right.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

All right.

A week ago today, as chair of the Education Committee, I attended the press conference to celebrate the announcement of the expansion of the Seattle preschool program, which was passed by voters via the FEP levy we placed on the ballot this past November.

You may remember that the FEP levy added 600 more preschool spots to our award-winning preschool program at the city.

I was there with the mayor, my friend's deal director, Dwayne Chappelle, my friend council member Deborah Juarez, who represents the district we were in, and my friend Susan Lee, who's the senior director of education at the Refugee Women's Alliance, otherwise known as REWA.

where this announcement was made at their brand-new preschool facility in the D5 at Northgate.

It was such a great event, and yes, there were littles there.

I so enjoyed playing with clay with them.

And I'm excited to hear more from Diehl about the other areas of other areas where our SPP will be expanded to across the city.

Of course, more to come on this as you know as we consider the FEP implementation and evaluation plan later this spring.

I was honored to attend the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center annual Be Loud Breakfast Tuesday, March 17. The stories told at this event are so heart-wrenching, but the work that KSARC does to help these victims is amazing and transformative.

every year attendees are asked to stand if they or someone they know have been a victim of sexual assault and every year most of the attend attendees stand up it shows the large number of people impacted by sexual assault across our city and obviously across the country as i know we're not alone in this struggle i was really humbled and proud to attend this event Last Thursday, I had my meeting with the PSRC Growth Management Committee, where we voted as a committee to certify Seattle's comprehensive plan, as passed by this council this past December.

This was a big milestone for our city.

Of course, now we're taking up the zoning related to what we passed on this comprehensive plan.

So obviously more to come on that.

I attended last week a resident meeting at the Solid Ground affordable housing complex on Thursday evening.

It was really nice to get to meet some of the residents and hear their concerns.

They are just as interested in public safety as I am and as their neighbors living at Mercy Housing are.

They're very grateful for the work that SPD has done at Magnuson Park.

whether that is deterring dangerous disturbances at the boat launch, moving RVs out of the park, or helping with the street racing.

There's a lot of drug activity at the park that they raised with me and they're concerned about.

And I'm going to share one story because I think this is really important.

There's a resident whose child, who is preschool promise age, who OD'd on fentanyl, survived thankfully, and has now joined the preschool program.

This mother is a single mom, and she was very concerned about her daughter.

This young person got her fentanyl at the park.

So I say this to say this is having a huge impact on our folks living at the park, and it is why I keep beating the drum on the public safety issues at the park and on the public safety issues that we've been talking about for the last two years related to our low-income housing across the city.

This has been an extensive conversation that we've had with our providers.

and I know they know their residents are experiencing issues with this and I've talked to some of the housing providers about their resident concerns about this the providers are also concerned and we're all figuring out how to best keep residents safe but I raised this because this is real this is not something we're just talking about all the time is something that is real.

It has really big consequences for our residents and something that I very much care about, especially our residents living at the park who are most impacted by any of the negative activity at the park because they actually live at the park.

And whereas people who visit the park can come and go, they cannot.

They live there.

So this is something you're going to hear me continue to talk about because we need to make this low income housing safe for the folks that are living there.

So more to come on that because I'm going to keep talking about it.

I do want to thank SPD, Chief Barnes, Captain Davison, and others at SPD who've really engaged with residents at the park and with the park in general to give public safety focus to the park.

And we are doing a lot better than we were when I first started two years ago.

But we do need to keep and we need to continue to do work on this.

This week I had my monthly check-in with Chief Barnes today, and we talked about some of the issues I've mentioned, like street racing on Sandpoint Way, as well as issues with drug dealing also in the U District, not just at Magnuson Park.

Chief Barnes shared that they're on track to hire almost as many officers by this time as they did last time this year.

this year at this time, rather.

I'm so grateful for their partnership and their efforts across the district and across the city, and I know Councilmember Kettle, as Public Safety Chair, I appreciate your efforts, and I'm sure you have a lot more information to provide on that score.

All right, this week, you all know, I'm chairing the Select Committee on the Library Levy on Wednesday, the 25th.

The mayor's executive team will be there to present the 2026 levy proposal, and Eric McConaughey will be presenting the issue ID at the same meeting, along with Tom Mikesell and Eden Sisek, who will be talking about some of the financial aspects of the levy.

colleagues because this legislation is being proposed for the august ballot the timing is critical and shorter than we had for the feb levy for instance because that levy was being proposed for the november levy given this i'm requesting that you both work with eric to get amendments to him so we can work on cre he can work on creating those and getting those through the city attorney's review.

And then please also share with me so that I know what to expect as I'm shepherding through the process.

I want to ensure that everyone has the information as soon as possible, by everyone I mean all of you, and that we in partnership are working together so we don't delay this process.

I am meeting with all of you, as I did a few weeks ago, to touch base again on this.

I've met with a couple people today, and I'm making my way one-on-one with each of you.

So you will hear from me if you haven't already.

I look forward to having the same smooth process as we did for the FEP levy.

And of course, this requires us to be transparent and, as I said earlier, work together.

I do not take lightly going to voters to ask them to tax themselves to fund library services.

And I want to ensure that we're being responsible and judicious in our ask.

And I want to thank you in advance for your efforts to ensure that we're moving quickly and responsibly to get this levy on the ballot.

You will see and maybe you have seen because the legislation proposal has been out since last week that the proposal is to continue the great work that SPL has been engaging in each of our districts and in some instances even add to that work.

I did speak with all of you ahead of time.

I shared that with the mayor's office, and for the most part, a lot of what we cared about were included in the proposal because I did share what you all shared with me.

For those of you that did share with me, I thank you in advance, and we were able to make sure that in partnering with the mayor's office, I will say I have partnered with the mayor's office.

They are great partners in this, and the library board as well, for that matter.

We all met and we all partnered together as the mayor was putting their proposal forward, so I want to thank the mayor's staff and also the library board in advance for their work.

is a proposal that we haven't looked to date in putting this proposal together.

It is a proposal that, again, though I am never excited to have to go to voters and ask them to tax themselves, it is one we can be proud of because we showed through this process where the dollars are going, they're going to things that And so it is a proposal that has been, for the most part, influenced by all of us, including the mayor's office and the library board and the libraries themselves.

Chief Faye was also included in the conversations.

And so very excited to move this process forward so we can get this on August, the ballot in August.

And I would really caution us because I do not want to create any delays to this process.

It would not be advantageous.

So thank you in advance for your help with that.

I'll be attending this week the Seattle visit Seattle's annual meeting on Thursday and finally I'll be attending the Seattle Youth Commission this one's my favorite save the best for last meeting this weekend to hear from students and young people about their work and the things that matter most to them happy to answer any questions and if not I'll turn it over to councilmember Kettle

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Kettle?

And then we'll just keep on pushing it to the right, okay?

Okay.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, first up, Public Safety Committee will be tomorrow.

We'll be working our bill, Councilmember Rink, on ALPR.

Actually, we've been saying ALPR.

It's actually ALPR and CCTV to be a little bit more complete with that description.

And then also Councilmember Lin's bill as it relates to alignment with Keep Washington Working.

And as part of the ALPR piece, as mentioned in the...

In our update from OIR, there'll be a discussion about the Olympia bill on AOPRs.

This week, today, met with Diehl, met with public libraries as well.

Also, Dwight Dively from finance, looking at the issues facing those areas to include the levies and implementation and all those pieces.

I really enjoyed the conversations.

Tomorrow, the Seattle Women's Commission.

Look forward to that meeting.

Thursday, we have the Visit Seattle Annual Meeting.

I'll be working on that.

We'll be there, and separately that day, we'll have some evening ComPlan office hours for the D7 part of Magnolia, although we'll be at the Magnolia Library, Councilmember Strauss.

Friday, we have a round table of the Seattle hospitality organizations, and my team will also be out Saturday related to the comp plan.

Next week, we have the Bell Street ribbon cutting, great effort to improve east-west connections with bike lanes and just generally completing the Bell Street work that was already started.

Tuesday, Downtown Community Council meeting with the Downtown Community Council, a great organization.

And then following that with additional ComPlan office hours, this time at KXP's Gathering Space.

Always appreciate KXP and their Gathering Space.

It's a fantastic location.

And then following that, we'll be leaving for the Sister City 40th anniversary trip to Ireland, to Galway.

I just want to note last week, meeting with friends of athletic fields, it's really important to get the updates on these athletic fields across the city, but particularly in District 7. You know, the work going at Smith Cove, pending work at Big Howe, otherwise known as the West Queen Anne Playfield, and some of the other locations, questions about the Queen Anne Bowl, and, you know, working those pieces.

I also had a very good meeting with Horizon House, and I Council President colleagues' location, but it's right there on the border area, if you will.

Freeway Park is right there, you know, maintaining that connection.

But then, you know, really appreciate also in Queen Anne, people coming out on the ComPlan office hours.

That one was held on top of the hill.

And lastly, really enjoyed last week the meeting at MOHAI.

And I just wanted to note to everybody that The Freedom Plane is coming to Seattle in July through the beginning part of August, and it's in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation.

And they're bringing these founding documents, or not the Constitution itself, for example, but, you know, a handwritten version.

Really important to see, you know, those foundational documents or related documents.

And, you know, it's basically Civics 101. It's fantastic for everybody, and so there's going to be a great program with that.

And lastly, colleagues, I just wanted to note too, I had a visit to the Orion Center, which is right there at basically Denny and almost I-5 on Yale.

And it's a, you know, incredibly utilized drop-in center for young adults, youths who are homelessness, dealing with homelessness.

And I encourage my colleagues to, if they've not been, to go because it's important.

And, you know, the insights gained from that kind of fed back in terms of you know, our conversations with SPL this morning.

So it's really a positive meeting and visit to the Orion Center last Friday.

With that, Council President, I will pass to Council Member Rink to my right.

Thank you, Councilmember Cattle, and thank you for mentioning the ALPR bill that's going to be in committee tomorrow, and thank you for your partnership in getting that before in a timely manner.

Colleagues, our next meeting of the Human Services, Labor, and Economic Development Committee will be April 3rd, so I'll be providing more updates on the agenda during our next council briefing.

And just to highlight a few things over the past week that I had the opportunity to engage on, I met with some of our small business partners with Seattle Restaurants United, had a visit to Red Barn Ranch.

If you haven't had a chance yet, definitely encourage folks to go out.

And then my team convened our state, city, and county partners to discuss Continuum of Care.

And I know a number of staff from various council offices participated in that discussion.

But as a reminder and for the viewing public, the HUD Continuum of Care program funds $65 million going towards primarily permanent supportive housing annually, and recent changes made to an application requirements by the Trump administration's HUD have jeopardized permanent supportive housing programs across the United States.

So we reconvened our stakeholders last week, and just to provide a few updates.

Despite Congress's directive to renew FY25 grants expiring in Q1 of this year, HUD has still not announced those renewals.

Additionally, we're waiting on a March 30th decision on HUD's appeal of the Rhode Island District Court's preliminary injunction, which ruled that previously approved contracts for FY25 must be honored.

King County is one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit.

The bulk of COC contracts that KCRHA oversees will lapse in Q3 and Q4 of this year, though some program gaps have already started.

And notably, the state legislature has actually set aside $15 million in one-time funding for FY27 to backfill federal cuts.

This will be managed by the Washington State Department of Commerce.

So those are just a couple of updates on Continuum of Care funding.

I'll continue to keep everyone updated.

And lastly, to close us out, over the weekend, I got to attend the first annual ATU 587. So ATU 587, that's our bus drivers' union.

Their first ever women's roundtable in honor of Women's History Month alongside King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci and Teresa Mosqueda, our colleague Councilmember Foster, as well as City Attorney Evans.

And we had a really important discussion on representation and support for women in the work.

If you haven't done it recently, just make sure you thank your bus drivers and support women in the trades.

With that, that concludes my updates.

Thank you, Council President, and I'll turn it next to Council Member Lynn.

Thank you.

This week, we look forward to speaking about updating our city code to be more in alignment with the Keep Washington Working Act tomorrow at the Public Safety Committee.

Thank you to Chair Kettle for bringing that forward on the agenda.

This past weekend, attended a few events.

Attended the Rainier Valley Creative District.

There was a tour.

It is the only creative district currently in the city.

It's certified by the state.

And the purpose is to highlight both the role of the arts to our local economy, but also to anti-displacement efforts.

And I heard that there may be another creative district coming for Pioneer Square.

I believe there's an application put forth.

That would be the second one in the city.

But it was a great tour of Rainier Beach, Dunlap, Brighton, and then Hillman City and Columbia City.

And because I was on that tour, I missed Council President's proclamation of Flick Watts, so I was bummed to miss that.

Also had a chance to talk to the Rainier Scholars on Saturday.

That was a great event, talking to high school seniors about civic engagement.

and then attended the Wing Luke Museum Gala with Council Member Foster, along with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and other electeds.

And that is all I have.

No Land Use Committee meeting this week.

We'll be on for next week, April 1st, and that's all I have, thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Let's see.

I will start with updates from last week.

I had a great meeting last week with Shana Deitch from Senator Murray's office, just figuring out our collaboration between our local and our Senate partners.

So I want to thank her for her time there.

And I also got to be a guest at a meeting of the Washington Immigrant and Refugee Funders Alliance.

As folks know, this council last year, you all allocated $4 million from the city, and we're also reaching out to other funders locally about their efforts to invest not just in Seattle, but statewide.

So hope to have more news to share.

That was a very productive early connection, as well as meeting with the Seattle Equitable Development Coalition regarding the comprehensive plan.

and I had a fantastic meeting with Common Area Maintenance.

I spoke about them briefly last week because I got to speak at an event that they hosted recently, but last week they came in and talked about the work that they are doing in the Belltown neighborhood, both to make sure that they are providing a space for artists and community members, but also through the activation work that they do in the building that they have there.

folks will recognize them because they are the organization that purchased the El Rey over the summer and they are working on getting enough resources to revitalize that building.

So really excited to partner with them on that.

And I ended my Friday with a fantastic neighborhood tour up in DJ D5 and Lake City.

And so I want to thank the Lake City Collective for hosting me and taking me for a walk.

It was great to be in the neighborhood, a little bit of Little Brook as well.

So that was really fantastic.

And just the work that they have been doing to create a community space, to own land that they want to develop through the Equitable Development Initiative, and really a lot of sort of doing it themselves with the park.

And they've got these great basketball hoops out there.

There was kids out there playing.

And it was just really fantastic to see all the elbow grease that went into that.

What's going on this week?

Looking ahead, we have the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee this Wednesday.

I am really excited.

We are gonna have folks in from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, doesn't that sound exciting?

For a discussion on their covenant home ownership program.

So if folks didn't track this from the state, it is a fantastic program.

They're able to direct lending dollars specifically, not just to BIPOC residents, but they're really able to focus and target those dollars.

The bulk of those funds go to black residents with historical ties to Washington state.

and they've been able to be very intentional about that.

So I'm really looking forward to that conversation about how they did that at the state and what we can learn from them here locally.

And we will also have the office, Seattle Office for Civil Rights commissions in for a briefing on their work.

That's what I got.

Awesome, thank you, council members.

It's really good to hear what's going on in committee, what's going on in everyday lives and schedules and everything, and I'll be super brief.

Governance and utilities will be Thursday, April the 9th at 9.30, what we have coming to full council.

I talked about the Comcast franchise agreement.

On the meeting agenda, we have a SEEK appointment.

We also have a Seattle Public Utility stormwater code update.

And then also, one of my favorites, we're preparing a Safeway food waste prevention program.

A lot of people don't know, SPU runs a food prevention program through public utilities where they go around to the different grocery stores and they provide a contract to people and they're able to extend the life of food.

So we're gonna hear a presentation from Safeway regarding that program and then some ideas and new things that they have coming down the line as well.

and we love all our grocery stores, not just Safeway.

This is just one of the programs that SPU goes with.

Next, regional, we have a regional water quality committee and that's 326. I serve on that with Councilmember Lin and then also Police Pension Board meeting coming up.

That is it for my regional committees and my regular committees.

I do wanna say, Just a shout out and just a congratulations to our Husky women's basketball team who did a great job in March Madness.

They made it to the second round of the tournament where they played TCU, lost at TCU, and really in overtime, yes, in overtime.

And it was really great to watch them and see that program really bounce back to greatness and continue to perform well.

And also to our Seattle University men's basketball, our Red Hawks.

They made it to the second round of the NIT, and they played and lost to Auburn in a well-fought battle.

They took three different flights to get to Auburn, and that is in Arkansas, or excuse me, Alabama.

So really, congratulations to those two teams.

March Madness is super fun.

Anyways, my bracket is busted, and that is great.

And colleagues, is there any more further business to come before we adjourn?

Seeing none, you all must have perfect brackets.

Awesome.

All right, hearing, seeing none, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.