City Council 7/21/2026

All right, good afternoon.

July 21st, 2026, meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2.04 p.m.

My name is Joy Hollingsworth.

I am the council president.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Saka?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Here.

Councilmember Foster?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Lin.

Here.

Council Member Rink.

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Here.

Nine present.

Awesome.

Today, the Council will sign and present two proclamations.

The first one will be presented by Council Member Strauss recognizing Salmon Bay FC, and the second will be our Hotel Worker Day by Council Member Foster.

Council Member Strauss, you are recognized to present your proclamation.

Thank you.

Salmon.

Salmon.

Let's go national champions.

It is such an honor, a pleasure to get to represent the district.

Well, we have disputed District 6-7 where Inner Bay is, but it is an honor and...

As I said earlier, I'm just so gosh darn proud of the team.

Salmon Bay FC is distinctly different from Ballard FC.

All of the other USL2 teams across the nation just use one name to represent both teams.

Here in Seattle, we are distinctly different.

And we've got a bunch of other teams in the community, so I'll let my colleagues speak to them if they would like.

But I just want to call out coaches Malia, Shalise, Elliott, and Jimmy.

I want to call out our players, Jordan, Morgan, Malia, Rhea, Keeley, Juju, Alicia, Sophie, Maya, well, we got a number of Mayas, so Maya Loud, Kaya Hanson, Andy Miller, Ginny Lackey, Jaylee Reynolds, Kirsten McGuffey, Ava Urubi, Chloe Seelhoff, who was really good this year.

We got Maya Courtney, Jillian McBride, Samia Shell, Blake Warner, Natalie Graham, we got Anika Carpenter, Alina Alaina Milliam, N'Gole, thank you.

Megan Cardenas, Rachel Reitz, Maya Hinson, Morgan Manalili.

Man, she has good footwork too.

Every time she was coming down the pitch, it was like, oh, here we go.

We got Louder Hedrick, Caroline Studebaker, Eleanor Morrissey, Aaliyah Docter, Millie Bray, Amira Hussain, our captain, good to see you.

We got Anna Messy-Menti, we got Amelia Severn, Uwe Kaya-Uwe, our MVP.

Lou Barnes plays from time to time.

We got Jody Kaia Singh who made this for all of you who weren't there at the game.

It was a match to be remembered.

We went to extra time.

We got a goal.

They got a goal.

We almost got another goal that we thought was a goal.

And then we went into PKs and it was the sixth round of PKs.

And A penalty kick, yes.

So Kaya Singh nailed that last goal to make us national, to make you national champions, to make us national champions.

We got a Maya Armstead, Maya Courtney, Mariah Gray as well.

And I can't forget to thank the organization for creating a community that you get to have affogados and local drinks while getting to see amazing footwork for 15 bucks.

It's just thank you all for everything that you've done for our community, for being that inspiration to the next generation of soccer players, of soccer champions.

For all of you...

Sorry, I'm going on way longer than I thought I was.

Something that is interesting about USL2 is because it is a...

It's not MLS.

We don't get to keep these players forever.

They go on to become, to get to go on to higher levels of the game, to get to go on to other things in life, sometimes getting to come back to play for us.

And so it's just amazing to get to have you right now.

Thank you for being national champions.

The only, so Ballard FC, I think I already said this, Ballard FC and Salmon Bay FC, the only club in the entire nation to both be national champions.

and this is their second year.

My favorite part about this is we were talking, when they played Colorado on July 3rd, our jeer to them was that they were landlocked.

But Bob, I saw Councilmember Kettle the next day and he could hear from the top of Queen Anne, he could hear us cheering for that win.

So those are my remarks, Council President.

It's just an honor and a privilege to get to host national champions here at City Hall.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any other comments Council Members would like to offer before I request signatures for the proclamation?

Council Member Saka followed by Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First off, I want to say congratulations to Salmon Bay FC as the City Council member that represents West Seattle, including your rivals, the Junction FC and the West Seattle Roadies FC.

I'm still...

a tremendous fan and supporter of them.

I'm looking at the peninsula, the West Seattle Peninsula is over there.

But I also am incredibly proud of you all for your on-the-field success, tremendous achievement.

It reflects great credit, not only upon yourselves, the Ballard, Interbay community, but the entire city of Seattle.

which is why we're here today and which is also why I'm honored to affix my name even though I would ordinarily be cheering loudly for the roadies.

But I do congratulate you.

Incredibly proud of you all.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for bringing this forward because this is about bringing communities together.

This is about celebrating communities.

This is about celebrating women in sport, and for those reasons and so many more, really honored to be able to affix my name to this proclamation, to honor, to do one small thing we can do from a City of Seattle perspective to honor your exceptional achievement.

Congratulations, thank you.

Awesome, thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Also, I'll note that there is some intermarriage between some of the coaching staff, between your team and my team, so anyways, congratulations again.

from Osaka, Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

I just want to say first, congratulations.

It is such an accomplishment.

And you have such an example that you're setting for the girls to include a certain soon-to-be middle schooler in my home.

And what you're doing there is so important for the girls and young women in our city and leading by example.

And I just want to say thank you for that, for all the positive reasons and that the impacts on these girls' and young women's lives is so important.

And also, given that you play in District 7, which is also where the Seattle Storm have their Performance Center, we have a little women's sports focus there in the Dravis.

So the Dravis Sports Center that we have there is so important, and that's something that we should lean into across the board, whether it's like my daughter's case, it's not just soccer but lacrosse and basketball too.

And really developing this for the whole city because it is a city asset as the Storm are too.

And so I just want to say thank you and congratulations and fantastic job.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much, Council President, and I will be brief with my remarks.

I just want to say congratulations, champions.

Oh, my God, we're so excited.

Yes, I could feel the energy, and I'm like, I could see the plaque from here.

So very cool.

You know, I got a chance to go to one of your games with Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you for inviting me and just turned me into an instant fan.

So thank you for everything that you do.

Thank you for playing hard.

Thank you for representing our city well.

We're just so proud and I'm totally just geeked out and so thanks for joining us today so we can celebrate you.

And thank you for bringing this forward, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I, too, want to add my note of congratulations.

I have two daughters, and I just love you all are such role models for our girls and women in sports in the city, and even those that don't play sports.

To see you all play and what you mean to girls and women in community, both in and out of sports is really amazing, so thank you.

Council Member Strauss for bringing them to chambers today so that we could celebrate them.

And again, congratulations.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Are there any Council Member Strauss back to you before we call the roll for signatures?

Any closing comments?

As you can tell, we're all super proud of you.

Thank you for being national champions, for dedicating yourselves to a year here.

I know that the whole team couldn't be here because colleagues, folks go back quickly to either their college or their home.

Jenny Lackey flew back here from England to play for one game.

It's just been such a pleasure and honor to get to be yelling on the sidelines.

I'm glad I got my voice back.

I'm ready for next year, and for anyone that wants to join us, play in Interbay, season tickets are 100 bucks.

It's amazing.

So, I'm looking forward to next year where we'll roll back, do it again, get that second star.

Awesome.

All right, colleagues, can we call the roll?

Who would like to sign the proclamation?

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Lin.

Yes.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Nine signatures will be affixed.

there's no objection, the rules will be suspended to present the proclamation to our guests and allow them to provide some comments.

So hearing no objection, the rules are suspended, the proclamation will be presented to our guests and they'll provide comments.

I don't know who's coming up to speak, but whoever is, you are more than welcome to come up, whichever mic, to provide some comments.

Yeah, that's great.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

First, we want to say thank you for inviting us here, but more importantly, we want to say we can't do anything without all of you, and we're so grateful to be here, but we're also just grateful to kind of pave the way for all the young girls and the younger generation, so thank you again.

Anyone else want to say anything?

No?

Yeah?

Awesome.

Hey, short and sweet.

Councilmember Strauss.

Can we take a picture up here on the dais?

Absolutely.

So now, can we all come take a photo?

You're just gonna come up here on the dais.

and basses.

And then what happened to the proclamation we need one more

Councilor Mayor Sokka.

We'll get this back to you in a minute.

I'm gonna hold this here.

You wanna hold it Natalie?

One, I'm gonna take a couple.

One more time.

Okay, and then you wanna give, okay.

National champions!

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That's awesome.

I like that.

Ole, ole, ole, ole.

Salmon Bay.

Okay.

Salmon Bay.

They got a little pink and green.

Y'all can be AKAs as well.

Okay, so next, that was fun.

Thank you, Salmon Bay.

We are so grateful for y'all, and we're so, so proud as well, especially with our little girls seeing y'all play.

It's just amazing, so we are so great.

Okay, next, Council Member Foster.

We have a second proclamation today.

You are recognized.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Yes, second proclamation.

So I want to take a second to acknowledge the workers that are here in Council Chambers with us from Unite Here Local 8 and say thank you for being here and thank you for all that you do.

Colleagues, I'm really excited to bring forward a proclamation proclaiming Hotel Worker Day in the City of Seattle.

to be today, July 21st.

And I want to share why that's so important to us.

We know that, and I'm looking at you all, we know that the workers who are in our hotels are the folks who make fantastic places for us to stay.

They make welcoming places for our guests.

They've helped make Seattle a place that can welcome people to visit our fantastic city.

And we also know that those workers are many times immigrants or many times folks who are working a couple of jobs to make sure that they can have affordability here.

And we wanted to have a moment to acknowledge the work that our hotel workers do to make Seattle such a fantastic city and to proclaim Hotel Worker Day in celebration of their work and their organizing and their steadfast contributions to our city.

I've had the opportunity to meet and connect with Unite Here workers.

And I see some folks here today who I've sat down with.

I see some folks who I've had the pleasure of joining on the picket line.

And what you do is really hard.

And when you stand up for your rights and you organize, that's another version of hard work that mirrors the hard work you do in your day jobs.

So I think it's really important that we take a second to acknowledge your work, your labor, and your organizing, and so I'm really excited to bring forth this proclamation today.

I'll just share a couple of lines here, and colleagues, I would love your support and signature on this proclamation.

I won't read all of it, I promise, I know, but...

just a little bit.

So, whereas Seattle City Council honors the immeasurable contributions of all hotel workers to our city and expresses its gratitude for their work, resilience, and leadership.

Whereas Seattle has long recognized the essential labor of hotel workers, including through the passage and implementation of four hotel worker labor standards ordinances protecting working conditions, safety, and improving access to medical care for those workers.

Whereas workers at Embassy Suites have been on strike since June 18th, making tremendous personal sacrifices in pursuit of fair wages, stronger workplace protections, quality healthcare, and the dignity every worker deserves.

Whereas Seattle City Council stands in solidarity with hotel workers and urges all parties to engage in immediate good-faith negotiations to reach a fair agreement that respects workers, recognizes their contributions, and brings this labor dispute to a just and timely resolution.

Whereas Seattle has a proud history of standing with workers and recognizing that when workers have the power to organize, bargain collectively, and earn a fair share of the prosperity they create, our entire city is stronger.

Now, therefore, the mayor and the Seattle City Council proclaim July 21, 2026 to be for the hotel worker day.

And before we call the roll for signatures, is there anyone that has comments?

Thank you Council President, thank you Council Member Foster for bringing this forward and thank you for everyone who came here today and I just want to in particular speak about sort of the the bravery of standing up for yourselves, for your colleagues, and the importance of, you know, it is not just a fight for your rights, it is a fight for working people everywhere.

And so I just want you to know that you are not alone that you are fighting a good fight when you stand up for yourselves, when you stand up for your colleagues, and when you fight for the dignity of labor.

So thank you for all you do, and thank you for being here today.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm going to stand.

I want to thank you folks at UNITE HERE for being here today.

I want to thank Councilmember Foster, who is new to Seattle City Council, but has been working on labor issues, and I really appreciate your input on all of these issues.

But I especially want to thank Stefan, who I've been dealing with for a decade.

We don't always agree, but I always appreciated that labor would put Stephan Ford to come talk to us.

A lot of labor issues, labor peace agreements, a lot of contracts with Seattle Center and other issues.

And so you have a great leader.

You have good people.

We have good leadership.

And for that, thank you, Stephan, because I know you've been here a long time, longer than me.

So thank you.

And thank you, Council Member Foster.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to thank you all for being here, and more importantly for the work that you do, and particularly we just had a great event where people from all over the world came here, and you took great care of them.

you take care of our visitors at the city and you make us look good.

And you deserve to be taken care of.

So I just wanna thank you for being here today.

And I wanna acknowledge that coming on the heels of the event we just had where there were so many folks here from all over.

And then Council Member Foster, thank you for bringing this proclamation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Strauss.

Yeah, thank you.

I'll be brief.

Your shirt says exactly what I'm thinking.

One job should be enough.

This city is not getting any cheaper to live in, and it's important that we support your rights to earn a living wage here in our city.

These types of strikes, as I understand, usually two days, maybe a week.

I understand you're in week five.

Is that right?

Thank you for what you're doing, because you're doing it not only for yourselves and our community, but for so many other people in this world, and we're standing with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

We also have Council Member Rink.

Thank you.

One job should be enough.

Just simply put, one job should be enough, and I know from my time being alongside you all on the picket lines, I talked to some of you working five jobs to get by in this city.

That is unacceptable.

We should not be living in that reality, and in so many ways, I think exactly the phrase that you all champion, one job should be enough, captures it so well.

and I know that is something that this body is working every day to try and fight for a city that really works for all of us, but I wanted to take this moment to really thank you for your courage throughout the strike.

I know it's been challenging, but I wanna urge on the strongest of terms the need to come to a resolution to bargain in good faith because your demands for year-round healthcare, for appropriate staffing, pre-pandemic staffing levels to be restored and protections from ICE are beyond reasonable.

They're necessary.

and so Councilmember Foster, thank you so much for bringing this proclamation forward and honoring hotel workers for the incredible work that they do.

And I want to thank all of the representatives from UNITE here today.

Thank you for your courage in this fight.

It's been an honor to stand by you and will continue to stand by you throughout this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Ray.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President and Council Member Foster.

I just wanted to say, I've had these conversations with Stefan, so I think it's just right to say it publicly to the group here, Unite8, that it's important to have a seat at the table and to have your voice heard, and to negotiate and work these challenges that we're facing.

And so I thank you for being here, and I can vouch, as some of my colleagues, Council Member Juarez, Stefan, The leadership is fantastic, so thank you both for being here.

The group.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmem- Sorry.

Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

I'll just be brief and say that I'm really proud of you all for your courage and commitment to stand up for the labor movement and fighting for these rights that you so desperately have worked hard for.

and deserve and need.

As Councilmember Rivera alluded to a moment ago, we just got done welcoming the world.

But we were a global city before FIFA, we'll be a global city long after FIFA as well.

And you all are a significant part of that.

You are the backbone of our economy, specifically as it relates to the hospitality industry and our standing as a strong global city leader.

And you're also unseen by many of the people that come visit here.

But I want you all to know that I see you, that this council obviously sees you and your work, not only for yourselves, your union, but the broader labor movement.

They're greatly appreciated within the city of Seattle, so thank you.

And I'll say my quick comments before I kick it back to you, Council Member Foster, for closing words.

Very grateful that you all are here.

Agree with every single thing that my colleague said.

And for the record, everything that you all are asking for for your job is the bare minimum.

It is the bare minimum.

And so support you all a thousand percent.

As I always say, because I'm from the CD, 10 toes down, thousand percent.

for what you all are asking for.

And we really appreciate you being here and thank you Council Member Foster for bringing this forward and highlighting you all so we could celebrate y'all today and elevate your voice on what's going on with your strike in week five right now.

So thank you all, thank you.

Next, Council Member Foster, do you have any closing words?

Yes, thank you so much, colleagues, for sharing all of the support.

It really means a lot to me, so I appreciate that, and I'm sure it means a lot to the folks that are here today.

I'll just say this, you know, Councilmember Strauss already spoke to this.

We think this may be the longest-running hotel strike in Seattle history, and we want to stop making history in this way, and so we stand with you to do that, and thank you all for taking time out to be with us today.

With that, I think, well, I'll let you let the clerk call the roll.

Thank you, colleagues.

All right, awesome.

Oh, you also have great leadership.

I also like Stefan.

Everyone else gave you a shout out.

If I didn't, I know I would have heard about it later.

So, clerk, will you please call the roll to see who would like to affix their signatures to the proclamation?

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Lynn.

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Nine signatures will be affixed.

Awesome.

Yay.

So it is officially...

21st, Hotel Workers' Day.

And so if there's not an objection, the rules will be suspended to present the proclamation.

And hearing no objection, rules are suspended to present the proclamation.

And then I think we're inviting Stefan and then three people as well, or whoever is speaking.

Yeah?

Okay, awesome.

From the group.

Well, good afternoon, City Council.

I'm blushing a little bit.

But thank you so much for recognizing the role of hotel workers in the success of Seattle's economy, in the success of Seattle's tourism sector, and in the success of our city as a community.

Hotel work is hard work.

Some of you have said it.

Hotel housekeepers have higher injury rates than coal miners.

No matter where you work in a hotel, you're on your feet, you're lifting, you're rushing, all to provide a good experience to the guests that come to our city.

And hotel work has gotten much harder since the pandemic.

Staffing levels have dropped.

What used to be one person's job in the past is now what used to be two people's job in the past is now one person's job.

At the same time, many workers are struggling to get enough hours to actually make a living and support their families.

After years of rising costs, groceries, housing, child care, all the other essentials, we're again facing inflation in Seattle of 5%.

And so that's why workers at the embassy suites are fighting for better wages, a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels, year-round health care.

There's a lot of people in the hotel who lose their health care in the winter when it's slow.

And that's why they're fighting.

But they're also fighting for something even more fundamental, and that's equally important.

They're fighting for their rights as workers and as immigrants.

Almost five weeks into the strike, hotel management and ownership has responded with a $0.40 offer for them to return to work and has rejected some very basic protections for immigrants in the workplace.

This is why we're so excited that you're recognizing hotel workers here today and that you're passing this proclamation.

So I really want to thank Council Member Foster, all of you, the mayor, for signing on to this proclamation because it means a lot to us.

And I'm going to turn it over to Hayden and Fabiana, who are going to say a few words themselves.

Honorable Councils, my fellow workers, everybody in the room, have a blessed, good day.

I am Vivian Kibau, working at Embassy Suite under the Food and Beverage Department.

I never imagined that I would have to stand here and join a job action.

I decided to go out and now I have been on strike for 34 days.

This is not something I would normally do, but this is not only about me.

Everyone is experiencing the same problem.

I am one of the senior employees in our department.

Most of the time, I consider myself lucky if I receive 35 hours.

Even now, during the busy or peak season, I'm still receiving only about 30 hours per week.

However, even though our ship had been shortened, we are still expected to work faster and carry the same heavy workload.

We are not being given enough paid time to complete it properly.

This creates tremendous pressure and affects both the employees and the quality of the work we are able to provide.

When I go home, I am so exhausted, all I can do is lie down.

That's real, nothing else.

In our last union contract, we received a wage increase.

We were grateful for it, and we hoped it would help us manage the rising cost of living.

However, what is the value of higher hourly wage if we are given fewer hours to work?

We want to continue doing the jobs we love.

Our work is our bread and butter.

But we also want to know that our work is valued and that our concern matters.

We are not asking for special treatment.

We are asking for fairness.

I cannot bear to be quiet.

Thank you, Fabi.

City Council, it's nice to see you today.

Happy Hotel Workers' Day.

We've been on strike for one month now.

It's been incredibly exhausting.

I'm sure it's been incredibly exhausting for some of the residents near the hotel as well, who've had to deal with us at 7 in the morning every day, screaming into our megaphones.

And we still plan on continuing to do that every day until this is resolved.

We are really tired, obviously.

Everybody's accounts are pretty much drained.

I know that my savings account, I just pulled out the last of it this prior weekend.

So, I mean, we're rocking with what we got now, you know?

And we're gonna stick together no matter what, through thick and thin, financial hardship, whatever that comes along, and we're gonna make sure that we get what we demand, what we want, we deserve.

The reason why we're doing this is obviously all of our demands, right?

Better wages, healthcare year round, making sure that we get our pre-pandemic staffing levels back up, getting more staff in the hotel.

But there's something even more important and there's a reason why some of the people didn't even come out to strike with us, and it's because of ICE.

It's because of the way that the immigrant community in this country has been treated, and they want to make sure that things go smoothly.

So some of them have been told by their immigration lawyers to actually not participate in the strike, to not use their voice because it could impact their immigration case.

So that's why I'm using my voice right now to let you know that we're trying to make real change here for the people that work these jobs in this city, this country.

And so that's why we won't give up until we get what we deserve.

Thank you very much.

Happy Hotel Workers Day.

Well said.

Wanted to know, just do a check.

Did you want a picture, Council Member Foster?

Can we do one real fast?

Yeah.

Let's do it.

Can we do a picture real quick?

Yeah?

Okay.

Awesome.

All right.

We'll do a picture and then we'll have Deanna Lee will be in the middle.

She will count us down and...

Yeah.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Do you want to just do...

Okay.

Perfect.

So, Council Members, we're going to come down here and we're going to take a photo.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry

It's still growing.

That's awesome.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

I was going down there.

Thank you very much.

Here, let's do like here in the middle and then we'll hold this.

Just keep going.

I would take off after this.

This is going to be a long morning.

I don't wish I had fun.

You're good.

You're good.

Thanks for being a champion.

Short people up front!

How are we doing?

Council members come this way?

Okay.

Or we have enough red shirts?

Okay, great, fantastic.

Go ahead.

Awesome, thank you.

It's proclamation time.

That's my song.

Proclamation time.

Memories.

All right, now I want to thank everyone for their patience, because now we're going to move right into public comment.

All right, so colleagues at this time, we're going to open up the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment is limited to items on today's agenda, the introduction referral calendar, the council work program, the council cannot accept comments on quasi-judicial items on campaign-related matters as well.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have?

11 in person and four remote.

Okay, awesome.

Everyone's going to get two minutes.

Will the clerk please read the item, or excuse me, we'll read the instructions to the public comment.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

All right, awesome.

We'll start with in-person folks first.

We have Miss Yvette Dynish and Miss Rober...

or excuse me, Yvette, I'm gonna say the first five names.

Yvette Dynish, Roberto, Daniel Smith, we have Pauline, we have Greg, and we have Kirk.

So, Miss Yvette, you are first.

Unless there's another Yvette Dynish.

The one and only.

Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, and liberty and justice for all, and that includes hotel workers, okay?

I want to also thank you for the funding I'm sure you gave to the Chinatown International District Living in the CD, going to the parade every year was a ritual.

And I went this past weekend and it was outstanding.

I had a great time.

The only thing that would make it better is if the Blue Angels were to do a flyover, I'm just saying.

So thank you for helping to fund that wonderful program.

And also regarding the King County Regional Housing Association, I know there's talk about dissolving it, but quite frankly, I don't have a whole lot of faith that they will do better.

I would like to think they had three years to do right with their funding and they did a poor job of doing that, quite frankly.

So I certainly hope that going forward, if you continue funding, that we keep a close watch and close eye on how their money is being spent.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Yvette.

All right, we have Roberto followed by Pauline and Greg.

Welcome, Roberto.

Hello.

Thank you for taking the time, Councilmembers.

Speak in the mic.

You're good.

We'll restart your time.

All right.

Thank you for taking the time, Councilmembers.

Wasn't sure how much time I was going to have to talk today, but I am speaking in regards to exiting a Superior Court case where my children have been taken from me through orders by a lawyer who has aimed to harass me and I just feel like I needed to speak because if I did not speak it would just continue.

So I'm here today to say that I am seeking custody of my two children.

I am new to the Seattle residence.

I've lived here for two years.

Since I've been here I built a home and I was actually kicked out of my home by members of government, and this has all happened all at one time, so it's been a difficult process for me, but I was always there for my children.

My son is autistic.

I went through speech therapy with him, and I was that advocate for him.

I was an advocate for women's sports, and I actually moved here because of that to support my ex-wife's dreams.

and pursue my dreams as well.

And I've kind of just been, I was pro se in this dissolution.

And I just feel like I was cornered, cornered, cornered, and then just pushed away from my children.

And if I didn't speak, I feel like it would just happen again.

I'm also here fighting for my daughter.

And I actually didn't know I was gonna have two minutes to speak, but, that was the most important thing to me, is to make sure that I spoke out in regards to what was going on.

And I feel like if I did not speak about this matter, there's a lot more going on.

If I did not speak about this matter, it will continue to happen.

So thank you for taking the time to hear my voice.

Thank you, Roberto.

Thank you for being vulnerable today and speaking.

Next, we have Pauline, followed by Greg and then Kirk.

Welcome, Ms. Pauline.

Hi, I'm Pauline Van Sinis.

I'm your famous transit fairy.

And it seems like I'm the only one in metro gold.

That's where the Transit Riders Union got to color 15 years ago.

We looked at the buses, and they had a bright yellow stripe on them.

So it looks like I might be the only one representing.

But I am committed to the Seattle area creating world-class transit.

don't like it when my bus takes off before I'm fully seated down.

Because I slipped in a sidewalk hole about 11 years ago, and then my foot still bothers me a lot.

So I have trouble with balance.

And it's probably because the bus is worried about being late, and there's not enough service.

We need more service.

So hopefully this measure will get passed here and the local in the public realm too.

and I am definitely committed to helping Metro increase ridership, too, because that will mean there'll be more revenue.

And I want to support the small businesses.

When I'm out cleaning, I think holistically the whole community, not just the bus stops.

and hoping that, especially with the small businesses, if they thrive, there will be more revenue, so that will help.

Hopefully, it will encourage people to support this measure.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Pauline.

Next, we have Greg, followed by Kirk, then Clive.

Welcome, Greg.

President Hollingsworth and council members, I'm Greg Woodfield, president of ATU587.

I'm here representing around 4,300 union members in this area with living wage transit jobs who literally move this city.

Our union appreciates and fully supports this bold transit measure that addresses Seattle residents' insatiable demand for more safe and reliable public transit and that supports our members' jobs whose living wages feed directly back into this community.

We want to thank Mayor Wilson for her vision, the council members for your thoughtful amendments and your leadership in getting us here to today's critical vote to not only protect Seattle's current public transit service levels, but to greatly expand them.

We strongly believe that Seattle voters will vote to pass this measure as they've done numerous times in the past.

ATU 587, in coordination with a broad coalition of transit advocates, have your back on this.

All we need is your yes vote today, hopefully unanimous, so that we can all roll up our sleeves and get to work on driving up the pro-transit vote, which will once again demonstrate Seattle's long and strong commitment to safe and reliable public transportation.

Lastly, ATU 587 stands in solidarity with Unite Here Local 8 and their hotel worker strike for a living wage.

Thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

Next we have Kirk, followed by Clive.

Welcome, Kirk.

Good to see you.

Hey.

President Hollingsworth, members of the council, I'm Kirk Hovenkotter, executive director of Transportation Choices Coalition.

I know you've heard a lot from me lately.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you for crafting a bold Seattle transit measure.

This measure at 10 years and 0.3% is a measure that meets the moment and provides the affordable way for people to get around our expensive city.

This will deliver fast, frequent, and affordable transit to places like Inner Bay Stadium to watch Salmon Bay FC.

This measure will make life better for shift workers, late night workers, and hotel workers who earn their living here in Seattle.

I want to thank Council Member Saka for putting forth the 0.3% measure.

And I want to thank the Council for voting for a 10-year term that's going to keep Seattle a leader on transit for the next decade.

The reason that the Seattle Transit Measure has been a success over the last 12 years and delivered better transit service for Seattle riders is thanks to the trust between the City of Seattle and Metro.

This is a unique partnership.

You don't see this in other cities across the country.

I want to encourage us to keep that trust going and maintaining that strong relationship starts here at this council.

So let's get this done.

Let's continue to trust the partnership that's gotten us to this point, and let's send this strong measure to voters this November.

Let's pass a bold Seattle Transit measure, and let's win this November.

Thank you so much for your time, and let's go Salmon Bay FC.

Thank you, Kurt.

Next we have Clive followed by, is it Cesar?

No?

Yeah, you're after Clive.

And then Keith, Jason, and Bennett.

So we have Clive first, then Cesar.

Council members, my name is Clive Hayward.

I'm a Seattle resident and waterfront street performer.

The waterfront enforcement system is broken, and the designated expression rules are unconstitutional as applied.

On May 28, 2025, Seattle City ESU officers assaulted and battered me, forced me out of a public space, and threatened handcuffs without reason.

I filed complaints and public record requests, but the city has not produced a meaningful review, findings, or corrective actions.

Since then, ESU policy violations and selective enforcement against performers have gone unaddressed.

On June 12th, all designated spaces were occupied.

I had no crowd, no obstruction, no safety issue.

I said I'd move if exclusion was threatened.

I was excluded anyways and threatened with criminal trespass.

The rules may sound neutral on paper, but in practice enforcement is concentrated on buskers who, while other violations and more serious safety issues are handled differently.

I'm asking Council to review the waterfront enforcement, their ESU authority complaint handling, selective enforcement against performers, and whether these rules are constitutional under Berger versus the City of Seattle.

As always, I put my email and my phone number there.

You can talk to me about this.

Thank you, Clive.

I did go down on the waterfront.

I didn't see you, but I saw your friend, and now I visually see what you're talking about, so I'll follow up with you, what you're talking about, okay?

I had to visually see it.

Okay, thank you, Clive.

And I heard you're a magician.

I heard you were good, by the way.

And after Caesar is going to be Keith, Jason, and Bennett.

Hi.

Hello.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Talk in the background.

Yeah.

I'm Mr. Performer 2. I'm a clown.

I do a twister balloon animal for kids.

So yeah, I'm just wondering if you can support us a little bit more.

Don't let the security people treat us like a little bit criminalized.

the jugglers and magicians and street performers.

Yeah, we're not doing nothing bad.

Just entertain people, entertain tourists.

We work by tips, by the nation, and this is what we do for a living.

And thank you so much.

I really appreciate it, everybody.

And well, OK.

Thank you.

Thank you, Cesar.

All right, next we have Keith, followed by Jason, and then Bennett, and then Sarah.

Welcome, Keith.

Thank you again, you all, for being a part of our city.

Thank you for making our city strong and continue to help it grow stronger.

So grateful for your wisdom and all that you do for us, the hard work.

My name is Keith Miller.

I run a company here in Seattle for the past 25 years, Miller Interior Design.

I love to bring joy and cultivate community, and I've seen the beautiful, beautiful work we've done in the landscaping of places like our waterfront that welcomed our soccer teams.

It was just extraordinary to see all the things that have been done there through my good friend Richard Hartledge, who designed that waterfront.

area.

And I love listening to my new friend, Pauline, who is diligently cleaning up important parts of public spaces.

These dynamics, from great to small, are important aspects of bringing vitality to our city.

And I fully believe in thriving, human thriving, and to thrive beyond just, excuse me, I forgot my line is coming.

Food, clothing, and shelter is survival.

Thriving is with the addition of design and light and beauty, and that's my specialization, and I'm loving having opportunities to invite people to engage in memorable experiences for beauty.

If you would mind perhaps saving the date of August 29th, which is a Saturday, anybody in the room?

We are celebrating at Fritz Hedges Park with a pink sofa float regatta, where we're gonna be celebrating ridiculous fun, bringing the family, there'll be ice cream, there'll be sidewalk chalk art, face paint.

If you look onto our website, which is hearthfoundation.info, that's hearthfoundation.info, you'll find events for our movement grassroots where we're looking to support people who make beauty come to the natural world around us.

Come and have fun, thanks.

Thank you, Keith.

That sounds like a fun party.

All right, Jason and then Bennett, Sarah.

And then we will jump online.

Jason, Bennett, Sarah, welcome.

Good afternoon, counsel.

My name is Jason Lee.

I co-lead Fix the Late, but I'm just here as myself today.

But basically, I just wanted to say thank you for passing out of committee the Seattle Transit Measure renewal, and I'm really excited to have that pass again here, and I'm most excited to vote for it in November, and I'm sure there's a lot of people that share my to share that excitement.

I just wanted to say again how important this is going to be for Seattle.

You've heard countless times how expensive owning a car is.

Even if you already own a car, just one or two extra trips on a bus every week, even every month, that can go a really long way in saving money.

I'm really excited to pay my half of an additional $29 per year per household to get so much better transit service.

and right before this actually, one of my coworkers was asking about transit trips for his daughter because she just started working in SLU and I was looking through all the options that she had to kind of commute and there weren't really any.

So it was really exciting to share that like, hey, you can change that in November.

But yeah, just wanted to repeat everything that we've just been shared before about how important this is to transit riders and say thank you.

Thank you, Jason.

Next we have Bennett, followed by Sarah, and then we'll go online.

So if you're online, we have two more in-person speakers, Bennett and Sarah.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council.

So I want to talk again about some of the incidents that have been happening at Cal Anderson Park.

And we've had some other speakers that have talked to City Council about these as well, though they're not here this week.

But it is true that there are some anti-trans activists that have been going to Cal Anderson Park, and some of the regulars at the park have been attacking them.

Now, despite the fact that I'm firmly on the side of the pro-trans rights segment, I do think that the facts show that the regulars at the park have been the aggressors, and the people going there have been the victims.

Now, I think some of them, they're probably being a little cute, and they say, like, oh, you know, I'm just going to the park.

I want to hang out.

I mean, they wear red hats and say things like make common sense great again, and they may be hoping that someone attacks them, but that's not illegal, and it's not a legal defense if somebody does attack them.

So here's one of the instances where an activist named Ari got attacked.

Give me my fucking hat, you fucking scumbass.

So he was, in fact, just walking and somebody attacked him.

There was a claim about a different person at one of the at the same event where someone claimed that she had drawn a gun.

This is the still frame of what had happened.

You can't really see.

Even if I held it close, you wouldn't be able to see.

But Ari said later, this person is just holding a white cell phone, that there was no instance where somebody drew a gun.

And in fact, there was also a picture claiming that this was a clip that fell out of that weapon.

Ari said that was his gun, that it just fell out because he has a legal concealed carry permit.

Now, all of this, of course, leading up to the incident, arrives at the attack the next day.

Now, me, as I've said before, this is because, you remember the video I showed you last week of the woman chanting, long live October 7th, and I said, no, let's not do that, that's bad actually, and they respond to criticism by calling it harassment, and the rumor mill, because they're insane people to begin with, calls it rape.

A man criticizing a woman is not rape, but this has been behind what has caused the attacks at Cal Anderson,

Thank you, Bennett.

Next, we have Sarah.

And then if you are online, we are coming to you next.

Welcome, Sarah.

Hi, council members.

I hope everyone's having a great day.

I really hope you support this new transit measure.

I know it'll help a lot of people in the city.

I know it helps with making sure buses are on time, but I also hope it helps keep us drivers and riders safe.

I don't want to speak exactly to what happened, but I've shown family from Canada the transit system here, and there's just some appalling things that happened, that's all I will say.

There's a lot of untreated symptoms of mental illness on display.

I really wish there was something that could be done about that.

I know one thing that could help possibly is looking at the contract that was signed to SPOG, which I know several on the council campaigned on not supporting if it did not work towards solving this issue.

There's articles about this.

You can read it online.

And one incident today I actually noticed was there was an individual at Northwest Hospital.

I only noticed because I was just leaving a medical procedure there.

And there was an individual who was speaking to the Not the crisis team, not the care team, but the SPD hostage negotiation team, like a negotiator, that kind of person, because they were saying, unfortunately, we can't have the care team talk to this individual because, unfortunately, they're not allowed on private property.

and I don't know how that makes things more safe if you're preventing the care team from being able to go on hospital property just to talk to an individual who obviously is needing their help with something.

And I really think you guys should look at amending the SPOG contract or either just committing to providing some new form of crisis services to those people in need because they think they really could use the help and it would do a lot for this city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

And now we're gonna go online.

We have Eric, followed by Magdalena, Rose, and then David Haynes.

Eric, star six, unmute yourself.

We see you online.

Just star six, unmute yourself.

You're on red right now.

There you go.

Thank you so much, counsel.

Eric, I'm a metro transit operator.

Every day I see firsthand how important reliable public transport is to our community.

I transport people to work, school, medical appointments, and other essential destinations.

For many of my riders, public transport is not a convenience, it's a necessity.

Supporting this transit measure means investing in the people who rely on the buses every day.

Additional service hours will improve reliability, reduce overcrowding, and help meet the growing demand of transit across Seattle.

Without this investment, service cuts will make it harder for people to get where they need to go.

This measure is also an investment in the workers, drivers who keep Seattle moving.

When transit is funded, we can continue providing safe, dependable service that our riders count on.

I respectfully ask you to send this measure to the November ballot so Seattle voters can decide on the future of public transport.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Eric, next we have Magdalena followed by Rosen and David Haynes.

Star 6, unmute yourself.

We see you, star six, Magdalena.

To unmute yourself, you're still on red.

There you go.

Hello, council.

Trans people are Seattleites by right of spilled blood.

Our ghosts have joined the slain of Chief Seattle's people in judgment of this city.

Your ability to submit two good motions like today while ignoring our dead is a condemnation of your characters and political intelligence.

20 names in Cal Anderson Park Council.

You don't know a one of them.

You care more about trans than the trans people and that not very much.

But we love Seattle more than you do because we have fought and bled and died for it.

Declare a trans refugee civil emergency and recognize our genocide at home.

Council President Hollingsworth, you have been preparing your morning dress for our funeral and have been doing nothing to prevent the murder.

Joseph Robinette Biden will enter history as Genocide Joe.

You will join him as Holocaust Hollingsworth if you do not step forward in boldness in our defense.

Remember Kettle, the police regularly rape and kill and banish us, and then yawn when we report it.

Our sovereignty has been sacrificed to the suburbs and the cities which surround us, hiring cops from out of town is akin to hiring mercenaries and not keepers of the peace.

Look at your hands, both of you.

They are dripping in the blood of our trans martyrs and community saints, spilled by your indifference, and they will not be washed away by time or posterity.

Only trans people's endorsement can ever do that.

Member Rink, I am frustrated that so often it is you and Member Baker carrying the torch of any civil rights, concerns about morality, or uplifting social discourse.

I am afraid that this council's fecalism will destroy you and hollow you out.

Please hold on until we can send you better colleagues.

To the right side of the chamber, please understand that history is repeating and you are failing an open book test.

Be mindful.

You have all the watches, but we have all the time.

Your district will flip it.

You do not buy credibility with the people of the city, particularly us.

40,000 of us last year, more coming this year, and we've been coming here for six and seven.

Thank you, Magdalena.

Next we have Rose followed by David Haynes.

Rose, welcome.

Hello Council, my name is Rose.

Every week there are members of our community that come together in Cal Anderson to be able to provide for those that are homeless and struggling.

There are 150 to 200 people that are fed there every single week.

This community effort is constantly in danger of shutting down, something that the City constantly relies on for support.

They rely on community support from some of the most destitute people in the entire city.

We have talked tirelessly with you all in your offices about how destitute the transgender community is and how the homelessness and the struggling that has happened.

We need more than just words.

We need the emergency declaration.

We need more community input.

We need more from the city to be there for us because we have individuals that are constantly begging from those of us that barely have a dollar in our pockets to be able to support those that have none.

We are destitute beyond the most wild dreams of most people.

And we are experiencing violence constantly as people are becoming more and more desperate.

There was a stabbing in Cal Anderson.

There was an assault in Cal Anderson that happened from individuals who are so broke and so poor that they are struggling to have anything at all.

We can't just have this go on.

We also need to have you all stand up against the cops that harass us.

This last Wednesday, cops harassed trans people at Cal Anderson for no reason who had a fire that had been cleared by the fire department, but police came in four cars and threatened everybody with arrest.

That is not okay.

That is not something that can continue.

That is not something that can be justified, that people can just come up and harass us in our park, in our vestige, in our sanctuary that's supposed to be a place for us, and we have so few other places.

We need you all to stand by us.

We need you all to stand for us.

And this isn't it right now.

We need you all to be there for us.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rose.

And if you hear me, shoot me an email and tell me about the incident at Cal Anderson Park so I can have your contact.

Thank you.

David Haynes.

No mas muchos otros y poquito dólares.

No mas muchos otros y poquito dólares.

We need workers to get a three and a half day work week, seven day pay and take it from the non-working shareholders every three months that drain the lifeblood of the local hotel economy through Wall Street who thinks they can get away with stealing all of the unforeseen capital gains.

It's unforeseen because nobody wants to point it out and give it back to the workers.

That's why we need council to step up and introduce legislation to discipline that group and make that unforeseen capital gains benefit the working class.

We need more than just, no offense, an empty worded virtue signal of a proclamation.

Because Unite8 seems to get paid for the daily theatrics.

They need to go address the bank that owns the building, the King County property assessor who inflated the property values, and then Wall Street headquarters who keeps draining the hotel and turning against the workers and selling them out and cheating them.

Instead of just rabble rousing them, making a bunch of noise, making sure you're collecting a paycheck at the expense of the working class, it still expects you to feel in good faith as well.

We need you all to flash mob on the greed that keeps parasitically skimming the working class as opposed to making them stand outside and bother everybody else.

Gotta be more effective in your efforts to discipline the greed to make it benefit the whole of the community starting with the actual workers who do all the work.

and still make less than the non-working shareholder middlemen that the Democrats want a tax and the Republicans want a tax break.

Now they want to give it back to the workers.

They want to keep people desperate and poor and spied and lied and bite off.

Anyway, you all need to give the mayor props and leadership priority on her transit tax because she knows better about the transit services needed.

We don't need council constantly weaponizing the race and the special privileges.

We need a better transportation system.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

There are no other further public comment in person and there's no one online.

So I want to thank the public for coming before I finish wrapping up Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

We heard a public commenter today use the term Holocaust.

As a German Jew, I want to recognize the fact that the Holocaust was a very specific event that occurred in Europe to Jewish people.

which is different than the subjugation and elimination of Native Americans across our nation, which is different than the genocides that have happened around our world.

And so I am giving the benefit of the doubt under the First Amendment that that was a one-off and maybe not completely aware statement.

And I am also stating for the record that because those are very specific things that have happened in history to specific people, that if that is something that is repeatedly shared here at Council in that way, in the same way that Mr. Zieg Heil is, when he speaks to me about the Holocaust, I have given him very clear direction that it is It can become harassing to me individually because of my history.

And so I'm just stating for the record that that type of language when used, it needs to be held in the context in which that word it means.

And so I'm just stating for the record that I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that under the First Amendment that was a one-off, but if it comes back then it's not a one-off.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for highlighting that and saying that for the record.

Colleagues, this is the close of public comment period, and I want to thank everyone for coming to public comment, especially when you come in person.

And also, I know the folks that wait online because we have the people that are in chambers first and then we go to online.

So really appreciate your time to that.

Colleagues, we're gonna transition from public comment and jump right into the good stuff.

So if there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Now we're gonna consider the proposed consent calendar.

Items on the consent calendar include minutes of July 14th, 2026, Council Bill 121255, payment of the bills and two bills from the Parks and City Light Committee.

Are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Will someone please give me a second?

Second.

Hey, I didn't even have to ask.

Council Member Lynn.

Thank you.

I saw Council Member Lynn grabbing his microphone.

Really eager.

Thank you.

So no items have been removed, so I move to adopt the consent count.

Oh, we already did that.

Okay, so it's been moved and second.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Awesome.

The consent calendar is adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on my behalf?

Will the clerk please read item number one into the record?

The report of the Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District, Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 121-226, an ordinance related to the sales and use tax providing for the submission to qualified electors of the city at an election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, a proposition to collect a sales and use tax to fund transit and related transportation programs in Seattle.

The committee recommends the bill passed as amended.

Councilmember Saka, Chair of the Committee, you are recognized to give the committee report.

Thank you, Madam Council President, colleagues.

I'll make some more, slightly more fulsome comments towards the end there after we have a number of amendments to get through.

But I'll just say and kind of orient us here, we all unanimously passed this out of committee last week.

Really appreciate the hard work that went into that.

Appreciate members of the community who showed up and shared their feedback and that feedback definitely guided this proposal.

Soon it's the voter's turn, but we also have some amendments to get through as well.

So with that said, I move to amend council, I think four amendments total, right?

Yeah.

I move to amend the bill as presented on amendment number A.

Second.

It's been moved and second to adopt Amendment A. Councilor Mersaka, you're recognized to address your amendment.

Thank you, Madam Councilor President.

Amendment A... So, colleagues, what Amendment A does is it modifies the dates of the various reporting obligations that is included in this legislation.

Through the amendment process, we strengthened this proposal and so many in durable and impactful ways, by promoting and championing transit safety and security for all, by boosting accessibility, by making sure that we live up to the promises contained in this, and part of that is accountability and oversight.

and I'll reference our esteemed colleague, Councilmember Kettle on this, because I always appreciate when he reminds us the importance of paying attention to the cumulative impacts of various initiatives.

All those terrific reporting obligations and oversight and accountability provisions in and of themselves, individually impactful, and the original deadlines included in those, probably doable.

But now when we start, you know, collecting the, or considering the cumulative, collective impacts of all of these various reporting obligations.

We want to make sure that we're setting the departments up for success and we want to make sure that the quality of the output of those reports and those deliverables is good and effective as well and helpful to guide future potential decisions.

It's a lot of words to say this is This is basically just a good governance oversight and accountability provision to make sure that we effectively collaborate with our governing partners in the King County Metro, SDOT as well.

Proud that my office worked closely with both SDOT and King County Metro to come up with what we believe are more reasonable but also ambitious goals on these various reporting obligations.

And so, for those reasons, ask for your support.

Thank you.

Awesome, thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Is there any other comments on Amendment A?

Seeing none, will the clerk please, do you have any final thoughts?

Okay, awesome, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment A?

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Excuse me, Councilmember Foster?

Sorry.

Yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lynn?

Yes.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Amendment A is adopted.

Colleagues, I move to amend Council Bill 121226 as presented on Amendment B. Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved in second to adopt amendment B.

As sponsor, I will address it really quick.

Colleagues, I removed this amendment from the chair's package on the 15th.

In a meeting, I shared my attention to make a minor change to the amendment, which I did, which was the date.

So today I'm bringing forth this amendment to a new reporting date.

The original amendment reporting deadline was March 30th, 2027. I've changed the state to March 31st, 2028, after receiving feedback from SDOT that more time is needed to study opportunities to expand the transit access program.

So, and wanna thank, there were two, I think I had more sponsors.

Thank you, Council Member Rink and Council Member Rivera.

I don't know who else was a co-sponsor, but thank you.

Oh, sorry.

One of my favorite council members, Councilmember Kettle.

One of my favorite.

Are there any comments on Amendment B?

Okay.

Well, thank you, colleagues.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Lynn.

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Amendment B is adopted.

He's my favorite Council Member from District 7. Council Member Rivera, you are recognized to move your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121226 as presented on Amendment C. Second.

It's been moved and second to adopt Amendment C. Councilman Rivera, you're recognized to address it.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I withdrew this amendment last week to actually expand it.

The purpose of the amendment is to ask ESTA to study the routes that are near all Seattle public middle schools, high schools, and community centers.

we know that there's been overcrowding on buses that are near those schools.

Middle schools and high schools do not have yellow bus service the way elementary schools do.

And so our middle schoolers and our high schoolers rely on bus service in the same way that our workers do to get to and from school.

They're often late to school because the buses are overcrowded and so they either, the bus either stops and not very many folks can get on, including kids and workers, or they don't stop altogether because there just isn't enough room.

So we wanna make sure that throughout the city where there are public middle schools and high schools and community centers, because the kids go there to take to make classes and after school programming.

We wanna make sure that we're providing robust bus service for our students.

And this is the purpose of this amendment.

I wanna acknowledge Metro because they have reached out to me to let me know that a lot of the information contained in here, they actually is accessible to SDOT.

So it's a matter of SDOT.

putting our intent that we want SDOT to retrieve that information and then as they're looking at service hours and adding service hours that they're looking at near the middle schools and public schools and community centers and support of our students across the city.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Fully, wholly support this amendment.

Are there any other comments regarding Amendment C?

Okay.

Will the clerk please...

Oh, sorry, Councilmember Saka.

My bad.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Just want to thank Councilmember Rivera for bringing this forward.

and being very thoughtful and deliberative about the best, most optimal approach to achieve our shared goals here and also, you know, making sure we're doing right by your constituents in District 4. They need a measure that they can feel good about, too.

And so, in any event, just want to say I appreciate you, Councilmember Rivera, and your leadership for bringing this forward and modifying in such a way where It has system-wide benefits.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Sokka.

Are there any other?

Oh, sorry.

Councilmember Rank?

My bad.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth.

I appreciate this amendment coming forward to discussion today, and thank you, Councilmember Rivera, for bringing it forward.

I will note I will not be supporting this amendment today.

STM for the most part is intended to supplement our weekend and evening service during times that King County Metro isn't already prioritizing and as was noted and was also brought to my office's attention much of the information requested here this this will be some redundant reporting.

And so I know that King County Metro continues to collaborate with all of our offices and provide a lot of information accessible to the public.

And so for the purposes of not creating additional reporting requirements for information that is already accessible to the public, I will not be supporting today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Are there any other comments regarding amendment C?

Yeah, Council Member, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to say a couple of things.

One is originally folks in my district, since I've actually been here, I've heard from parents of students in public schools where this overcrowding has happened.

And then, of course, last week when I was thinking through the amendments, it really isn't just D4, it's across the city, all public school students.

So I wanted to make sure that we were supporting all the students across the city, which is why I I've amended my own amendment.

I will say in response to Council Member Rink, thank you for bringing up your concerns.

I will say that just because Metro does the reporting doesn't mean that SDOT is looking at it.

So this really lays down our intent to SDOT, which I don't think that they would have an issue with, but that we're really putting letting them know that we really want them to look at those reports as they are looking at which transit they will be adding service, transit routes they'll be adding service hours to.

And I will say that this particularly occurs during rush hour in the morning and in the late afternoon.

So I think it is prudent for SDOT to be looking at the reports and for us to tell SDOT that we expect them to do so as they are allocating those additional service hours.

So I don't think this is a duplication of efforts.

This is actually asking SDOT to go ahead and retrieve those numbers from Metro as they're putting together their service hours, their plan for service hours under this plan.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

That was the final comments on Amendment C, so we will go ahead and will the clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Lin.

No.

Councilmember Rink.

No.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Eight in favor, excuse me, seven in favor, two opposed.

Motion carries and amendment C is adopted.

Council Member Saka, you're recognized to move your amendment.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

I move to amend the bill as presented on amendment number D version one.

It's been moved and second to adopt amendment D.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

So colleagues, this amendment takes the builds upon previous amendments from Councilmember Rivera as it relates to some of the enhanced accountability, oversight features as well.

We both included a substantially, well, we included We both drafted amendments that included and covered substantially similar subject matter as it relates to reporting.

Mine just went in a different direction with respect to another matter that is not addressed in this amendment, but on the three main issues of fair box recovery ratio, on time performance and reliability.

And so what we did here is preserve the existing language and constructs from Councilmember Rivera's great amendment and just building upon it with some of the missing pieces from my prior amendment on those same three constructs.

Again, fair recovery ratio, on-time performance and reliability to make sure we have the best available information in a public and transparent manner.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Are there any comments?

Councilmember Foster.

Yeah, I'll be brief.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Thank you so much, Council President.

And thank you, Councilmember Saka, for making changes to this since our previous Transportation Committee meeting.

Colleagues, you'll remember, in this committee, the previous committee meeting, I pulled this from the package.

And I will not be supporting this amendment today, though I appreciate Councilmember Saka for the changes made here.

I do feel like we are there's a lot a lot a lot of reporting going on in this transit measure and Councilmember Rivera I supported your amendment because of the school connection which is important to me but I do feel like that a lot of what is offered in this amendment is already covered elsewhere so I won't be supporting it today thank you so much Councilmember Saka

or thank you so much, Council President, excuse me.

You're good.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Are there any other comments regarding Amendment D before us, before we call the roll?

I'll pause here.

Council Member Saka, do you have any final comments on Amendment D?

Thank you.

Yeah, just ask for your support.

I am very mindful of the non-trivial reporting obligations that we are seeking in exchange for this approximately $1.4 billion-plus in revenue to fund transit service over the next 10 years.

Totally mindful of that.

I also think it's a fair deal for all parties involved, and I think the tax-paying public deserves it.

And I also believe we're going about it the right way in terms of being collaborative with not only SDOT, but in many cases the party that they're going to be seeking some of this information and data from, King County Metro.

been very collaborative.

Ergo, you know, my earlier amendment, revise the dates to be more collaborative.

Again, ambitious, but realistic as well.

So, but I appreciate that feedback and I still ask for your support.

Thank you.

Awesome, thank you.

Why is it so dark in here?

I asked for the lights to be turned down.

Thank you.

I was actually going to say the same thing.

I asked for the lights.

Council Member Orr's wanted to put us to sleep, so she put the...

Okay.

So, thank you, Council Member Saka.

We will get the lights adjusted.

Colleagues, no worries.

Will the clerk please call the roll on amendment D?

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Foster.

No.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Lin.

No.

Councilmember Rink.

No.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Motion- Oh, go ahead.

Five in favor, four opposed.

I was going to do your job.

Sorry, Jody.

Motion carries.

Amendment D is adopted.

Okay, colleagues.

Are there any other final words on the bill as amended?

I will open it up to other folks and then Councilmember Saka, you'll go last as the sponsor.

Is that okay?

Awesome.

Councilmember Strauss?

Seattleites love transit.

We depend on transit and we will buy as many transit hours from Metro as they will provide us.

As I said earlier on, I would add a VLF to this if I thought Metro could deliver next year.

I'm just very proud of our city I'm proud of ATU and all of your drivers we celebrated Salmon Bay today and after that game we had a packed bus full of Salmon Bay fans and I think the bus driver got a little scared but we chanted thank you bus driver as we were getting off because everyone around the city appreciates the work that you and your union brothers and sisters do for us and I'm excited to send this to the ballot with 75% of this measure that is dedicated to transit and making sure that we've linked up our zoning growth along with our transit growth.

So appreciate all of you colleagues and I'm just really excited to catch the bus.

Awesome, thank you Council Member Strauss, Council Member Kettle followed by Council Member Lynn.

Thank you, Council President.

I just want to say it's incredibly important to have strong public transit that's efficient, that's effective, and importantly, yes, safe.

And yes, I support public transit.

But I'd add we need to also be mindful of the affordability effects of city plus county and state actions impacting property taxes, sales taxes, and utility rates.

and finally good governance demands that we engage with SDOT, with King County Metro on the issues raised in the many amendments along with ensuring promised transit hours will be delivered and I'm very happy to have Mr. Woodfield here in ATU because I think he'll get the job done.

So thank you and colleagues, I will be supporting this measure.

Awesome, thank you Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lynn followed by Councilmember Foster.

Thank you colleagues and thank you to all the members of the public, to our bus drivers, to everyone who has engaged in this process.

Thank you to the mayor's office for kicking us off with a bold proposal.

Recently, the mayor did an op-ed about reflecting on what an incredible experience we had hosting the World Cup.

In her op-ed, she said, cities are humanity's greatest invention, where opportunity, creativity, culture, and democracy come together.

and as I think about what made Seattle stand out as an incredible city was our transit, which allows us to have incredible pedestrian spaces, right?

Places like the waterfront, Pike Place, Seattle Center, Pioneer Square, CID, incredible pedestrian spaces are only possible with good transit.

You know, good transit is the lifeblood of a world-class city.

And, you know, that's a city that I want to be a part of.

That's a city that I want to live in.

And so it is how we can address our climate goals.

It is how we can address our affordability goals.

and I just want to make one last point is I don't know if anybody was watching sort of the final of the World Cup, but you would see these images of the field just surrounded by parking lots.

Tens and tens of thousands of parking spaces and as visitors came here to celebrate our city, again, people spoke about our wonderful neighborhoods, our wonderful pedestrian spaces.

I didn't hear anyone saying, gosh, what was great about Seattle was the endless parking lots.

What was great about Seattle was the endless highways.

that is not what makes a gritty city great.

Again, wonderful transit is what's gonna get us there.

And again, super excited to support this measure.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn, Council Member Foster, sorry, Council Member Foster followed by Council Member Rivera.

Thank you so much, Council President, and really well said, Councilmember Lynn.

Thank you for that.

I want to express my appreciation to you, Chair Saka, for stewarding this process.

It's clearly a heavy lift, and so we had disagreements along the way, but I appreciate you for holding the lift and moving the package forward.

I want to express my appreciation to the Mayor's Office for sending us down a transit proposal that is designed to expand transit access.

I think that is reflective of what we need here in our city right now.

We have been able to continue growing as a city and growing our population without growing one-to-one for vehicles.

and that's because we have world-class transit service.

That's because we have world-class transit drivers.

That's because we have leaders who are investing in the service that our city needs.

I believe really deeply that this measure is going to help us get back on track from where we were pre-pandemic and I think that's a really exciting moment and a moment worthy to celebrate here in our city.

I'm also really excited that this measure has transit access passes in it.

I think that will continue to be important so that our transit system and the lack of resources isn't going to be a barrier to our neighbors who are seeking to ride transit.

So colleagues really excited to vote in support of this and just really excited about this package.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I, too, want to express my gratitude to our colleague, Councilmember Saka, for shepherding this transit measure along.

Councilmember Saka and I have done between us three levies, because this is pretty much a levy.

It's a sales tax, not property tax, and an I&E tomorrow.

And I know how much goes into that and really appreciate all the work that he and his office did.

Thank you for that.

And then I also see in the audience Greg Woodfill, president of the ATU Local 587, who's been here at every meeting.

So I just wanted to thank you for being here and representing our drivers.

And then also I see the mayor's office and Estat in attendance.

Thank you for your partnership.

These are hard.

It is not hard to support transit.

hardship is in the affordability issue related to the sales tax.

It is, as everyone knows, the most regressive kind of tax.

And it is very difficult to continue to ask our residents, including our low-income residents, to tax themselves in a sales tax in this way.

And that is hard, given we do have affordability issues we had.

unite here today.

And so we know we have a lot of workers in the city who you know, the sales tax increase impacts them greatly.

So I just, that part is difficult.

However, I very much support public transit and I'm glad that we're putting this measure on the ballot for voters to decide.

And we do need more robust transit, not just buses, but I would say light rail and every form of transportation to get the city to where other cities of our size are in terms of transit so that folks really get out of their cars and start riding transit more.

it really goes to our climate goals, I will add as well.

And so looking forward to a continuation of this transit measure, which we've had, and this really is just a continuation of that.

And hopefully this will lead to greater ridership as we expand those transit hours across the city.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President.

You know, one of my favorite transit advocates always says, if we're doing transit right, your bus ride will be the most boring part of your day.

Now, the journey in developing this transit measure, however, was very exciting, to say the least.

And colleagues, I am really proud of the package that we are going to send to voters.

This measure will increase transit service in Seattle by 100,000 additional service hours.

And that level of service will make a meaningful difference for everyday people.

It'll make a meaningful difference for all of us.

and as a car-free transit rider representing those 20% of Seattle households, so one out of five Seattle households who is car-free, I know how important it is that we have fast, frequent, reliable, and safe service, and I couldn't be more excited to have increased service coming to our streets.

And affordability is an important reason to pass this measure now.

We know that car ownership on average can be sometimes the second highest monthly cost of families.

But because of this measure we're about to put before voters, maybe some families will be able to stop driving and be able to save on those costs.

And being able to take that off their plate is something really meaningful.

And we know that as a city, the rate of car ownership isn't growing, even though our population is.

Between 2017 and 2023, our population grew by 35,000 households, but the number of cars in the city stayed relatively flat.

Now, that's significant when we consider that transportation continues to be the leading driver in our city for emissions.

So as we continue to grow, we really need to be ramping up our investments in alternative modes of transportation to build a more sustainable and affordable city.

but it's also about who provides that bus service and King County Metro estimates that approximately 65 to 70 transit operator positions will be created with this investment of 100,000 service hours.

These are union represented jobs with ATU 587 providing competitive compensation and benefits and that has tremendous value.

So today I have a real attitude for gratitude.

So I want to thank the mayor's office for coming to us with a bold proposal.

I want to thank SDOT and King County Metro for answering all of my questions throughout this process.

I want to thank our central staff, Cal, Amanda, and Ann for your time and attention in developing amendments with each of the council offices.

I want to thank the chair and your team for shepherding this process and thank you colleagues for your amendments and for your thoughtful engagement on my amendments as well.

and special thank you to Caden Cook on my team who did much of the work on behalf of our office in shaping our amendments and working with advocates.

Thank you to everyone who came out and provided comment over the past couple of weeks from incredible transit advocates and organizations.

Thank you for sharing your stories.

Thank you for championing transit and thank you for fighting for your neighbors.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth, and I hope everyone remembers to thank their bus driver.

Thank you.

That is a good notion.

Thank your bus driver.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink.

I will say my comments really quick, Councilmember Saka, and then leave it to you if that's okay.

So I do want to thank Mayor Wilson and her office.

I know that we have Director Brady in the audience and Miss Alex Hudson.

Thank you all for your work for shaping this measure.

Thank you to the advocates, Chair Saka for your leadership on this.

and running a process as well.

I know it's a heavy lift, so just thank you for that.

Just all the late nights I saw you in the office.

You have a family with three kids and you were out here doing doing the work.

So just really appreciate you on that.

ATU colleagues for your amendments and I'm incredibly proud to support this package that we're gonna put forth towards voters.

District three is a very, very transit dependent district.

And so just really excited for what this is gonna mean to the city and especially for district three.

so really, really excited.

And all the areas that there was focus on as well, Southeast Seattle and different areas, Ballard, all the packages that Council Member Strauss brought in for regional centers and thinking about growth, I thought colleagues was proud to support your amendments because they were very, very thoughtful, very much needed, progressive revenue down here, transit access, late night with kids, disability, there was a little bit of, everything, so just really appreciate all of your work.

And without further ado, Councilmember Sokka, I know you're gonna close us out in a timely manner.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Colleagues, I'll just say that today isn't the finish line.

Believe it or not, I think it's the starting line.

Today we decide whether to place before the voters what I believe is the strongest possible Seattle transit measure that we could build together.

Now this moment, oddly enough, isn't about transit necessarily.

It's actually about how we govern.

It's about listening first, collaborating often, and trusting the people of Seattle to make the final decision.

Over the past few months, we've had thoughtful committee meetings, robust debate, meaningful amendments, and hours upon hours upon hours of public testimony.

We clearly didn't agree on every single issue, and that's okay.

Good policymaking isn't about unanimous thinking.

It's about respectful disagreement.

careful deliberation, and ultimately finding common ground.

And I believe that's exactly what we've done.

Most importantly, I wanna thank every single member of the public who took the time to engage directly with us throughout this process.

Now, whether you testified in person, joined us remotely, emailed our offices across thousands of email comms we've received over the last few months, or simply followed along the process.

Thank you.

Your voice mattered.

Last week's public hearing reminded me of why I really, really do love local government.

We heard that transit is a lifeline.

We heard that accessibility is not an afterthought, it is a necessity.

We heard that safety for our transit operators and riders is non-negotiable.

And yes, we heard some memorable reminders that transit is also about everyday life.

A member of the public named Dave Schult reminded us that transit can even get you to date night.

I don't think any of us expected that to become part of the legislative record, but here we are.

Other members of the public, including Ms. Pauline and Jasmine Smith described transit as, quote unquote, the people's limousine.

And I have to admit, that's a phrase I won't soon forget.

It is the people's limo.

Those stories made us smile.

They also brought us together.

They carried with them an important truth.

Transit isn't simply about buses or raw service hours or nitty-gritty reports.

It's about opportunity.

It's about dignity.

It's about freedom.

It's about connecting people to jobs, schools, healthcare, family, and yes, even dinner reservations for date night.

We heard you.

And we worked hard to respond.

The final proposal reflects that feedback.

It strengthens accountability, reinforces accessibility, advances rider and operator safety, supports cleaner transportation and climate resilience, and it preserves the flexibility needed to keep delivering safe and reliable transit service in the years ahead.

Is it perfect?

No.

No legislation ever is.

But is it balanced?

Is it thoughtful?

Is it transparent?

Yes.

And I also believe it's worthy of the public's consideration.

Now, I want to especially thank my council member colleagues for your tremendous work and thoughtful deliberation of this proposal.

Each of you approved this legislation, and Seattle is better for your contributions.

And I especially want to name check two of my Councilmember colleagues for their work, Councilmember Juarez and Council President Hollingsworth.

You two, in particular, from day one have been terrific thought partners, been so generous and gracious with your time.

formulating on a one-on-one basis strategy, advice, kind of thinking through how to best land this proposal and get it to the stage we're at today.

So for those reasons, I'm grateful.

Thank you.

I'd also like to recognize the many people behind the scenes, the unsung heroes, if you will.

To my outstanding staff, Brendan, Eric, Michael, and Hadia, thank you for the countless hours, the late nights, and your unwavering commitment throughout this process.

To our own central staff team, particularly Cal Chow, Amanda Allen, Ann Gorman, and Lish Whitson, thank you for your expertise, professionalism, and extraordinary partnership.

Thank you as well to our deputy city clerks, Amelia, Jody and Phil for keeping this complex legislative process running smoothly.

And to Brad, Sue and Dianelli from our comms team, thank you for helping keep the public informed every step of the way.

This, getting to this point, I think we're helping to enable date night for so many members of the public, but also to get to this point, we blew date nights in our own families, sacrificed kiddo activities and hikes, day hikes and whatever it is you like doing on the nights and weekends.

A lot of people sacrificed a lot because we are public servants and we wanted to shape this proposal and make it better and more balanced and we did.

This has been truly a team effort.

And as chair, one of my guiding principles has been simple.

Public testimony shouldn't just be a calendar space or filler.

It should help shape this legislation.

And I believe we've honored that principle.

Today's vote is not the end of the conversation.

It is an invitation to the people of Seattle to join it.

Part of this process, we took the next big step in our collective journey together to build a truly a world-class transit system.

One that even our beloved Jimothy the raccoon can be proud of.

This measure belongs to voters now.

So today we're not asking Seattle to trust the promise.

We are asking Seattle to judge our work.

We listened.

We debated.

Yes, we compromised.

And we improved this proposal together.

And now, with confidence, gratitude, humility, we place it where it belongs, in the hands of the people of the City of Seattle.

I want to thank again you all, council colleagues, members of the public, Mayor Wilson, folks from the mayor's office, Alex Hudson, Deputy Mayor Surratt and others.

The council's work is now complete.

Now it's the voter's turn.

Let's go.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sacco.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended?

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Lin.

Yes.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes as amended.

The chair will sign it.

Long clap, too.

I deserve a long clap.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

I know everybody's happy right now.

Seriously.

The bill has passed and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please fix my signature on the legislation on my behalf?

Oh, will the clerk please read item number two into the record?

Yes.

The report of the Parks and City Light Committee.

Agenda Item 2, Council Bill 121-231 relating to City Light Department, establishing new retail rate schedules, establishing a new customer class and conditions of service for data centers whose electricity demand constitutes a new large load, modifying customer charges for service connections, argumenting the rate stabilization account mechanisms.

Committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Awesome, but wait, there's more.

For $19.99, you can get item number two.

Will the clerk please?

Oh, sorry.

Councilmember Warriors, you're recognized.

I'm a little disappointed, but hey, why y'all leave?

Come on now, this is exciting stuff.

I know I can't follow Councilmember Saka, but let me just say this.

Madam Chair, Council President, if I can just, and colleagues, if I can just have your ear for a moment, I'd like to read some legislative notes into the record on the rate hike.

Our office also sent out an email this morning to the full Council on the facts and the timeline and the legislative chronology for the viewing public as well.

And I want to thank, I see we have interim Seattle City Light Director Rob Stantoff here, and we also have Kirstie Granger for the CFO from Seattle City Light.

Thank you for being here.

We'll be as brief as possible, Council President.

This rate ordinance establishes new retail rate schedules, establishes a new customer class, and conditions for data centers that demand large electrical loads, modifies eligibility for residential rate assistance, and expands the rate stabilization account mechanism.

The proposed 9.5 rate increase is part of the City of Seattle's six-year strategic plan that full Council passed unanimously on July 7th.

This increase is based on City Light's projections of substantial load growth from 2026 to 2032, with major factors being the City's continued commitment to environmentally friendly green energy, residents switching to electric systems and rising costs.

These changes require City Light to secure new diversified power resources such as wind, solar, battery storage, which increases overall power and regional transmission costs.

However, even with these rate increases, Seattle still has one of the lowest electrical utility rates of any major city in the United States.

We have anticipated that rates would eventually have to rise as the city and residents continue to move forward towards electrification to support green energy.

This rise is needed to increase electric capacity and aging infrastructure, which we learned a lot about in committee.

Without going too far back in the time machine, I just want to highlight two dates.

In 2005, Seattle Light became the first electric utility to be carbon neutral and have maintained this ever since.

In 2010, the city declared its intention to be carbon neutral by 2050 and adopted a plan in 2013. And more importantly, in 2019, the City of Seattle passed the Green New Deal, which set a goal to become carbon neutral by 2030. Some major acts in the executive order were the transition to electric transportation, including public transit, the city fleet, and to promote the switch to private electric cars, creating a high need of EV charging stations.

The order also required all future and renovated municipal buildings to operate without fossil fuel systems.

In 2026, the recent legislation passed by this Council included Seattle City Lights' 2026 Integrated Resource Plan, and the Seattle City Lights 2027-2032 strategic plan, which focused on electrical grid reliability, securing clean energy resources, and furthering sustainability for the community, environment, and utility.

Without adding any more, I just wanna add that all of these issues were in my committee, I believe four times.

And with that, I urge your support.

Thank you, council president.

Awesome, thank you, council member Juarez.

Colleagues, are there any comments about the bill before us?

Wanna really thank, oh, council member Lynn.

Thank you Council Member Juarez for all your work on this and as you noted you've been working on this for well before all the the news reporting around mega data centers was coming and so I think, you know, as we were just talking about the South Transit measure, you know, as we talk about affordability, as we talk about our climate change goals, this is one critical piece of that is as we look at data centers and the potential issues of data centers, not just here in Seattle, but in the state or across the country, the demand for electricity and how to meet that demand, you know, deeply concerned about other areas of the country that might not have these protections in place.

And, you know, resorting to natural gas or fossil fuels to, you know, meet this demand.

and so making sure that we have requirements that the electricity, if we are going to allow these in our city, in our region, in our service territory, that they are, that demand is met with green renewable energy and that the data centers pay their own way and that we are not subsidizing this, that residents, other small businesses are not subsidizing this new era and so as you noted, this is not in conflict with our moratorium.

This obviously goes beyond just our city limits because Seattle City Light Service territory goes beyond the scope of the moratorium.

So again, just wanna thank you for the leadership, excited to support.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn, Council Member Kettle followed by Council Member Rivera.

Mr. Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to thank Mr. Santoff and the entire Seattle City Light team for all the work that they're doing.

This is very complex and incredible work that needs to be done that has huge impacts.

And, you know, today and moving forward.

And we have to take these steps moving forward deliberately, thoughtfully, and including all the stakeholders and all the issues that surround it.

So I thank Seattle City Light for that.

and to Council Member's Lynn point, yes, we need to be smart on data centers.

I met with Microsoft yesterday on the topic previously with AWS, Amazon, and Digital Realty here in Seattle.

And we need to be smart and really build in these pieces.

And I think this is what we're doing.

I think we're being thoughtful with this being, you know, anticipatory in terms of the future because it's only gonna get greater with all the various demands that are gonna be placed on it.

and colleagues, I just want to close because there's also the cost piece, which I'll just say now affordability.

We just did the sales tax piece.

Here we have utility rates.

I've talked about property rates.

I've talked about property rates shifting from commercial to residential.

This affordability challenge is real and it's going to have other aspects to it too.

Water, as in terms of my service on the Regional Water Quality Committee previously.

And, you know, we need to be thoughtful in that bigger strategic picture, too, across the entire enterprise.

And I think that's going to be our challenge moving forward.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Just want to thank Council Member Juarez for all the work that went into this piece of legislation.

You know, want to acknowledge that having to increase rates is never an easy thing.

It is unfortunately a necessary thing as we have more and more need in our city.

so it's unavoidable.

But I do want to acknowledge and I join you in your concern about the data centers piece and ensuring that we're not subsidizing the work and future work of any future, if any, should be situated here in Seattle.

and then also wanna acknowledge that because we have the affordability concerns that we have the, and so many people had a hand in this also, council members of Strauss, you put in the utility discount program expansion because we know we have to, It's unavoidable to increase the rate, so we want to make sure we have as much relief for as many customers as possible.

So I want to acknowledge that that's baked into this legislation as well.

So really just to say, and members of the public who are watching, this isn't increasing because we're subsidizing data centers, and also we don't want to have to increase rates, but we don't have a choice in this case.

and we don't take that lightly.

And so that's why we do things like support utility discount program expansions, because we know that these increases always have a huge impact on our small businesses and our residents writ large.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you to our City Light team and the Rate Advisory Board, although I'm not sure that I got that name technically correct.

But it's always great to have them at committee.

I want to thank you for bringing this to us.

This is the largest rate increase that we've had in quite some time, and we are still, our rates are lower than our peers, and our rate increases are lower than our peers.

You might have read this morning Kitsap, utility is looking at generating their own electricity.

If I was in their shoes, I would not do that because I think that they're probably going to get cheaper electricity through PSE because generation, transmission, and then ensuring that it all gets distributed correctly is a very costly endeavor.

I'll look to the professionals to say whether or not that's a good idea.

But if I was in their shoes, I would be very cautious.

Now, that's different than voting for an allowance.

I won't get into the rest of that Seattle Times article.

All that to say is I believe that PSE raised their rates 11% in 2025, 12% in 2026, and had a planned rate increase of 15% in 2027 for their electricity.

Now, they're a different utility than us.

They are also actually, they have way more transmission lines to ensure are up to speed and in good condition.

They are ahead of us in our wildland fire prevention, but that's partly because we have fewer transmission lines.

All that to say, at the end of last year, Council Member Juarez had started us on what was gonna be about a six-month plan for City Light to begin presenting each of these issues of our generation, transmission, distribution, and home use and what each of these great drivers were to be.

And then suddenly Don Lindell was fired unexpectedly without a transition.

And I just really appreciate Rob Santoff standing up and helping us lead the agency through this time.

Kirstie, your work is amazing.

Something that Don would always say to whenever I would give her a compliment, she said, that's not me, that's my team.

and that's how we have gotten through that turbulence is that we have a strong team and that we've got great people working for Seattle City Light.

I just wish that we hadn't had the unexpected transition so we could have had maybe a more public conversation.

We at least got to talk about the hangers on the transmission lines.

I'm grateful for that.

All that to say we have a lot of work to do to update our grid We have aging infrastructure that had, I think, a 50 to 60-year lifespan, and we're in about 50 years right now for a lot of our infrastructure.

I've got a 50-year-old truck, and I'll tell you, every time I fix something, something else breaks because the issue just moves through the vehicle.

And eventually, we had to get the engine pulled out, had a nice mechanical, because we have the maritime industry in Ballard, we had somebody create us a new flywheel.

Now the truck runs great, but this is where we're at with some of our infrastructure is, as we patch together each of the little incidents, they just keep trickling down the line until we have to do a major replacement.

That's where we're at, and that's where we have this large comparative to our past rate increase, even though it is lower than our peers.

And this is also why we've got the utility discount program that is starting at the same time on January 1st with 31,000 new families eligible.

And in the next two years, we'll bump that up to 81,000, 83,000 families, which is the size of any of our council districts registered voters.

And so just a great appreciation to City Light, to the rate advisory panel, and to our customers for trusting in us as a public utility.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any other further comments before I pass it back to the chair of the committee?

Just wanna thank you, Council Member Juarez for your leadership on this.

I was taking note, I think I have a tie with you all, either data centers or data centers, and it was a tie for all of y'all.

So I just wanted to, I was keeping count.

So Council Member Juarez, you're recognized to provide your closing comments.

Thank you, Council President.

And I want to add for the record that 50 is not old.

All right.

So that being said, Council Member Lynn, thank you so much.

I really enjoyed working with you on the data center, the moratorium and the resolution.

And, you know, I just, again, your transition from city attorney to a legislator has been great.

I've enjoyed working with you.

I know you and I like to get wonky with the law and all that other stuff, but thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

And as I said before, and I'll say it again without going into rehashing the last three committee meetings, you know, we have become a society since post-colonial contact of excavating and mining and taking everything and grinding things out and taking everything out of the ground and out of the water and out of the air until there's almost nothing left.

and so to have a Seattle City Light be so responsive and work with us and we saw your work, thank you Rob, thank you Christy on the Skagit River Project and we saw that years in the making.

I'm gonna say this for the record because I am old.

I worked on the original agreement back in the late 90s when I was at Evergreen Legal Services for the tribes and what we call BC before casinos.

So I know the long history with FERC and the federal courts and federal government and water and hydro and how it all comes together and sitting on this council and being on this committee since I was elected first in 2016, I understand this journey.

So thank you so much.

And thanking Dawn too.

I hope she watches this because this is part of her victory as well.

And I just want to say that Seattle City Light is the city's largest economic engine.

and we are all shareholders and stewards as you are.

And Seattle City Light is the second largest employer of this great city.

And as Council Member Strauss pointed out and my other colleagues on the committee, we take that stewardship seriously.

and I appreciated, except for that one time, all the PowerPoints, except when the numbers didn't line up.

Other than that, we did great.

And there was a lot of material to go through.

So to get us here today is a, I know it's not as sexy as Council Member Saka's big piece of legislation that he got over the finish line.

But for me, it's a big deal.

and I also want to thank Sophia Suarez who's sitting right there.

Sophia's been working on this project and she's been amazing and Paul, Policy Paul, Councilmember Paul, Paul Menefee, our policy person who's been working closely with Seattle City Lights since the day we hired him and has been exceptional.

and getting us and working with you on the PowerPoints as well as with Tracy and Eric McConaughey.

And I just want the public to know because I don't think they realize or maybe obviously not see that we really rely on central staff and getting the information to us and working with you folks and getting the information out and so the public can access it online.

And one last thank you.

I had really nice conversations with for tribal leaders, three of them within the Skagit River system watershed, and has nothing but wonderful things to say about Seattle City Light.

Now, it's not everything is always perfect, but the fact that you recognize and go beyond a land acknowledgement and recognize tribal consultation on a finite resource certainly speaks a lot to our values as a city.

So thank you.

And with that, Council President, I hope I have everyone's support.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Strauss, is that an old hand?

Old hand for old Councilmember Strauss.

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes.

Will the clerk please affix my signature on the legislation on my behalf?

Congratulations.

Oh, you get a clout.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

She's always so nice to me.

Colleagues, there were no items removed from the consent calendar.

There is no resolution for introduction or adoption today.

are there any further comments that I see too?

Councilmember Rivera followed by Councilmember Strauss.

Council President, I just wanna apologize.

I kept calling you chair throughout this meeting.

You are our council president.

So apologies for that.

Thanks.

Oh, that's the, oh, girl.

Okay.

I wanted to publicly apologize.

I don't know why I kept calling you chair.

You could call, I'm chair.

Yeah, I caught that.

I was concerned about that.

Yeah, we were all very angry about that.

Councilmember Strauss.

President, I request to be excused on August 18th, 2026, from full council.

You said August 18th?

August 18th.

Awesome.

Are there any, if there's any objections, you are...

It might be recess, is that recess?

It's not recess yet.

No, the 21st.

Trust me, I know exactly the day.

So, Council Member Strauss, you are excused.

Thank you.

Are there any other items to come before the council?

Okay, awesome.

Okay, so guess what?

We have reached the end of today's agenda.

Shout out to that raccoon, Jimothy, I think.

What about my possum?

I have a possum.

For national sensation, council member, did you write it a proclamation?

Jimothy for mayor.

And you haven't presented it yet.

For good of the order, if anyone would like to join the Jimothy celebration this Sunday, there will be not just a celebration and presentation of a proclamation, didn't quite get it in time to present and bring for full council, but would love if everyone could attend because we will also have an art competition.

as well.

For those who have been online, it's inspired a lot of art.

It's also inspired a lot of tattoo artists, so it's true.

Some of our residents are walking around with a Jimothy tattoo here or there.

People move fast.

So there will be an art competition.

We'll be announcing more details later today, but we have learned that we will be, the first prize can present their Jimothy art in City Hall.

So I think that's a pretty solid reward prize for that.

Invite everyone to attend.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

That's really cool.

I don't know who'd be naming these folks, but it would be nice for someone to name Dante, you know, or Hurricane Jamal, you know, just have a different name for things.

Council President, we in D5 do have a possum named Swanky D. Swanky D, okay.

So I just wanna put that out there.

Swanky D's been around, not as popular as Jimothy, but okay.

All right, Jimothy's a good name.

No knock.

Okay, thank you.

So guess what?

We're gonna end this meeting because it's 4.15, so we've reached the end of the meeting.

It is 4.15 p.m., council meeting.

The next council meeting will be July 28th at 2 p.m., colleagues, hearing no further business.

We are adjourned.

Good job.