Council Briefing 4/21/25

Good afternoon.

Today is April 21st, 2025 and the council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.02.

Council members Kettle and Saka are excused from this meeting.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council member Rivera.

Present.

Council member Solomon.

Here.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Kettle.

Oh, sorry.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

And Council President Nelson.

Present.

Seven present.

Thank you.

If there's no objection, the minutes of April 14th, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Okay, today we've got one proclamation, one presentation, and no executive session today.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are 13 items on the introduction and referral calendar.

Council Bill 120973, the weekly bill payment ordinance.

Appointment 03143, appointment of Patrice Tisdale as member Labor Standards Advisory Commission for a term to April 30th, 2025. And then five appointments and reappointments to the Seattle Women's Commission.

Let's see, appointment 03134, appointment of Kate, let's see, Fouro Wright as a member.

Appointment 03135, appointment of Amanda DeFisher as member.

Appointment 03136, reappointment of Crystal Guerrero as member.

Appointment 03137, reappointment of Vinachi Mamidala as member.

Appointment 03138, reappointment of Whitney Nakamura as member.

There are two appointments to the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, and they are appointment 03139, reappointment of Doris W. Koo as member, and appointment 03140, reappointment of Paul Feldman as member.

There's one appointment to the Seattle Human Rights Commission, appointment 03141, appointment of Fatia Abdi as member, and one appointment to the Community Roots Housing Public Development Authority Governing Council, which is appointment 03142, appointment of Drew Weber as member.

And then, let's see, Council Bill 120971, an ordinance relating to automated traffic safety cameras establishing additional uses for automated automatic traffic safety cameras to increase safety, authorizing qualified civilian employees to review violations detected by traffic cameras, updating finance and fund policies related to the use of camera revenues, and amending ordinance 124230 amending sections 5.82.010.

There are a lot of other sections here.

I will leave it to folks watching to go look up Council Bill 120971 to see the rest of the sections that will be modified by this ordinance, by this Council Bill.

Okay, and then there's finally one last piece of legislation on the IRC, which is Council Bill 120972, an ordinance relating to appropriations for the Seattle Department of Transportation, modifying a proviso and amending ordinance 127156, which adopted the 2025 budget.

That's the IRC and the consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance and six items.

five appointments and reappointments to the Seattle Design Commission.

And there are three pieces of legislation from committees.

Council Bill 120957, relating to publicly financed election campaigns.

Council Bill 120948, an ordinance relating to Seattle's construction codes.

And Resolution 32169, a resolution relating retiring, introduced, and referred council bills.

So that's on deck for tomorrow.

All right, now for our next section here, we have the state legislative session update, getting down to the wire, folks.

So thank you very much for being here today and getting us up to speed on what's going on down there in Olympia.

You're welcome to introduce yourselves and carry on.

Good afternoon, Council President Nelson and council members.

Nice to see you.

I'm Mina Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by my colleagues virtually, Ana Johnson and Samir Jenejo.

We have made it to week 15, and there are just six days left of the 2025 regular state legislative session.

Last Wednesday's opposite House floor cutoff came and went quietly, leaving many policy bills dead, a disappointing outcome for advocates who had hoped for progress on their legislation, and a win for legislators and lobbyists wishing for the demise of certain proposed policies.

Despite the looming deadline, neither the House nor Senate designated a 5 p.m.

bill, and both chambers adjourned their sessions promptly at or before 5 p.m.

The Senate actually held a Ways and Means Committee quickly afterward at 5.30 to focus on new revenue proposals, which underscores the ongoing discussions about the state's fiscal strategy even as that major legislative deadline passed.

Ana and Samir will share more about the fate of our policy priorities and the Democrats' fiscal strategy momentarily when I turn it over.

But before I do that, I did want to acknowledge the sudden death of Senator Bill Ramos this weekend.

Senator Ramos represented the 5th Legislative District since 2019, which stretches from Issaquah to Snoqualmie Pass down to Enumclaw.

He first served in Washington's House of Representatives most recently as the chair of the State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee and was voted into the State Senate last November.

I first met Bill in 2017 at his kitchen table in Issaquah as we strategized about his first run for the State House when he defeated a well-known former legislator and flipped a seat to the Democrats' control.

He was a passionate public servant and tireless advocate for protecting our forests and environment, improving our transportation system, and his beloved 5th District.

I worked closely with him, and like so many others, I will miss Bill's warmth and excitement toward people and his overall joy for life.

Thank you.

With that, I'll turn it over to Ana and Samir.

All right, good afternoon Council today will give you an update on the Seattle priority bills as as of last Wednesday's floor cut off.

For public safety bills, unfortunately, Senate bill 5098 this bill restricts weapons in certain locations, including public buildings parks and Community centers.

and namely restricts open carry of firearms in those locations, did not advance in time for cutoff in the House.

Unfortunately, the bill had numerous amendments and was going to take up a lot of time on the floor, and the House did not engage in the legislative action on this bill.

But we did have House Bill 1112 regarding our pro tem judges get signed into law by the governor.

And then we also saw House Bill 2015 public safety funding passed the Senate on on the House of Opposite Chamber cut off bipartisanly.

Reminder, this bill does two things.

It creates a grant program through the Criminal Justice Training Commission for cities and counties to access grants to help with law enforcement recruitment, retention, training of law enforcement, as well as funding co-response or alternative response positions.

The bill also creates a councilmanic sales tax that can be used by cities and counties at 0.1%.

And the criminal justice sales tax can go to a flexible use of criminal justice purposes.

Could be anything from our courts to diversion to law enforcement care.

It really has a wide range of uses.

And then Senate Bill 5595, our shared streets bill, has passed both chambers and has been concurred by the opposite chamber.

And now that one heads to the governor for signature.

And then also, unfortunately, House Bill 1423 regarding vehicle noise enforcement cameras did not come to the Senate floor in time for cutoff last week, so it will not be advancing.

Moving on to some economic development, small business and housing bills.

House Bill 1515, which updates our outdoor dining regulations and Seattle Center alcohol regulations, passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote 37 to 12 and now moved to the House for a concurrence vote.

The Senate made a couple of changes on the expiration date of the bill.

So now the bill expires on December 2027, the entirety of the bill.

And then also it allows certain other facilities in Spokane, for example, to also take advantage of the flexibilities in the bill.

House Bill 1733 increases the reimbursement cap from 50,000, where it is right now at $200,000 for moving and relocation expenses for businesses that are impacted by agency displacements, which could also include things like Sound Transit's West Seattle extension.

That bill passed unanimously out of the Senate and goes to the House for a final concurrence vote.

House Bill 1403, our condo liability reform bill, and House Bill 1516, the study bill that studies insurance options for condo development, both have passed the legislature.

Now I'm going to the governor's desk for his signature.

House Bill 1774, which allows leasing of unused WSDOT land for less than fair market value, passed the Senate 29-19 and now moves to the House For a final concurrence vote, the Senate changes include a separate tier for leases that are over five years.

So leases that are over five years will have to be approved by the legislature, whereas leases under five years can be done just by WSDOT.

For the Climate, Environment, and Services Bill, we saw Senate Bill 5284, or the Washington Recycling Reform Act bill, pass the House after many hours of debate.

So this one will also head to the governor's desk for signature.

And then House Bill 1253, this bill deals with consumer-owned utilities and their ability to enter joint use agreements.

This one passed the Senate unanimously, is also ready for signature into law.

And then House Bill 1409, the Clean Fuels Program Improvements Bill, passed the Senate.

Pretty tight vote, 25 to 3. And I believe the House will concur on the changes, and that will head to the governor as well.

And then a few child care and early learning bills here, 5509, 13, 14, and 16. 48 have all passed the opposite chambers and are heading to the governor.

And then also on the House of Origin, our opposite House cut off last Wednesday, two major K through 12 education bills passed.

Senate Bill 5192 regarding materials, supplies and operating costs passed the House bipartisanly 85 to 12. And then also Senate Bill 5263 regarding special education funding passed unanimously.

The two property tax bills that we were in support of are both still in both chambers and still certainly very much have not had action taken out on them yet, but are still out there for consideration.

And I'll talk a little bit about the revenue bills right now.

So these were the House and Senate essentially negotiated this revenue package.

As you recall earlier in session, I went over the House's revenue package in the Senate's revenue package, and this is the result of their negotiation.

So you'll see that they have an excise tax on zero-emission vehicle program credits, an increase in the estate tax, which increases the top tier from 20% to 35%, a capital gains tax increase, which takes the form of a 2.9% increase on gains of $1 million or more, establishing sales tax on currently exempt items and services, like, for example, computer and IT-related services and advertising services, A B&O tax increase, this includes a 0.5% surcharge on large businesses that have income of more than $250 million.

If you recall, the House had this in their tax proposal, but it was at 1%.

And then also an increase for various other B&O categories as well across the board.

And then as I mentioned, the property tax growth limit increasing the cap to 3% is also as part of the House and Senate package.

Where we go from now is that the They will now essentially negotiate these even further with the governor's office, especially as they will come out with the actual budget itself, which will come out sometime this upcoming week.

And certainly all of this is subject to change as they continue negotiating over the course of this weekend on to sine die, which is the next key date, which is next Sunday, April 27th.

Certainly, there's a lot to get done before then and we'll see what happens and we'll keep you posted.

That's the end of today's presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much for the update.

I wanted to ask a question.

Could you talk a little bit about the homelessness response funding and the proposed budgets?

Because we're hearing that in both the House and Senate budgets, the funding for the encampment resolution program is going to be reduced from $75 million to $45 million.

But then I've heard that actually it's just a cut in inflation increase.

So could we get some information?

Because this has been a very successful program in getting people into shelter quickly, and I'm concerned about whether it is in jeopardy.

Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that.

It's correct that the House and Senate, when they released their proposed budgets last month, they had a funded the program at 45 million a year, which is a reduction from what was 75 million.

The House and Senate and also the governor's budget that was released before session all have included the same number, 45 million.

And I think our understanding was that that would be enough to maintain the current beds that are available, but not increased beds.

And so I think there's certainly a lot of discussion about that and can keep you in the loop.

I think we'll certainly see what takes place over the course of this week as we see the final budget that should come out in a few days.

I'm sorry, may I just ask a follow-up?

Yes, go ahead.

So that's a $30 million cut, and that's going to continue to sustain the current beds?

I'm just a little confused.

How is that possible?

Yeah, we can get more information from KCRHA or HST as they're the ones who have the most direct information on that, so we can follow up with them and get back to you.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Council Member Moore, thank you for asking that question because you and I both serve on the governing board and so this is a conversation that's live right now and I believe there will be a conversation about it in public tomorrow, et cetera.

So thank you very much for bringing that up.

I'm looking to see if there are any additional.

Council Member, go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, just wanted to thank the entire Office of Intergovernmental Relations team for your work in Olympia this year.

I found that the practice colleagues that, You know how I like to highlight things that we're doing differently this year than former years?

One of the things that we're doing differently this year is having a shorter legislative agenda, and I found it to be very helpful when we were in Olympia, and I'm finding it helpful to see how many bills that we're passing this year, especially the shared streets and the FIFA allowances.

These are important bills that I...

Don't know would have gotten as much attention had we had such a long legislative agenda.

So I wanted to thank your team for all your hard work getting those bills across the finish line and colleagues for our work to shorten down that multiple page agenda down to two.

Thanks, team.

look like you're...

I was just going to respond.

Thank you, Council Member.

We do appreciate your, as you noted, your partnership also in the work to focus that agenda, and we're excited to come back and give you the full rundown.

Yeah, I'll take this opportunity to just say on the record that the reason that I abstain from approving the past couple years' legislative agenda is because with 16 pages, there were a lot of things in there that I didn't necessarily sign on to.

So yes, thank you for your work to, um, to hurt us all together into two pages.

So council.

Oh, I thought I saw your hand council member Rivera.

Okay.

I'm not seeing anything else.

I just have one last question.

If on page seven, the revenue package, um, if all goes well in all of these, uh, components of the revenue package do, uh, prevail, What is the dollar amount that we're thinking that that could generate?

People know the deficit.

I mean, I hear 18 billion talked about, but what would be the revenue amount?

For this package, it's $12 billion over four years, which is slightly lower than what they had introduced a couple of last month, which is about 14 and then 15 billion for the House and Senate, respectively.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

I'm not seeing anything, any other hands up, so I'll just thank you very much again and bon courage down there in your last week.

Keep us posted if you need anybody speaking out about anything.

Thank you.

All right, moving on.

Today we have a proclamation from Councilmember Strauss proclaiming April 26, 2025 to be John Herman Person Day.

Councilmember Strauss, please lead the discussion on the proclamation for any additional feedback before I request signatures to be affixed to it.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, on behalf of Councilmember Kettle today, I'm circulating a proclamation in memory of John Pearson.

Once a District 7 staff member, apparently I'm always one.

I first met John Pearson when I was staffing for District 7. We would oftentimes joke, did it take a rocket scientist to solve the problem?

And sometimes the answer was yes.

John Pearson is that rocket scientist that we relied on.

From saving the trees at Seattle Times Park to advocating for tiny home villages to how the Denny substation is so inviting and beautiful is not work that John did alone, it's work that John helped lead within the community.

I'll refer back to my notes, because I'm going off script, just to say that John began his professional career as an electrical engineer, and in his 33 years in Boeing's aerospace division, AKA he was a rocket scientist, Well, he became a rocket scientist is the next line here.

Managing technology for the massive first stage of the Saturn V moon rocket, among other aerospace programs.

While helping America get to the moon and raising three suns, John promoted education and arts by serving on the Bellevue School Board, Seattle's Families and Education Levy Oversight Committee, the Asian Arts Council, Center for Ethical Leaders, and the Pike Place Market Foundation, amongst others.

He accomplished a ton in his time with us, including being the founding president of the Mirabella Washington Foundation, helping get everything from dog parks to pedestrian walkways built in Seattle.

He was a champion of the Market to Mohai connection between Museum of History and Industry and the Pike Place Market.

He helped building the support for tiny home villages in his neighborhood and improving urban green space across Seattle, raising funds to plant 10,000 daffodils in Seattle's parks, beyond just saving the trees in Seattle Times Park.

with his friends at Mirabella.

As the proclamation reads, quote, it is fitting that the Seattle community pause to acknowledge and honor John's tireless work during his 98 years on this earth, his many accomplishments from rocket science to daffodils and everything in between.

His legacy of leadership, service, and kindness will live on.

Colleagues, if we might take a moment of silence for John, and I know that Councilmember Kettle had desired to sign on.

I understand that procedure is not allowing his signature to be affixed today.

Thank you, Council President.

That is an unfortunate procedure, and our office has spoken with the clerks about that several times.

But I want to add my voice and also thank Councilmember Kettle for bringing this forward.

When I was a staffer in 2002 to 2013, I remember John, you know, calling or emailing at that time, writing letters about policy matters, and it just seems as though he had such an eagle eye when it came to all things policy-oriented, but especially that impacted not just the built environment, but he just seemed to...

be everywhere at once when it came to knowing what was going on at City Council in the vast amount of legislation that was being considered.

And so I always knew that when he fixed on something it was of import and I better know what I was talking about and be able to explain and listen.

So I think the words that were already said now, great loss.

Are there any other further comments?

All right, seeing there's no further discussion on the proclamation, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation recognizing April 26th as John Herman Thurston Day.

Council member Rivera?

Aye.

Council member Solomon?

Aye.

Council member Strauss?

Yes.

Council member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council member Moore?

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

And Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Seven signatures will be affixed.

Thank you very much.

All right, now on to the next agenda item, which is a preview of council actions, council and regional committees.

This week's roll call begins with Council Member Rivera.

Please go ahead.

All right, thank you, Council President.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Colleagues, as you know, last week we started our select committee meetings on the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise levy renewal.

I've been working on this FEP levy renewal for the past year.

Those of you who sit on the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, which I share, know I brought the Department of Education and Early Learning, who oversees the levy's work, to present on the various levy-funded programs and outcomes so we could review these investments.

In addition, I appreciate a meeting with all of you early this year to hear your thoughts and priorities for this next levy.

I also met with levy stakeholders ranging from child care providers to current Promise students to hear about their experiences.

The mayor will be announcing his 2026 FEP levy proposal this week.

While working with the mayor, I shared all of your priorities, not only what I heard from our meetings earlier this year, but also what I heard during briefings last year and even last week's select first select meeting.

committee meeting.

I want to thank the mayor for valuing my input and for his partnership during this time.

This truly was a joint effort.

And I also want to thank each and every one of you for your partnership and invaluable feedback.

I believe you will see your recommendations reflected in this levy proposal, which we will know more later when the mayor announces it.

but I felt it was okay to share that.

And together with the mayor, we will have a levy renewal package that I think we can all be proud of.

Colleagues, for the past 35 years, we have had a families and education levy, and it is as important today as it's ever been, given this federal administration's attack on working families and children.

I want to thank you again for your partnership to date, and I look forward to continuing our conversations and sharing more once the mayor announces this on Wednesday.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, let me get.

I believe we're, Council Member Solomon, you're next.

Thank you very much, Madam Council President.

So out of the land use committee, we do have votes coming up for tomorrow's meeting.

The five appointments to the Seattle Design Commission.

as well as the permit extension vote.

At our last land use committee meeting, we also had a briefing discussion about ADU legislation and hope to have a vote.

And we also had a public hearing about that and hope to have a vote on that at our next meeting on April 30th.

So that's it for the work of the Land Use Committee.

In terms of some of the other things that were occurring last week, had an opportunity to have a good in-depth conversation with the Community Police Commission and look forward to working with them regarding some initiatives.

to inform the public about what they do.

Also had some in-district hours in the Rainier Beach community.

And with Council Member Rink, had an opportunity to meet with elders in the Town & Town International District community to discuss their concerns about the comprehensive plan.

And coming up this week of importance, we do have staff who will be doing a tour of the Fort Lawton site.

We'll be meeting with the Nisei Veterans Committee at their facility right there on King Street.

We'll be doing a meeting this Saturday, rather, at Sephardic Bakur Hulam, that congregation, as well as attending the Alliance for Education Gala on Saturday evening.

There's a lot more, but I'll just leave it with that and take any questions if there are already.

Go ahead, Councilmember Strauss.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

All right.

Are there any questions?

Nope.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's see.

Moving right along.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

The Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee met last Wednesday.

We were joined by the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts to discuss our city's budget situation.

Colleagues, if it wasn't clear last week, I'll speak to it again.

We have adopted the pessimistic outlook for this revenue forecast, and revenues did not come into the level that we expected in 2024. This has created a new budget hole of approximately $240 million that has to be addressed this coming fall.

Last year, we engaged in heavy budget reform to reduce our structural budget deficit that had started about a similar number.

And we're here again today.

We do have two more forecasts before our final budget this fall, which means that we have an August forecast ahead of the mayor's budget proposal and then a forecast in October ahead of our final action.

Understanding that, I'm still ringing the alarm bell as loudly as possible today.

we are going to need to engage in the same rigor of budget reform this coming year as we did last year.

We have dedicated meeting time in June to discuss the follow-up on last year's budget reform work and plot the pathway forward for this coming fall budget season.

We've already begun gleaning information from last year's budget reform statements of legislative intent, and this work will be presented on in June to ensure that we have as much information as possible going into this fall.

We will also be presenting this June on process reforms for this fall so that council members will have more time to advocate for their funding priorities ahead of the chair's package.

I was able to include almost all requests from council members in last year's chair's package and I think that came as a bit of a shock to some.

And so we're going to add another layer of process to this fall's practice in which council members will be bringing forward their priorities and allowing others to sign on.

We'll need to engage in some technological changes compared to last year.

We did not have the budget tracker, for instance, which disallowed council members from being able to sign on to other amendments, et cetera.

So we'll need to bring back this technological tool.

But I wanted to start previewing this for you all now because we're gonna have a tough budget year.

We adopted this pessimistic scenario in part because the information that Director Duras used to create the forecast had changed even in the week.

So just in the two weeks previous, we had the announcement on tariffs, the revenue forecast, and then the pause on tariffs.

all utilizing data that had been gleaned before the tariff announcements.

And so there is uncertainty right now, but we also as economy here have stagnated compared to the 20 teens where we have lots of cranes in the sky.

where a lot of our budget was based on the sales tax from construction and the property tax increases that we got from this construction, which we don't have at our hands today.

Also just note that a third of our sales and use tax revenue is coming from port-related activities.

And so beyond anything that we take up in this committee, if there are additional issues with the port, that's a third of the revenue that we're relying on.

in our sales and use tax.

So I bring this all up to say that June is gonna be a time where we're going to, we've already begun working on this budget reform and following up from this last year behind the scenes, but we're going to be coming back to committee to look at the statements of legislative intent that we have set up from last year and start preparing for this fall's budget process.

Beyond that in committee, last week, we also discussed the grant acceptance ordinance, which we plan to bring forward for a vote during the next council meeting on May 7th.

We do not have any bills tomorrow at full council.

And in my external committee, as a board member of Sound Transit, we do have a board meeting this week, this Thursday, April 24th.

We have a few motions regarding the Pinehurst Station, formerly known as 130th.

Linwood Link Extension Operations and Maintenance Facility South, Stride Bus Rapid Transit, and Tacoma Dome Link Extension.

We also have three items on the agenda regarding the West Seattle and Ballard Link Light Rail extensions.

I'll note, colleagues, that these items were moved out of the System Expansion Committee without recommendation.

So I want you to be aware of the politics going on at Sound Transit right now.

We will intend to amend the adopted 2025 budget to advance these West Seattle Ballard extension through the completion of the preliminary engineering phase into the final design phase, authorizing a contract modification to management support services and authorizing a contract modification for the West Seattle phase one civil engineering design services.

That's our intent, but I just want you to be aware that there's some tension out there right now.

I'll also be in District 6. Again, I'll be hosting my office hours this week with D6 residents on Wednesday.

There's a lot more, but I've already talked enough.

So colleagues, I'll leave it there.

If you have any questions, happy to take them.

Otherwise, I'll pass it over to the one.

Council Member Moore, is that an old hand?

That's a new hand.

New hand, Council Member Moore.

Thank you very much for that preview.

I just had a question about if there's any interest in bringing legislation around new revenue.

What is the timeline for that?

If you are looking to bring legislation regarding new revenue, I would ask that you start working with central staff now.

If we are going to have a proposal this coming fall, then central staff needs quite a bit of time to work on it.

We did have a situation last year where somebody in, I think no one here, but asked for a proposal at the last minute and it was, it can't be done necessarily if it's asked for it too late.

So the request is to, if you could start working the ideas now,

That was me that brought the proposal last year.

And fortunately or unfortunately, I'm still here.

So we'll see.

But thank you for that.

I will get working now.

Thank you.

Seeing no other questions, I'll pass it over to the one, the only, the great council member Joy Hollingsworth.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilman.

I haven't heard that introduction since my Arizona days.

So thank you.

Hello, colleagues.

Good afternoon.

The Parks Utilities Technology Committee meeting will be Wednesday, April 23rd.

That is this Wednesday at 2 p.m.

We have three presentations on the docket, all coming from our wonderful Seattle Public Utilities, which they'll talk about capital investments, reimbursement authority and also system development changes as well so looking forward to that as well also wanted to thank everyone for your engagement with the seattle comprehensive plan i know that there have been a lot of changes and we've been navigating this as a council as best as possible we sent out two memos last week just clarifying the difference between phase one, phase two, and all the components that are engaged in the timeline as well.

And so the next comprehensive plan is going to be Wednesday, April 30th.

That is at 2 p.m.

We're going to hear a presentation from our executive and they will talk about the interim legislation and then also trees and some other different components that they have, you know, other different components with the interim legislation for House Bill 1110. Also, so if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

We're gonna be checking in with everyone just regarding the interim legislation, just how things are going, what improvements we can make, and also just any feedback about our timeline and dates that we have set.

But looking forward to that.

Also wanted to highlight, don't have any regional committees.

We had regional committees last week with our Board of Health with Councilmember Kettle and Councilmember Nelson.

I thought they were really great conversations.

It was a very heavy meeting with a lot of topics from street vendors to gun violence report to drug treatment as well.

Some stuff that the county is engaging with as well.

And last but not least, we have our quarterly district three community council meeting that is going to be on Tuesday.

So I'm looking forward to, it's always a fun group of folks as we engage in the district three community council meeting.

I don't have any other information and I see council member Kathy Moore has raised her hand and yes, council member Moore.

Thank you very much, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Two questions, one about the comp plan.

So I just wanted to, I think I had asked you this offline, but just wanted to confirm.

So the comp plan piece that we will be dealing with this summer, along with the permanent HB 1110, that will encompass the designation of neighborhood centers, is that correct?

But not the actual zoning that happens within those designated areas?

Correct.

That is phase two.

Okay, thank you.

And then my second question relates to the meeting with public health.

So my understanding is that DCRs are only the designated crisis responders, the people who make the decision about whether somebody meets the criteria for involuntary treatment, both for behavioral health issues as well as for substance use issues.

That's all a county-contracted responsibility and it seems like there is kind of a, there's a need for more and then there's also sort of been a kind of a, what's the word I'm looking for?

A certain resistance from the county to utilizing DCRs and I'm just wondering whether that's an issue that's come up at the Board of Health and whether that's something that could be discussed more because we are finding, you know, I just had a briefing with CARE today.

Valley Cities, which provides a fantastic detox and inpatient, long-term inpatient as well as outpatient treatment, has no people from the city of Seattle.

None.

And that's because we're not getting DCRs making those decisions.

And it's kind of...

It sounds like it's almost a bureaucratic backlog, so I'm making a little bit of a speech here, but also just wondering if that is something that did come up at the Public Health Board.

Is that the place to be talking about it?

Yeah, thank you.

Absolutely, thank you, Council Member Moore.

To my knowledge, and I would probably have to refer to Council president, um, uh, just to make sure that I'm not missing anything.

Those meetings are quite long.

Um, but to my knowledge, I don't know if we've discussed those at that, but I do think from what you're talking about, it sounds like it's the arena too.

Um, I don't know if the council president has anything to add

Yes, in fact, I do have something to add.

So in answer to your question, it would be a reasonable topic to take up in our Board of Health meetings.

There was an article in the Seattle Times last Friday that got me quite exercised.

It was talking about the brand new UW facility up north that has not been...

really fully put to use for many different reasons.

A little bit because of DCRs, but at first it was, if I'm not mistaken, the Department of Public Defense, that they were really busy and so couldn't represent people that were there.

headed there and so it is this is a facility that that would help get people who are in danger to themselves or others real care at a brand new facility and it is extremely disappointing that that that that it is underutilized to say the least so where that fits in with the county's purview you know, would have to be discussed and decided upon by the chair of that committee, King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda.

But if I understand where you're going with that question, it really is something that, The number of DCRs are a barrier to getting people the help they really need when they need it, so I'll say that.

And I've always wondered, does there need to be a change in the state law that allows a broader class of professionals to serve as DCRs?

And my answer is I'm not completely sure, but there certainly is a lot of interest in that, so thank you.

Council member, oh, go ahead.

Do you have a follow-up?

I was just going to make a request that our members on that board, if you can bring that as an issue.

I don't know who sets the agenda, but is there any way that that can be added to the agenda?

I will commit you to reaching out to the county and talk to Council Member Hollingsworth, my fellow member, about the best way to go forward.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore for raising this because this is something that I have concerns about as well.

And my understanding and reading of it is that there is some kind of bureaucratic issue.

happening, whether it's a backlog or whether people are reticent to actually utilize the DCRs, I think is also at issue.

And, you know, at the end of the day, we have folks in our community that are suffering and that this was squarely, you know, this idea of the DCRs And even Ricky's law at the state level was something that was brought forward to help these folks that are truly in need.

And we are paying for services that are not being utilized.

And I believe Council President, the article talked about that as well.

Yes.

And, you know, this is a problem because it's not about resources.

The resources are there.

And I want to say that again, the resources are there, because oftentimes we're being told it's a resource issue.

But it is not a resource issue.

It is something that is at the disposal of the county and the city to use, but we're not.

And so we really need to get to the bottom of why and then how we can help course correct that because these folks are not getting the help that they need.

And so, you know, thank you, council president for agreeing to take this on and council member Hollingsworth for your work as well on the health board, because I'd like to see something actually being done about this, because otherwise what happens is those places are closed because they're being underutilized, and then we find ourselves in this cycle of we need the service, we put money toward it, we open a facility, then it's not utilized, and so on and so forth.

And so I really more wanted to thank you, Council Member Moore, for raising it, lend my voice to this important discussion as well, and to thank you all for taking it on the health board.

Thank you.

What we've got is it's almost a portrait of bureaucratic dysfunction, at least as regards to what's going on at the UW Hospital, not necessarily at our county facility.

With the egregious part that these folks, again, the third time in the paragraph I just said, these folks are not being helped.

These are folks that need help.

We have the resources to help them, and they are not being helped.

So thank you, thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

And I'll note that Governor Ferguson is engaged and directed the state's Office of Public Defense to begin taking on cases.

And then things happened in Olympia this year, so, one can hold that hope that there will be improvements, but this is an essential piece of infrastructure in our, um, in our care system for very vulnerable people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Just to follow up.

Well, I've heard correctly.

So thank you, council member Moore and Rivera for bringing that up.

I will work with council president's office and, um, council member Kettle, who both serves on the board as well, uh, to make sure that we put in, we can figure out the best way to figure out how we're gonna talk about that on the board or address that.

I've been lucky enough to have great conversation regarding some of the food vendors that we've seen on Pike Pine with the county, just making sure that we're keeping everyone safe and just navigating that.

It's obviously not just in my district, it's in a lot of other people's district.

And so that was one of the agenda items as well on there.

And so I'm more than happy to engage with the county and to figure out ways that we can talk about the DCR, the treatment as well as going a little bit deeper into just the surface level of stuff that we talk about.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next up council member Moore.

Thank you, Chair.

Council President, sorry.

So our next committee meeting is actually this Wednesday for Housing and Human Services.

We will have two items on the agenda.

The first is a presentation on funding impacts on Health and Human Services.

And the second is an update from our Meals Partnership Coalition on the status of their work, which I'm sure will also touch on issues of funding.

And thank you to Council Member Rink for your...

whatever understanding in the crossover of that issue to the committee, so appreciate that.

Last week I attended the King County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Board meeting where we approved our new bylaws after much work, and thank you to Council President Nelson for your work on that and central staff in the mayor's office.

And we also approved an interloan fund to support the fiscal health of KCRHA.

So I feel good that we are helping to try to keep them stabilized at the moment.

On a more personal note, over the weekend I had family in town from the East Coast and we spent the day, we visited South Lake Union, downtown, Capitol Hill.

And their response was, Seattle is amazing.

I don't know why it gets such bad press.

So I think, you know, obviously we have our challenges, we have our hotspots, but it was really nice to have some positive feedback from people outside who have a lot of other places to compare it to, and the city looked really good.

So just passing that on, we are getting some things right.

This week, actually I think it's tomorrow, I'm scheduled with Council Member Ring to attend a press conference with the PDA and REACH on the state's right-of-way encampment resolution program.

I will also be attending the Bitter Lake Earth Day playground opening celebration and also Seattle's coordinated effort against sexual exploitation, their monthly meeting.

and that's what I have on my calendar for now, as well as my usual district office hours every Thursday afternoon.

I will be there at the Lake City Community Service Center.

So no questions.

I'll turn it over to Council Member Rink.

I wanted to just say thank you very much for attending the press conference.

As a fellow governing board member of KCRHA, it's good that your voice will be heard on the right-of-way program.

Thank you.

Sure, thank you.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President.

I want to start my remarks today by first taking a moment to honor the sudden passing of State Senator Bill Ramos over the weekend.

This is a devastating loss for our community and my heart is with King County Councilmember Sarah Perry and their family at this time.

As a Latina in politics, I think it's important to note that Senator Ramos was a mentor to me and many Latinos in politics.

He encouraged me and made me feel proud to be a Latina and really impressed upon me the importance of representation and what an honor it is to serve our communities.

I know our neighbors on the east side and in the legislature are certainly feeling this loss as well, and I hope we can all find ways to honor his legacy.

And with that, going into some of the specifics around committee and legislative work aligned with last week, I'll just be keeping my comments limited to that and do another plug for folks to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Instagram to keep up with our community engagement.

I wanna thank the Sustainability City Lane Arts and Culture Committee members for joining us, for attending last week's committee hearing, that including a briefing and a robust discussion on the Seattle City Light investigative report and findings.

The committee will continue working with General Manager Don Lindell and others to ensure we are providing proper oversight when it comes to implementing these changes to try and address the culture challenges happening at City Light, making sure we have proper accountability measures in place across the ranks at City Light.

And I will be inviting General Manager Lindell back later this year for an update on this work.

And colleagues, if there are any questions or ideas or things related to this work, certainly invite you to work with my office to make sure, again, we're doing right by addressing these culture challenges at City Light.

I'll be joining the mayor's office tomorrow for a press conference highlighting the city's new climate action plan, joining in my capacity again as committee chair over sustainability.

And I look forward to working to ensure that transformative change is included to support our green energy future and a healthy next generation.

Seattle can and should be a leader in the nation showing how a Green New Deal can transform a city while leaving no one behind.

And to close out for today, I wanna personally thank Council Member Salomon for partnering with me and meeting with our neighbors in the CID over the weekend to discuss the comprehensive plan.

I know we worked with the Department of Neighborhoods to make sure we had Mandarin and Cantonese interpretation to truly make it accessible.

As a reminder, the CID is one of 11 most endangered national historic places.

And when we say this, we're talking about cultural displacement.

So colleagues, as we're taking up the comprehensive plan this year, really keeping that front and center and centering the CID community to ensure we're taking every measure we can to address displacement, particularly for that community and many of the most impacted communities, across our city will be tremendously important.

So thank you for joining me in that, Council Member Solomon.

Thank you to Puget Soundstage for pulling that important conversation together.

And thank you to Ocean Star for the delicious food.

And with that, Council President, that concludes my comments for today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I've already mentioned that there's one item on tomorrow's City Council agenda, which is Council Bill 120957 relating to democracy vouchers, which received a unanimous recommendation from the committee last week.

Again, this is a, we're talking about, this is simply this action, this piece of legislation will enable the city to send it to the August ballot.

This is a, this is going to be, it's a property tax approved by voters.

And so simply what we're, the council's action is to approve sending the legislation to the King County so that it can be before voters in August.

That bill, council bill 120957 is also co-sponsored by council member Kettle.

The next meeting of the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee is this Thursday, April 24th, and there are only three items, which are three mayoral reappointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission.

Actually, I must amend that.

I believe that two are new and one is a renewal.

But in any case, we've got a fairly short meeting coming up for the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee this week because their subsequent meetings will be pretty packed.

All right, last week, I'll just mention a couple things.

On Thursday, I met with a delegation of 16 elected officials from the city of Okayama as they were visiting Seattle as part of their literacy tour.

I know other meetings they had were to visit to the downtown Seattle Public Library.

And I do also recognize that other council members were here to meet them as well here in chambers.

Let's see, I spoke at the, last week I spoke at the Youth Summit Job Fair at the Boys and Girls Club down south on Rainier.

And I have to say that it was, well, I was joined by Seahawks legend Marcus Trufant, who is also an alumnus of the Seattle Boys and Girls Club.

This is a, Youth Force is a national initiative, but it is hosted here by the Boys and Girls Club, and what it does is it provides career readiness and mentoring and also connections with members, well, employers for youth as they are transitioning from high school into the beyond, and so it is really a valuable project.

program, and if you know of any young people who could benefit from it, by all means, have them look up this program.

This week, I'll be meeting with Roberto Jimenez, CEO of the Social Housing Public Development Association, and with him will be John Hoyt, who is their consultant.

I'm really looking forward to meeting him.

I have never done so before.

After this past election, it's Personally, I feel it's, I wanna set them up for success.

So it'll be my first meeting with the head of the organization.

This Saturday I'll be part of, I will be part of the Downtown Seattle Association and the City of Seattle Park cleanup at Denny Park where I'll be joined by Superintendent A.P.

Diaz.

And then finally, I will be touring a few of the businesses that are part of Seattle Made.

And I'll be going with Andrea Porter, who is a staffer there.

We'll be meeting with members such as Mackey of Middle Fork Roaster, which is an established local manufacturer.

And he mentors many newly launched businesses and supported Evan of Seattle Strong Coffee as he got his start.

just meeting some of the makers businesses in town that I have gotten to know a little bit as I was advancing the stadium makers district legislation.

And so if you ever have a chance to meet some of these small businesses, I recommend that you reach out to Seattle Made.

All right, that's all I've got to say.

Are there any questions or comments?

All right.

I do not hear any.

And is there any further business before we adjourn?

Seeing none, hearing no further business, this meeting is adjourned, and it is 3 o'clock.

Thank you very much, everybody.

We're adjourned.