Seattle City Council Briefing 7/6/2020

is the july 6 2020 council briefing meeting and it will now come to order the time is 9 32 a.m will the clerk please call the roll council member herbold here council member juarez she's on mute council member juarez thank you

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Here.

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

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

To continue participating remotely, I'm going to move to suspend the council rules through July 7th, 2020 to allow this meeting to occur while participating through electronic means.

The extension, folks, just so you all know, is listed here because there has been an extension for the proclamation 20-28 through July 7th.

It was originally set to expire on July 1st, so that is why we are going through the rule suspension process at this point.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow electronic participation at council briefing meetings through July 7th, 2020. Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and council briefing meetings will be held with council members participating electronically through July 7th, 2020. We'll go ahead and move into approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of June 29th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no abduction, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, I don't have anything to report on behalf of the president's office, so we'll just go ahead and move into preview of today's city council actions.

Council and regional committees.

This is the portion of the agenda that we previewed today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

I'll call on each council member as established by the rotated call for city council meetings, which is designated alphabetically by last name with the council president being called last.

this week's roll call rotation begins with Councilmember Herbold, then Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Strauss, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion for today.

So before I hand it over, I just wanted to acknowledge that there was a tragic event that occurred in our city over the weekend where two protesters were were hit by a vehicle on the interstate.

Of course, our thoughts are with Summer's family and continue to be with, who unfortunately, passed away over the weekend as a result of the injuries that they sustained.

Also want to send our thoughts to the family of Diaz.

Love, they are still in the hospital and we are hoping for a speedy recovery but of course our hearts are heavy this morning and over the weekend with the news of this tragic loss and this a horrific incident that occurred in our city over the weekend.

I'm sure many of you will touch on this particular event, but I certainly want to acknowledge that we begin today's conversation in the context of just a horrific act that resulted in one death so far and another person still in critical condition.

with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over now to Council Member Herbold.

Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President, and good morning.

So yes, it is another Monday, and we have more to mourn this week, specifically the death and injury on I-5.

Summer Taylor and Diaz love now, and the week before last, it was Lorenzo Anderson, and last week, a 16-year-old, Antonio Mays Jr.

The mayor has said that no one should risk their lives for this movement, and similarly, but different, I in my Stranger Post last week suggested that protesters should not take on the responsibility for the lives of a thousand people who live, work, visit in the area known as the CHOP.

But as it relates specifically to the mayor's comments that no one should risk their lives for this movement, I refer to specifically the people who put their own lives as risks, as people have done for generations for the civil rights movement.

The Seattle Times reported the words of Diaz love as relates to the decision to put her own life at risk.

She wrote in the days leading up to the fatal July 4th collision on social media that they were scared and anxious about threats to protesters.

She wrote, to say I'm scared to be going out and protesting this weekend is an understatement.

Still, we need to protect black women.

So I think I'll get in the streets to live stream again tonight.

One and a half hours before Love and Taylor were hit, Love streamed video of an off-duty police department officer who drove her vehicle through the demonstration.

This incident is being investigated by the OPA, and I think it speaks to some of the risks that protesters knowingly are entering in this effort to stand for black lives.

As it relates to specifically the action taken last week related to how to address the conditions in the CHOP, we all know that the mayor has extraordinary powers under an emergency order.

And we have seen late last week and this weekend that her powers under executive order are extraordinary as well.

without the ability under an emergency order for the council to modify the order to ensure it's proportional to the situation, the council's ability is limited to questioning its execution rather than limiting its scope.

So, you know, what follows here is just some concerns that I have related to the application of the mayor's executive order since its execution.

I've heard reports of SPD clearing Cal Anderson Park using pepper spray to wake people sleeping there in the morning before clearing out the park.

We all focus a lot on whether or not there is available alternatives to shelter before encampments are removed.

The Seattle Times reported saying that as of Tuesday, 17 vouchers were issued for Cal Anderson Park residents.

But I've received reports from advocates that as of the time of the Wednesday morning encampment, there were no more hotel vouchers available.

I saw video footage of the arrest of a black man after he was assaulted by an apparent white nationalist as he went to police for help.

In the same confrontation, I saw the police department's stance facing away from the armed group of apparent white nationalists while committing to a stance of policing an apparently unarmed group.

The chief reported to me on Sunday that the streets and the sidewalks are open with the exception being that only the sidewalk street, the only sidewalk street not open is on 11th Avenue east on the east side of Cal Anderson Park due to the park's closure from remediation.

She told me, we have told officers not to ask anyone for ID any longer.

This is on Sunday.

But two hours earlier, there was an incident of a man visiting Lorenzo Anderson's memorial being arrested that afternoon.

And then, of course, not the least of these concerns are the use of crowd control weapons, despite a court order to not use them.

The police department reports that they deployed 40-millimeter sponge rounds, pepper spray, and blast balls.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs had said that indiscriminate use or use against peaceful protesters of these dangerous weapons would violate the court's order.

We have witnessed 38 days of conflict, violence, injury, and death.

many people have experienced them.

I understand from reports from those in the front line that the need for trauma-informed care is great.

And I believe that the city must provide support and resources to meet these needs, whether for protesters or for CHOP residents who couldn't get emergency medical care when they needed it.

So people who have been impacted by the events of the last 38 days can start to heal and have the support of their government in healing.

Some additional reports, one from the Human Services Department.

The summer food service program begins today, runs through August 21st.

There will be free breakfasts, lunches, and afternoon snacks for children ages 1 through 18. Many sites are available to the public so that any child 18 and under can come and receive a free meal.

The summer food service program sites will operate with precautions in place to minimize risk while serving meals to the community.

Sanitation and distancing practices will be followed in accordance with CDC and local health department guidelines.

In District 1, meal sites include South Park Community Center, Highland Park Playground, High Point Community Center, and the Cascade Middle School.

To find the meal site closest to your house, you can visit www.

www.uwkc.org forward slash free-summer-meals.

Or you could Google United Way, King County and free summer meals.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Last items to mention there was a regional water quality committee meeting last week that I was unable to attend because of the budget committee meetings.

And then there will also be a West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting on Wednesday.

SDOT will present neighborhood mobility plans for four areas, including Highland Park, Riverview, South Delridge, Roxhill.

That is one area.

one area that will receive its own recommended neighborhood mobility plan, another will be South Park, and so another Georgetown, and finally Soto.

It will also include modal plans, such as freight and bicycle, and there will be public comment period about which projects within the plans to prioritize.

I'm asking constituents to send their comments in response to the draft plans to me.

And the plans will, again, like I said, be presented to the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force on both July 8th and July 22nd.

And that's all I have today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for that report.

Any questions or comments on Councilmember Herbold's report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go down the line.

Oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

I want to thank you as the Chair of Public Safety for your opening comments this morning and also express my condolences to the community and the family of Summer Taylor and also reiterate that we're keeping Diaz's love in our thoughts as protests continue to flood the streets every night, continuing to demand justice.

I did have a question.

I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more.

I did have a chance to read your piece in The Stranger, and thank you for your words there.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on anything that you learned about the stated threat to the East Precinct, but the reality once you learned additional information?

Because I think that that's been used as justification for the continued police presence, that there was some form of, you know, threat that was identified by the FBI specific to that location and it appears that that was not the case.

Could you elaborate on that a little bit more for us?

Yeah, I don't have much more to say than what I wrote in the stranger piece.

Myself, you, and Council President Gonzalez were briefed the day before the the decision to leave the East Precinct, and we met with the chief to discuss the decision to install hard barriers, and we're expressing our concerns about that decision, and we're told at the time that there were FBI threats considered credible threats.

I will say I don't recall, and I've looked back at my notes, and I have not done an exhaustive media quote search.

I don't know whether or not the chief herself specifically said that the credible threat was to the East Precinct.

I know the mayor has been quoted saying that there was a threat to specifically to the East Precinct.

But my conversation with the chief last week, the bottom line is that there was not a specific threat to the East Precinct, but that Seattle Police Department had received a description of threats to government and police facilities in three cities, and Seattle was one of them.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda for that follow-up and Council Member Herbold for that additional clarification.

I want to reiterate some of the points or confirm, I guess, some of the points that Council Member Herbold has just shared.

I, too, had concerns about some quotes given in the media about threats against the East Precinct that were being to make it necessary to continue to have the hard barriers in the protest area on Capitol Hill.

Like Councilmember Herbold, I had questions about various quotes related to this particular issue by either Chief Best or the mayor, and we'll have to dig those up to sort of refresh my memory as to that compilation of public comments related to threats around the East Precinct.

I will say that I had submitted a formal request to Chief Best around clarification of FBI information received from I heard that there was a briefing from the FBI.

general threats to all city facilities, which of course would include police precincts, but it would also include City Hall, sewer treatment facilities, a host of other things that are owned by the City of Seattle.

So Council Member Herbold, I appreciate your efforts to keep me in the loop and to keep each other in the loop to make sure that we're getting both getting the same information.

And I feel at this point that we have both gotten the same information, these were generalized threats as opposed to specific threats to the East Precinct that were garnered as a result of a, what sounds like a general bulletin that was received by most police chiefs in major cities, not just Seattle, so Spokane, Portland, other areas in the region received similar communication that gave generalized information about potential threat to city assets.

So appreciate that we have an opportunity to talk about that more publicly and I appreciate Councilmember Herbold you making note of that in your piece last week.

Any other questions or comments for Councilmember Herbold on her report?

Okay hearing none we'll go ahead and move down the roll call.

Next up is Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

There's one item The next item is resolution 31950. This is a resolution relating to the department of parks and recreation authorizing the superintendent of parks and recreation to act as the authorized representative agent on behalf of the city of Seattle and to legally bind the city of Seattle with respect to certain We've done this every year.

This is routine legislation.

I will speak more to this next Monday during council briefing.

This will be on the city council agenda for July 13th.

Second, the monorail platform expansion legislation, council bill 119815, also be on the city council agenda for a possible vote next week as well.

In regards to parks, as usual, my office will get to you by close of business.

the park's weekly COVID updates with an update on the shelter program, the emergency child care for essential workers, and the distribution by Seattle Parks and Rec of PPE.

Let's see.

Good news.

The aquarium and zoo are both open.

Both the Seattle Aquarium and the Woodland Park Zoo reopened to the public this week at reduced capacity.

The aquarium opened on Monday, June 29th, and the zoo opened on Wednesday, July 1st.

What else do we have here?

So we have several parking lots that have reopened.

Several Seattle Park and Rec parking lots have reopened and are set to reopen, including the boat ramp parking lots and several lots in Magnuson Park and the Washington Park Arboretum.

Parking lots near swimming beaches will reopen if when lifeguard swimming begins.

My office will send a complete list to you this morning.

Let's see.

Anything else here?

Week ahead, this week apart from our budget meetings, I will attend the Transportation Policy Board of the Puget Sound Regional Council on Thursday to review the grant allocation recommendations for final approval.

Those were the items I discussed with you last Monday in Monday morning briefing.

And I will attend the select committee on Seattle transportation benefit district committee on Friday.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Juarez.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Okay hearing none we'll go ahead and move down the roll call.

Next up is Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much Madam President.

Good to be here with everybody.

I am going to be seeking to walk to all offices, if you haven't received it, do please flag that, and I'll make sure that Catherine sends it along, that I will be seeking this afternoon to walk on to introduction and referral.

The bill would create an emergency revision to the enforceability of Um, individual liability for lease violations for commercial tenants.

That's a very complicated way of saying that if you're a small business owner, um, and you're behind on your commercial rent.

and your commercial landlord is now coming after you for that rent, they will be stopped during the pendency of COVID from going after your personal assets or the assets of a third-party guarantor who used their personal assets to guarantee the lease.

I'm bringing this forward because I have heard from a number of small business owners in my district that their commercial landlords are hinting and making threats about taking that kind of action.

which is why I believe that it is urgent that we pass an emergency order that would prevent an action like this from taking place.

I think it is fair to say that if you're a small business owner and you opened a small business, the assets of that business could potentially be fair game to your creditor.

or to your landlord.

But no one should be coming out of COVID having also lost their house, their savings, other personal assets that having no notice that there was going to be this massive COVID emergency are going to just really put you in a hole for a long time.

It's based on a similar ordinance recently passed in New York City that does a similar thing.

So I want to walk that on so we can at least start the discussion and get it kind of cued up.

on introduction and referral, so that we can consider it as early as next Monday for a vote, or at least have the option to.

So I just wanted to flag that now, just given that there is a sense of urgency and that I think that we could be preventing some massive inequities from occurring.

I'm moving forward.

I want to address another policy proposal that I'm going to be seeking throughout our summer budget discussions.

And I want to introduce it now, just given the ongoing active demonstrations in our streets demanding accountability from the police.

given continued highly questionable police actions against demonstrators, and given the need to have an answer that as we go through our process of defunding SPD, which I completely support, we do need to make sure we are identifying programs and strategies that can replace the first response provided by police.

And I think it's really critical that that conversation begins with a lot of the public health-informed welfare calls that we currently have police doing that I think universally on this council we all agree could be better handled by other folks.

As a conservative estimate, 25% of all people killed in police shootings have a mental health condition.

By the most liberal of estimates, that number is as high as 50%.

We know that people with mental health conditions are 16 times more likely to be shot by police.

We know that our black and brown neighbors are two and a half times more likely to be shot by a police officer than a white person.

And I unequivocally believe Black Lives Matter and that my friends who have mental health conditions should not be in a position where they are 16 times more likely to be killed purely based on their mental health condition and by the fact that we as a city are consciously choosing to send a first responder not equipped to provide the assistance and the help that is needed and exposing them to potential harm, even fatal harm.

And that journey to create a new system of first response is going to begin here in our summer budget session to respond to these historic ills.

And we can't have any delay in doing it, since every day that we delay puts more of our neighbors at risk.

So that's why today I'm announcing that I'm going to be putting forward a proviso in our summer budget requesting that the executive develop and quickly scale up a Seattle-King County version of Eugene, Oregon's program, Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets, or CAHOOTS.

So CAHOOTS is a first responder system in Eugene that's hardwired into their 911 dispatch.

It's completely separate from the police.

Their teams have a medic who is either a nurse or an EMT and a crisis worker with a specialty in behavioral health.

to provide immediate assistance to people in crisis on the streets.

So CAHOOTS teams provide welfare checks, counseling, conflict resolution, treatment referrals for substance addiction and behavioral mental health, to make an appointment within 48 hours, for example.

So, CAHOOTS teams to respond to over 20% of all the 911 calls in Eugene, Oregon.

And the Eugene metro area, Eugene, Springfield, Oregon, is a metro area about the size of Tacoma, so it is a sizable city where something like this could be scalable in a situation like Seattle.

20% of all 911 calls represents about 24,000 total calls.

CAHOOTS workers are a completely separate 911 response.

They're not part of the police department.

They're unarmed.

They don't have the power to make arrests, and they do have the power to request police assistance if they need police assistance.

But only if CAHOOTS itself initiates that request to summon the police to help them.

So to put it in context, last year CAHOOTS responded to 24,000 calls that they were dispatched by 9-1-1 to.

They elected to involve the police only 150 times.

150 times out of 24,000 calls.

CAHOOTS has been an enormous success in Eugene, and it's not only provided those essential services that I mentioned earlier, but it's been time-tested.

It's been there since 1989. By every estimate, it's resulted in huge savings.

It has a budget of about $2.1 million.

The estimate is that if that services it provides were still provided by the police, it would cost $8.5 million, so a significant savings.

The Eugene emergency medical services save an estimated $14 million a year by not having to send AMR or other emergency response that is more expensive.

So, I mean, in a city the size of Seattle, where people in public health crisis represent a massive amount of the caseload of SPD and emergency medical services, those savings could be even higher.

And as the chair of the Select Committee on Homelessness, I want to note that 60% of the caseload of cahoots are people experiencing homelessness.

This is just a much better way to deal with longstanding public health and crisis of poverty than currently dispatching the police.

So we have a really good starting point in King County because we have a similar program operated by the downtown emergency service center called the mobile crisis team.

And the mobile crisis team does great work, but they're not hardwired into the 911 dispatch.

So indeed, CAHOOTS is basically just a scaled up version of the mobile crisis team hardwired into 911 dispatch and made basically a separate leg of our dispatch, like with the fire department, AMR, police, and then I think it would make sense to fund it by defunding SPD and in order to do it adequately based on what the proviso comes back and tells us would be the amount of money necessary to adequately scale and respond to the caseload.

I think that's only appropriate on a lot of levels, given it's a more appropriate response to these types of calls, and also given that a scaled-up CAHOOTS will significantly reduce SBD's current caseload.

I mean, just as a reminder, in Eugene, Oregon, 20% of all 911 dispatches were cahoots workers.

So I am going to put a proviso forward to look at this in this session.

I would hope that we could scale it up and potentially use the mobile crisis team as a starting point, as sort of the bones of a system like this, and how we could build it out and flush it out.

I think we're starting from a good place.

to do it, and I think that as we have our conversations about defunding, it's important to also be having a conversation about what kind of first response systems we can put in place that can be a more adequate, equitable, and responsive way of dealing with a lot of these calls that we know are resulting in a lot of our black and brown neighbors and neighbors experiencing a mental health condition.

police.

I don't have any other updates this morning, Madam President, and I look forward to another week of work here at the Council.

And for anyone else who might have questions or comments on Council Member Lewis's report, please do let me know by raising your hand or sending me a quick message.

With regard to the ordinance that you referred to that you are interested in walking on for the introduction and referral calendar this morning, can you confirm that your office sent that to all council members, because I didn't see it until just a few moments ago when I asked my staff to forward it to me.

So it looks like your staff sent it to staff potentially, but not to each council member.

So I just want to make sure that your office distributed that proposed ordinance for the introduction referral calendar this morning.

I don't know if there is anything else.

Looking at my e-mail now, it does look like it was just distributed at the staff level.

Yeah, I'll also just note councilmember Lewis said it was done on Friday, which was a holiday technically for many of us so offices, most offices, if not all offices were closed on Friday so as far as I can tell.

Um, it went out on Friday.

Um, well, it looks like Thursday, we got it Thursday morning, but I thought I heard you say that it was sent out on Friday.

Maybe you misspoke and meant to say, um, Thursday, but I'm a little concerned that folks may not have had an opportunity to actually see the legislation you want to, uh, walk on to, um, uh, have us consider for the introduction and referral calendar.

And so I just want to sort of flag that as a potential concern there.

And then secondly, are you proposing this afternoon in your proposal to walk it on, is it just for placement on the introduction and referral calendar, or is it for placement on the introduction and referral calendar and for action this afternoon?

I don't want to belabor the that Catherine did e-mail it to all CMs on Thursday, but I can look into that later.

I certainly do understand that sending it on Friday would have been problematic, so I appreciate that.

You know, if folks want I do know that my office had talked to some folks in Council I mean, I'm amenable to procedurally proceeding in whatever way, Madam President, that you think is appropriate.

I'll have a follow-up conversation with you, Councilmember Lewis, about whether or not it makes sense for us to have it walked on as opposed to just going through the ordinary process, particularly now since you've had a public conversation about it and your interest in pursuing this legislation.

But I will certainly follow up with you after today's council briefing.

We can talk about logistics in terms of whether we should walk on today or hold until the regular introduction referral calendar for next Monday.

But I appreciate your willingness to continue to have a conversation about that.

I think that is a good point.

I think that is a good point.

Colleagues, I know I saw Councilmember Herbold raise her hand.

If there is anyone else, please let me know.

For now, I will go ahead and hand it over to Councilmember Herbold who has comments or questions.

and we have what is now nearly a three week request into the police department to do an analysis of our own 911 calls.

Again, we asked for this nearly three weeks ago.

I also wanna flag the fact that in my interest in the CAHOOTS model, I responded to, I think all of us received an email from a couple of the mental health professionals we have a crisis response team, and this is a crisis response team that has grown in size with the council's funding of more mental health professionals to be on that team.

the crisis response team from one person to five.

And that crisis response team does work in partnership with the Seattle Police Department.

But in my interactions with them, I have learned that they are looking for ways to do work that is more similar to the CAHOOTS model.

Specifically, they recognize they are not able to call 911. their only option is to respond with police and their entire unit agrees that there are times that this is unnecessary.

they recognize that calls for a person who is depressed and looking for help or a person that we need to be able to do that.

These are all things that they can work on as mental health professionals without the assistance of police officers.

So I just want to flag my interest in pursuing this model and pursuing a model that recognizes that a huge number of 911 calls are calls for we need to engage the workforce that are doing it now.

we need to engage the crisis response team of mental health professionals.

I think we need to, in the effort to talk about changing the model, we need to engage those workers that are doing it now.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Lewis, thank you for the notification about your intent to file this legislation.

I will also note that on Wednesday this week, we do have a panel presentation from some community partners who've been researching alternatives to the 9-1-1 system.

They have, this includes community experts and folks from University of Washington and people who are working with Decriminalize Seattle, who will be coming forward with some recommendations and specifically talking about some lessons learned from the CAHOOTS model.

So it might be interesting to hear what they have to say about some of the strategies that they would recommend if they were to do it all over again as we consider what to do in Seattle.

I just wanted to flag that for folks.

Jackie and Angelica will be part of a panel presentation Wednesday morning as we discuss the SPD budget inquest and we specifically ask them to speak to the CAHOOTS model.

So just wanted to flag that for folks as we're trying to take lead from folks who have been thinking through what the strategy looks like to defund and reinvest.

That conversation is going to be Wednesday morning starting at 10 a.m.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda for that.

Any other questions or comments on Councilmember Lewis's report?

Okay, hearing none, I would just say that on this issue around how do we address and what model do we address for 9-1-1, I appreciate the interest of pursuing something like CAHOOTS.

I also think it's I'd like to spend more time considering the full spectrum and menu of options to fill the role of responding to non-emergent, non-violent calls.

There's also models out of Denver, for example.

I think they call theirs STAR.

So I think there's a lot of different models out there that take a harm reduction approach to some of the needs that would otherwise need to be met by a different model.

So I hope that in the conversation moving forward, we can not get fixated on just one particular model as the as the answer, but really have a thoughtful conversation about what model might be best for the city of Seattle after we do a survey and consideration of what kind of models exist currently that are being done all over the country by other cities, that we can make sure that ours is one that is informed by community, particularly those communities who are negatively I appreciate the work that you're doing and the work that you're doing.

the opportunity to start having that conversation this summer and to continue to have that conversation so that we can make sure that we are rising to the occasion in terms of the calls for defunding the Seattle Police Department and investing in a community as opposed to over policing community.

And that inherently means that we have to deal with how we respond to 911 calls.

in the way that we do now.

So looks like no one else has any questions or comments.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes, thank you, Madam President.

Just to respond briefly, I do think that whatever successor agency we ultimately do develop is going to be a world into its own that's going to pick from a lot of different examples nationally.

So I'm not suggesting that we do sort of just a carbon transplant of the CAHOOTS model.

I think in response to Council Member Herbold's comments earlier, and I look forward to working with everybody on this going forward, I think one of the really biggest differences with kind of what we're currently doing with the crisis intervention team at SPD is that that is a completely integrated unit within the police department, rather than a separate, like on its own leg, kind of 911 response system.

And I think it is going to be important going forward, like, you know, I mean, I would like my purview so ideally to ask like HSD to develop something instead of SPD, because I do think, you know, one of the things I like about the CAHOOTS model, and I think the Denver model may have also been based on the CAHOOTS experience, is that it is a separate, a completely separate 911 response from the police.

So I think as long as we stay focused on that rather than being focused on any particular model, I think that's the way that I want to go forward on this.

And I think it's important to make sure that and I think that is what the future of our public health informed response is going to be, and it seems like the CAHOOTS model is a pretty good one for having that kind of a system.

I look forward to continuing to have this conversation, and I appreciate the opportunity to work with all of you on it.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

I think several of us have been talking about now for a few weeks about, I certainly have been talking about how there are many mental health, social work kind of programs or services that have been baked into The Seattle Police Department, certainly the crisis response team is one of them.

Another team is the victim support team, which addresses specifically the issues related to domestic violence.

And so I think that there's a lot of other social work, mental health programs and folks who have been entangled with armed law enforcement.

And I have been talking already for a couple of weeks about the need for us to really take a serious look at what it would look like to disentangle our public health, social work, mental health programs that are currently tied to an armed law enforcement model.

And it's really important for us to dig into those details.

And in fact, I think in the last budget committee hearing, I spent quite a bit of time trying to queue up questions around how do we begin the process of identifying these kinds of programs that frankly should never have been connected with and tied to armed law enforcement models in the first place.

And so certainly, One big piece of this exercise is to separate those types of work.

But also, I really want to make sure that as we are doing this work that we are going to be doing it in a way that is community-driven and that is focusing on centering the voices of BIPOC community members who are negatively impacted by policing and over-policing.

and want to make sure that whatever model we pursue, that we're going to, you know, not simply direct it, but to make sure that we're doing the community engagement and outreach necessary in order to develop whatever the model is going to look like, and to make sure that we, frankly, are going to be held accountable and get it right.

I'm interested in making sure that we continue to have these conversations and doing it in a way that is holistic, I think is going to best serve all of us and the constituencies that we are serving through this work.

So I appreciate you bringing up the issue and look forward to the many, many, many, many weeks of conversation, hopefully not too many, many weeks of conversation that we will have to dig into this body of work.

Any other questions or comments, colleagues?

Okay, let's go ahead and move down the roll call.

Next up is Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, everyone.

I do want to echo what Council President Gonzalez was saying.

I do think it's important that we remember we need to be following the lead of community on this one, especially.

I had mentioned Maybe it was last week.

Maybe it was the week before.

I'm losing track.

But decriminalize Seattle and the King County Equity Now coalitions are looking at how to do a participatory budgeting process so that we can hear directly from community so they can hear directly from community about how the shift in spending from the police department should happen, what the priorities are from the community about the kind of services that we should be providing.

So I just want to remind everyone that that process is in the planning stages and we need to make sure we are letting them lead that process and then be prepared to implement what we hear from community.

We know that, as Councilmember Herbold has already said, for the last month our neighbors have been out in the streets protesting the police brutality that too often leads people to people dying.

Friday night, I got a call from a constituent whose daughter was arrested.

And a video from her friends that her friends took showed that she was really doing nothing more than yelling.

But she was charged with two felonies.

She's got a medical condition that would have put her in serious danger if she had been exposed to coronavirus.

I'm still hopeful that in the time she spent in jail, she was not exposed.

Thankfully, she was released on Saturday.

thanks to the work of bail advocates who waited hours before being allowed into the jail.

We know that people have always put their lives on the line for justice.

They risk that because our government is not serving them.

And that continues to be the case.

So the conversations we're having right now are really important.

And I think it is, frankly, disingenuous for the mayor to suggest that people shouldn't be doing this when it is, in fact, the role of government to make sure that people are served so that they don't have to protest.

But the kind of police-induced crisis that happened this weekend leads to police violence, and it's literally killing people.

My constituent was lucky, but we know that Summer Taylor had a tragically different outcome.

So I want to echo the condolences to their family and friends and neighbors.

We've been in a state of chaos for over a month.

I feel it is In large part because the mayor is sending conflicting messages and really does not seem to be in control of her police department.

You know, there's conflicting messages saying that people can stay at the chop and then sending police in to clear it at five in the morning.

Authorizing tear gas when Judge Jones has ordered that SBD halt violent tactics.

sending in police to clear out the chop, knowing that people would be arrested, and then promising not to press charges after people are already in the criminal legal system, and leaving it to our city attorney to try to deal with processing them quickly and dismissing cases as he can.

The police protecting Proud Boys who open carry, but tear gassing people who have an umbrella or a candle in their hands.

Allowing police to require neighbors to show their ID or risk arrest.

I'm really questioning what is happening in our city right now.

Our neighbors are suffering, some are dying, and the mayor lets the police department act with impunity as if we're in a police state.

There are at least three demands that the community is making on us right now.

Defunding the police by 50%, investing in black communities, and releasing the protesters.

I want the community to know that the city council is working on the first two.

We've begun the process of dissecting the police department.

It's an obscure document, I want to say.

Our questions have been met with resistance and very little clarity from the police department.

But I want to assure the public that we are committed to a budget reduction, including staffing reductions available under the given constraints that we have with the contract.

We're also committed to investing public resources.

in a way that serves black and brown neighbors and neighborhoods.

And I wanna let folks know that these things don't happen overnight, but they will happen.

As for releasing the protesters, the city attorney has dismissed many of the cases stemming from the last several weeks.

And I think it's also to dismiss from this past weekend the folks who were charged with misdemeanors.

Those who are facing felony charges fall under the jurisdiction of the King County prosecutor.

And the city council has no jurisdiction over the county prosecutor, but I have written to him once already, um, and expect to meet with him later this week.

And my plan is to be able to update, to be able to update the people of district two as soon as possible.

Um, given that many of the folks, um, are from my district.

Um, that's really all I wanted to say.

I want to again, express my condolences, uh, to the family and friends of summer Taylor.

Um, And to let the community know that we hear your demands, we're working on it, and we will do everything we can as quickly as we can to protect our city.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Really appreciate you taking the time to walk through all of those varying pieces.

Super important.

I know that sometimes it feels like the wheels of justice are barely moving, but I do think it's important for us to continue to make sure that our constituents know that we are moving as quickly as we can on the things that we know we can move on now.

with the understanding that obviously budget is one, just one frankly, way that we can move many of these demands and issues forward.

And of course many of us have been looking at this summer rebalancing option as a phase one, if you will, to lay the foundation for the harder, deeper dive work that will occur over the summer.

And, you know, we appreciate everyone's patience, but we also, and I oftentimes say this to folks when I'm talking to them off camera, and that's that, you know, we need the pressure and the movement to keep building, building towards, you know, execution of these demands.

And we need to continue to see and feel that they want us to prioritize this work.

And one of the most important ways for people to do that is to take to the streets and to sing in one voice and to tell us loudly and clearly what it is they want.

And I certainly appreciated being able to be a public official during this period of time where I'm in a unique position just like all of us to hopefully rise to the occasion.

So thank you so much for those words, really appreciate it.

Any other comments or questions for Council Member Morales?

Okay, hearing no questions or comments on that report, we'll go ahead and move down the line.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning.

We have a pretty exciting afternoon planned here.

Thank you all for your comments and feedback so far on the jumpstart legislation.

I will first start with one other item that's on our agenda today.

Item one is Council Bill 119814. This is an ordinance relating to funding for housing community development programs adopting substantial amendment to the City of Seattle 2019 annual action plan.

And this is a piece of legislation that we discussed last week and we had a public hearing on it as well.

This allows for the City of Seattle to amend its 2019 annual action plan and to provide detail on how the city will spend approximately $8.9 million of federal funds allocated to the city through HUD for COVID-related response.

These funds were appropriated by the council through Ordinance 126074 and Ordinance 126084 passed in May, and funds have been allocated to the Human Services Department, Office of Housing, and Office of Economic Development to prevent, prepare, and respond to coronavirus.

These funds will support emergency-related assistance, grant payments to small businesses, and meal programs for people experiencing homelessness.

But in order to enter into a grant agreement with HUD, and to receive the funds, we have been directed to amend our most current annual action plans to reflect these appropriations.

So council colleagues, that is what is on our afternoon's agenda as item number one.

And even as we do that, we know that the federal assistance that we've received so far has been inadequate to respond to exactly those three items, food assistance, small business assistance, and to making sure that people have what they need in order to pay the rent for rental assistance.

This is really incredible opportunity for us to advance the Jump Start legislation this afternoon.

We will be able to discuss this on two parts.

As you heard from last committee meeting, we will have Council Bill 119810 and Council Bill 119811. This is both the Jump Start Seattle payroll tax and the corresponding high-level Jump Start Seattle spending plan concept bill.

While there may be a few amendments that folks would like to flag, I encourage you to do so.

I want to flag one that I've also shared with you this morning.

The one amendment that I am sending around would seek to exempt nonprofit health care entities and life science research entities for a period of three years for those with compensation between $150,000 to $400,000 for nonprofit health care entities.

I think a lot of folks have heard us discuss this last week, and I want to thank Council Member Peterson for your interest in a similar vein.

We are interested in making sure that we are responding to the COVID crisis and also recognizing that there are a handful of nonprofit entities who are right now responding to this crisis, giving them a period of approximately three years to sort of deal with the crisis.

I think it has been well-received by the stakeholders that I've talked to.

And just for context, you know, there's a lot of nonprofit entities in our area.

And while nonprofit healthcare entities are considered charities by the Internal Revenue Services, many of these nonprofit systems have annual revenues in the billions, with chief operators earning seven or eight-figure salaries.

So in many ways, their peers are large corporations.

An equitable solution to rebuild our economy cannot further subsidize the system.

when we have, you know, a true crisis and we want to prioritize community needs.

So instead, the proposal in front of us helps us invest in Seattle's economic recovery and also make sure that we're addressing nonprofit health care providers accordingly so that there is some acknowledgment that there is a crisis, a public health crisis that many of these entities are responding to, but that we are really asking those who are getting paid the highest salaries above $400,000 to continue to contribute to the solution that Jumpstart Indigens.

I want to thank Seattle Children's.

I want to thank the folks at Fred Hutch.

I want to thank the folks at FDIU Healthcare 1199 Northwest for their feedback on the possible amendment in front of us.

And again, that's version three that I sent you.

I also really want to thank the folks at Central Staff who again have been working around the clock to address some of these potential amendments.

have really appreciated working with all of the folks on central staff and all of our offices as well.

You all have your fingerprints on this bill, and I want to thank you because your work on this legislation has made it better.

And with that, I just want to say I'm really excited for this afternoon.

I'll also note that there are no Finance and Housing Committee meetings right now for the remainder of the month, given our limited agenda due to the Select Budget Committee.

And our next public budget committee meeting is Wednesday, July 8th.

We will have one session at 10 a.m.

where we will have a presentation on the roadmap that I mentioned earlier from Seattle decriminalization and some other folks in the community who have been doing a lot of research on how to, in Seattle, allocate funding upstream, invest in community priorities by reducing the Seattle Police Department's budget, ideally by 50%.

you will hear a presentation from them and get a briefing on some of the work they've been doing.

Council Member Morales alluded to this as well.

And council colleagues, we will have an overview of the, not just the next six months budget, but also a preview of what they'd like to see envisioned for the 21-22 budgeting process that will be led by community organizations as we think about participatory budgeting strategies.

They'll go over some of their proposals as well.

We'll also have a presentation, a long-awaited presentation that Councilmember Herbold mentioned on the 9-1-1 analysis.

That will be provided to us in the morning session as well.

In the afternoon at 2 p.m., we plan to hear from Council Budget Office.

Director Van Noble is going to be with us with a handful of his crew to answer additional questions that we may have from the first budgeting first session.

that we review the mayor's proposed 2020 rebalancing budget.

This is our opportunity to ask him questions over a two-hour period.

And then for those who can join us, we will have a public hearing starting at 4 p.m., and we will take as many people as we possibly can in a two-and-a-half-hour window to get additional comments in.

This will be focused on the mayor's proposed 2020 rebalancing package.

Happy to get your feedback as we think about how the council plans to amend that 2020 rebalancing package.

Thank you, Council President.

That's my summary.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda.

Really appreciate that report.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none.

I know many of us are excited to take this final vote on Jump Start Seattle.

Looking forward to the conversation this afternoon.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Next up is Councilmember Peterson.

Council Bill 119826 will be accepting the $3.5 million for the West Seattle Bridge.

That money is from the Federal Surface Transportation Program and it's going to our Seattle Department of Transportation.

Thanks to Council President Gonzalez and Mayor Durkin for working together on the Executive Board of the Puget Sound Regional Council a few weeks ago to prioritize those funds for the West Seattle Bridge.

Also on the IRC is Resolution 31956. which will affirm our goal to pursue universal access to reliable and affordable internet for all.

Council President Gonzalez is a co-sponsor of that resolution.

Thank you, Council President.

Also on the introduction referral calendar, appointment 01585 to appoint Dr. Tyrone Grandison to the Community Technology Advisory Board.

The technology falls within the Transportation Utilities Committee.

Regarding today's City Council meeting.

We already talked about the amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for your patience working through that amendment about nonprofit health care providers.

And later this week, Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

So we will present the proposal to renew the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

Thank you to Council President Gonzalez for establishing a temporary Committee of the Whole with the single purpose of considering the November ballot measure to renew the Transportation Benefit District.

We will meet as a committee at least twice, this Friday, July 10, and also Friday, July 17 at 10 a.m.

Ideally, the full Council will vote on the final measure by Monday, July 27. because the deadline's August 4 to put it onto the November ballot for voters to consider.

As I've said before, I believe we must renew our successful Seattle Transportation Benefit District before it expires.

It's essential, affordable, and green.

Our economy, our workers, and our environment are counting on us to preserve our basic transit services.

Continuing this small tax is necessary as our economy reopens.

to preserve transit subsidies for our low-income neighbors, seniors, and students, and to make sure buses get people everywhere they need to go, which includes boosting access to and from West Seattle.

Thank you.

I'm done.

I'll just jump in and say thank you, Councilmember Peterson, again, for the robust conversations that we've been engaged in.

appreciate your feedback.

Council President, you may be frozen.

Peterson?

Yeah.

How about now?

Yes.

That was your plug for intranet for all I think.

Yeah.

Yes, this is my commercial for Internet for All.

Can you all hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Okay, so any other questions or comments?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move to Council Member Szilagyi.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone.

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

I look forward to the vote today to pass the Amazon tax, which our movement has fought so hard for.

We had a veto-proof majority coming out of the Budget Committee last week, and there is absolutely no reason to water the bill down as it was passed through committee.

We do not need any more loopholes.

We do not need delays, or we do not need sunset clauses.

I will reserve my general comments for this afternoon, but I would urge the City Council to not support any amendment that would weaken the legislation in any way.

Deepest condolences and solidarity to the family, friends, and fellow activists of Summer Taylor, who was run over by the driver of a car that plowed into a Black Lives Matter protest march on Saturday.

Socialist Alternative and I also send our best wishes to Diaz Love, who was seriously injured in this horrific act of violence against the movement.

Across the country, this courageous protest movement is being targeted by police and right-wing vigilantes, and the political establishment has completely failed those fighting for change.

Our movement needs to continue to build to win, defunding the police by at least 50 percent, along with dropping all the charges against the hundreds of protesters who have been arrested.

Last week, we saw reports that the Seattle Police Department is continuing to violate Seattleites' democratic right to protest.

There have been numerous videos of police violently arresting protesters who are committing no crimes around Capitol Hill.

Chillingly, there were also reports that the police are attempting to subpoena the footage of the free press.

They arrested hundreds of people and are now looking for evidence or to I don't know, maybe manufacture evidence to justify those arrests.

In the brutal July 1st clearing of the Capitol Hill organized protest, or CHOP, the Seattle police used pepper spray and rubber bullets against unarmed protesters.

Seattle police also put their knee on the neck of at least one protester in a dark echo of the murder of George Floyd that sparked these protests in the first place.

There are also reports of 44 being arrested that day and of the police threatening independent media, as I mentioned, and the attack also involved an egregious sweep of homeless neighbors.

It is just stunning that Mayor Durkan has continued to use brutal police violence despite the widespread and decisive opposition from her constituents to this violence and in the face of calls from over 45,000 people now.

for her to resign.

The shameful actions by police on July 1st under Durkin's orders are also a brazen defiance and rejection of the hard-fought bans won by our movement against chemical and other so-called crowd control weapons and chokeholds which will going to affect July 26th.

We don't accept an idea that the mayor is not in control of Seattle police.

She is the mayor and all the departments of the city of Seattle serve at her behest.

She bears responsibility for what the police do.

And if they are engaging in violence that she disagrees with, there is nothing stopping her from joining the movement to defund the police.

And nothing stopped her from not using the police force against the protesters and homeless neighbors at the CHOP.

I also believe it is no accident that Mayor Durkin gave her order to carry out the attack on the CHOP in the dead of night, and it was carried out during the day-long city council budget committee on the Amazon tax.

a known and announced committee.

The threats near the East Precinct have come from the police and from the establishment that allows the police to carry out this violence, not from the protest movement, and we need to reject this gaslighting entirely.

While the mayor postures in opposition to Trump, a different story is being revealed by Trump's attorney general, William Barr, praising Seattle police actions under Durkin's direction, reiterating Trump's polarizing and deeply racist so-called law and order rhetoric.

where Socialist Alternative and I are deeply saddened by the violence and tragic loss of life of Lorenzo Anderson and Antonio Mays Jr. in these past two weeks.

And my heart goes out to the families and also to the protesters who were injured.

As many have pointed out, it is unacceptable to blame the violence on the movement and that violence has unfortunately been happening for years near the East Recent when the police were present with themselves not infrequently contributing to it.

At the same time, a protest occupation cannot shut out all the ills, trauma, and violence of capitalist society.

This system, which produces deep inequality and poverty for the many, also brutally enforces that order.

This is starkly on display in Mayor Durkin's 2020 budget proposal, which cuts the police budget by just 5% while cutting vital social services by nearly $300 million in the middle of a pandemic.

Occupations have a proud history and mass movements, including in labor and immigrant rights struggles, and our movement needs to make sure we build on the courageous work of the job activists and others, leaders and organizers in the movement to continue getting organized to win the concrete demands that have been put forward by various organizations recognizing that we cannot create a utopia in a few city blocks under this bankrupt system of capitalism.

But we do know that occupations are an effective tactic.

We have seen the occupation of New York City, outside the New York City Hall, which demanded cuts to the police budget and has already won a billion dollars in cuts to the police budget, and they have persisted to demand more.

It demonstrates that these tactics are a useful and necessary part of an overall strategy to win the demands that the movement has put forward, including defunding the police by at least 50% and turning away from violent police and towards social services, immediately releasing all protesters and dropping all charges against them, transferring the East Precinct to permanent community control through a city-funded community center, affordable housing, or any other community-driven initiative.

We also need to establish an independent elected community oversight board with full powers over the police, including hiring, firing, subpoena, and policy and procedure powers, immediately investing in 1,000 publicly owned affordable homes in the central district for our black working class families, an expansion of priority hire jobs, and ending the inhumane and ineffective sweeps of homeless neighbors, and investing millions of dollars in tiny house villages.

Just one last but very important piece of news.

A federal judge ruled today that the owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline must halt operations while the government conducts a full-fledged analysis examining the risk the pipeline poses to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

The court decision is a hard-fought victory for the tribe, for the indigenous communities nationwide, and indeed on this entire continent who have stood in solidarity with the Sioux tribe, including the incredible activists in Seattle and in the Seattle region, and the movement nationwide that has supported them and engaged in a high-profile struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline since 2016. To quote from Chairman Mike Faith of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Today is a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and many people who have supported us in the fight against the pipeline.

The pipeline should never have been built here.

We told them that from the beginning.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Sawant for that report.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the roll call.

Council Member Strauss, you are next.

Thank you, Council President.

There are no items on the introduction and referral calendar or full council from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will still plan to meet on July 22nd at 9.30 a.m.

to hold public hearings on the Child Care Near You legislation, the annual Land Use Omnibus Bill, and as well to receive a report from SDCI about their tree protection work.

I've been keeping up with SDCI to ensure that that tree protection continues to move forward even during this pandemic.

July 22nd is also one of the most important days of the year, and we are excited to celebrate an important birthday during committee.

I'd also like to take a moment to wish my late grandmother, Dr. Helen Strauss, a happy birthday today.

She would have been 105 today.

She was one of the first 50 female officers in the United States Navy, and she remains one of my North Stars on my moral compass.

District 6 updates.

We did have a town hall scheduled for tomorrow.

That town hall has been rescheduled due to variables that we are all present with.

We are excited to get a final date on the books and speak to everyone in District 6. We do continue to hold District 6 resident meetings, and that really helped us get in front of some changes with Golden Gardens Way.

Thank you to SDOT for being responsive to the residents in the area to ensure that that stay healthy street is operating as best as possible.

I have received many communications about how well that street is working.

So thank you to everyone for making that happen.

We also met with a number of residents and small business groups about the Jump Start Seattle proposal, the Fenny Neighborhood Association, Fremont Chamber of Commerce, Ballard Alliance, Ballard Brewery District.

These conversations helped me form the amendments that we brought forward last week.

And just want to, again, thank you to everyone for being able to have those conversations and moving this well-crafted legislation forward.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for speaking about CAHOOTS.

I did study public policy in Eugene, and I have to say that I have called CAHOOTS, and I'm in CAHOOTS with you on this one.

We also have a Eugene City Councilmember working for our city, and I think that we've got a lot to bring forward with this proposal, so thanks for mentioning that.

Last week, my office also participated in the Greenwood Community Council meeting, which focused on specific needs of small businesses going forward.

I'd like to take a moment and pause and respond to the news and actions from the last week.

Take a moment to honor Summer Taylor and give energy to Diaz Love.

I am dismayed, saddened, and heartbroken by the response.

nonviolent protesters are receiving from our city.

While I'll wait for the investigations to occur before making final judgments and statements about what has happened over the last week, what I can say is, if there is one iota of truth to the reports of force I continue to receive and read about in the Times, I can say without question, we are out of line with our moral compass.

When I was taught about the civil rights movement in elementary school and middle school and in high school, our classes were constantly dismayed and confused as to how peaceful protests could receive the response of fire hoses, beatings and violence.

For those of you who may be experiencing a fog of war, let me be clear, this is happening again today.

Our children who will learn 30 years from now about our responses today to nonviolent protest will question our moral aptitude.

They will question why we did not do more to stop violent response to nonviolent protest.

They will question why we use militarized responses on our own residents.

And they will question why we did not meet the basic requests of our black community of stop killing us.

The Fog of War is also a documentary about former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his reflections of decision-making during the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his civil service.

He confronts himself, his processing, and decision-making some 30 years after his civil service in 2003. He was frank about what immoral decisions we as a country had made during that time.

To District 6, to my colleagues, to elected officials throughout Seattle, King County, and Washington State, do not let this be us.

Do not let a fog of war cloud our decision-making by rationalizing immoral behavior.

The answers are in front of us, and the answers are clear.

Now, may we be brave enough to accept them, strong enough to enact them, and smart enough to stop rationalizing away the right thing to do.

that is my report.

And I will end by saying I understand that our budget is a demonstration of our values and I look forward to defending what is not working and funding the solutions that are clear before our eyes.

Thank you for your time.

Okay, so we are going to go ahead and.

I'm going to move over to my report.

I don't have anything on the agenda for this afternoon or on the introduction referral calendar.

Our committee meetings are canceled in light of the ongoing summer budget session.

Folks, I did want to spend a little bit of time reminding each other and the general public about the fact COVID-19 is still ever so present in our communities.

And I think it's important for us to continue to encourage our constituent and our residents and visitors to take advantage of the free testing that is available throughout the city.

I hope that we can continue to push out as much information as possible about those free testing, COVID-19 testing opportunities.

You know, the information coming out of public health is absolutely devastating.

We are seeing numbers of positive cases back at the same rates that they were, and in some instances worse than the rates that they were when we first had the shutdown of the entire state.

In fact, according to the Seattle King County Public Health daily dashboard, we had 74 positive cases right here in Seattle on June 30th, 2020. That's higher than the peak rate of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Seattle.

on March 25th and on April 1st.

So although I am proud of Seattleites for testing at a higher rate as compared to King County as a whole, we are still not seeing trends that are going downward.

We are in fact experiencing a spike here in Seattle and in King County and throughout Washington.

state.

I think it's important for us to continue to remind folks that physically distancing yourself by at least six feet from folks who do not live in your household is critically important.

Wearing a face covering in areas in public areas is absolutely important.

In fact, there are recent reports that just came out yesterday and today that are talking about the fact that COVID-19 may have a bit of an aerosol effect, meaning that it will linger in the air after somebody who is infected has been present in that space.

So face coverings are important.

It is unfortunately face coverings has been politicized and in reality what we need to do is get back to the science and make sure that folks understand that wearing a face covering will not just protect you, it will protect your loved ones from contracting the disease.

Here in Seattle and King County and across the state we continue to see a disproportionate impact on people of color, particularly the Latinx community, in terms of the infection rates.

So really important for us to continue to emphasize to our constituencies about the need to continue to follow the public health recommendations around physical distancing, face coverings, and also enhanced hygiene when out in public.

Just a quick reminder that in Seattle, we have one, two, 10 sites where people can get tested all across the city.

You can go to the King County Public Health website to find more information about that.

Our North Seattle location at 12040 Aurora Avenue North is available and open to folks.

There is interpretation available.

You can make reservations online before you show up.

We also have another reservation online facility down in Soto that's in South Seattle at 38206 Avenue South.

They are open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.

to 3 p.m.

They also have interpretation available.

There are many locations throughout the city that do not require an appointment before you show up, including the downtown public health center.

several neighbor care health facilities in North Seattle, South Seattle, West Seattle.

We also have testing available at the Seymour Community Health Centers, one in South Park, one in White Center.

And of course, we have the University of Washington Mobile Clinic at Rainier Beach High School and another one at the South Seattle College campus.

Again, that information is available online at the Seattle King County Public Health website.

We'll also endeavor to push that out on our social media outlets.

Again, folks, super important to remember to protect ourselves and our loved ones from this pandemic that is still going on, and we are definitely seeing an uptick.

It's important for us to mask up and to practice good public health hygiene and all of the things that we've been hearing over and over again that will make and have made a difference in the past.

So that's all I wanted to spend my time on this morning.

Are there any other questions or comments before they go to the order?

I think we did have a couple of Council Central staffers on the line that might have been available to talk more about Jump Start Seattle, but before we transition potentially to that, wanted to open it up for any questions or comments.

Okay, Council Member Mosqueda, we do have Tom Meixsell and Ali Panucci on the Zoom call with us, who I believe they were intending to speak about any potential amendments to the jumpstart legislation tonight before we, tonight, this afternoon, before we adjourn for the morning, wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to have them brief us on any potential amendments that might be brought forward this afternoon.

Thank you, Council President.

Thanks again to central staff for their ongoing work on this.

We do hope that you got a full three day weekend.

And we know that you have been very busy working on this proposal over the last few months.

So thank you.

I do hope you've got some downtime.

And then we also know that we're ramping up for the detailed spend plan resolution.

Allie, I know you have been hard at work with making sure that text is in front of us so that we have the spend plan details to begin working up possible amendments to that.

Again, Council Colleagues, the deadline for that is Thursday this week so that we can have ample time for central staff to work up any possible amendments that we would discuss next Wednesday.

As a reminder for folks, today's vote is on the revenue proposal and the high-level spend plan ordinance, which has categories of possible spend plans.

And, Allie, I'm not sure if you had been hanging on the line to give us any updates on that piece, or Tom, but I did not hear anybody else mention specific amendments that they are planning to bring forward.

specifically talk about anything, of course you're welcome to.

I mentioned the nonprofit healthcare entity one that I have also sent around.

Again, that's first three that I sent around to you today.

But if you're here for possible questions, thank you for hanging on and waiting.

If I interrupted you and didn't turn to you to speak to something, my apologies as well.

And we'll pause in case there was something you wanted to share.

Okay.

Hearing nothing from central staff, I believe they're here to answer any questions from Council colleagues.

So I'm seeing a nod from Allie.

Any questions from Council colleagues on possible amendments or amendments that you wanted to flag?

Okay, Council President.

Pausing, pausing.

Not hearing anything.

Hello, Nadia.

Thank you very much, central staff.

Yeah, so thank you to Tom and Allie for being on the line.

Again, colleagues, if you have any questions about Jumpstart or any potential amendments that are slated for this afternoon, do encourage you to reach out to Allie and Tom with those questions in advance.

Okay, if there are no questions or anything else for the good of the order, we are adjourned, folks.

We will see you at two o'clock.

Thank you so much.