Seattle City Council Briefing 10/11/2021

Great.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, everyone.

The October 11th, 2021 Council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9.30 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Present.

Morales?

Mosqueda?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Thank you.

Present.

Peterson?

Here.

Samud?

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

And I believe we've been joined by Council Member Morales, if you can call on her as well.

And Council Member Morales.

Here.

Thank you.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

If there is no objection, the minutes of October 4th, 2021 will be adopted.

hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Well, colleagues, I did want to start off our council briefing meeting today by saying happy Indigenous Peoples Day.

It's a day that we collectively recognize and celebrate the contributions, the culture, and the peoples of that are of indigenous heritage.

I am really thankful that this is a day we recognize here in the city of Seattle and that we join together in celebration of indigenous people in our region and across our country.

And of course, no celebration or recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day would be complete if we didn't recognize our very own Councilmember Deborah Juarez of District 5 for her leadership and role on advancing Indigenous issues for our city, including her work on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and also her important work around making sure that we have a committee at the city council level that reflects the need to focus and prioritize issues related to Native Americans in our region.

So we're lucky to have such a strong advocate and representative on our own city council and within our broader community as we continue to celebrate and lift up the needs and solutions of Indigenous people throughout our city and our region.

So happy Indigenous Peoples Day to you all.

I did want to take a moment to see if anybody else had any comments on that before we move on.

Of course, if you have your own reports, you can do that then as well.

But Council Member Sawant, go ahead.

Thank you.

I'm unfortunately not able to turn my video on for some technical reason, but good morning to everybody who's watching, and I want to wish everyone a happy Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Back in 2014, in our first year as the Socialist City Council member, our office brought forward the resolution that abolished Columbus Day and ushered in Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Our resolution at that time received a unanimous vote despite, actually, some opposition from some council members in the back rooms.

This victory was possible only because of the determined activism of the urban native community who are still active to this day and have played a huge role in movements across the nation, actually, and have been among those who were personally present at the Standing Rock You know, just really incredible actions against the pipelines there, alongside all community members here in Seattle who agreed that this was an important step forward.

And it was important that this was done because as the indigenous community members themselves informed us, they had urged successive city councils for years to do this to no avail.

But of course, when our office heard from community members about this, we immediately agreed with them.

And this was in September of 2014. This was after we had successfully won the $15 minimum wage.

And for us, it was very much in line with the kind of society we want to build as socialists, which is absolutely the starting point, is recognizing what was done as part of global imperialism and the early days of capitalism.

But as I said at that time, in 2014, Indigenous Peoples' Day is about more than just a name change.

It is about educating ourselves and our community, taking a stand against racism and discrimination.

It is absolutely about celebrating cultures, and it allows us to make a connection between the painful and unjust history that our indigenous people faced, but also you know, connecting that to the ongoing marginalization, discrimination and poverty that indigenous communities both in the Seattle region and nationally face to this day.

It forces us as working people to think about the kind of solidarity we need to build and the kind of united movement we need to organize to fight for a better society than the majority of us are able to have in the context of capitalism and imperialism.

President Biden's proclamation declaring October 11th nationally as Indigenous Peoples Day is a direct result of this kind of grassroots pressure, not just in Seattle, but in many other cities.

And in fact, Seattle was not the first city to do it.

In fact, other cities like Minneapolis helped lead the way.

And this day belongs to those activists around the nation as well.

Today Seattle is more affordable, unaffordable than ever.

And the crisis of affordability and homelessness affects our indigenous community in severely disproportionate ways to the people's budget struggle that my office has built alongside the indigenous community.

our homeless neighbors, union members, and other activists.

We have built every year since we were first elected.

We won the necessary funding for Indigenous People's Day and the accompanying celebrations in the years after 2014. And this year's people's budget will be fighting to increase the Amazon tax our movement won last year, push back on Mayor Durkin's business as usual budget that slashes the funding for affordable housing and critical needs like the Green New Deal reforms, And also as as the chair of the sustainability inventors X committee has informed council members before we are working alongside indigenous community members and also the environmental community, including 350 Seattle and other organizations to bring forward a legislation that that is currently being worked on to ensure that.

financial institutions that provide financial support for fossil fuel pipelines and other fossil fuel related projects are not contacted with by the city of Seattle.

And we will be updating the city council on the legislation's progress in the coming weeks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any other comments before we move into reports?

I'm not seeing any other hands raised so we'll go ahead and hear now from council members around a preview of today's city council actions council and regional committees.

We will start with council member Juarez then hear from council members Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herbold and then I will conclude this agenda.

Councilmember Juarez, good morning.

Thank you.

How appropriate on Indigenous Peoples Day.

Thank you, Council President.

I want to start with this day with good words.

First of all, I want to say hello, good friend in Blackfeet, Okinape.

And as you all know, my name is Natuimisi Staki, which means Holy Mountain Woman.

And I want to share something, what I've shared with the council president many times.

And some of you have heard in some of my speeches, but this is how we start a good day with good words and prayer is that, um, I was taught by a revered Blackfeet elder, Daryl Kip, a mentor linguist and speaker teacher of our language, the Blackfeet language, that language is culture.

Culture is behavior.

If you change the language, you change the culture.

That is the behavior.

And so today I want to start with humility, kindness, and grace.

And I want to thank my colleagues for all the good work that they've done with me since I was elected to this council.

We've passed some incredible legislation changing the lives of Native American people and organizations.

I think we're killing it in the legislative department.

No other city is doing what we're doing.

Actually having staff and recognizing these issues, government to government, tribal sovereignty, Indian organizations, the funding, the homelessness, health care, education.

This council has been so assertive and so aggressive, and I just want to thank you.

I have tribes that call me all the time.

You know, we have a newsletter called the North Star, and we have a huge subscription now.

I think we have over 6,000 readers, and a lot of those readers are tribal people.

They actually read my newsletter to see what's going on.

with Native American issues within the city of Seattle and regional issues.

So I do not do that by myself.

I do that with all of you guys because you've been at my shoulder and I want to thank you for that.

And I don't always get the chance to say thank you and raise my hands to you because you've always been good to me in that way.

Okay.

With that, I will move forward.

I have five issues this morning, as you know, and I will be very brief.

There are no items of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on today's council agenda, but I will be introducing six items related to the committee this afternoon that are listed on the IRC.

Of those six items, five are reappointments to the Board of Park Commissioners that will be introduced today and voted on next week.

And the sixth item, which I'm very proud to announce again on Indigenous Peoples Day, is draft legislation to finally create Seattle's Indigenous Advisory Council, the IAC.

The proposed Indigenous Advisory Council legislation will be discussed on our December 7th meeting or committee, followed by a full council vote on December 13th.

This will be the city's first advisory council that would advance the priorities of our urban Native community, which includes urban Indian organizations, tribal governments, tribal organizations, health communities, clinics, and, of course, cultural organizations.

Very, very key.

The Indigenous Advisory Council will consist of nine members, a nine-member council with dedicated seats for tribal council, youth, elderly, our elders, and urban Indian organizations.

This legislation was created in consultation with community leaders, tribal leaders, and experts, and represents months of researching similar entities nationwide.

This will be the City of Seattle's first time to actually have an Indigenous Advisory Council that will work with a staff person at Department of Neighborhoods that will advise every one of the committees and central staff about Native American issues, whether they're resolutions, proclamations, changes in the law, et cetera, the things that we do.

Last year, this council approved the funding to hire a staffing position that would support the work of the IAC.

The hiring process for that position is almost complete.

The next Public Assets and Native Communities Committee meeting is on December 7th at 2. Second item, Metropolitan Parks District.

Our last meeting was June 21st, and the next meeting of the Metropolitan Park District is Monday, October 18th, immediately following the conclusion of full council.

As you all know, those of you who've been around, we do this every year on the 18th, and then we'll do the final vote after the last day in budget, after budget.

I think that's November 22nd, I believe.

If I'm wrong, correct me.

So at this meeting on October 18th, Seattle Park superintendent Jesus Agale will present the 2022 proposed park district budget.

Following that will be a public hearing and we'll probably have some of the same issues that came up last year.

We've been really, really hampered by not being able to have community meetings.

A lot of capital projects and planning didn't, just couldn't happen because of what we've all been dealing with, not only in the city, but nationwide.

Number three, parks.

Beginning October 25th, everyone 12 and older will be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter Seattle Parks and Recreation facilities.

Parks staff are communicating these guidelines to the public in advance of the October 25th implementation date.

This is for you, Council Member Herbold.

Seattle Parks and Recreation has awarded the construction contract for the Westcrest Dog Park Drainage Improvement Project.

The main off-leash area and the north parking lot will be closed during construction beginning the week of October 18th.

Parks will construct a temporary off-leash area to the north of the existing site.

This next sentence I'm not going to apologize for because I think Nagin wrote it.

It says, the shy slash small dog area will remain open.

So those of you with small, shy dogs, well, I don't know who those people are, but apparently you have a little area carved off for you.

Dog people.

People interested in bringing their dog to the temporary off-leash area can access it through the south parking lot.

Library.

Since the pandemic began, the library has incurred damages totaling nearly $450,000 across our branch locations.

The central library has been hit the hardest during that time.

We estimate it will cost about $170,000 to replace all the broken windows from two weeks ago and last summer.

That includes window replacement, scaffolding, crane, street permit to complete this replacement.

Other items of note include the damage to the Ballard branch as a result of a fire started in a nearby homeless encampment to the tune of about $60,000, and damages incurred at the Rainier Beach and Beacon Hill branches due to drive-by shootings, which is around $88,000, $89,000.

A member of my staff will forward a memo that was provided to us by Seattle Public Libraries in response to my request for more information.

I'm tracking this issue.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Now, this came up because of we've been working closely with the new librarian and Kirsten, who's their new public information officer, policy person that works with Nagin.

So, we've been getting updates on all the damages to particular libraries, but we're getting them sporadically.

So, I ask that they combine all the damages for the last year that I did not see yet, which I talked to Councilmember Mosqueda about whether or not that's going to be a budget matter.

Libraries is trying to get out there to fix all the windows that were broken and those things now.

And I wanted to know what the price tag was.

So that's actually what we're working on now.

So there's more to come on that one.

Uh, let's see sound transit, uh, on October 7th, the writer experience and operations committee, also known as Rio of the sound transit board took action to rename.

I'd love this.

The university street station to symphony station.

That's not my vote, but who am I?

in coordination with the East Link Extension Opening.

So it will now be called Symphony Station.

The goal is to avoid confusion with the University of Washington Station and the U District Station.

Can't have three universities.

The final vote is scheduled at the next Sound Transit Board Meeting on Thursday, October 28th.

That is my report.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, everybody.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

I am not seeing any, so we're gonna go ahead and go down the line here.

Next up is Councilmember Lewis, and then after Councilmember Lewis will be Councilmember Morales.

Good morning, Councilmember Lewis.

Good morning, Madam President.

Thank you very much.

I don't have very much to report on this week, given that committee action is suspended and there's not as many regional commitments, but I do have some interesting news to report.

So there, of course, is nothing from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments on the agenda for this afternoon, nor is there anything from my office on introduction referral.

There are no regional committee meetings that I will be attending this week, given that we are mostly doing issue ID for the budget and public session.

And of course, looking forward to tomorrow night's very long and extensive public comment from the community, which I'm very much looking forward to.

I do have one thing to announce as I alluded to last week during council briefing.

My office is going to be releasing later this morning.

a report that is going to summarize some of the data and information that was presented two weeks ago from council's central staff regarding COVID-era restraints on our homelessness support system, as well as the impact of some council policies that we have pursued.

There's no new information in the report.

This is merely a sort of collation of this for public perusal and review, but I think it is really important information that Jeff Sims and Tracy Ratzliff ran down for us.

in terms of how that has impacted outreach and the efficacy of outreach, as well as an overview of the massive new acquisition and construction of permanent supportive housing that has I think the findings of the report are really interesting to guide our discussions this fall.

Some of it confirms what we have anecdotally known for a very long time, which is that at the beginning of the COVID crisis, our shelter system took an immense hit as we had to move to de-intensify, increasing the quality of our shelter, but dramatically reducing the quantity of our shelter.

We know that that occurred at the same time that there was a corresponding increase in the amount of public visible homelessness of people camping in public places, given that there was reduced opportunity to be in a shelter setting.

The causation could be disputed, but the correlation is indisputed.

It's also notable that significant council shelter investments that have been made for 2021 have either been very slowly realized or have not been realized at all.

We have gone till the middle of this month in 2021 without a single new tiny house, for example.

I think the first tiny houses are going to be opened in Council Member Peterson's district, in the university district, in the middle of this month, I think this week.

which will represent the first tiny house village coming online.

But it's just notable that we have continued as a city to go through COVID operating with a significantly reduced shelter capacity, that temporary sheltering assets that have been stood up filled up rather quickly when they were stood up.

So that would be the hoteling at the Executive Pacific.

and the Kings Inn in Belltown, as well as an enhanced shelter on First Hill.

And there will be more sheltering assets coming online later this fall.

But in the meantime, we have been dealing with trying to catch up with the deficit at a time of really, really intense need.

It's also notable that the switch in outreach teams does not seem to have had a significant the data that was provided by the navigation team and the data provided by the HOPE team does not change in the efficacy of outreach.

the factor, and this is me just expressing my opinion from looking at the data, this is not necessarily a conclusion that central staff made, but from looking at the data it seems fairly evident that the factor most determinative of whether outreach is successful is if they have access to shelter assets they can refer people to.

indicate from my read of it, and now this gets turned over to the public and the media to render their judgment.

But the data seems to indicate that when shelter is available, there is considerable success with outreach.

When shelter is at capacity, there is reduced success in moving people inside.

That seems to be the biggest factor rather than other things that are often speculated about, like service resistance or people just for whatever reason choosing to remain in a tent.

it seems that access to shelter referrals is the biggest thing indicative of success from outreach.

The final thing that I would say is the COVID environment seems to have uniquely been beneficial for the acquisition of new permanent supportive housing for a variety of reasons.

There's gonna be a massive increase, a 47% increase in housing acquisition during the COVID period, which is stark and dramatic.

There's a variety of different reasons for this, including more opportunities for acquisition of hotels and motels, and people who were going to have housing developments enter the private market, but instead decided to mitigate potential reduction in consumer demand by selling that asset to the city.

And the Office of Housing has been very, very adept at taking advantage of those opportunities.

It also goes without saying that the significant amount of federal, one-time federal support through a variety of different measures have also given us the resources to match our local funding to pursue those opportunities for long-term acquisition.

So that does seem to be a unique silver lining from the COVID era is the acquisition of a considerable amount of new housing.

I would be remiss if I did not note at the end of my briefing here that most of that housing, it's not yet operational.

So we're not yet seeing the visible result of having these new units.

Tracy's report indicates that 811 of those housing units will probably be operational by January of 2022, so just a few months away, which should correspond to a considerable physical difference in the street and also in a considerable difference for people's lives and well-being who are going to be able to live in those units.

So I'm gonna release that information later this morning again it's it's basically just a I an aggregation of data that was already reported to council during a budget briefing two weeks ago.

So it's not new information, but I think it is information that there should be a fine point made of providing to the general public just for context about the homelessness response and a good summary of homelessness during COVID.

And I think there are some lessons that we can glean going into the budget about how we structure the 2022 budget to respond to some of those trends, knowing that, unfortunately, COVID and its variants will probably continue to be a significant factor throughout 2022. So with that, Madam President, I don't have anything else to share, and I will turn it back over to you.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Any questions for Councilmember Lewis?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Thanks for doing that compilation and for asking for that analysis to be done in the first place.

Council Member Lewis, really appreciate it.

I found it incredibly informative and really, really appreciate the opportunity to share that information more widely with members of the public.

All right, next up is Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member, I'm sorry, Council Member Morales, and then after Council Member Morales is Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, everyone.

I do want to begin by acknowledging Indigenous Peoples' Day and saying happy Indigenous Peoples' Day to folks.

And I want to thank this council and the Seattle Human Rights Commission, who, as Council Member Sawant mentioned, passed the resolution acknowledging this day and establishing this day in 2014. In part, that resolution asked that rather than celebrate an era of colonization and dispossession of indigenous people's homelands, that we instead recognize the dignity and diversity of the cultures, traditions, histories, and aspirations of the city of Seattle's indigenous people.

So I do think that this is an important time for us to reflect on and acknowledge that as a city, we have an obligation to repair the harm done to our indigenous neighbors who, frankly, are still suffering from the damage inflicted on their community.

And while I'm excited that there are lots of festivities planned, I know the Seattle Indian Health Board is planning lots of different things over the next week.

I think it's important that we do take that time to reflect.

On Friday, I was honored to be invited to attend the Spirit Returns celebration at the Duwamish Longhouse.

And I just want to say I'm eager to support their call for the promotion of social, cultural, political, and economic survival of the Duwamish tribe and to revitalize Duwamish culture, to share their history and their culture with people.

who are here in their city.

I'm also happy to know that it is now a national holiday and want to thank our president for that.

Last week, I don't have any items on this afternoon's full agenda.

Last week, I attended the PSRC Economic Development District Board as a member of that board.

So I just wanted to give an update on a couple of things there.

PSRC is responsible for updating the region's comprehensive economic development strategy every five years.

So we adopted their strategy, which allows for regional organizations to be eligible for certain types of U.S.

EDA funding.

So we did vote to approve their draft strategy, and they will be developing – putting that out for public comment.

Staff is going to release a draft for a 30-day public comment period.

And I believe that's going to run from mid-October to November.

So as soon as that link is available, I'll make sure to share that with folks.

We also discussed the Workforce Recovery Planning Project.

To support an equitable recovery, PSRC hired a consultant team to create customized regional occupational projections.

And what they're trying to do is basically identify high-demand industries and help create an understanding of the regional workforce needs so that we can start to connect people who are looking for opportunity to those opportunities.

The consultants will develop outreach strategies that can help connect workers and job seekers in the region to employment and training programs that align with these higher wage, in-demand occupations.

And that project is expected to be complete by next March.

So I'm very excited about that.

As you know, as a city, we're also asking a lot of questions about how our own workforce development strategy can align with regional approaches.

And so as we – as they continue that project and we continue the conversation in the Office of Economic Development, I'm going to be looking for ways that we can make sure we're supporting that regional strategy as well.

Last week, we met with constituents during office hours.

I had folks calling to discuss the solidarity budget.

As you all know, we will be hearing lots about that in the coming weeks, so I did appreciate the opportunity to hear directly from them about what their priorities are.

We also discussed parking enforcement.

We've got neighbors who are concerned that parking enforcement is being applied inconsistently.

Some cars left for days and days, other cars being towed within 20 minutes, and so we will be trying to get a better understanding of what's happening there.

We also spoke with folks from the Chinatown International District.

There is a desire on the part of community members there to begin a neighborhood planning process.

Well, they've already started the process, but they're looking for some support to assist with community engagement over the next year or 18 months, and the goal really is to have a completed neighborhood plan for Chinatown International District that is then accepted by the city and becomes part of the work that OPCD looks at as they're making decisions.

This week I will be visiting the Evergreen Treatment Services Clinic in Soto to learn about the work that they're doing at that site to help folks who are trying to overcome substance abuse.

And we'll also be visiting Filipino Community Village, which was built by the Filipino Community Center to help curb displacement of elders in District 2. The village offers 94 housing units affordable to people at 50 to 60 percent AMI.

And it's very exciting.

This is the first project of several that the Filipino Community Center plans.

to create a response to displacement.

It's also just one example of the many community organizations, including East African Community Services and Somali Health Board, who really are looking for help in taking land off of the speculative market so that they can create permanently affordable housing for folks who are at risk of displacement and for neighbors who have already been displaced from Seattle and who are looking for a way to return to their communities so that they can try to capture that community cohesion that makes for strong, vibrant neighborhoods.

So very excited to go visit the Filipino project and to continue working with other folks, particularly in District 2, who are trying to accomplish the same goal so that we can stem displacement in the South End.

And that is all I have this morning.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Juarez.

Are there any comments or questions?

Hearing none, we're going to go ahead and continue on down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Mosqueda, and then after Councilmember Mosqueda will be Councilmember Peterson.

Good morning, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

And I want to thank Councilmember Juarez for her opening words this morning as well.

Appreciate the recollection of how we got here and the importance of the work to come.

Colleagues, I want to make sure that I say thanks to you in advance.

As has been noted by our colleagues, we are now in week three, week three of eight of our legislative committees, our select, excuse me, our Select Budget Committee's deliberation on the legislative branch's work on the 2022 budget.

The Select Budget Committee will convene tomorrow, that's Tuesday, October 12th at 5.30 p.m.

for a long public hearing.

This is our chance to offer the full form for all members of the public to register to provide the council with public comment on the 2022 budget.

Everybody can register to provide public comment by beginning at least two hours before public comment period and we will allow people to continue to sign up for public comment until the public comment period has ended.

Our goal is to get through everyone who signs up.

Everyone will be given at least a minute to provide public comment and it will be our expectation that everyone who is present to provide public comment will get the chance to speak.

So please do plan accordingly.

I appreciate if you could join us by Zoom and colleagues bring your snacks or bring your dinner with you and that way we can make sure everybody gets the chance to hear our to provide public comment, and we get the chance to hear it throughout that time.

For members of the public, if you're not able to join us during this first public comment period, there is opportunities to provide longer public comment at the November 10th meeting.

Again, that starts at 5.30 p.m., and we have a morning session November 18th that starts at 9.30 a.m.

In addition to that, at each of our select budget committee meetings, we start with 30 minutes of public comment and offer folks the chance to provide testimony in that half-hour window as well.

We will make sure to post this information on our social media sites and there is a whole website dedicated to providing you with this information around the clock.

So that information is public and available to be shared so that we can encourage more people to join us during these three public hearing opportunities and every time we meet at the beginning of our meetings with the chance for testimony.

Let's see.

Again, if you're not able to join us for any of the online public comment forums, you can absolutely email us at council at Seattle.gov.

And during this budget process, your ideas, your priorities, the concerns that you see in the proposed budget, items that you'd like to see in the final budget, those are all very much welcome, and we look forward to hearing from all of our constituents.

Colleagues, tomorrow night, before we open up for public hearing, if you do have any public service announcements that you'd like to offer for folks, any office hours or convenings you're having, we want to make sure that the public has a chance to hear that as well.

So I will be sure to call on you if you have any announcements you'd like us to share with the community tomorrow before we get into hearing from the community members who've signed up, so that way everyone knows where to provide information in addition to the forums that I just mentioned.

After we have our evening session tomorrow night, we will begin hearing from central staff on Wednesday, October 13th.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week, October 13th to October 15th, will be the opportunity for central staff to provide presentations to the Seattle City Council and members of the public at large.

Central staff will be walking through the proposed budget and identifying potential budget issues.

and policy options associated with the proposed budget.

So you can basically expect them to identify areas where we've seen a large increase, a large decrease, something that is maybe out of alignment with some of the that we've been working with the city of Santa Barbara to develop policies and recommendations that the council has passed in the last year or two.

The purpose of issue identification is so that councilmembers can hear this information so that we can review the information that's being provided from central staff, discuss it and ask questions about the proposed budget as it was transmitted from the mayor's office, and that will allow for us on the legislative branch here as councilmembers as we consider amendments for our draft budget that will be coming forward from all of these discussions.

As a reminder, council members are encouraged to submit their amendment ideas to central staff next Monday.

That's Monday, October 18th.

So you have a full week.

I have an opportunity to hear from community members, central staff, and then we're hoping to get your amendment ideas so that we'll have plenty of time to work those up with central staff.

As a reminder of the items that we will be discussing on Wednesday in day one of the central staff presentation starting on October 13th, the morning session will include central staff introduction, an overview of the 2022 proposed budget from the central staff's perspective, and a summary of the general fund balancing analysis.

We will break at 1 p.m.

for our recess and reconvene at 2 p.m.

where we will conclude with the Department of Education and Early Learning and the Office of Economic Development.

On day two of central staff issue identification, that's Thursday, October 14th, we will begin, of course, with public comment.

Then we will have Office of Planning and Community Development and Human Services community-led investments.

We'll break at 1 p.m.

for recess, and we'll come back at 2 p.m.

and devote the entire afternoon to homeless service investments.

On Friday, October 15th, we will have the chance for public comment again, and then we'll go into the Department of Transportation presentations, alternatives to police response in the criminal legal system, and conclude, and we will have a break at one o'clock, and we'll come back from recess at 2 p.m.

to conclude our central staff presentations with the Seattle Police Department overview.

That's the summary on issues related to the Select Budget Committee.

I want to thank Farideh Cuevas from my office, who is providing a weekly memo out to central staff and, excuse me, out to legislative offices.

And we want to make sure that you have a summary at your fingertips of what to expect each week.

And we will reflect back on the previous week and what's to come in the upcoming weeks.

So thank you so much for doing that, Farideh, and for all of the work that Patty Worgen is doing as they are creating all the documents for us into one cohesive document for us to have the central staff presentations on a daily basis.

So thank you in advance, Patty.

A few items that I didn't get to from last week related to some of the departments that we work with in the Finance and Housing Committee include FAS, Finance and Administrative Services, as you know, covers a whole host of items.

So I just have five quick updates for you on that.

A quick update from the Adult Entertainment Licensing work that FAS does, they continue to work on their consumer protection policies and they've implemented and updated licensing processes and temporarily opening new customer service locations by appointment at the SMT building number four to meet the adult entertainment industry needs.

FAS continues to see a demand with appointments filling up one to two weeks in advance.

Licensing will continue through the end of the year as all adult entertainment licenses expire this year on December 31st, 2021. From the work that FAS does with workers in the driving sector for taxis and for hire vehicles.

They have an update on the medallion renewals in partnership with the county.

They have been recently meeting with taxi and for hire vehicle owners and drivers at the SeaTac airport to offer medallion renewals by meeting owners and drivers in community where they work.

Staff has strengthened relationships and is meeting the driver's needs by helping make sure that they are getting licensed.

FAS staff have processed approximately 150 renewals and have 60 more in the queue.

World Rabies Day, Seattle Animal Shelter staff attended a World Rabies Day event providing rabies vaccines.

I got to cover it.

FAS covers a whole host of things.

They provided microchips and free pet licenses, all made possible through funding from the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation.

The event was in partnership with DoniCo Pet Clinic, One Health Clinic, CARE-A-VAN, and Rainier Animals Fund.

and Positive Alliance.

Yes, that's P-A-W, Positive Alliance.

It was geared towards low-income and houseless pet owners, and the event featured vaccines, wellness exam, microchip license, pet foods, and supplies.

And second to last is the Office of Emergency Management really gave our team at FAS an incredible thank you and pat on the back.

They shouted out the FAS Procurement Strategic Advisor Krista Diaz saying, Thank you to Krista for the tremendous work we could not have gotten through all of the workload with FEMA and consistently changing guidelines without you.

So congratulations, Krista Davis, a strategic advisor at FAS.

And finally, vaccine mandate signage.

FAS assisted the mayor's office in helping share critical information on upcoming vaccination deadlines and benefits ahead of the city's October 18th vaccination mandate.

The department created flyers that have now been shared citywide and FAS's facility operations team is posting 250 flyers throughout facilities that the city manages.

The goal is to work to remind employees of the deadline and to reach those who may not have gotten regular computer access to make sure everyone knows that the deadline is there, October 18th.

Thanks to our teams and all of the departments that especially wanted to give that report from FAS since we didn't get to it last week.

And thank you all again for your participation tomorrow night.

Thank you so much.

Conspiracy to any comments or questions on that report.

Just want to make sure council president that those shy and small dogs get their shots.

So let's make sure we combine forces.

Fully vaccinated, shy dogs.

is important.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you Council Member Juarez.

Next up is Council Member Peterson and then after Council Member Peterson will be Council Member Sawant.

Good morning Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our City's Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on this afternoon's full City Council agenda.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 a.m., except during our fall budget season, so our next committee meeting will be Wednesday, December 1, and then we'll have another committee meeting on December 15. Consideration of our $7 billion city budget this fall includes three public hearings, and my office will be hosting, on top of that, a virtual town hall for District 4 constituents this Thursday evening.

Constituents will hear from Mayor Durkin's budget office to learn more about her proposals for the operating and capital budgets.

district 4 constituents from Northeast Seattle, Wallingford and Eastlake, and RSVP to the virtual town hall by visiting my City Council blog online.

And that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Sweet and simple.

All right, any questions colleagues?

Of course, there's one.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Councilmember Peterson, thanks for your report.

I just wanted to praise the work of SDOT and the work that you've done with the Department of Transportation over the two years that you've been in office as well.

I did have the chance along with Councilmember Strauss and Senator Nguyen and a handful of other folks from the community to do the tour of the West Seattle Bridge updates.

It had been a few months since I had gone up there with the members of Ironworkers Local 86 and they just they continue to impressed me by all of the work they're doing.

I just want to say congratulations to you as the chair of transportation and to members of SDOT for now reaching 90% design.

We're so close and hopefully we will be able to see that bridge open up at the end of next year.

So thank you Councilmember Peterson for constantly calling attention to the work that SDOT does and I just wanted to chime in on that.

Oh, go ahead.

I was going to say, just a quick correction.

It's supposed to be open in the middle of the year.

That's right.

End of next year for those of us who, for the folks who are watching.

We are still on schedule to open the West Seattle Bridge by the middle of next year.

The timeline has not changed.

Go ahead, Council Member Peterson.

That's right.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

You're right about the SDOT team has really shown during this crisis and it's been helpful also to be working in tandem with Council Member Herbold on this issue with SDOT.

And everybody's right that it'll be middle of next year that the bridge will be restored.

But thank you for getting up there.

If anybody's afraid of heights, this is not the site inspection that you want to do.

So it is good to be up there and see the progress in real time.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks so much, everybody, for that really important work.

Really appreciate it.

Any other comments or questions?

All right.

Hearing none, we're going to go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Sawant, and then after Councilmember Sawant will be Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I also again just wanted to let members of the public know I'm not able to turn my video on.

So it'll just be audio.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day again.

I'm really delighted to see that there are activities planned throughout the day for celebrating this day.

And it is really important to note also that the community members who pushed for Indigenous Peoples' Day and we successfully won it in 2014 have continued building on that momentum to fight for further legislation.

We won the Indian Voting School Resolution on Indigenous Peoples' Day in 2015, which, of course, acknowledged the terrible injustices that were done to young people in the indigenous community who have carried those traumas throughout their lives and have done courageous work documenting their experiences of this incredibly unjust and horrific practice.

I know another boarding school resolution was passed this year also.

Many of those same activists have fought for and won legislation.

alongside our office and the broader community combating climate change, including the Wells Fargo Divestment Ordinance, the Green New Deal Oversight Board, which has been one of the exciting components of the work of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, and also, of course, the Amazon tax funds for both affordable housing and Green New Deal projects.

And as I mentioned a few minutes before, right now my office alongside the community is also developing a bill to support the Stop the Money Pipeline movement to allow the city to stop doing business with insurance companies that also ensure that our sands pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure and companies that refuse to commit to the free prior informed consent of indigenous peoples.

I also wanted to express continuing solidarity from my office and from my organization Socialist Alternative with the Carpenters who are currently voting on the fifth tentative agreement after having courageously voted down four previous unsatisfactory tentative agreements which failed to meet their basic demands and as I've announced to the public before we are also in solidarity with the striking carpenters and in solidarity with construction trades workers throughout Seattle and the region as a whole.

My office has been working on legislation to ensure that for all Seattle construction projects, contractor bosses pay the parking for construction workers and that the burden is not put on construction workers.

Kellogg's workers are also on strike after 14,000 workers walked out of Kellogg's plants in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

Thousands of IATSE members nationwide have voted to strike with 98% of membership voting to authorize the strike.

Over 12,000 John Deere workers in Iowa, UAW workers, voted recently to strike which resulted in a tentative agreement with significant improvements according to the union.

And even here locally, Teamsters and Sand and Gravel have given a unanimous vote for a strike authorization.

I send my solidarity to all these workers and the union elected officers and everybody who is fighting alongside them.

And we wish the best possible outcomes for every single strike action.

And we send our best wishes to the workers who are also courageously taking strike authorization votes.

I also wanted to share that one of the three economists to win the Nobel Prize this year for economics is David Card.

David Card is one of the economists who did years of research around minimum wage.

And I just wanted to quote from the report from CNN, quote, David Card was recognized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for groundbreaking work on minimum wages, immigration, and education.

he showed using a natural experiment where researchers study situations as they unfold in the real world that increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs." I just wanted to acknowledge the work not only of David Card himself but also other progressive economists who have done really decades of research showing through statistical evidence that increasing the minimum wage has no detrimental consequences to jobs. In fact, there's other research also that showed that the increase in minimum wage does not lead to closing of small businesses. All of this research we relied on in order to win the $15 minimum wage, and that victory also helped propel $15 an hour minimum wage victories in other cities as well. I was disappointed to see that Mayor Durkin intends to restart fines and other harsh measures for violations of the 72-hour parking ban. Councilmembers may remember that last spring my office circulated a petition urging Mayor Durkin and City Councilmembers to stop plans to resume harassing homeless neighbors. and tens of thousands of Seattle renters without the luxury of a driveway with the 72-hour parking fines. Over 1,000 community members signed the petition at the time, and I believe hundreds of emails were sent to the mayor and the city council. The 72-hour parking rule, which is ticketing or towing cars parked for 72 hours, criminalizes people for being poor and hassles anyone without a driveway or a garage. For people forced to live in their cars, enforcing this rule, especially during a pandemic, with the rainy and winter season upon us, could be catastrophic, costing them not only their vehicle, but also their only shelter and all their possessions. We need affordable social housing, not harassment of our neighbors who are struggling to survive. I continue to urge Mayor Durkin to immediately re-institute the moratorium on the 72-hour parking rule. In addition to extending the moratorium, which is crucial, I also support the demand from real change vendors and other community advocates who are urging Mayor Durkin and the Seattle City Council budget funds to support essential services for vehicular residents. There are no items on today's city council agenda from the sustainability and renters rights committee. The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for a special time Tuesday, November 30th at 2pm. especially to make up for the committee meeting that we were forced to cancel on September 23rd due to lack of quorum. I really appreciate committee members, council members, community members for working with my office to find a time that works for all our schedules. Because as I mentioned last week, this is necessary for us to do because the regularly scheduled meeting of the committee in December would normally fall during the winter recess of the city council. My office as chair of the sustainability and renters rights committee was contacted by the Seattle renters commission a few days ago because they have accumulated several vacancies and are now having difficulty reaching quorum. Council members may remember that the committee filled the sustainability and renters rights committee that has filled all the council appointed positions on the commission over the summer. But there have been many positions that the mayor's office is responsible for nominating, which should come to the council that have been vacant for an unusually long time. In addition, there is a council-appointed position that has been newly vacated and recently vacated commission-appointed positions. My office has been working with the commission and the clerk's office to fill the one council-appointed position and the two commission-appointed positions. We hope to introduce these appointments next Monday and refer them directly to the city council for a vote the following week, rather than going to the standard committee discussion because it is budget time now. And we would like to fill these positions in time for the next meeting of the renters commission. And the next meeting of the committee will be a bit too late for that. So my office has also along those lines requested that the mayor's office also give us a nominations for the five positions that are under the mayor's office, and on this, you know, on the same timeline so that the renters Commission can be fully staffed. starting in November. From the emails with the mayor's staff and staff from my office, I understand that the commission has recommended candidates to the mayor for appointment and they are just waiting for signatures from Mayor Durkin. So I hope that Mayor Durkin will make those appointments soon. The Renters Commission has, as I've noted before, played a heroic role fighting for renters' rights over the last several years and playing a very active role in making strong recommendations to the City Council. Most recently, the bill the Council passed increasing the notice landlords must give renters for rent increases to six months. It is important that they remain fully staffed so that they can continue to successfully advocate for rights of renters who are suffering out of control rent increase in Seattle, especially their advocacy for rent control. Thank you. Oh, just one other point. Sorry. I understand that this year. Budget amendments require three council members to co-sponsor to be included in the discussion of budget amendments prior to the budget chair's release of the balancing package. The reality is in that in the past years, most of the important victories that people's budget won were won after the balancing package was released. So for members of the public, if there are important budget demands that do not get included in the mid-budget discussions. I urge you to continue to advocate for them. Please let my office know. But certainly my office will be sending council members and the committee chair suggested budget amendments later today. So the full city council will have a week to consider those amendments in addition to us considering your amendments, which I am happy to do. And I look forward to getting the support from other council members as co-sponsors on many of these budget amendments, each and every one of them, which has come to us from community advocates. And I just wanted to let all council member offices know that my staff will be reaching out to you to set up times to meet and discuss the amendments. So if there are any questions, concerns, or any amendments to the amendments we're putting forward before a co-sponsorship, very happy to consider all of that. And please let us know, following those discussions, what you will and will not be willing to co-sponsor. And as I said, I would be really happy to look at what other council members are putting forward and happy to support progressive amendments. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member San Juan.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right, I'm not seeing any hands raised, so let's go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Strauss, and then after Council Member Strauss will be Council Member Herbold.

Good morning, Council Member Strauss.

Good morning, Council President, colleagues, and happy Indigenous Peoples Day.

As we do in the Land Use Committee, we acknowledge that we are on the traditional and ancestral lands of the first people of this region, both past and present, represented in a number of different tribes and as urban natives.

We take these moments to honor with gratitude the land itself and the people of this land.

This is not a rote checklist or a passport to do anything that we desire as we are stewards in government.

This is a reminder and a moment of reflection that we are here as guests.

Here in District 6, last week I met with neighbors from Loyal Heights, three from West Green Lake, eight neighbors from Ballard, two from Finney Ridge, a neighbor from Fremont, and two from Crown Hill.

We were able to discuss the state of homelessness and public safety, traffic calming measures in Finney, Fremont, Ballard, also community building ideas, and an interesting economic development proposal for the district.

Last week and this week, I continue to hold operational coordination meetings with government entities and non-governmental entities to make meaningful interventions and impacts in specific places in District 6 regarding homelessness.

These meetings will continue multiple times a week until the transfer of all city and county contracts to the Regional Homelessness Authority in January.

Wednesday night my staff attended the North Precinct Advisory Council and Tuesday staff was able to join the Finney Ridge Community Council.

I was scheduled to attend the Whittier Heights Community Council and unfortunately I was unable to attend.

I look forward to rescheduling and meeting neighbors soon.

Staff will be meeting with the Finney Neighborhood Association this week and I will be meeting with the Ballard Alliance, Fremont Chamber, North Seattle Industrial Association and the Port.

Office hours this week are being reduced due to the budget schedule, where we have three full days of committee meetings and with our public hearings scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday night.

We will be extending office hours next week, and I continue to meet with neighbors in my everyday life.

Last week here in the office, I was able to tour the West Seattle Bridge on Tuesday.

Thank you to Director Sam Zimbabwe and the entire SDOT team for all of your work getting us to 90% complete and keeping us on schedule.

I had monthly check-in meetings with SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe, Municipal Judge Judge Gregory from Salem Municipal Court, and Director Goings of FAS.

My staff was able to meet with Human Services Coalition to discuss budget priorities to address food insecurity in our community.

And on Thursday, I attended Puget Sound Regional Council.

On Friday, I was able to tour the Skagit River Dam Relicensing Project.

Thank you, Chris Townsend, for educating me and my team about the relicensing project.

This week, as I discussed, we've got three full days of committee with a public hearing scheduled Tuesday night.

So my office will be focusing our time on these committee meetings and preparing our budget amendments.

Colleagues, my team will be reaching out to your offices starting today.

And I'm happy to speak about budget amendments and co-sponsorship.

I'm happy to speak with any of you directly about the intent and the merits of the amendments I plan to bring and if we need to make changes or collaborate.

From the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, there are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction and referral calendar or full council agenda.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will hold two very brief meetings during budget in order to consider quasi-judicial contract rezone application in the state-mandated timeline.

Those meetings will occur Monday, October 25th and Monday, November 1st.

Both meetings will be scheduled for 1030 or right after council briefing.

and we hope that each will take under an hour.

So thank you to the Council President's office and central staff for working to coordinate this meeting.

Council President, colleagues, that is my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss, really appreciate it.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, let's go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Herbold, and then after Council Member Herbold, I will give a brief report and we will adjourn.

Council Member Herbold, go ahead.

Thank you so much.

No items on today's full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

No items on today's referral calendar and no committee meeting this week.

Just a couple of quick updates.

The first from the Human Services Department.

I want to let folks know that lottery applications applications are now open for Fresh Bucks.

Starting today through October 29th, you can apply online or over the phone for the Fresh Bucks benefits, which can be spent on fruit and vegetable purchases starting in 2022. You can enter the lottery if you are a Seattle resident and earn up to 80% area median income.

Benefits are good at dozens of farmers markets, farm stands, and small and large grocers.

You can apply online at seattlefreshbox.org or on the phone 1-800-756-5437.

A quick Seattle Police Department update.

You have very likely heard that as of last week, Seattle Police Department reports data on COVID-19 vaccination status of employees showing that 292 sworn officers have not yet submitted proof of vaccination.

I have a regularly updated meeting with Chief Diaz today, where I will be getting updated numbers.

I really appreciate Chief Diaz's efforts to convince officers to get vaccinated, and I thank every officer that has done so, so far.

The Police Department is prepared to move to what's called Stage 3 operations on October 13th, while under the Stage 3 mobilization, every sworn member of the Department shall be in their class A, B uniform for the duration of their shift, and those members who are in non-prol units shall be prepared to immediately report one of the five precincts for 911 call response.

Last week at the Seattle Fire headquarters, Chief Scoggins recognized about two members who have been recently promoted to new ranks and about another two brand new hires to the Seattle Fire Department.

We thank each of these members for stepping into leadership positions and thank the new members.

We know they'll serve the Seattle community well in their new role.

also want to recognize that October is Fire Prevention Week.

As far as events coming up this week, I just want to mention one event that I missed reporting my intentions for attending last week, and that was, as Councilmember Morales mentioned on Friday, there was a sort of a sneak peek of the Seattle Spirit Returns 2.0 exhibit and this is a Duwamish and Settler story that celebrates decades of growth and progress and the authentic stories of the relationship of trade, managed and natural resources, so social hierarchy and the growing relationships between the Duwamish and settlers who arrived in the 1850s.

This was an exhibit or this is an exhibit that is at the Duwamish Longhouse and it is sponsored by the Seattle office of art and culture or culture uh southwest seattle historic society and it will be open to the public it is open to the public uh starting the 9th of october um Discussed it last week that I had a planned tour of the West Seattle Bridge.

So appreciate knowing So many of my colleagues also went on West Seattle Bridge tours last week And then coming up this week want to note that at the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force is meeting.

And then on Saturday, there is a fundraiser for the Heron's Nest project.

This is a piece of property that a non-profit is looking to help the Duwamish reclaim.

It's 3.56 acres of land.

And they're looking to purchase the property.

This is a fundraiser for that event.

So I just want to mention, he returned the land auction fundraiser to support the Heron's Nest project.

And that is on Saturday.

And just in closing, Senator Mosqueda, you may have already mentioned this, and if so, I apologize, but this is a fun little tidbit that I put out on my blog this week that Christina Kasubos at my office found in a recent Brookings Institute report.

And Seattle is called out as a city that is leading the way in quickly distributing federal relief.

to boost household and economic recovery.

They found that leaders of the 20 largest American cities have committed only 18% of the flexible funds that they received from the American Rescue Plan Act.

But compared to Seattle, where the council approved the Seattle Rescue Plan this summer, we have committed half of our available funding.

and of course, this fall, we'll work on plans to commit the rest of our American Rescue Plan Act.

So I just wanted to sort of give Seattle, collectively, a shout out, and specifically, under the leadership of our budget chair, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Herbold, thank you very much as vice chair of the committee as well.

I appreciate you lifting up that report and we should share it out there and make sure everybody knows that at the top of their fingertips.

This is something that we can be really proud of and much more work to come in this upcoming budget.

So I appreciate you highlighting that.

I'm proud that we have that as a foundation to build on for our conversations over the next five weeks.

I find it really interesting that it is also used as a citation as to different cities that are experimenting with versions of basic income programs of which certainly the direct cash assistance that we did as a result of the ARPA dollars is an example of how basic income can really combat poverty and income inequality in our communities and look forward to additional conversations in that space as well.

All right, I will go ahead and give my quick report here, and then we will be done with council briefing.

Just really quickly, colleagues, I have nothing on the introduction and referral calendar this week.

I do have the one and only item on today's city council agenda, which is Council Bill 120186. This bill relates to additional pay for our frontline city employees to acknowledge hardships, offset additional costs, and retain frontline city employees who continue to deliver in-person essential city services during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The terms of the frontline worker pay were negotiated with various unions representing city employees across the spectrum.

And this legislation ratifies three tentative agreements with all the labor unions who have agreed to the terms.

In addition to the represented frontline workers who may receive this additional pay, non-represented workers will also be eligible for the new benefits described in the tentative agreements.

This afternoon, I will bring one amendment.

It is listed as Amendment A. This amendment is reflective of the work that occurred last week.

Last week, the city reached an additional tentative agreement with Protech 17, who represents our central staff analysts.

This tentative agreement includes the same terms and benefits as the other tentative agreements included in the bill.

The late addition of this tentative agreement as reflected in Amendment A is simply the results of sequencing, large part because the executive-led negotiations with city unions did not initially include the Central Staff Analyst Bargaining Unit.

And and those negotiations were led by the legislative department together with labor relations.

Now that it is at a conclusion, we have an agreement and would like to incorporate our bargaining unit in the overall.

Council Bill related to additional pay.

So Amendment A would attach the new tentative agreement with our Council Central staff to the Council Bill so that it would be ratified along with the other agreements already included in the legislation that was transmitted to us by the Executive Branch.

I do want to note, colleagues, that on the issues related to additional pay for frontline workers, the City has now reached tentative agreements with all of the unions representing City employees, with only one exception.

The Seattle Police Officers Guild despite being offered the same terms and benefits, did in fact reject this additional pay.

And their decision to reject the city's proposed terms is presumably related to the vaccine mandate, which all other city unions have accepted and agreed to comply with.

So I'm really grateful to those officers, just like Council Member Herbold mentioned, who have voluntarily agreed to comply with the vaccine mandate, and I do hope that the remaining officers will also follow suit for our collective public health.

So I want to again make sure that for those public employees who have complied with the vaccine mandate, which I believe is critical for our city and country to really defeat this pandemic, we have to hold our public safety workers and all of our frontline workers to the highest expectations if we are serious about achieving an end to the pandemic.

Again, I appreciate that a large majority of officers have submitted their vaccination confirmation forms already, and I strongly implore those who have who have not yet complied to please comply with the vaccine requirement before the city is put in a position of needing to terminate non-compliant officers because of this public health mandate.

So this will be the bill that we will consider this afternoon at two o'clock.

It is the only item on this afternoon's agenda besides payment of the bills.

And with that being said, I have nothing else to report on behalf of the Governance and Education Committee since our meetings are canceled during the budget proceedings.

I did want to give one quick update.

Colleagues, many of you have over the last couple of weeks heard some of us on the council talk about a behavioral health crisis convening, a summit, if you will, that was actually called by many of our behavioral health crisis service providers in the region.

We did have an opportunity to have that convening last week on October 5th.

It was a 90-minute meeting in which we had an opportunity to hear testimonials from various leaders within our behavioral service provider community about the failings of our overall system in meeting the needs of those people with serious behavioral health conditions.

And one of the things that was made very clear is that this was not a call for additional law enforcement or a law enforcement response approach, but a call for a better crisis response system that could act swiftly to evaluate needs and provide services, including in some instances, involuntary inpatient treatment when necessary.

So I'm really humbled to have had an opportunity to sit and listen to our King County Behavioral Health Provider community.

And in that vein, was was very comforted by the fact that they had already identified six different strategies that are both in the short term, midterm and long term to help address the shortfalls of our behavioral health system as it currently exists.

And this is a combination of local solutions, but also an opportunity to continue to work together in coalition to develop state-level recommendations in the coming months that are really going to be critical to allowing some of these additional local solutions to be sustainable and to really make the difference we need to provide the tools that our behavioral health provider community needs to adequately meet the needs of those who are experiencing behavioral health or mental health crises throughout our community.

Again, you know, there is some need to clarify the implementation and interpretation of state House Bill 1310. But we do expect that House Bill 1310 will remain the law of the land statewide.

And as a result, it's incumbent upon us as government and our behavioral health providers to work together to identify when House Bill 1310 does apply and implicate law enforcement responsibilities when those law enforcement services are needed in those limited circumstances and when they are not.

So much more to come on this area.

I really did appreciate an opportunity to connect with our human service providers to have this really important conversation.

OK, colleagues, any comments or questions on that report?

I'm not seeing any additional hands raised, so I do think this concludes our agenda for this morning.

We don't have anything else to discuss, so we will be adjourned for today and I will see you all at 2 o'clock.

Thanks so much.