Seattle City Council Briefing 2/8/2021

All right, good morning, everyone.

The February 8th, 2021 council briefing meeting will come to order.

Nadia is not happy about Mondays.

The time is 9.31 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Skeda?

Present.

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Here.

Strauss?

Present.

Herbold?

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

And then, Linda, can you call on Council Member Herbold one more time?

I think she was logging in right as you were calling her name.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Thank you.

I'm present.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

Thank you everyone.

If there is no objection, the minutes of February 1st, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, I don't have anything to report this morning, so we'll go ahead and just jump right into the state legislative session updates.

We do have, as we customarily do during this period of time, members of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations with us.

I'll go ahead and hand it over to Director Lily Wilson-Kodega to begin introductions for the record.

Lily's around here somewhere.

Did we lose her?

We might have lost Lily, so I'm going to hand it over to Robin.

Robin, go for it.

Good morning.

I'm Robin Koski, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'll hand it over to Quinn.

Quinn Majeski, State Relations Director, OIR.

I'll hand it to Hannah.

Hannah Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

Has Lily gotten back on?

I do not see that Lily is back in the meeting.

So Robin, do you want to just take it away really quickly with some introductory remarks and then lead us through the report?

I certainly will.

Well, this is the fifth week of the legislative session that we're entering into right now.

We are seeing a lot of action with committees taking executive action on many bills.

And cutoff, as a reminder, is next Monday.

The legislature is in session despite the holiday.

So Monday will be a very busy day there.

And so we should see a little bit of thinning out of proposals, but we're also seeing the introduction of some additional bills to sort of get them in under the wire.

So with that, I will hand it off to Quinn Majewski because I know we have quite a few bills to get through in our individual reports of our team members.

Thanks, Quinn.

Thanks, Robin.

And I do see that Lily is back with us now.

We lost you for a moment.

I'm so sorry about that.

I had some password issues, but I'm back.

Thank you.

Thanks, Robin, for covering our intro.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Quinn, take it away.

Uh, good morning everyone.

Thank you for having us.

I will start with budget and revenue some updates for you this week in this space.

I'll start with the federal early action covert response bill.

This is house bill 1368. This bill is moving quickly as befitting something that is intended to be early action.

It was passed by the House on a 61 to 38 vote, moved to the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week where it had a public hearing and was voted out of committee and is already on the second readings calendar, so it is likely to move through floor action this week and then head to the governor's desk for approval.

There continues to be a desire for more detail on exactly how the spending plans are going to to work, but I think until the bill is passed and the executive agencies are able to access those funds and sort of begin working out the details there we're not going to have a whole lot.

We do know that specifically when it comes to public health and COVID response in that arena, and particularly around vaccinations, those funds are going to be dispersed to the Office of Financial Management, who in consultation with Department of Health will be moving those funds out to local public health agencies.

There remains to be seen if there's any additional funding outside of that process, but as we understand it and talks with executive agency staff, that will be the process there.

Continuing on, a couple new bills to highlight and then update on the capital gains tax.

So starting with House Bill 1465, this is a proposal to reform the estate tax to make it a bit more progressive.

It would create a new exemption for estates under $2.5 million.

And then starting with estates of $3 million and over, it would create a more tiered progressive system.

And then it would introduce some new higher rates for estates ranging up to $1 billion in value.

Moving on to House Bill 1496, this is the House proposal on capital gains introduced by Representative Sen. This would create a 9.9% capital gains tax beginning at $200,000 for individual filers and $400,000 for joint filers.

There would be exemptions for retirement savings accounts, as there usually are for capital gains taxes, as well as primary residences under $5 million in value, and a sort of narrowly constructed exemption for family-owned small businesses.

There are a couple requirements here.

It has to be under $10 million in gross receipts, has to employ 50 or fewer employees, and it has to have been held by a family member as the primary owner for five of the last eight years.

This last provision is really an attempt to address the concerns raised by a number of small business owners at previous hearings on capital gains, including the governor's proposal earlier on in session to really provide some relief for legitimate small family-owned businesses.

That's coming up for a hearing this Thursday, the 11th at 8 a.m.

And then, finally, I want to highlight one other revenue option which has been introduced, which is Senate Bill 5371. This would implement a statewide sweetened beverage tax of 1.75 cents per fluid ounce.

60% of the revenues would go to a newly created health equity account, and then 40% would go towards the foundational public health account, which is the governor request legislation to bolster statewide public health systems and response.

Previously, this has been proposed to be funded by a covered lives assessment.

But after some feedback from stakeholders and members of the public at the public hearing on that legislation, I think legislators are looking for a new way to potentially fund that proposal.

So this is one option.

I know this is an area of concern on pretty much any statewide tax measure.

It would not preempt the city of Seattle or our currently existing sugar, sweet, and beverage tax.

I will pause there on budget and revenue for any questions.

Thank you, Quinn.

Lots to digest in this particular area, sort of as a global takeaway.

I'm excited to see so many progressive taxation opportunities being considered and debated at the state legislature.

Quite a change from times in the past, so really, really happy to see that there's a lot of different options for the state legislature to consider that could help us out greatly.

Colleagues, any questions or comments for Quinn on the taxation or other issues that he's identified?

I have a question, Madam President.

Go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

Director, going to the capital gains tax proposal that Representative Senn has introduced, is the other, earlier in the session there was a capital gains proposal where the threshold was a lot lower.

Is that proposal still alive in a different bill or is it all sort of getting rolled up into this bill that Representative Senn has put forward?

Yeah, that's a good question.

The proposal that was heard previously was the governor's proposal and that was the 1 that had thresholds.

Uh, the, the exemption for under 25,000 or 50,000 for joint filers of capital gains.

Uh, that proposal is still alive.

I would say that this is the House's proposal, and we do anticipate that the Senate will be releasing their own proposal sometime a little bit later in session.

That's likely to come from Senator Robinson and Senator Saldana.

So I think what we have here is proposals from really sort of the three chambers.

And whatever ultimately moves forward will probably be negotiated from those starting positions.

Great, thanks for the update.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Quinn on this section?

All right, I don't see anyone else's hands up, so let's keep going.

Thank you.

I'll start in on education.

5136, the Senate Care License Fees Bill, has moved forward and is scheduled for a public hearing in Ways and Means tomorrow.

Senate Bill 5161, which is Teaching Washington's Tribal History by Senator Wellman, received executive action last week and is in rules, so that continues to move forward and we're happy to continue monitoring that.

One of the big bills we're following in this session is that Fair Starts for Kids Act, the omnibus child care and early education bill.

Both the House and Senate versions were exec out of committee last week with amendments that slimmed down the proposals a bit.

This included reducing the working connections eligibility expansion, reducing some of the rates slightly, delaying some entitlements a couple years, and other enhancements.

Just to reduce costs was a big concern that sides came together to meet those amendments.

The next step are the fiscal committees for both of those, so they continue to move forward.

And finally, in education, I'll highlight House Bill 1450. This is a tax for school computers by Rip Gregerson.

Introduced last week, it imposes a $2 tax for smartphone devices that retail between $250 and $1,000, and $5 tax for a higher device.

And that fund would provide computers for both students and teaching staff.

I'll pause there for any questions on education.

Colleagues, any questions for Hannah?

I am not seeing any hands raised, so we can keep going.

Moving on to environment.

This week we're pretty in the weeds on environment.

There's a lot of sort of detailed action happening.

in committees and with stakeholders.

Two bills, two priority bills that I would highlight that are moving this week, House Bill 1075, which relates to emissions on on-demand transportation services, is scheduled for a public hearing today in House Appropriations, and we anticipate future action later this week or potentially early next week.

I would just note that while policy cutoff is Monday, next Monday, bills and fiscal committees do have a little bit more time, approximately another week or so.

So there's a little bit more time for bills that have moved out of policy committees and are in appropriations, finance, transportation, or ways and means.

Similarly, the low carbon fuel standard, House Bill 1091, is scheduled for a vote in appropriations this week, tomorrow, and then I apologize and jumping around a little bit more substantively, has built 10 at for the building decarbonization bill.

The prime sponsor continues to work quite diligently with a variety of stakeholders to try to incorporate feedback and address some of their concerns.

We are likely to see a proposed substitute on this legislation that trims it back a little bit.

It was an ambitious proposal, and I think we're going to see some of that winnowed away, in particular the natural gas surcharge and some of the more ambitious elements energy code, but that legislation we do believe is still likely to move forward, at least out of committee.

I'll pause there for any questions on environment.

Colleagues, any questions on environment?

I don't see any hands raised, so we can go ahead and keep going.

All right.

In general government, I'm just going to highlight two bills that I know are of interest.

House Bill 1173. This is the Armoury PDA that was voted out of the Community and Economic Development Committee last week and is now up for a public hearing in capital budgets tomorrow at 1.30.

And then House Bill 1258, the microenterprise home kitchen legislation, is up for a voting committee in the House Local Government Committee on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

I'll pause for any questions on general government.

Colleagues, any questions on general government?

I don't see any questions, so we can keep going.

I'll hand it off to Hana on healthcare.

Thank you, Quinn.

To healthcare, House Bill 1477 is the national 988 system.

This was reintroduced with a new title in the House, but it's the bill we highlighted previously about ensuring behavioral health and crisis response for the new national 988 emergency system.

It received executive action on the 4th and is scheduled for a public hearing tomorrow in finance.

Senate Bill 5195, the opioid reversal medication, received executive action last week.

A new bill to highlight, House Bill 1345, products sold to adults over 21. Modify some of the regulatory aspects of vapor products and bans the sale of menthol flavored cigarettes and tobacco products.

Topics that have been of interest to public health and some of you in the past, that received a public hearing on the second last week.

Senate Bill 5313, health insurance discrimination, that is a trans healthcare bill that establishes it as an unfair practice for healthcare to deny coverage for gender affirming treatments.

And finally, I'll highlight a new bill way down here at the bottom when I catch up with my scrolling.

Senate Bill 5418 by Senator Billig and several of our delegation members are co-sponsoring.

It's about drug and vaccine access.

It requires a healthcare entity to distribute vaccines in a fair and consistent manner.

and prohibits offering doses to donors when that same access is not offered to everyone.

It also creates a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation.

I'll pause on the health care section for any questions.

Alex, any questions on health care?

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we can keep going.

I'll pass it to Robin, but it seems like she is on mute still.

Sorry, I'm operating on my phone today, and it's very hard to see everything.

Apologies.

We have a few new bills to talk about in the housing area this week.

But first, I just wanted to say that the House Bill 1236, Representative Macri's Just Cause Eviction Bill, was exacted by the Housing, Human Services, and Veterans Committee on Friday.

So that bill is moving along.

And then as Quinn did mention the estate tax that would support foreclosure prevention and other programs that address homelessness, including rent assistance, outreach and engagement of behavioral health.

There's a couple of other foreclosure or housing stability-related proposals that came out last week.

One is House Bill 1410, which would remove the penalty, the 11% penalties on property taxes.

That has a hearing tomorrow.

Also up for a hearing tomorrow is a foreclosure prevention measure, House Bill 1482, that would address condo fees and other fees.

And then finally, Representative Harris Talley has introduced House Bill 1494, which is an anti-displacement property tax exemption that would exempt the first 250,000 of primary residences once a declaration was signed by the homeowner.

This would also require a constitutional amendment to go into effect, and that is a H.J.R. 4204. Also, the bills that are addressing the end of the eviction moratorium, Senate Bill 5139, that would limit rent increases, is scheduled for executive session this Wednesday.

And House, I mean, Senate Bill 5160 was, took executive action last week and was sent to the Ways and Means Committee.

So those very important bills that would address the end of the moratorium are moving along as well.

That's what I have this week for the highlights on the housing bills, if anybody has any questions.

Hey Robin, can you and then Hana if you can go back to the the bill related that you mentioned that the anti displacement bill that Representative Harris Talley has introduced?

Certainly HB 1494. I'm not sure I'm quite tracking what the what the bill does.

It sounds really similar to.

A legal framework that exists in the city of Philadelphia, and I just want to get a better sense of.

Better sense of what this, what this bill is actually doing.

So, essentially, it would allow.

homeowners who are living in a home as their primary residence to obtain an exemption of the first $250,000 of their property taxes.

So, and you know, there's some things in the bill, you know, you need to sign a declaration and then there are some rules around if you have someone in your family living in the residence, some other things.

I can provide some additional details on the bill to you.

I think it's important for us to make sure that the bill is in effect after the presentation today, Council President Gonzalez, for sure.

And as I did say, because this, you know, implicates the Constitution of the state, there needs to be a constitutional amendment for the provisions of the bill to go into effect.

Thank you.

Super, super helpful.

I was thinking, I thought I heard you say something different.

So I'm glad I asked for clarification because this is, this is different than what I thought I heard you say.

So I appreciate that.

Colleagues, any, any questions on the housing section?

I'm going to scroll my tiles here.

It doesn't look like anybody has raised their hand.

So let's keep going.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll now move into the police reform area where we still have more than 20 bills that we are tracking.

So this continues to be an area of focus for the legislature as for this council.

House Bill 1203, which was the bill that establishes civilian oversight, which we already have in Seattle.

Executive action was taken on that bill in the Public Safety Committee.

We're still working to ensure compatibility with the Seattle Civilian Oversight Committee, and we understand that the prime sponsor of the bill, Representative Johnson, still considers it a work in progress, so we still have a little work to do there.

House Bill 1267, which was the governor's request legislation on independent investigations.

Executive action was taken on that bill last week in the Public Safety Committee, and some changes were made to the bill.

In custody deaths and sexual assaults committed by involved officers were removed from the investigatory jurisdiction of the statewide body.

But there is a provision in the new bill that requires advisory board members to consider whether these things should be included or if there are other items that should be included under the investigatory powers of the agency.

So I think what I've heard is that, you know, because this is a new agency, they're trying to make sure that they can sort of walk before they run, and that the scope and purview of the agency isn't overly burdensome when it first starts out.

The idea would be to build upon that as time goes on.

There's also some changes to the procedures for when the Office of Independent Investigations and the local agencies coordinate sort of seeing what might happen when you're on the scene of when an incident has happened that are improvements to the bill.

House Bill 1310 on the use of force was not exact out of the Public Safety Committee, but the chair did say that he expects that bill to move this week.

The committee continues to work on that bill.

House Bill 1507 is a new bill this week on independent prosecutions.

This gives the Attorney General concurrent authority and power with the county prosecuting attorneys to investigate and initiate and conduct prosecutions of crimes involving police use of deadly force.

So this is sort of the prosecution counterpart to the governor's independent investigations legislation.

It establishes an independent prosecutions unit in the Attorney General's office, and it requires prosecutors to determine if recusal is necessary under ethical rules or to preserve public confidence, and then outlays some provisions for when that would be triggered.

This bill has a hearing on Tuesday in the House Civil Rights and Justice Committee.

And then finally, in the police reform realm, I just wanted to give an update.

The decertification bill by Senator Peterson and also by Representative Goodman on the House side, Senate Bill 5010, it had a public hearing last week in the Ways and Means Committee, but it has not been exact yet.

We do understand that that bill should move, so we expect to see something happening on that this week or next.

And I'll take a pause in case there are questions on the police reform legislation.

I suspect that there will be.

Thanks for taking a pause, Robin.

I see that Council Member Herbold has raised her hand.

And colleagues, for anyone else who might have questions about these bills, please do let me know by raising your hand or using the raise hand feature in Zoom.

take it away, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I'm just interested to know whether or not there are any updates regarding Senator Nguyen's bill on arbitration to add any of the elements that myself and Mayor Durkin testified on regarding de novo review, recording of hearings, just a short list of four additions that the City of Seattle would very much like to see in that bill, or whether or not there has been any updates on what I call the Brady List bill.

I think it's not showing up on the screen here, but I think it's referred to as the bill related to impeachment.

Yes, Councilmember Herbold.

Senator Nguyen's Bill 5055 that would create a centralized to be used for police reform dispute resolution.

That bill has had its title limited so that it is not possible to amend it.

It now has arbitrator in the title so the police disciplinary process provisions cannot be amended onto it.

You know, I think that we're still continuing to have conversations with I think we will continue to have conversations with legislators about the importance of doing some police disciplinary process reform and we will certainly keep you updated as those conversations progress in the coming weeks.

And I am sorry but I think I will have to get back to you on the other bill that you

Sure.

Thank you.

Robin, can you speak to the process by which a bill has its title changed in a way that prohibits making changes to it?

Can you just give us a little bit more detail about how that came about?

Is my understanding from Senator Nguyen that it was necessary to move the bill forward and it was a decision of Senator Nguyen and the chairs of the committee and leadership that they would proceed with the bill with a more limited title.

I believe that, especially in other areas of the state, having an identified list of arbitrators is viewed as a priority this legislative session.

And I know we have some provisions in Seattle that make it less important, but it is very important to people in other areas of the state.

So he has chosen to go that route to move the bill forward.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions on police reform bills?

Okay, hearing none, we can keep going.

Finally, just a brief note on public safety.

House Bill 1283 was another bill that was heard last week in the sphere of armed intimidation.

And this is a bill that bans while acting with three or more persons openly carrying or displaying a deadly weapon in a manner that would lead a reasonable person to feel threatened.

Again, huge number of people signing in in the virtual session.

2,300 people signed in both pro and con on that bill last week, and it's scheduled for executive session this week.

And that's all that I have on highlights for public safety this week.

All right, colleagues, any other questions?

Hearing none, let's keep going here.

Great.

And the safety net and civil rights section, House Bill 1073, that was expanding paid leave coverage by Representative Berry, had executive action on Friday.

And a substitute bill reduces the scope a little bit and is more aligned with the direct impacts of COVID on eligibility versus the broader hours that were in the original bill.

The same changes are expected in the Senate on Senate Bill 5097, which has been scheduled for executive session on the 10th.

House Bill 1151, which is the big priority bill for human service advocates, expanding cash assistance programs, is scheduled for hearing appropriations today and executive action tomorrow.

Scrolling down here, Senate Bill 5061, Unemployment Insurance, that provides that insurance benefit to high-risk individuals and those choosing to leave work for safety reasons during the pandemic, was delivered to the governor last week.

And finally, Senate Bill 5287, or 1297, the Working Families Tax Exemption, is an updated version of the Working Families Tax Credit.

46 House members signed on to co-sponsor, including six Republicans.

And this would provide a $500 annual cash payment, an additional $150 for each child in the home up to three children, available to low and moderate income families.

And it is also available to undocumented families who file with an individual tax identification number.

This bill would reach approximately 500,000 Washingtonians and 25% of all Washington children.

So with that broad reach and broad support, we're excited to follow that one through.

The Senate bill was introduced late last week and has 20 sponsors as well and is moving through the process simultaneously.

So that's the end of my safety net and I'll pause for questions.

Sounds like a popular bill with 20 sponsors.

Colleagues, any questions on this section?

Okay, hearing none, we can keep going.

Actually, Hana, in that section, is that where, I mean, last, I think last week my office signed in support of a bill that would allow allow legal permanent residents to be considered candidates for school boards across the state?

Is that bill reflected in this bulletin?

And if so, where?

I think it might be up in education, but I need to double check the number for you.

I might have.

I might have missed it.

That's okay.

No worries.

I know we did sign in and support last week, but I will get an update on where it went during all the executive action craziness for you.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate I would appreciate an update on on that.

Okay, let's move on now to transportation.

All right, closing things out with transportation.

Both the House and Senate, starting with just a quick update on transportation revenue packages, both the House and Senate proposals have been released.

They're out in the world.

And moving forward, what we're likely to see is a lot of discussion and negotiation between the House and Senate chairs, vice chairs, and ranking members as they work to build towards something that can attract the necessary number of votes to pass.

So we'll be seeing a lot of, or I suppose more accurately, we won't be seeing a lot of work happening in the background with those legislators and with other stakeholders, but we continue to engage there and advocate for the city's priorities.

On the bills in your bulletin, two hearings coming up this week.

House Bill 1301, which provides regional transit authorities with expanded options for fair enforcement, including a notice of violation rather than a citation.

is up for a public hearing this afternoon at 3.30.

This would essentially allow Sound Transit to, I would provide them the statutory authority to issue notices of violation without monetary penalties.

So it's something we're tracking closely.

And then House Bill 1304, concerning grade-separated transit.

This is the legislation that would provide, it would amend the existing City Transportation Authority and sort of subsection revenue options to allow for new transportation revenue sources to be applied for light rail funding.

That has a hearing tomorrow at 10 a.m.

I'll pause there for any questions on transportation.

Colleagues, any questions on transportation?

All right, hearing none, we can keep going.

That concludes our report.

Great.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments for OIR before we shift into the next agenda section?

Okay, looks like there are no additional comments or questions for folks over at OER.

Once again, thanks so much for being with us this morning and for continuing to engage with us.

Did want to give Director Wilson-Kodega any sort of last comments you want to share with us before we shift gears here?

No, the only thing I would add, we appreciate the council's engagement, particularly in the progressive revenue space and We really appreciate Councilmember Strauss showing up this week as well.

Given, you know, the interest we have heard from several different Councilmembers on progressive revenue and how many proposals will be moving forward, I think, you know, just wanted to flag that that is an exciting opportunity, and we appreciate Councilmembers who won't be speaking in support of the capital gains tax this week.

So that is all we have for today, and thanks for your engagement in virtual Olympia.

Yeah, you're welcome.

And of course, people have now feel inspired to share some words or have some questions for you.

So I have two members in the queue.

First up is Council Member Mosqueda and then Council Member Sawant.

Thank you very much and good morning.

Wanted to just double check Senate Bill 5399 regarding health care concerning the creation of a universal health care commission.

There's hearing today.

Can you remind me, are we planning to sign in pro on that one today?

And if not, I'd love for me to be signed in pro if we can do that.

I'm going to turn that one over to Hannah, who may have more on the bill, and if not, we're happy to dig into that.

Okay, great.

All right, unmuting quickly.

Yes, Council Member, we're happy to sign you in and follow up on that.

Thank you so much.

This comes from our partners and long-term relationship with folks who are fighting for universal healthcare.

Thank you so much.

And I'm sorry for the late notice on that, but the hearing is at 1.30.

So perfect timing.

Thank you very much for your support.

And Council Member Mosqueda, just to let you know, we've been having some challenges recently.

Um, with many council members, just when we do, um, sign folks up for hearings, just because of this virtual space that they're navigating.

I know you are intimately familiar, familiar with the challenges of hearing schedules and, um, many folks who want to testify on, uh, popular issues.

Um, just as a warning, they may not call you up today.

We'll make sure that you're signed in, but sometimes it's a little bit tricky.

given the new format, but we'll certainly make sure that you're signed up.

I just wanted to give you a heads up there.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, no need to testify.

We have our committee meeting at 2 PM this afternoon, so just a note of support is all.

Thank you so much for clarifying.

Yeah, great.

Thanks for that clarification.

I know Director Wilson-Kodega has been warning me multiple times now that because of the new virtual rules and world down in Olympia that elected officials from all over the state who've been signing in to provide testimony live during these committee hearings are oftentimes not able to be called on because of the volume of people signing up.

So appreciate that you're looking to just get a pro sign up on that bill as opposed to actually providing my testimony.

Okay, Council Member Swatt, please.

Thank you, Lily, for acknowledging the fact that my office has been advocating for the progressive revenues at the state level.

And as others have just said, yeah, I had actually signed up to testify at the hearing on the tax on billionaires.

And they had a lot of people signed up.

And there was limited time.

And I would say that while I didn't get to speak, and I will try to speak this week, There were many community members there who were advocating for that tax, and not just from Seattle, but from statewide.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

We appreciate that.

And even if they don't call you up, that will be part of the record that you were wanting to testify in support.

So we really appreciate that.

Okay, colleagues, any other comments or questions before we shift gears here?

Okay, I'm not seeing any other council members looking to make comments, so we're going to say thank you to folks over at OIR.

We're only five minutes over, so that's pretty good, I'd say, all things considered.

So we'll be in touch.

Thanks so much, everyone, for your hard work today.

Talk soon.

Thank you.

We're going to move on now to item number four, which is a preview of today's City Council actions, Council and regional committees.

Just as a reminder, the roll call rotation for this morning will be as follows.

First, we're going to hear from Council Member Mosqueda, then we'll move to Council Member Peterson.

So want Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So first up is Council Member Mosqueda, followed by Council Member Peterson.

Good morning again.

Good morning, Madam President.

Hello, colleagues.

There are no items on the introduction and referral council committee report from my office.

There are also no items on today's full council agenda from my office.

I did want to take a quick moment to say thank you to Council Member Lewis, who led on drafting a proclamation in honor of Tony Lee's life.

I'm looking forward to celebrating Tony Lee and appreciate that this is on the agenda for our afternoon's discussion here today.

I want to thank Council Member Lewis for taking the lead on drafting this.

and working with our office to include language in the results as well.

We mentioned Tony Lee during his passage last November and wanted to take a minute today to recognize all of the work that has gone into setting up a memorial for him this week.

So kicking off the week with recognizing Tony Lee's life and all of the legacy that he has is very appropriate.

And like many, I think we're all heartbroken that we can't be together in person to celebrate his life, but really appreciate that this proclamation has come together.

So I'll have more to say about that as we present this, but wanted to say thanks for including that on today's agenda and thanks to Council Member Lewis for their office work on this.

From the Finance and Housing Committee, we have a committee meeting scheduled on Friday, February 19th.

Folks, I'm still getting used to the fact that when we have a holiday on a Monday, that means that our committee meetings automatically get moved to a Friday.

So I just want to remind people that it is on Friday, February 19th.

We'll have appointments first, appointments of Rita Howard to the Seattle Housing Board, appointment of Munari Muhammad and Jamie Marsh to the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Tax and Community Advisory Board, and possible confirmation of Steve Thank you very much, colleagues, for submitting your questions and your comments for reviewing the packet of information that the mayor's office has sent down for his possible confirmation.

We should be getting answers to those questions early next week, and we'll make sure to send those around.

Thank you for your feedback on those.

We'll also have the capital projects watch list, which established through resolution enhanced reporting requirements for the city's capital improvement program projects and establish the city's intent to use a stage gate appropriation process for selected projects.

I believe Council Member Herbold, you were instrumental in that.

So thank you for your work on that.

And I've also invited the budget director, I've invited CBO to come present on any updates we may receive by the end of next week on available federal funds, including FEMA funds, CARES Act funds, any additional dollars that could be made available to the city of Seattle as we work to address the crisis of COVID, both the public health crisis and the economic crisis.

So, hopefully, we'll be able to include that in the agenda as well.

In terms of updates, I want to thank, first, Office of Labor Standards for their work on rulemaking.

Their interim directors, their incredible staff have been busy since we've been talking about this over the last two weeks, and they have prepared rules for hazard pay ordinance to go into effect, which was signed into law and went into effect last Wednesday, February 3rd.

Thanks again to Office of Labor Standards and congratulations to all the frontline grocery workers who received that hazard pay.

Three quick updates from FAS.

They are continuing to lead the procurement relations management and operational oversight of the city's planned mass vaccination sites.

FAS is currently working on four main elements.

One is contracting with vaccine providers.

Second, agreement with site providers.

Third, scheduling an insurance software vendor.

And fourth, expanding the Customer Services Bureau's capacity to receive and respond to constituent calls regarding non-medical COVID-19 vaccine questions.

They've done a tremendous amount of work throughout the community as well, making sure that there's enough freezer storage capacity to make sure that we're leading and planning conversations with city partners to assist with expanded vaccine administration efforts.

They have notified critical employees over 65 who are working on site and are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

that they are eligible and many of those employees did receive an initial vaccine and FAS continues to maintain a standby list for employees that are eligible for the vaccine as extra doses become available.

They are also working to coordinate with city partners to procure items needed to facilitate the conversation of testing sites And I'm sorry, the conversion of testing sites into vaccine administration sites and public health, if they were here, would remind us it's not just about converting those.

It's about also maintaining testing sites as well as making sure that we are standing up vaccination sites.

An update from CBO, the 2021 adopted budget book is now online.

You can go to Seattle.gov backslash budget to look at the virtual book that includes each department section along with a summary of the financial information and chart.

It shows the mayor's proposed budget, the changes the council made, and the arrival of the final adopted budget for this year.

So thank you to their team for putting that online.

In other updates, I want to note that this week, starting on February 6, marks the 102nd year anniversary of the Seattle general strike, when more than 65,000 general workers stopped working for five days to demand fair wages and the ability to collectively bargain.

We celebrated the centennial of this two years ago in January, I'm sorry, in 2019. and here we are 102 years after that general strike.

Want to commemorate them and also encourage folks to continue to read up on that.

Speaking of worker strikes and worker struggles, I want to note the ongoing concern that we are hearing out of El Salvador.

Two members of the opposition FMLN party were murdered in El Salvador weeks before the election.

Amongst many of the issues that we're seeing down there, there has been a resurgence of death squad activities in El Salvador.

Sunday, January 31st, gunmen opened fire on a group of supporters of the Frente.

Parabundo Martín National Liberation Front, also known as the FMLN party, and two FMLN supporters were killed, Gloria Rogel del Cid and Juan de Dios Tejada.

Several others were injured.

This is a demand to make sure that the El Salvadoran government, especially The Attorney General Raul Maeda continued to conduct transparent investigations into these recent deaths.

Many folks in our Seattle area are members of CISPAS, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, and want to make sure that we are putting this issue on the radar as well to stand in solidarity with the folks from CISPAS and continue to demand accountability for these deaths and the ongoing death squad activities that we continue to see coming back up.

And I believe that's it, Madam President.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any comments or questions for Council Member Mosqueda?

Hearing none, we'll move down the line to Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has two items on today's full City Council agenda.

One is for transportation safety improvements outside of Hazel Wolf School in Northeast Seattle.

The other is the required structural engineering appointment to the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee.

Both items passed unanimously out of our committee.

Our next meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee is scheduled for next Wednesday, February 17, at 930 a.m.

One of the key items will be considering the updated Transit Service Agreement with King County Metro for Bus Service, now that voters overwhelmingly approved funds for our Seattle Transportation Benefit District last November.

The Transit Service Agreement spells out the terms of enhanced bus service throughout Seattle.

Our agreement is important as we reallocate bus service hours to get more people back on buses, as our economy recovers, and as our regional transportation networks grow with the opening of new Sound Transit stations, including two in District 4 at Brooklyn Avenue and in the University District and in the Roosevelt neighborhood, and of course, Northgate.

In District 4, this past week, I ventured inside and underneath the aging University Bridge, which connects the University District in Wallingford to Eastlake and downtown.

I'd like to thank our Seattle Department of Transportation, which arranged the bridge tour, and for the bridge operator who welcomed us.

She popped out to say hello before we walked underneath the bridge to examine some of the components, which are still operating after 100 years in service.

Major Transit Bridge was ranked in poorest condition by the city auditor in his report that we ordered last year after the West Seattle Bridge closed.

In a city carved by waterways, the University Bridge is just one of many examples of bridge projects that need more money.

If we want to keep all modes of travel moving as our economy reopens and recovers, I'll continue to advocate for us to prioritize more funding for bridges across our city.

After the bridge tour, I had a quick lunch at the 14-Karat Cafe on East Lake Avenue, met with the owner, who, like many small business owners, is striving to survive under public health conditions, or until public health conditions improve, to enable more customers to return.

So as our governor reopens our local economy, and to the extent you feel safe, I encourage residents to mask up and get back out there to visit your favorite stores and restaurants.

USA Today has nominated the top 20 city parks in North America, and Districts 4 Gasworks Park made their list.

Those of us who have visited Gasworks Park love it for its funky preservation of the Gasworks machinery, the blustery winds for flying kites at the top of the hill, and of course, its stunning views of Lake Union and downtown Seattle.

This nomination is welcome and well-deserved.

I hope we end up in the top 10. I also want to acknowledge what I'm hearing from constituents about parks throughout Seattle.

The stark reality that we have seen and that we have heard from constituents writing to us is that there's an increase in unauthorized camping and hazards and suffering over the past year in our city parks, and I'm hopeful that as the vaccines become more widely available over the next few months and we devote more resources to outreach and cleaning, we'll be able to vaccinate and house those who are experiencing homelessness and restore our parks for everyone to use during the summer months.

To vote for Gasworks Park as your favorite park, you can log into USA Today's website for this contest, which is called 10best.com.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that report, Councilmember Peterson.

Any questions or comments for Councilmember Peterson?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Sawant and then we will hear from Councilmember Strauss.

Good morning, Councilmember Sawant.

Thank you, Councilperson Gonzalez.

Good morning, everyone.

On today's City Council agenda, there is one item from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

the appointment of Sharon Crowley to the Seattle Renters Commission.

Council members will remember that we held a vote on her appointment for one week last week to accommodate the logistical request of the Department of Neighborhoods who staffed the commission.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is for February 23rd.

However, my office will be in contact with committee members to possibly find an alternate meeting time this month.

As I mentioned last week, my office is finalizing with central staff and the city attorney's office.

the legislation for the various renters' right policies, which I will talk about in a second.

And we hope to have made progress by the time we have the next committee meeting.

There is a resolution on today's introduction and referral calendar for the city council from my office urging Washington state legislators to approve statewide taxes on big business and the super rich, and clearly stating the city council's opposition to any preemption, such as a ban, limitation, or phasing out of Seattle's authority to tax big business and the rich.

As was just discussed, there are three progressive tax bills currently being discussed in Olympia.

one to tax big business corporate payroll, one to tax billionaires, and one to tax capital gains.

All of these, given the shambles that the tax system is in our state with the nation's most regressive tax system, all of these are crucial and urgently need to be passed by the state legislature for raising the funds ordinary people need for housing, services, COVID relief, and jobs programs like the Green New Deal.

However, we also know that When state legislators even talk about taxing big business or the rich, they simultaneously talk about stripping cities like Seattle of their legal ability to do the same because of the power of big business and politics.

And so if preemption of big business taxes had passed last year in Olympia, as they were attempting to do, it would have, on balance, been a corporate tax cut, because a countywide county-wide corporate tax that the state was considering was smaller than what the TaxAmazon movement ended up winning in Seattle last year.

That preemption was ultimately defeated.

Because of the organizing of the TaxAmazon movement, our movement mobilized to every public event hosted by a Seattle-based state legislature to urge them publicly that they publicly oppose preemption.

Our movement also went to Olympia to directly talk to the legislators.

This year, the threat of preemption has been far more hush-hush, but in a January 4th Crosscut article, it was made clear that it continues to be a real threat.

That article quotes legislators saying things like, quote, it remains an open question what happens with Seattle, end quote, and quote, likely we'd have to carve out Seattle, end quote, and that the legislation might, quote, phase out the Seattle tax over time, end quote.

The premise of the article is that a big business tax in Olympia, given Seattle's tax on big business, would be a quote-unquote double tax, which is completely absurd because corporate taxes in Washington state are so small and working people in the state are routinely double, triple, quadruple taxed by every jurisdiction with regressive taxes like sales taxes and also property taxes.

So this resolution, which state that the city council urges state lawmakers to pass progressive taxes on big business and the rich statewide and oppose any preemption on municipal ability to raise progressive revenues.

On this past Saturday, the tax Amazon movement held an online action conference.

to organize around these issues, which was attended by over 200 community members, which also urged the city council to support this resolution.

Council members have received letters from around 218 people urging the council to approve this resolution.

My council office continues to work closely with tenants who are facing the brunt of the economic crisis brought on by COVID and the capitalist recession.

The lead article in the Sunday New York Times describes the ticking time bomb of housing unaffordability and renter debt crisis.

Even before last year, about 11 million households, the article reports, one in four U.S. renters was spending more than half their pre-tax income on housing, and overcrowding was already on the rise.

By one estimate, for every 100 very low-income households, only 36 affordable rentals are available.

Since the pandemic began, of course it has gotten much worse, and there is an unprecedented number of people and families doubling up in the same apartments with informal rent arrangements because that is the only way they can survive without becoming homeless.

The article talks about how this is falling disproportionately hard on frontline workers and communities of color, especially immigrant workers.

The article in the New York Times also quotes Caitlin Heinen, a staff attorney at the Housing Justice Project in Seattle, with whom we're working with, we're working with the Housing Justice Project very closely, who said that over the past few months, she had seen a marked increase in what are called unauthorized occupant cases, where A landlord seeks to evict someone because they allowed an off-the-books roommate into the unit.

My office is also continuing the work of developing two renter's rights bills.

by extending the eviction moratorium to at least the end of this year and providing all tenants with the right to counsel when facing eviction, which as has already been announced, Council Member Lewis has agreed to co-sponsor.

Thank you again.

In addition, we are beginning to work on the recommendation from the Seattle Renters Commission to end the growing practice of landlords using credit checks in rental applications.

Last week, the city of Seattle Renters Commission sent all council members a letter calling on the city to adopt this measure.

My office has included this issue on the work plan for the sustainability and renters rights committee for this year.

And we have let the commissioners know that we will be drafting this legislation.

And we are also reaching out to central staff to.

work on this.

People might recall that last year the Renters Commission initiated the advocacy that led to the City Council adopting the ban on winter evictions, that legislation that was sponsored from my office.

These commissioners are taking their community activism very seriously and I'm extremely gratified to be working with them on this legislation as we did with the winter evictions ban.

Simply put, credit checks are now the new form of redlining in the rental housing market.

They are a relatively new screening tool instituted by landlords, having been implemented over the last 20 years, especially by big corporate landlords.

But as the Renters Commission pointed out in their letter, credit scores do not predict the likelihood of paying rent on a regular and timely basis.

Rather, credit scores are used by landlords to create barriers to qualification to rent.

We know that credit scores are embedded with bias against communities of color, immigrants, young people, the LGBTQ community, and women, especially survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking.

As the National Consumer Law Center has documented, study upon study have shown that using credit scores to make eligibility determinations only perpetuates past discrimination, especially for black and brown communities.

Minneapolis has passed a law along these lines, although it is not as strong as it should be, and we will be working on a law that is by all accounts from housing advocates, renter advocates, and tenant attorneys, will be a strong protection for tenants against this kind of new redlining.

Through our Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee and through community meetings that my office will be scheduling very soon, we will be working with tenants on these and other urgently needed tenants' rights bills.

We fully recognize that corporate landlords, many of whom have done quite well during the pandemic, will be fiercely resisting each one of these measures.

That is why it will take a powerful tenants movement to win these.

The Stand, which is the publication of the Washington State Labor Council, today reports that more than 900 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, IBEW Local 46, employed in the union's second largest unit, are in this area.

are on the verge of a work stoppage this week after the union reported that negotiators from the National Electrical Contractors Association, or NECA, have been stalling and failing to improve upon a contract offer which was overwhelmingly rejected by members on January 30th.

Sean Baxby, who's the business manager, financial secretary for IBAW 46, says in the article, quote, for NACA negotiators to refuse to present an improved and equitable offer the members would support is a slap in the face to the mighty 900. This proud bargaining unit has fallen behind other trades and classifications on wages for years.

The work they perform is vital to local industries.

All they are looking for is dignity, respect, and fair compensation.

But now these essential workers and their families and all of the regional businesses and companies they serve face a prospect of a major disruption." Socialist Alternative and I stand in solidarity with all IBEW 46 members fighting for a good contract. We will provide whatever support they need. And if they strike, my council office will be on the picket lines. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Councilmember Peterson, please.

Thank you, Council President.

I thank you for mentioning what's on the introduction referral calendar today.

I see that as Resolution 31989 about the big business taxes, and I'm just trying to understand We passed just eight weeks ago, we passed Resolution 31982, which is our official legislative agenda that we're asking state lawmakers to consider.

And that states that we support comprehensive tax reform that's more progressive and that is against preemption.

So I'm just, I'm concerned.

I just wanna make sure we're just not pulling out individual topics during as the session goes on and sort of reiterating them with resolutions.

Cause we could do the same for police reform, transportation funding and other issues.

And I just wanted to get a better understanding Why we feel it's necessary to introduce a resolution when we just had a resolution eight weeks ago.

I'll let council member someone address the why she wants the specifics around why she wants to introduce this resolution.

I think she's spoken to her.

policy interests as it relates to that, but I'll let her address any other issues related to why she thinks it's important to have a standalone resolution.

I'll just address really quickly just as a matter of procedure and practice on this issue.

So I don't think that the passage of the state lobbying agenda precludes a council member from wanting from advancing a resolution in support of a specific bill that is within the four corners of our state lobbying agenda, which is what we adopted via resolution.

As the members of the public might or might not be aware, but certainly council members are, our state lobbying agenda is very vague and values statement oriented without any specific reference to any actual House bills or Senate bills or legislative documents related to those particular categories.

Those details come to light and become known to us once the legislative session starts and well after we have adopted our resolution endorsing the city's state lobbying agenda.

So I think from a procedural perspective, and from the Council President's role, my responsibility is to make sure that the resolution is still within the four corners of the spirit and intent and the value statements within the lobbying agenda.

From a procedural perspective, I think that Council Member Suwan's resolution certainly falls within the boundaries of the state lobbying agenda that we adopted via the resolution, but isn't specifically addressed.

The bills she's referring to aren't specifically addressed.

in our lobbying agenda.

So just from a technical perspective, I think there have been instances, I think, in which similar efforts have been done in the past.

Other efforts include drafting a letter that comes individually from a council member or from all of the council members.

in support of or in opposition of a particular bill.

That is also another strategy that is available to council members on specific bills that might touch on the concepts included in our state lobbying agenda that we adopted.

So I hope that's helpful, Council Member Peterson, just for sort of the logistical, drier procedural aspects of how we deal with those things.

let Council Member Sumant speak for herself on any intense issues that you flagged.

Thank you, President Gonzalez, for making those points.

That was definitely something I was going to add in my response to this question, but I won't repeat the points you've made really well.

I would just add to what was just said by President Gonzalez is that the resolution that was passed about the legislative agenda is It's meant to be sort of vague, as was said, and it covers literally hundreds of topics, does not refer to specific legislation.

And since that resolution was adopted, we have seen public media reports stating clearly that state legislators are looking for various avenues to preempt or phase out or in some way undermine municipal ability to raise big business taxes.

And I think given that kind of specific thread, it is important that ordinary people have a way to organize and have state legislators feel the pressure from below and say that, no, we are not going to accept that, that we need a municipal I think it is a good step forward.

I think it is a good step forward.

I think it is a good step forward.

I think it is a good step forward.

I think it is a good step forward.

I think it is a good step forward.

I think it is a good step forward.

All right, so any other questions or comments for Council Member Sawant?

Hearing none, thanks for that report.

We're going to go ahead and move down the line.

We're going to hear from Council Member Strauss next, and then Council Member Herbold.

And then as a quick, hopefully not a spoiler alert, because I think he already circulated it, but on the proclamation he's going to be discussing during council briefing this morning, we will take a short pause.

and ask colleagues to consider adding their signature to that proclamation as described, as will be described by Council Member Strauss.

So just a quick heads up for those of you who may be multitasking right now, that that will occur during this report.

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you, Council President.

There are eight appointments to the Planning Commission on the introduction and referral calendar today.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's agenda, and the February 10th meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee has been canceled, so our next meeting will be February 24th.

We'll highlight the events that my staff and I attended last week.

My staff attended the Finney Ridge Community Council and the North Precinct Advisory Council while I attended the Wongford Community Council meetings.

I also went on a ride along with the HealthONE team.

Thanks to Councilmember Lewis, Councilmember Peterson and Councilmember Mosqueda for already having taken their ride along with the HealthONE team.

You know, here at council, we've talked a lot about the CAHOOTS model from Oregon.

And it's important for us to keep in the center of our mind that we already have a number of programs running in the city of Seattle that operate in a very similar manner.

And it's we need to fund these at a higher rate and we need to empower them to make meaning to be able to serve our communities.

So some of those other teams are the mobile crisis team, crisis response team and the mobile medical program.

and HealthONE, and so just highlighting that this is a really important program because HealthONE creates meaningful resolutions to the calls they receive.

If the HealthONE team wasn't available, you may see a police officer, a medic, a fire engine, and then possibly an AMR taking this individual to Harborview where they receive attention from the Harborview team.

only to be released into the same situation that they started with without actually solving the problem that they came for.

And so the HealthONE team is two firefighters and a case manager, and they're able to follow up with the clients that they serve, sometimes a week later.

So that in by going out in a suburban and just having these two firefighters and a case manager, they're able to effectively triage and connect individuals with services that they need.

I watched as they found housing for a gentleman who had a placement for rehab but nowhere to sleep until.

until that meeting on Friday.

I also watched as they connected with another gen. They connected another gentleman with chemical dependency services once he stabilized once he was medically stabilized so that.

Once they're done at the call, they're not done with the client, and I think that's really important because when you're able to find these meaningful solution resolutions for these cases, you reduce 911 calls.

We save city resources and we.

create solutions that last for these clients rather than having them call 9-1-1 later that week.

So I want to thank Chris, Teresa, and Donna for their great work on the HealthONE team.

And colleagues, if you haven't scheduled your ride along yet, please do.

It's important that we as policymakers have these firsthand experiences.

So again, I heard that Council Member Mosqueda, Lewis, and Peterson have attended.

Councilmember Herbold, have you attended as well?

I see you taking a look.

No, not yet.

Okay.

Sorry.

Just everyone.

I really highly encourage you to take the ride along with them.

They are very interested and excited to have council members attend.

So also last week on Thursday, I attended the growth management policy board meeting.

and I attended the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways volunteer virtual thank you party last Friday.

Over the weekend, I attended a neighborhood trash pickup with Rise United with about 25 people attending.

We collected refuse along Aurora and Green Lake and Woodland Park.

And so thank you for Gareth for coordinating that.

As one gentleman who joined the cleanup said, you can complain to your council member or you can take action by picking up trash.

And today you can do both.

which I thought was funny.

It was a great experience overall.

This coming week I'll be testifying in favor of House Bill 1035 that would allow a tax exemption for property owners who set aside their 25% or more of their buildings for low-income tenants.

And I think that this is an important way, you know, there are so many tools that we need to address the housing crisis, and this is just one of them.

I'll also be attending the Association of Washington City's Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday, meeting with the Ballard Alliance on Thursday, and participating on a panel with the Ballard District Council with Council Members Lewis, Council Member Cole-Wells, and Senator Carlisle on Wednesday.

Here in District 6, I hold District 6 resident meetings every week.

Last week, I spoke to neighbors from Blue Ridge, Crown Hill, Fremont, West Green Lake, West Woodland, Ballard, Whittier Heights, and Finney Ridge.

We discussed creating public safety for all, ways neighborhoods can get involved in cleanup efforts, and this led to us including a list of six ways and many resources and our last newsletter.

So if you're looking for ways to take action today, there it is.

And that was due to a District 6 meeting that we had.

We talked about addressing homelessness in Ballard Commons Park, the hazard pay ordinance, and the new permanent supportive housing building in Greenwood.

I want to make a special thank you to Director Alvarado.

Dan Wise from Catholic Community Services, Chris Jowell and Elizabeth Murphy from Catholic Housing Services.

I just really appreciate everyone.

It was really an A team that came to a meeting with neighbors who are abutting the Permanent Supportive Housing Project in Greenwood.

This week, I'll be holding district office hours with D6 residents on February the 10th.

both during the 9 to 5 working hours and in the evening as well so that we can accommodate everyone's schedule.

I look forward to speaking with these six neighbors this Wednesday.

As Council President mentioned, I do have a proclamation that I'm bringing forward to you today.

I'm bringing forward to declare last Friday, apologies for last week, February 5th is International Clash Day.

The mayor is concurring with this proclamation.

I want to thank KEXP especially for beginning and continuing International Clash Day.

KEXP was a constant source of comfort and inspiration during last year, which was a challenging year.

when so many issues The Clash sang and advocated for were brought to the forefront of our city and nation's mind.

Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Topper Heaton formed the core of The Clash, dubbed by fans as the only band that matters throughout their career.

The clash used the power of music to share messages of peace, unity, anti-racism, poverty awareness, and freedom of expression.

Their advocacy and political messages have a long-lasting influence on punk rock, and the city of Seattle encourages all citizens to take inspiration in Joe Strummer's message.

In fact, punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human beings.

as we work to create an inclusive, welcoming community for all.

And the Clash's stand against racism and fascism is as important today in 2021 as it was in 1976, when Dross Drummer said, we're anti-fascists, we're anti-violence, we're anti-racist, and we're pro-creative.

We're against ignorance.

So with all of my verbal stumblings, Council President, I believe that is all I have to say.

And I believe signatures will need to be added to, and I'll hand it off to you to walk us through the next steps.

No stumbling whatsoever.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss for that report.

Before I open it up for any potential for the roll call, I did want to give colleagues an opportunity to ask any questions they might have about the proclamation before I request that roll call.

Any questions about the Clash Day proclamation?

I think it's a pretty pretty cool opportunity for us, even though it's after the fact to be able to follow through on the proclamation.

So thank you, Council Member Strauss, for shepherding this through to its final steps.

So with that being said, I would ask that the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the International Clash Date Proclamation as described by Council Member Strauss.

Mosquera?

Aye.

Peterson.

Council Member Peterson.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Since I have the clash on at least three of my playlists, I will say yes.

Council President Gonzalez.

Yes.

And then can you call on Council Member Peterson one more time?

Sure.

Council Member Peterson.

All right.

Well, we tried.

Eight in favor.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk, for that.

Any other questions or comments for Council Member Strauss on his report?

Okay, anything else, Council Member Strauss?

No, thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues, that was my report.

Thank you so much for that.

Okay, next up is Council Member Herbold, and then we will hear from Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Herbold, good morning.

Good morning, thank you so much.

I have no items on the full council agenda today from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, but I do have a committee meeting tomorrow morning at 9.30.

And on the agenda will be the following items.

We are going to be hearing from Director Hayes from Public Health Seattle King County.

We'll also be hearing from the Fire Chief Scoggins and representatives from the mayor's office who will present city and county plans to vaccinate residents as well as their efforts to address the inequities that we are seeing in vaccine distribution.

We will be having an update from the fire department as well on fire code changes.

Typically when the building codes are updated, we will have a separate piece of legislation that also updates the fire codes.

So we will be hearing a presentation on that.

The fire department will present their changes and we'll consider a vote.

Carlos Lugo from central staff has also prepared a memo and is available should you have questions.

In addition, we will be hearing council bill 119981 regarding the police department's budget.

Central staff will give the presentation that was delayed from the last meeting due to the meeting itself going longer than anticipated and for folks recollection.

This is the bill that we introduced at the end of the year after council appropriated $5.2 million in overtime spending.

We introduced a bill to reduce their 2021 spending by a similar amount.

So we'll be hearing that legislation as well as hearing from central staff some background regarding the police department's needs aside from staffing.

Because again, the bill purports to reduce the department's spending from staffing dollars that they cannot spend because of the much higher than anticipated attritions in 2020 and the limitations of the SPD staffing plan to hire more than 114 officers in a single year.

But there are some other needs that the police department has, specifically as it relates to fulfilling public disclosure requests.

And I have also identified a need coming out of the Office of the Inspector General's report regarding minimum requirements for evidence storage.

And then there are also some issues around civilian hires that I know we expected that the police department would hire to fill CSO positions, community service officer positions, and community gosh, CPC, community policing positions as well.

So hopefully we'll have a good, robust discussion there.

This is an initial discussion of that bill, and we will be bringing the police department at a subsequent meeting to come and talk to us further.

We also will be having a discussion on the less lethal weapons draft bill.

The agenda passed on Friday included what we have referred to as the revised base bill and a number of amendments.

The intent is for the committee to make a recommendation at the meeting.

After that, the council's legal counsel will follow the process outlined in the consent decree and will send the legislation to the monitor and the Department of Justice, again, in line with the consent decree process, which allows for 45 days for review.

In event that there are objections from the monitor or the Department of Justice, there's a 14-day period to meet and confer.

And after that, any party may petition the court to resolve the objections.

My office consulted with legal counsel and the city clerk about how best to describe the action that the committee is taking on the agenda itself to reflect that the city is under the consent decree.

And that's why the agenda describes the action as discussion of less lethal weapons.

on draft bill recommendations on draft bill rather than listing as a discussion and vote.

When committees vote, typically legislation goes to the full council.

That is not happening here.

We are not actually voting on the legislation itself.

We will be voting on a motion to send the draft bill that, again, has not yet been introduced.

And the reason why we're doing that is because under the consent decree, again, the normal process in the city charter does not apply for legislation related to the use of force.

So, again, the bill has been reviewed by the city attorney's office.

According to usual procedures, any formal introduction through the introduction and referral calendar will happen after completing the review by the Department of Justice and monitor as required by the consent decree.

Wanted to say a few words about the status conference with the monitor and Judge Robart overseeing the consent decree.

The monitor is Antonio Oftele.

The status conference also included the Department of Justice and the city attorney.

The purpose of the status conference was to hear The 2021 monitoring plan outlining the work that the monitor will be doing during 2021. It covers four key areas, evaluating the status of compliance with the consent decree, improving accountability, providing technical assistance to support SPD's innovation and risk management, and providing technical assistance to support reimagining public safety.

The work plan itself includes extensive review of crowd management policies.

I'm happy to share with any council member who's interested in seeing the work plan a copy of it.

I think we all know that Judge Robart made comments that were covered in the media critical of the council's action during the SPD budget process and identifying this as an area for compliance with the consent decree.

And he stressed the importance of having plans in place to replace essential services currently provided by the police.

Um, I have asked the city attorney to follow up to clarify with the monitor in the court.

And, um, uh, it's, I think, important for the court to understand that the council has included 2021 funding sufficient to fully implement S.

P. D. S.

2021 staffing plan.

And though officer staffing went down by 135 officers during 2020 during the separations and the hiring freeze ordered by the mayor, no officers have been laid off as a result of the council's budget reductions.

The city attorney will be following up with the monitor and will include information on the budget impacts in its next quarterly submittal to the court due in April.

And I really appreciate the city attorney's submittal to the court, noting that this past year, city leaders and community groups have called for budget cuts to the Seattle Police Department, accompanied by increased funding to policing alternatives.

They're very careful to say that concurrently, SPD lost a number of officers due to retirement and transfer and experienced significant budget cuts due to COVID-19.

The monitor's work plan notes that the monitor and the Department of Justice recognize that the consent decree gives the city substantial leeway to structure how it will deliver community services, traditionally considered to be police services.

So it's very clear that there is flexibility on the part of the monitor and the DOJ.

In the comments from Judge Robart, There was reference to the section right after that in the monitor's work plan, which says, at the same time, the city recognizes that major reductions to SPD's funding or staffing could threaten focusing in the future, could threaten to undermine substantial compliance with the consent decree.

requirement in these areas.

And they go on to say that the DOJ and the monitoring team's interest in reimagining public safety is to ensure that the changes are not taken in a manner that brings the city out of compliance.

So I'm, again, happy to follow up with any details on the monitoring plan, any details from the city attorney's office as it relates to the council's compliance with the consent decree relating to budget actions that it has taken in the past or may consider in the future.

Lastly, I just want to discuss a little bit on vaccine scarcity.

We I know are hearing from residents all over the city.

I know I'm hearing from so many people in District one.

Um, over the past several weeks, people are concerned and they're frustrated and they're confused about the difficulties receiving a vaccination.

Uh, vaccine providers are generally not offering appointments for the vaccine when they don't have sufficient numbers of vaccines to distribute.

So this is a systemic problem.

The federal government is not making available enough vaccine for everyone who is now eligible.

that people are eligible within tiers of eligibility.

And we've opened up tiers of eligibility for more people than we have vaccines for.

Um, you know, this is a here's some numbers from King County to sort of illustrate the magnitude of the problem.

Um, 470,000 King County residents are currently eligible to receive vaccination, but yet fewer than 200,000 first doses have been received throughout the county.

We could do a similar analysis for Seattle and see a similar mismatch of need to vaccine capacity.

Our providers are working to ensure that all doses are being administered promptly.

We know that 99% of the doses received have been administered.

And the practice is that when providers learn that they have a certain number of vaccine doses coming, they open up appointments for those doses or contact eligible people on their wait list.

Again, because there's so much more demand than supply, these appointments are going, are very, very quickly snapped up and then they shut down their scheduling again.

So we know that the federal government has announced plans to increase distribution of vaccines to the states, meaning Washington may be getting increased vaccine shipments soon, but it will likely be some weeks before Washington State receives enough vaccine doses for everyone who's currently eligible.

This is the main reason that we have not yet established a mass vaccination site.

But the city is absolutely making plans that they will rapidly put into place once vaccine supply is sufficient.

It will take them two days to them being the city will take us two days to launch a new max vaccination site once we have sufficient vaccine doses.

FAS, as Councilman Mosqueda mentioned earlier, is reporting that they have pre-placed needed equipment for vaccination sites, such as chairs, lightings, and tents in both West Seattle and Rainier Beach already.

So right now, if you are eligible to receive the vaccine, of course, the best thing to do is to add yourself to the wait lists with your healthcare provider if you have one.

monitor news for updated information about vaccine distribution and keep up COVID precautions such as wearing masks and social distancing.

Just a little bit more detail on the city efforts.

City receives for city distribution about a thousand vaccine doses a week and the fire department has launched two mobile vaccine teams.

They started that work on January 14th, and they've since added two more.

The mobile vaccine teams have vaccinated over 2,500 vulnerable residents at 85 adult family homes, 16 affordable housing buildings, and four pop-up clinics.

75% of those vaccinated identified as BIPOC.

The city and the fire department are also working with Seattle Housing Authority on on-site vaccination clinics at SHA buildings, vaccinating about 500 residents so far.

SHA prioritized Seattle Senior Housing Program buildings, beginning with locations in the CD, the South Park, Rainier Beach, and Central Area neighborhoods, all neighborhoods housing a higher number of people of color, people with mobility issues, and people with limited English proficiency.

They're experiencing about a 90% turnout rate.

indicating significant demand and effective communication and organizations.

Despite these efforts by the city with its 1000 doses per week, data shared by public health in Seattle King County show that inequitable distribution of vaccine is occurring systemically in our community.

Native American and Pacific Islanders represent 2.7% of COVID cases, but only 0.5% of vaccinations.

Black and African American individuals make up 12% of the cases and only 3.5% of vaccinations.

Statewide data reported by the Times shows that 67% of initial vaccine doses have gone to white people, even though to date they've made up only 48% of the cases.

And only 5% of initial vaccines have gone to Latinos, even though they've made up 32% of the cases.

I just want to close out by recognizing the work of HSD staff from Aging and Disability Services who have made 1,500 phone calls over a three-week period to schedule 359 clients plus 1,078 caregivers for COVID vaccine, community partners, at the Chinese Information Service Center and the Asian Counseling and Referral Service and Neighborhood House have scheduled an additional 615 clients and caregivers.

And Aging and Disability Services at HSD has facilitated a roundtable discussion with the aging network community providers.

late in January, working to identify recommendations from community members related to access to vaccines.

And just one last thing before I close out, wanna give a shout out that the application deadline for the Seattle Hospitality Workers Emergency Relief Fund has been extended from February 1st, extended to Monday, February 15th at 11.59 p.m.

in order to allow ample time for non-English speaking applicants to learn about the resource and apply.

You can go to hospitality.wellspringfs.org to apply or learn more.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold for that report.

Any comments or questions?

All right.

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the line.

Next up is Council Member Juarez, followed by Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Thank you.

I will be brief with, we have an update on the waterfront lid, update on OVG and the climate pledge arena.

Parks, Sound Transit, last week's highlights, and the week ahead.

There are no items on the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

The update on the Waterfront Lid.

Consistent with the Waterfront Lid Formation Ordinance of 125760, passed in January of 2019, The city of Seattle hearing examiner, Mr. Ryan Vesel, has been tasked to complete a report of his findings for the waterfront lid final assessment role.

The hearing examiner sent his final report to the chief clerk, Monica Simmons, by the February 1st deadline, and chief clerk Simmons completed the necessary publication of the filing.

You should all have a copy of the final report.

As you know, state law and city law require the council to hear any appeals from the recommendation of the hearing examiner on the final assessment role for local improvement districts.

So we are scheduling March 2nd and March 6th per resolution 31979 as the committee dates for the committee for members to hear the appeals.

We will review these appeals as impartial members of council by following quasi judicial rules mandated by state law and the Seattle Municipal Code.

This is a reminder again of the quasi judicial rules that they are in place.

My understanding is there's been five appeals filed so far.

As you know, you'll be getting a list, so you'll know and your staff will know you're not allowed to discuss these matters with constituents who may want to discuss their individual assessment.

Eric McConaughey from the central staff is working with the chief clerk to send the required 21 day notice to those individuals who filed an appeal of when their hearing is set.

and I'm pleased to say we're on track to consider each stage of the LIB process.

OVG construction update.

OVG, Mortison, and the entire Climate Pledge Arena celebrate as what is known in the construction parlay language as the topping off ceremony of the arena.

They did that on Friday, January 29th.

It's a symbolic but important tradition that usually is undertaken once the last roof beam is installed.

But because our roof is landmarked, they honored it an internal beam instead.

And here's your update for Parks on the Clean City Initiative.

For the week of January 25th to the 31st, the Parks Department picked up 1,395 needles from encampment locations.

They picked up almost 166,000 pounds of trash from 66 encampments, completed two cleanups at the Georgetown Playfield and Longfellow Creek, I've asked the parks department to provide me with cumulative data surrounding their trash pickup and more specific geographic locations.

Parks will provide those details starting next week.

This will be easier for you folks in the districts to manage what areas we can start hitting harder.

We're going to continue to do the search to pick up the garbage, empty the garbage, pick up needles, empty the sandy cans, all the stuff that parks has been doing along with other city departments.

The shower program.

The shower program served 369 users from January 27th to February 2nd.

And let's see, Bitter Lake.

This is the Bitter Lake Play Area and Comfort Station renovation.

Parks is hosting an online open house on Tuesday, February 9th at six o'clock for the Bitter Lake Play Area and Comfort Station renovation project.

The community is encouraged to register for the online event and review the schematic, I can't even say that word, schematic designs.

You can register for the open house on the park's website under the current projects tab.

Let's talk about pools, pools reopening.

Members of the public are anxiously awaiting the return of their public pools.

But as you all know, public health restrictions, limited staffing, and a reduced budget have prohibited the opening of pools.

Parks is given the green light to open the Medgar Evans Pool in the Central District in Seattle.

Medgar Evans Pool will reopen to the public for lap swimming and independent water fitness beginning February 17th from 1130 to 630. Pool admission must be reserved in advance online or via phone.

The first reservations can be made on February 10th at noon.

The Queen Anne Pool will be available for use by Seattle Public Schools swim teams.

but not for the general public, unfortunately, likely starting on February 22nd.

We'll keep you posted on the rest of the pools.

So the governor's guidance for counties in phase two does allow for pools to reopen if they are at a reduced capacity and follow public health guidelines for pool visitors that will look like limited access to common areas and lockers, mask wearing when not in the pool, obviously, temperature checks upon entry, additional safety measures for staff and the faculty, And the facility, I'm sorry, will include increased cleaning, temperature checks for staff and pool users, and masks required, again, when not in the pool, and two or fewer users per lake.

Parks is optimistic they can open additional pools and aquatics programs at staffing and health guidelines as they allow.

Food Lifeline.

Food Lifeline continues to distribute free food boxes at the Rainier Beach Community Center on Wednesdays from 10 to 1. Last Wednesday, February 3rd, over 1,000 boxes of food were distributed to families in need.

Sound Transit, as you know, we have the Northgate Link extension up here that's coming online in the fall of 2021. Sound Transit announced last week that all three stations at Northgate Link's extension are substantially complete.

a major milestone in progress toward the start of service later this year.

Light rail test trains began operating on the new elevated light rail tracks last month to test the overhead electrical power system throughout the Northgate line.

Testing will continue for several months, mostly during the morning hours.

Last week highlights, I had a wonderful meeting with our phenomenal CEO at Parks, the Woodland Park Zoo, Alejandro Grijal.

He is the CEO of Woodland Park Zoo to revisit the management and operations agreement between the zoo and the city of Seattle.

The last agreement was 20 years long and it's set to expire this year or next year.

So we have to get that in place to a committee.

This agreement, like I said, will expire this year and our committee will most likely review once legislation is transmitted.

We've already been looking at the drafts and some of the changes under the public benefits piece.

Um, and some other major, obviously a lot's changed in 20 years, um, particularly with zoos and conservation.

So it was a good meeting with, um, the director of the CEO, their staff and our staff and, um, central staff.

So, um, I got to, uh, participate in the Nathan Hale podcast, uh, podcast, and we met with, um, Mario, Felix, and Gabe, all members of their, um, high school, uh, council.

They all looked like young Dan Louis, Dan Strauss's, Council Member Strauss's.

Wonderful, wonderful group of young folks.

I was really happy to talk to them and we talked well over an hour.

So it was really exciting to have these folks.

Yeah, there you go.

There you go, Council Member Strauss.

A little shout out to Nathan Hale.

So the week ahead, I will be attending the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board meeting.

I will also be attending the Downtown Seattle Association, the DSA's annual address to the state of downtown on Thursday.

This year's theme is Recovery Starts Here.

And finally, the D5 team will be taking a guided tour of the NHL training facility at Northgate Mall to see what's going on there.

This is actually pretty cool because with light rail coming online, and now we know with the Northgate Commons, we can build up to 1,400 units there with a big chunk going to low-income and affordable housing.

So that's the Northgate Commons across the street from Northgate Mall.

And we just learned from my discussions with Bellwether that we'll be building 200 units on the North Seattle campus along with the Longhouse, working with Colleen Echo-Hawk of Seattle Indian Health Board, Susan Boyd.

So all of the synergy is what we've all been talking about since probably 2014, 15. about transit-oriented housing, transit-oriented developments.

The Northgate Commons is creating an alliance.

It's going to be called the Northgate Commons Alliance.

So we know that we could have mixed use there, commercial, business, low-income, affordable housing, and market rate, and then across I-5 with our pedestrian bike bridge, which should open soon, and we'll have a naming.

We'll be putting 200 units on the south end of campus.

for low-income Native American students to live on campus as they use the Promise Program and go to college, and the Longhouse.

So we got a lot of stuff going on up here.

I know you know D5 is happening.

Just letting you all know that.

So if you all want to.

Let's see.

That's about it, Council President.

Got nothing else for you.

Back to you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that report.

Council Member Juarez, lots to digest there.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we're gonna go ahead and go down the line.

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

Council Member Lewis, good morning.

Thank you, Madam President.

A couple of updates.

First off, there are no items on this afternoon's agenda from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I did have the great privilege last week, along with Council President Gonzalez, to vote for Regina Cannon to be the first CEO on the King County Regional Homelessness Authorities Governing Board to vote on Regina Cannon to take that position of CEO of that regional body.

Ms. Cannon is the Chief Equity and Impact Officer of C4 Innovations, which is an organization that does consulting and training work for behavioral mental health recovery and social change.

She has extensive experience in public health, in criminal legal system reform, and in housing, mostly in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

She brings a great wealth of experience and drive and vision for this regional project that we are engaged in to make progress on the ongoing county and city states of emergency on homelessness.

And I look forward to working with soon-to-be CEO Regina Cannon in that mission.

A really good, long-overdue goalpost being passed last week, and it's good to see that regional body moving along despite the COVID-induced delays.

I attended the Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Policy Board last week, where we discussed school siting, best practices, as well as transferable development rights fairly extensively.

And King County and Seattle's program was mentioned as an example of the benefits and also some of the historic issues around transferable development rights and designing sustainable programs in that area.

I had a chance over the weekend to review the six-month report for the Support Team Assisted Response Program in Denver, or STAR, which is a low-acuity first response police alternative system that I know has been mentioned by several council members here, including myself in the past.

And last summer, I did have a town hall and low acuity first response where some people from the STAR program came and presented and that town hall for members of the public is still available on YouTube and it was a great conversation.

I did want to share a few of the interesting things from this six month report.

STAR is a pilot program.

They responded to 748 incidents.

68% of the people that they responded to Um, we're folks experienc Denver.

Uh, they are the in the area that they operate in for some incidents that, in Denver as well as here, are criminal incidents that historically the police have responded to, including trespassing and decent exposure, but which can have a high correlation to behavioral mental health or people experiencing extreme poverty and, for example, maybe sleeping in a doorway while trespassing.

In none of those 748 incidents did the STAR team involve police in the response.

Instead, they emphasized a response involving service navigation, transport to shelter, or connection with back-end resources for mental health and or addiction.

The conclusion of the report is that STAR has been highly successful so far in mitigating the need for police response for certain types of incidents that historically the police would have been the primary and only responder for.

Like similar programs like Eugene's Cahoots, it bears a strong resemblance to our own HealthONE program, which this council has funded and expanded considerably in the last budget in the fall.

It does also have interesting differences worth pondering as we continue this work with stakeholders and the possibility for a provider-based low acuity response that could complement that work of the HealthONE program.

uh...

finally uh...

i do have a proclamation that uh...

i believe was circulated uh...

by parker dawson in my office uh...

and i i'm honored to announce uh...

uh...

the opportunity to sign and establish this proclamation in honor of the late Tony Lee, a champion for countless people and communities in Washington State, and someone who was a great friend and partner of the city of Seattle and our work.

This proclamation pays respect to Tony's career and lifetime dedication to the rights and protections of low-income and immigrant communities.

His career and private life were marked by countless awards and accolades recognizing that great work and his loss is a true loss to our community.

I hope you'll join me in signing on this proclamation declaring Friday, February 12th.

the day of Tony's celebration of life to be Tony Lee Day here in Seattle.

And Madam President, I believe signatures will need to be added.

And so at the conclusion of my remarks, we can call the roll on that proclamation if that would be.

appropriate at this time.

Similarly, like Councilmember Juarez, I will be attending the State of Downtown Address that will be done virtually this year for the Downtown Seattle Association and look forward to reporting back on those activities next week.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Lewis for that report.

We're gonna go ahead and I was going to ask for signatures on the proclamation before we open it up to general comments, because otherwise I'm going to forget.

So colleagues, any questions on the proclamation honoring Tony Lee?

before I call the roll.

Okay, hearing no questions on that proclamation, I'm gonna ask that the clerk please call the roll for council members who would like to have their signature affixed to the Tony Lee Day proclamation as described by Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Mostera.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor.

Great, thank you so much.

Okay, colleagues, I will open it up now for any general questions or comments on Council Member Lewis's report.

Council Member Herbold, please.

I just want to say a couple of very quick words as relates to Councilmember Lewis' discussion around low acuity response programs as well as Councilmember Straus' comments earlier.

Folks have not dug deeply into some of the research work of the Black Brilliance Project.

I want to direct people to pages 1029 through 1037 of the presentation that we received last week.

Those pages discuss some options for funding through participatory budgeting for specific community-based low acuity response programs.

I also want to lift that not only is the work of the Black Brilliance Research Project and participatory budgeting funds that the council has set aside a possible source of funds for this type of a program, but also HSD is working to develop, and there was a briefing in my committee a couple weeks ago now, is working to release a $12 million RFP for funds that this council made available for community safety response programs.

And so that's another source of funds that is a potential resource to fund a low acuity emergency response program.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any other comments or questions on Council Member Luis's report?

All right, hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Morales, and then I will round out this section of the agenda before we kick off our executive session.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council President.

There are no items from the Community Economic Development Committee on today's agenda.

I do want to highlight a couple of great opportunities through our Office of Arts and Culture.

There is the Shine a Light Call for Art for the Pike Pine Storefront Program.

The Downtown Seattle Association is seeking artists to help with the Pine Pipe Corridor through placement of artwork in the windows.

This is an opportunity for artists who are interested in creating an installation.

They'll have about between three to six months for display.

There's access to power outlets and ceiling hardware.

Applications are due this week, February 11th by 5 p.m.

So you can call, I'm gonna give a number, Seth Geiser, 206-708-7000.

9484 if folks are interested.

Our own youth arts grants program also has an opportunity for grants for Seattle's middle and high school aged youth.

This occurs outside of school hours and the program is led by experienced teaching artists working in communities to increase art and cultural opportunities for young people from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Folks can contact the Creative Youth Development Project Manager, Christy Wu, at 206-727-8671.

Regarding the Black Brilliance Project, I do want to thank Council Member Peterson for submitting questions for that project.

As a reminder, the final report will be presented at my committee on February 26th.

Colleagues, I will be sending questions to the researchers today, so if you have a little bit more time, please try to get me your questions if you have questions to include for them in their final report.

If you could get those to me by noon, that would be great.

Last week, I attended the meeting of the central Puget sound economic development district board of directors.

We were briefed on the preliminary results of the regional housing needs assessment.

I'm sure nobody will be surprised to hear that draft findings showed the need for more than 800,000 new homes in the region to meet the growth that we're expected to have by 2050. And of course, affordability is a major issue.

So PSRC is working on some policy recommendations and ideas for how we can meet that need.

We also heard from the Washington Economic Development Association about their legislative priorities for the session.

And really, that includes supporting investments in state infrastructure for financing for our small business recovery.

Last week, I met with several neighbors and community organizations from the Rainier Beach neighborhood.

We talked about the need to align community safety work that many of these organizations are doing, but also talked about the importance of the city committing to the kind of investment needed to really have an ability to change the community conditions.

So we will be meeting regularly with folks there and also have come up with some follow-up work that we need to do with Safeway.

ensure that Safeway is responding to the community concerns about poor lighting in their parking lot.

Certainly one of the contributing factors to some of the challenges happening down there.

I also met with several constituents yesterday during my Sunday district office hours.

I want to take this opportunity to wish our neighbors who celebrate a happy Lunar New Year.

I hope the year of the ox brings you prosperity and health.

Speaking of good health, I do want to finally thank Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Herbold for the discussions they have planned in their committees this week regarding equity in vaccine distribution.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned, I learned today in the paper that 67% of vaccines across the state have thus far been given to our white community members.

They only account for less than half, 45% of those who are infected.

In Seattle, as Council Member Herbold mentioned, we're doing much better.

I was happy to see the work of my friend Ahmed Ali, the owner of the Othello Station Pharmacy, highlighted this weekend.

His work to support seniors in the Rainier Valley really illustrates how important it is that we target vaccine distribution to neighborhood clinics, not just through mass vaccination sites, not just to hospitals.

It's going to be really important that we are ensuring equal access equitable access to those vaccines.

I will say that it's really hard for me to understand why the State Department of Health is only just getting infrastructure in place to address.

It is not new information that seniors have many barriers to accessing health care.

We know they have technology and digital literacy gaps.

We know that they lack good transportation.

There are tens of thousands of people who don't speak English as a second language or even speak English at all.

So we have a lot of work to do at the state level.

As Naomi Ishizaka mentioned this morning in today's paper, for elderly and for our most vulnerable in our community, it practically requires a Ouija board to find out where to get a vaccine.

Like I said, these issues aren't new, and we've been in the pandemic for almost a year now.

So all these issues came up as we were working on outreach for testing.

It's really not okay that we seem to start over when it comes to racial equity every time there's a new emergency.

We've got people's lives on the line.

So I'm looking forward to the conversations in Council Member Herbold and Council President Gonzalez's committee meetings tomorrow.

I look forward to hearing from our state and local public health officials and really discussing how we begin to institutionalize practices that ensure equity in our public health response.

That is all I have this morning, Council President.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales for that report.

Colleagues, any questions or comments for Council Member Morales?

Okay, hearing none, I'll go ahead and shift gears to provide my report.

So report of the Governance and Education Committee.

We have nothing on this afternoon's a full council agenda, nor do we have any items on the introduction and referral calendar.

As mentioned, we will be having our regularly scheduled Governance and Education Committee meeting.

That will occur tomorrow on February 9th at 2 o'clock p.m.

via Zoom.

The agenda has three items for discussion.

Items one and two will be related to vaccine distribution and specifically will be panels that will afford the council and members of the public to hear directly from community members and community health experts who have been having difficulty in this space and who've been doing a tremendous amount of advocacy in this area to ensure equitable vaccine distribution.

Following the community panel, we will have representatives from the federal, state, and local government to share vaccine distribution planning and efforts.

Really quickly on the panel related to community perspective on vaccine equity, we will have Seattle Indian Health Board's Esther Lucero and Abigail Echo Hawk joining us to share with us some of the success stories that Councilmember Juarez highlighted for us in committee last week related to how tribal communities have been really centering equity in their distribution of the vaccine.

So looking forward to lifting up that experience and seeing if it could be a model for the rest of us.

Next up, we'll hear from Teresita Batayola from ICHS.

And then we will also hear from Jesus Sanchez over at CMR Community Health Clinics.

And we will also be joined by Dr. Ben Danielson on that community panel.

And on the government panel, we'll be joined by Stephanie King, who is representative of Jaya Paul, from the Jaya Paul's Health Advisor.

We'll also be joined by representative of the Washington State Department of Health, Paz Nandi.

And we will also be joined by Matias Valenzuela from the Seattle King County Public Health Department.

We'll also be joined by Director Khoo Vu and Joaquin Yu of Office of the Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

And we'll also be joined by Dr. Michelle Andrasik, who is an advisor to local governments developing vaccine distribution.

She currently works at the Fred Hutch Center.

So we are really excited to have all of these amazing superstars joining us in my committee tomorrow to provide us both a community perspective, but also a government panel focusing on vaccine distribution.

It will be available to all of you to attend.

We did send out an invitation last week on Friday to all council members who are interested in attending our Governance and Education Committee.

I know that this is a strong interest and concern So the full council for those council members who are interested in joining and haven't let us know, please do contact the new in in my office and let her know that you are interested in attending.

So it can get you on the invitation list and get you the credentials to be able to join us in committee.

at tomorrow at 2 o'clock.

I'm really excited that in the morning we will be spending time in Councilmember Herbold's committee, which I am a vice chair of, talking about the city-specific efforts and the local-specific efforts, and then we'll transition into the afternoon to talk about the more regional, national, and state efforts in this space.

really, really think it's going to be a strong day of lots of work sessions for us to dig into this issue to figure out how to have a stronger equity lens and vaccine distribution.

Again, many folks have talked about this already, but on February 5th, the Seattle Times reported an alarming racial disparity with regard to vaccine distribution.

In that article, they wrote, quote, as in other states, black and Hispanic residents have tested positive for the coronavirus at a higher rate compared to white residents.

But vaccination numbers haven't matched each group's vulnerability.

So far, state data shows these two groups have received 5% and 2% respectively of the vaccines, despite being some of the hardest hit populations by COVID-19.

This point was amplified in an article published this morning by Naomi Ishizaka, in which she wrote, quote, of the data available, 67% of initial vaccine doses have gone to white people, even though to date, they've made up 48% of cases.

Only 5% of initial vaccines have gone to Latinos, even though they've made up 32% of cases, close quote.

Significantly, Naomi noted that unlike other states in the country, Washington state still does not have a state vaccination demographic dashboard.

and the Seattle Times has reported that there are, in some instances, no consistent data collection to inaccurate data collection related to racial demographics.

The collection of this data is critically important to understanding both the apportionment and distribution aspects of the state's efforts to vaccinate members of our community, which are directly impacted by those decisions and by those strategies.

So we must do better to center equity in our efforts and strategies for equitable apportionment and distribution of vaccinations to members of our community.

And I want to once again, like I did last week, thank Mayor Durkan and her staff for taking a firm and strong position on these issues and for working with my office collaboratively on this matter.

The last agenda item on our committee agenda for tomorrow is a presentation and briefing from our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'm sorry, Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

They will be joining us to share some of their work on ensuring immigrant and refugee communities are not left out of local government responses and doing a first public report out on the funding, the emergency relief funding that we provided to OIRA to address the needs of immigrants and refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Again, on Friday, we did send an email invitation to everyone inviting you all to join.

If you are interested in doing that, please contact my office immediately.

You can email Vinwin and we can make sure to add you to the list.

Okay, last but certainly not least, last week I had the opportunity to join the King County Regional Homeless Authority Governing Committee.

And of course, as Council Member Lewis mentioned, we took action to offer the CEO position to Regina Cannon, She brings with her into our region significant experience in building coalitions, centering racial equity, and championing housing as a human right.

During her interview, I was really impressed with her compassion, her commitment to racial equity, and her long-term vision to help our county work together to end the experience of homelessness for so many.

So this election is a significant milestone in our regional work to advance these collaborative regional solutions to address the homelessness crisis throughout King County, not just in Seattle.

And I'm looking forward to working with her in the coming months to make sure that we are continuing to advance this regional effort.

So I don't have anything else to report, happy to Take any questions or hear any comments on my report before we move into executive session.

All right, hearing no comments or questions, I'm going to go ahead and move us into executive session.

As presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor for the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 12.15 p.m.

If the executive session is extended beyond 12, 15 PM today, I will announce the extension and the expected duration in open session.