Seattle City Council Governance, Native Communities & Tribal Governments Committee 42822

We are recording.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

This is a meeting of the Governance and Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

The date is April 28th, and the time is 9.34.

And I apologize for my lateness.

I am Deborah Juarez, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Five are present.

We have two matters on the agenda today, but we're going to change things up here.

We are going to go and do item number two.

which is resolution 32051, a resolution revising some of the general rules regarding abstention and the consent calendar.

So we're actually going to do item two first, and then we will come back and discuss the appointment, the potential appointment of Gail Tarlington as the Director of Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

So with that being said, is there any objection?

Okay, not seeing any objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Let's go forward to the next item.

The chair's report.

Welcome to the April meeting of our committee.

There are two items on today's agenda, as I shared.

Item number one, or item, I'm sorry, item number one now is a resolution revising council rules relating to the consent calendar and the circumstances in which voting abstentions may be allowed.

Staff director, Ali, Deputy Director Ali Panucci will be here to brief us on the resolution, joined by Deputy City Clerk Amelia Sanchez.

So item number one, which we're going to do second, is a briefing discussion and possible vote on the appointment of Gail Tarlington to become director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

My understanding is that the questions that we put to Ms. Darlington were returned Monday, so you should all have those.

And also a packet or a copy of her confirmation packet.

So with that, Madam Clerk, let's move to item number two to take us, oh, I'm sorry.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, I apologize.

This is what happens when you have to rush.

So at this time we will go to public comment.

And so it remains the strong intent of the City of Seattle to have a public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However we reserve the right to end or eliminate this public comment period at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

I will moderate the general public comment period in the following manner.

the public comment period for this meeting is up to 10 minutes.

Sarah, how many speakers do we have signed up?

There are none at the moment.

OK.

So with that, since we have no public speakers signed up, then going once, going twice, going three times, we will close public comment.

Oh, I see.

I see Deputy Mayor, Senior Deputy Mayor Manisha Harrell has joined us.

We may have to switch back to the...

I was trying to accommodate you, Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

You run your meeting and I will jump in when you have me on.

I would prefer to do the appointment of Gail Tarlington first.

If that's okay, if you guys are ready to just be like, I don't want you to have to sit through all of this.

So I'm guessing Gail is here.

There she is.

So with that, and public comment is now closed.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item one?

We're back to the regular schedule, folks.

Can you please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment 02170. Appointment of Gail D. Tarlington as Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Thank you, Sarah.

So we have the Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell here to introduce and walk us through this confirmation.

And we also have Ms. Tarlington available.

Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, please.

Well, thank you so much, Council President Juarez.

This is one of the easier department presentations that I'll make because many of you already know Gail, either from her work in the community or as a port commissioner, a legislator, or even as our interim OIR director over this last legislative session.

I know she had weekly meetings with you all and really took her job as the conduit for the City of Seattle's voice in the state and federal government very, very seriously.

I think that she showed you how responsive she is and will be for the City of Seattle, how hard she works, how available she makes herself and her team to all of us, and hopefully how ably she represents your interests as much as Mayor Harrell's interests.

Mayor Harrell is aware of your faith in her abilities, which is what chiefly informed his decision to nominate her for permanent director today.

Gail is here because she knows the power and the value of collaboration and relationships.

I think she'll be a fantastic bridge builder for the city of Seattle with our state government, with our federal government, with our international partners, and quite candidly, She knows how all levels of government work.

And Seattle is not just a, not just local interests, but has interests in being able to bring in all colors of money to help run this global city.

She knows where to find the money.

She knows how to direct her team, how to go get it.

And was not, you know, is a rare unicorn in knowing intimately where all of those pockets lie in all of the different levels of government and how we can partner with all of the different levels of government to be able to make Seattle the city that it can and should be with all of the right resources.

So we have a gift in Gale.

We have a gift that the city can greatly use at a time where we need additional growth so that we can try to be a more equitable city by not building everything that we need to build on the backs of our residents alone with state investment, with federal investment, and bringing all of our good relationships to bear with international trade opportunities.

So with that, I'd like to just give my warmest support, Mayor Harrell's warmest support for Gail Tarleton as our Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Thank you, Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

At this point, are we going to introduce Gail and let her speak?

Oh, there she is.

And then we can open up the floor for questions.

And it's good to see you.

Go ahead, Gail.

It's all you.

Thank you, Council President Juarez.

Good morning, everybody.

I am Gail Tarleton, the Interim Director for the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and thank you so much for the opportunity to come before the committee.

I wanna thank each council member personally, Council Member Mosqueda, Council Member Peterson, Council Member Sawant, and Council Member Strauss for your public service to our amazing city.

And thank you, Senior Deputy Mayor, for your support to me and the OIR team.

I was so honored when Mayor Harrell appointed me to lead the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

My husband and I love this city.

We adopted Seattle as our forever home nearly 30 years ago.

And that's why I have built an OIR team that reflects the rich diversity of this city that respects the people of this city and are committed to public service.

Our team understands and is committed to the public mission.

We support and are accountable to both the city council and the mayor.

And we work with the city's elected officials and city departments and staff to build and sustain productive relationships with our local, regional, state, federal, tribal, and international partners.

From day one on January 3rd, when I started here at City Hall, I have had one goal, to earn your trust and confidence in my team, from the city council, from the mayor's office, and from city colleagues.

That trust makes it possible for me to openly communicate with you, to be candid, and to make sure that I have the chance to understand legislative priorities, the mayor's priorities, and to analyze where legislative and executive views may converge or diverge.

The first four months have been a real whirlwind, and you have all been a part of it.

I have worked on hiring and promoting four key staff.

We navigated a fast-speed legislative session, 60 days, and every single one of you were helpful in making it through every single day of that session.

I've been meeting directors and staff to understand the policy implications of legislative priorities and federal funding opportunities.

I've been learning about each of your council member policy priorities, budget concerns, as they were being introduced in the legislative session.

We've already hosted, in person, several international delegations.

Thank you so much for your participation in those.

And it all culminated in a major event last week, last week ago today, where our team coordinated with the city council, with the mayor, with the governor's office, and with the White House to welcome President Biden to the city of Seattle.

I'd just like to take a moment to thank all of you council members for your gracious welcome.

You made yourselves available to head virtually to Olympia on a moment's notice.

You have been meeting with these international dignitaries and you have helped our city navigate some really difficult conversations with our partners.

This is the kind of impact that Seattle can have when we engage with our partners at every level.

What we also know is that policy debates happen and it is inevitable that they must be a part of the legislative process.

So it's no surprise to any of us that sometimes there will be differences of view between the council and the mayor.

I will do my best to ensure that my team and I respect the right of the council to disagree with the mayor.

The OIR team will help the state and federal and tribal partners understand the policy differences that may emerge between the executive and legislative branches.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to serve the city council, the mayor, and the people of Seattle in this role, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

I've been calling you Gail.

I'm sorry, I should be Ms. Tarlington.

But I'm going to open the floor to my colleagues before I have some closing remarks.

Are there any questions or anything that any of my colleagues want to share before we go to a vote regarding the appointment of Gail Tarlington to the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs?

OK, Councilor Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm just really excited about this nomination.

I think it speaks well of the Harrell administration to appoint somebody with so much experience and so much talent to head the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm looking forward to voting for it.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else?

Okay.

I'm going to close this out then.

Oh, Casper Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

It is hard to follow the kind words of Senior Deputy Mayor and I think Council Member Peterson summed it up very well in terms of our excitement about your appointment.

But just having had the chance to work with Director Charlton, in the past in our state legislative arena, I want to express how excited I am that we have someone with these skills and expertise, not only on policy content, but on the relationships, as noted in the introduction.

And it's really been a pleasure to work with you in the past, strong champion of workers' rights, paid sick and safe leave and really excited to continue the relationship that we have.

And also I think the opportunity for you to be the face and voice for the city, the city family as a whole with other jurisdictions, whether that's in Washington State, nationally or globally.

So really thrilled about the work that you've done in the past, the opportunity to have worked with you.

And thank you for lifting up.

Sometimes there can be policy differences of opinion and the unique role that OIR is in.

I know that that was part of the questionnaire that you filled out, but really appreciate you lifting that up.

And you and your team's approach to how to navigate that.

We will, together, I think, be able to find really great common ground within the city family, and I thank you for the work that you have done and you will do in this role.

Thank you, council members.

Let me ask this.

Madam Clerk, is all the attachments that we got regarding this appointment, are they posted online through the agenda?

Yes, they are.

OK, great.

So I don't want to have to go through.

People can go ahead and look at that.

I'm going to say in a shorthand way that Gail is a phenomenal candidate, incredibly well qualified.

That's not even an issue.

But for me, she's incredibly kind and she has humility.

And I love it that she lets me call her all the time and say, I don't understand what's going on.

Who do we talk to?

How do we fix this?

She's been so responsive and great that way.

Gayle is one of those rare people that has experience nationally, internationally, back in Washington, D.C. Of course, she represented the Mighty 36 Senate for the state of Washington and Olympia.

She was the chair of finance.

She's got all this well-rounded information.

So when I ask her something, I know she knows what she's talking about.

So when I talked about the international experience, the federal experience, the state experience, and the local, obviously, this is her forever home now, but I am appreciative that you also understand Indian country and tribal governments and government to government and sovereignty.

You get all that stuff.

And you get how it meshes with local government and national government and local and regional, not just the state of Washington.

And so with that, I can't think of a better person to have this job.

So thank you.

And I know you've been putting out with us since January and you hit the ground running and you were obviously know, you know, Olympia like the back of your hand and you were wonderful every Monday with your team staffing us and telling us what pieces of legislation are going forward, what doesn't look real good.

where do we need to make calls, where do we need to show up, and I really appreciate that.

I know Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Herbert, and I don't know who else were there to provide public comment when you asked us to for Olympia.

So with that, I can't thank you enough.

Thank you, Council President.

Did you like my email to you last night?

I did.

I wanted to make you smile.

OK, with that, we'll share that on another time.

Yes.

So I'm going to go ahead and move that the committee recommend the confirmation of Ms. Gail Tarlington to the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, appointment number 02170. Second.

Thank you, Councilor Peterson.

The motion is moved and seconded.

There's no further discussion for the clerk.

I'm sorry.

Please call the roll on the committee recommendation.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Absolutely, yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee will recommend that Seattle City Council confirm the appointment of Gail Charlington.

Gail, congratulations.

And next stop is full council on May 3rd, which is next Tuesday.

So thank you so much for your support.

And I will look forward to your next Tuesday meeting.

And thank you, senior deputy mayor.

I'm glad you beat the I-5 traffic and you got here.

Thank you so much.

I always appreciate you letting me join you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you guys.

All right.

Let's move on to item number two.

Sarah, can you please read item number two into the record?

And item two, resolution 32051, a resolution revising certain general rules and procedures of the Seattle City Council, amending rules three and five in attachment one of resolution 32029. Thank you.

So this is something that I've been working on since January and February, and my staff and some of my colleagues, as well as council member, my vice chair, council member Peterson, And we want to make some changes to the council rules.

So we're more effective and we're more efficient and we're hoping to improve the council's operations and ready now to present what we've been working on with Allie and her team have been going through all of this.

And I have some additional comments, but I'll save those.

Additionally, I understand that vice chair Peterson has prepared an amendment to the resolution, which is described as amendment number one, and the central staff memo attached to today's committee agenda.

At that time, when we get to that point, I will give Council Member Peterson an opportunity to move his amendment and then address it prior to the committee's final vote on the resolution.

So I'm happy to welcome Deputy Director Allie Panucci from central staff to brief us on the resolution.

And she is joined by Deputy City Clerk Amelia Sanchez.

It's the voice of reason we always hear out there that tells us what to do.

So they'll both be available to help with questions that committee members may have on the proposed changes and Resolution 32029 and Amendment 1. Before we begin, Uh, we were, we had passed a slew of rules or to do some corrections back in January or December under Council President Gonzalez.

And then we kind of just kind of came back to see what was going to work and what kind of didn't work.

And so we just, we really have very few opportunities to get a second bite at the apple.

And I think we've been, we've been doing the consent calendar.

We've been trying to see how we can move the calendar more efficiently.

And so I think that's what Allie's going to walk us through on how we got here today.

And we will have Amelia here to ask questions so we can ask her questions just on the parliamentary procedures and how that would work.

So with that, Allie, you want to walk us through this?

Thank you, Council President Juarez.

Good morning, members of the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee.

I'm Allie Panucci of your central staff.

Before I dive in, I just want to say thank you to the City Clerk's Office and the City Attorney's Office for their assistance in working on these amendments that I could not have done alone.

So as Council President described, Resolution 32051 would amend the Council rules Today I'm just going to provide a quick background on the council rules, describe the changes proposed in the resolution, and then we can discuss the amendment proposed by Council Member Peterson.

As the President described, the rules guide and facilitate Councilmember duties and meeting deliberations, as well as provide the public with an understanding of the Council's functions.

Typically, the rules are only updated on a biennial schedule consistent with Section 12B of the rules.

That most recent review and update occurred in December of 2021. Those changes are memorialized in Resolution 32029. In February, or perhaps it was January, as the Council President described, Council President Juarez and Council Member Peterson requested an off-cycle amendment to the rules intended to improve the Council's operations and to adjust a rule that was introduced in December that wasn't quite working as intended.

So specifically, Resolution 32051 would add guidance for the use of a consent calendar at regular city council meetings, clarify the rule allowing council members to abstain from voting on certain resolutions, update the order of business at council meetings to reflect the inclusion of a consent calendar, and update the formatting, numbering, and table of contents for the council rules for ease of navigation.

So I'll start first with the proposed amendment related to the consent calendar.

And I'm going to share my screen so people can see the specific text of the proposed changes that are included in the resolution.

Let's see here.

Sure, does that look okay?

Can you see the consent calendar language?

Great, thank you.

So recently the Council President 2022 introduced the use of the consent calendar on City Council agendas to efficiently move through Council business at regularly scheduled meetings.

Currently, the rules do not include any guidance on the use of a consent calendar.

but it is within the authority of the council president to adjust the agenda as is necessary to efficiently run council meetings.

So this resolution would amend rule three of the council rules to provide specific guidance as it relates to the consent calendar.

So with the introduction of a consent calendar, any items included on the consent calendar will be considered as a group and they only require a single vote.

So for non-controversial or routine items, this allows council members to focus on the more substantive issues before the council in any given meeting and move efficiently through more routine legislation.

The rule as proposed would allow, again, typically, would typically add administrative items or items where there is no debate or questions expected from council members or no amendments.

In practice, on a regular basis, the clerks will work with the council president's office to place the following items on the consent calendar, approval of the minutes, the regular payment of claims bill, and any items from the council committees, bills, resolutions, clerk files, appointments that were recommended for approval by the committee with a unanimous vote and where there were no abstentions.

The rule as written is permissive.

It would allow really most any item on the agenda to be included in the consent agenda other than the introduction and referral calendar.

However, it doesn't require that any item is placed on the agenda.

So any items proposed for the consent calendar could be removed and added to the regular agenda at the request of any council member, ideally before the final publication of the city council agenda.

So that is to say, Committee chairs, committee clerks, as you are doing your minutes following a committee discussion, you will want to let the clerks in the council president's office know if there are any items that were voted out with a unanimous recommendation of approval that you would like placed on the regular agenda so you have an opportunity to speak to the item during the full council meeting.

Otherwise, in most cases, that will typically be placed in the consent calendar.

But you could also request at the meeting itself for an item to be removed.

But otherwise, if an item is placed in the consent calendar, that item is not up for debate or discussion during the meeting, just up for a vote.

So I'll pause there and see if there are any questions about the proposed changes related to the consent calendar.

The only thing I would add, well, let me see if there are my colleagues have any.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Councilor Mosqueda, I did not see your hand.

It's a different and Councilor Peterson.

That's OK.

Council President, I'm happy to defer to you if you have something to add to the.

Yeah, if you wouldn't mind, I just want to explain what my reasoning is and then that might.

kind of fill out just the basic stuff and then you guys can pile on.

So I should add that when I became council president that the clerk's office in particular, Amelia and Monica gave me my how to manage council meetings book, which I did look, read, tag certain areas.

So the reason why I wanted to move to a consent calendar basically is we do that.

Many of you know who we sit on King County boards and commissions.

And they use a consent calendar.

Also, I sit on sound transit.

We use a consent calendar.

When I was legal counsel to tribal governments use a consent calendar and it just makes it easier, but you always have the opportunity any council member, as you know, which we've been doing.

can pull anything from the consent calendar, most notably or recently, Council Member Morales had a bunch of appointments and then she wanted a few pulled out of the consent calendar so she could speak to them personally, which was great.

And that gives you an opportunity to to determine what you want to spend time on to discuss or bring up, or if there's other questions some of our colleagues may have of what you have, what is in the consent calendar that you can pull out.

So that's kind of my thinking on that.

So I will leave it at that.

And Council Member Esqueda, go ahead.

Thank you very much.

And I do want to thank you, Council President, for the work that you've done to move in this direction already.

While maybe there was a bit of a learning curve for some of us about whether or not we were supposed to speak on things, I think it's been much more efficient.

And I think that to the degree that we can really communicate to folks who maybe are appointees, that this is this committee meeting is the time for us to really sing their praises.

That gives us a chance to really move through some of the other more substantive items on the agenda.

So I like the approach.

I'll just say that.

I have a question before I ask my or before I say my comment or more substantive piece on this section.

Madam President, is it your intention that we're taking a final vote in your committee on this today?

Or is this going to be held over till the next meeting?

No, we're taking we're voting today because it's okay.

Well, the resolution has two parts to it, the consent and the abstention part.

Okay, great.

Well, um, in that case, Madam President, I apologize for not bringing this to your attention earlier.

I would have loved to have, um, maybe run this concept through you so I could understand more about whether or not we were in alignment.

But I would note that I think that there's a lot of value in considering routine, non-substantive items on the consent calendar.

And I think that that makes sense to include things like resolutions, clerk files, the appointments.

I do have some concern about the votes on bills, even if they are unanimous, just given that not all nine of us sit on each committee meeting.

And I don't want there to be a perception that if a bill is being pulled out for discussion, that it's being done in a way to criticize it or to grandstand on something.

And I think if we had a policy like this that just struck those words, vote on bills or just bills, I'm not sure I'd defer to the clerk.

If the intent is to try to take out the things that are non-substantive, I think that this would be a great proposal to just I would prefer to remove substantive policy bills and I don't want to be in a position or any other council member to be in a position to make the argument for why they're trying to remove something.

If it was regular practice to have bills, policy bills, not part of the consent calendar, then I think we're in a good place to have discussion and debate on items without necessarily having to remove an item.

I consider our final vote in committee and excuse me, I consider our final vote in full council like our floor debates, if you will, if we were in the House or the Senate and just wanting to make sure that everybody has a chance to really understand what they're voting on, my desire would be to see if we could keep bills, policy bills, separate from the consent calendar.

So let me ask you this, Councilor Mosqueda.

So your scenario is, which I think you may be incorrect, but I'll let the clerks.

I think we, if you ask that it, if it passes in committee, And I still believe that Madam Clerk, you might have to help me out here.

My understanding is that it would still go to full council.

And if you request that it be pulled out of the consent calendar, I don't think you have to have an argument or.

Uh, I don't.

Yeah, that's correct.

I'm presenting back to our budget deliberations, for example, right?

How often people will remove an item from the budget consent calendar because they have questions or concerns about it.

And that's absolutely fair.

I think that there's also an opportunity for us to.

keep policy items separate so that people aren't in a position where they then are asking to remove something.

And the perception might be that they have questions or concerns or that they're trying to grandstand on something.

But it was common practice.

Yeah.

You would want more discussion.

And that makes sense.

Like, right.

If something comes out of committee unanimously, you believe that it also should come to the full council.

So and not put in the consent.

So no one is put in a position.

to have to say, let me pull this, because I think there's something I want to say, even though, because I'm not on that committee, and I wasn't there to provide any kind of comment.

Madam Clerk, can you help me out here?

Because I think we went over this.

Allie?

Go ahead, Allie.

Thank you, Council President.

Yeah, so maybe I, to clarify, the goal would be that the committee chairs and the committee clerks would let the Council President and clerks know like long before the agenda is being published that they don't want certain items.

So it wouldn't necessarily have to be you're removing it in real time.

It would just be, we voted these four items out.

We want none of them on the consent calendar, please.

And my assumption is in most cases that guidance will be adhered to.

It's not gonna be debated.

that if the chair or a council member would like an item requested, we would know that before we're publishing the agenda.

I'd also just note that the plan is to vote on this resolution today, but not take final action until May 17th.

So if there is a need to clarify language or think through your concerns, council member Mosqueda, there is some time between now and then to look at some options for you and your colleagues consideration.

Let me clarify something that this actually came up.

Thank you, counselor, for helping me with my memory.

We have since we've been doing this since late January.

We the responsibility of the president's office is to talk to a committee chair before we get print the agenda to say, do you want this on the consent calendar or do you not?

And so we know ahead of time.

So no one is going to be put in a position, a committee chair, of on the floor during full council to say, oh, by the way, can you pull this?

It wouldn't be there.

And when in doubt, it would not be in there.

So does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense.

And again, I appreciate the work that you've done on this and apologize that I didn't get the chance to talk to you about this concern in advance.

I think that if the intent is to make sure that we're streamlining the process and allowing routine non-substantive items on the agenda, I can understand why a unanimous vote from a committee would initially be in this list.

I think my concern, though, is we all don't sit on every committee.

I won't know, for example, if I have a concern about a certain policy item, and given the importance of making sure that we're prepared for discussion, deliberation, it would make sense to me to have the policy items not be considered routine and non-substantive.

That's the sort of threshold that I was thinking about in terms of the consent calendar.

And so my preference still would be that policy-related bills, because we don't all sit on various committees, get the chance to have a final vote in full council that make it onto the regular agenda so that there is a individual vote on those policy items.

Right.

And what I'm trying to share with you is that the rule, that's not the rule.

The rule is policy bills do not go on the consent agenda.

The exception would be if, yeah, the rule is no, we wouldn't do that.

Okay, maybe I'm misreading the line 22 here.

Yeah, I think as it says vote on bills, that's what the confusion, I understand exactly what you're saying.

But that was never, the rule would be everything should go to council unless you have your regular basic garden variety things that are standard.

payment of the bills, that there's not going to be any kind of issue or debate, but the rule would be anything with policy would be on the agenda.

Okay, that's good to hear my own president.

I think in that case, I might suggest, um, maybe a clarifying amendment to online 22 strike the word bills then because it may be confusing.

Um, and I appreciate your legislative intent being explained there.

I think you and I are in lockstep on that.

If that is the intent for policy bills to still have a discussion opportunity in full council and not be subject to whether or not a chair decides whether it goes on the consent calendar.

Yeah, then I think that just striking the word bills would be sufficient.

So Madam Clerk, do we need to, is there anything else from central staff or anybody?

So before I make a comment, Amelia, go ahead.

Yeah, I did want to provide some context that at this point we have not, this Office of City Clerk and the Council President's Office has not established a process for bills to be placed on the consent calendar except for the payment of bills Because of the fact that a lot of bills require a specific number of council members to vote on bills.

So it requires five council members to vote on a bill, sometimes six or seven, and those are obviously going to be your budget-related bills that require a higher threshold.

So therefore we have not implemented how council bills will replace on a city council agenda at this point.

And so the way that this rule is written is written in a way that is very broad so that we can then we can then develop a mechanism on how and which bills we would determine that would be on a consent calendar.

So for instance, we could determine that only bills that relate to, let's say, acceptance of easements could be placed on a consent calendar.

Then we could add that type of level of restrictive language in here if we wanted to at a future date.

But we could work with that scope at the same time as we're trying to develop as to which types of legislation we do want on the actual consent calendar and which ones we do not want on the consent calendar on a regular basis.

Thanks Amelia, I would, so I would just add this was meant to be broad and not super prescriptive so they can be but they don't have to be placed and I would just use the example, I think the Select Budget Committee is a good example when the council is considering the annual budget adoption there's usually somewhere from between 25 and 35 bills.

that the committee considers, but there's really three or four that are the focus of most discussion and debate at the final council meeting and the preceding 20 are sort of required to implement the final the final bill that adopts the annual budget.

I think in that case, it may be of interest to put some of those first 20 bills in a consent agenda.

And so I think how I had understood the conversations with the council president's office and the clerks up to the state is that the practice would be moving forward, that they would be placing bills, any bill, that hadn't a unanimous vote and no abstentions coming out of committee on the consent agenda.

I'm hearing a different intent from the council president today and so I think what Amelia is suggesting is that there is nothing prescribing a certain practice on what gets placed or doesn't get placed on the consent agenda in this rule.

It just allows for it and the council president could simply direct the the deputy clerks to not include any policy bills on the consent agenda and nothing would have to change in the in the rule as

as described or as written.

Thank you very much.

I think Council President, the description that you provided is in alignment with my desire as well.

I think to remove ambiguity, we either strike the word bills or say um, payment of bills beca why each each week we wo of bills included there.

of right before bills.

Um the discussion, but I als leave some ambiguity and All feeling really comfortable about a consent calendar since it comes up at the top of the agenda It's voted on very quickly.

We all want to feel comfortable with what's included in that package.

So madam president, I appreciate the the Legislative intent as you articulated and my preference would either be to strike bills or to add payment of before bills And apologies for doing this on a screen because I know it is not ideal We can do it.

So, thank you.

I I I would strongly discourage amendments on the fly because I don't think those changes are actually reflecting what your intent is.

Council Member Mosqueda, with all due respect, payment of bills is a separate item, goes directly to full council.

So I think we need to massage this section related to committee reports and clarify, and maybe it is just striking bills, but there may be some bills that come out of committee that you may want to include on a consent agenda.

So what I would recommend is to provide direction to me and Amelia to work on a modification to reflect the intent described today for consideration at full council, but I'm not certain that the on-the-fly changes described today will accurately implement your intent, Council Member Mosqueda and Council President Uras.

Right.

And let me just share this.

And Casper Muscat, I understand what you're saying, but I it's not ambiguous to me.

But let me just share this.

It is meant to be general and common sense.

No one is going to put in a consent calendar, a bill in which there's still existing or policy questions.

It's your basic you know, somebody is in committee and there were two easements.

And it passed committee, there wasn't any dispute.

I would let the committee chair tell me.

But I'm trying to give people a little bit more room to have some discretion.

and to work with the council president's office and the clerks.

And as I said, it isn't a hard and fast rule that, you know, there are a bunch of bills that are going to show up on the consent calendar where the full city council wouldn't have an opportunity to discuss them, or you wouldn't be put in a position where if something was in the consent that before we move forward that you ask something to be pulled off the consent, that would be done well before the agenda is printed.

That's what we do.

But if you believe that we need more time to wordsmith or massage vote on bills, we can certainly do that.

Thanks, Madam President.

I would also offer that I think some things that may be seen routine in some of those bills.

like an acceptance of easement, and I don't wanna speak for any of the other council members on this line here, but even some of those things can have questions associated.

And I would wanna make sure that council members are prepared for the discussion on policy-related items without having something possibly pulled that day.

And I think that if there was a hard rule, not a broad interpretation of what bills meant, if there was a hard rule that all of the bills are not going to be included in the consent calendar, all of us, no matter which committee we sat on, then have the chance to look at each of those policy bills and know that what we're making a final vote on.

I think that that still accomplishes your goal of making our shared goal of making this more streamlined.

And again, I think that when our team had heard that the final vote was in May, unfortunately, I thought that that meant that I had a few more weeks to have this discussion.

And so I don't want to delay this.

I think that this is pretty routine, if you will, and do think that we can move forward.

But if you, Madam President, prefer for there to be an amendment in full council, that's fine.

I just think that striking the word bills is probably the easiest way to go about it.

Happy to work with you and central staff in the meantime, but also don't want this to become a debate in full council if what we have is the shared intent here.

Allie, is there anything you want to add or Madam Clerk?

Chair, Council President Juarez, I think what I'm hearing is a verbal amendment proposed by Council Member Mosqueda to strike the word bills from line 22 or E, you know, the second sentence, I'm trying to do this so Amelia says it's correct, in the second sentence of section E in the rules, I don't know, that's probably not right, Amelia, but the word bills highlighted on the screen, strike it from the resolution, is that correct?

I would only do this at this point if this is something that you would be also supportive of.

Well, you know, it's it's kind of it.

Well, we can do that if you want to, but it's pretty general.

It isn't going to stop any policy debate.

But if that's the comfort level you need, then we can we can do.

Can we do a friendly amendment, Madam Clerk?

I know, Ali, how do you feel about that and doing this now?

But before we go on, Let me, let me hold up a minute here.

Councilor Mosqueda, I'm going to bounce back over to Councilor Peterson.

Okay.

Councilor Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

I really appreciate this discussion and I definitely see where Councilor Mosqueda is coming from.

And I think that, you know, it's potentially an incremental, the good news is that even if we were to strike the word bills, it's still an incremental improvement in terms of streamlining stuff.

So happy to hear the rest of the discussion.

I did have a clarifying question.

I just want to clarify from the clerks, does that require a second?

And the other question is, is that a request versus upon request by NACM, does that have to be made at the city council committee meeting or can it be made you know, can an email be sent or a discussion had or whatever?

Or do we have to wait till the full council meeting and then make a public request at that moment in time?

Councilmember Peterson.

There are two opportunities when a Councilmember can request that an item be removed from the consent calendar.

On Thursdays, we develop a preliminary agenda and that preliminary agenda will include items on the consent calendar.

If there's an item on there that a Councilmember would like for it to be removed, there's an opportunity for that Councilmember to make a request for it to be removed before we publish the final agenda.

And we publish a final agenda again on Mondays before 2 p.m.

to meet that 24 hours in advance deadline.

Now, again, if the council members miss those opportunities, the second opportunity would be at the specific city council meeting where that item is being considered, where a council member can simply make a request that the item be removed from the consent calendar.

Once it's removed, it's then sent to the section specifically dedicated for items removed from the consent calendar on the agenda.

So specifically, you can send an email when you see the draft, the preliminary agenda, you can send an email before that if you just want to be sure an item doesn't get placed on the consent agenda so the clerks understand, or if you make the request at full council, if a council member requests an item to be removed, it will just be removed.

It's the same practice we use in the Select Budget Committee.

I believe it would not require a second and a vote.

It would just be removed without any votes, correct?

Yeah.

Correct, and then in addition, I just want to clarify that the chair of the specific committee as well, just to restate, can make the request specifically after the committee meeting to not place any of the items on the consent calendar or only specific items on the consent calendar.

So there's also that opportunity, so that makes it three opportunities as well.

right.

And the general ru procedure to it's not a b I didn't catch it.

I see consent calendar.

And bas doing is when people like as an example where she d of her appointments and j in the president's office or introduction on the chair's report.

I just said, I understand customer Morales wants to pull item number eight and that's it.

It's really not a lot to it.

Um, you all get the agenda ahead of time, so you know exactly what matters are on there and we all peruse them and look at it and look at amendments of what's on there and you can just, it's very informal.

That's all it is.

It isn't a matter of taking important policy issues and tucking them in the consent calendar and getting them in front of full council where somebody may have more issues to add.

I don't foresee that as a tool, particularly obviously for policy issues.

It's basically as general as possible and as flexible as possible.

and three opportunities to just tell us you don't want it in the consent.

And also just to let us know as we're speaking, and I can do it or the council member can do it.

It's really that easy of a tool.

So, I mean, it just seems pretty straightforward to me, but that's where we're at.

So what do we wanna do?

Councilor Mosqueda, is it your intent then that you wanna do a friendly amendment right here?

and just take out bills?

Is that possible, Madam Clerk?

Ms. Sanchez?

If the chair accepts an oral amendment, then yes, we can proceed.

Okay.

Ellie, is that going to be an issue if it just is a level of comfort for Council Member Mosqueda to have vote on bills removed?

because my understanding is even if you take out vote on bills a committee chair can still put that in there if it's if it right it's not gonna it's not gonna stop anyone from moving forward if then if indeed they want to do that correct correct okay see so we we can still do it we can take that out if people are concerned about that, but you still have the opportunity as a committee chair, if something's that you wanted on the consent calendar, that we could do it, correct?

Okay, and then council member would have the opportunity if they wanted to to go through the process of removing an item as you just described as well.

Madam President, I think that that makes me more comfortable.

You know, for example, myself, I'll probably still recommend that the payment of bills be considered as part of the consent calendar.

The, you know, half dozen items that Allie mentioned that are routine when it comes to budget, I'll probably still recommend become part of the consent calendar.

at full council, but I think that this really allows for us to be prepared and know that these policy bills, for the most part, the routine, the expectation would be that they're going to have their individual vote, almost like a floor vote, and then that will be the final passage.

Thank you for your willingness to accept that because I think it does align with what your intent was as well and just makes it clearer.

Okay, so Madam Clerk, what I'm gonna do is my understanding is that then Council Member Mosqueda will move for a friendly amendment, is that correct?

All right, go ahead, Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Colleagues, I recommend removing the word bills from line 22 on page two as a friendly amendment.

Is there a second?

Second.

There's a second.

Second.

Okay, so we are going to vote on the friendly amendment to remove the word bills, vote on bills.

Madam Clerk, can you call the roll?

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

great vote on bills is gone all the confusion is gone so now that we got that is there anything else we want to wrap up there on the consent calendar before we move on okay go ahead al you want to walk us through the next part on the um on the abstention piece yes thank you council president

So the amended version of the rules adopted in December of 2021 included a change to allow obsessive extensions on resolutions that in the sole discretion of the council president are not materially related to city government.

Prior to that, council members were required to vote on all actions except those where they had a conflict.

Resolution 32051 would modify that rule to relieve the council president from making that determination on which resolutions a council member may abstain from voting on.

It would allow council members to abstain from a vote on a resolution if the resolution is related to topics that may be of concern to Seattle residents.

but the topics involve jurisdictions or matters not under the city's direct control.

Council members would not be permitted from abstaining from voting on any resolutions related to the administration of city government.

or city regulatory measures.

And it would require that when a council member wishes to abstain from a vote, that the council member announced their intent, that they are invoking their right to abstain prior to the vote being called on that resolution.

That is necessary to provide an opportunity if any council member objects to the intent to abstain.

So that would be if a council member believes the resolution is related to the administration of city government or city regulatory measures, they could call for a point of order.

And then the matter would be decided following the process outlined in rule 4G parliamentary procedures point of order in the council rules.

So in preparing this amendment, I reviewed about 245 resolutions that the council has considered since 2019. Based on that analysis, I would estimate that about 19% of resolutions considered during that period could have been abstained from if this rule was in place.

Part of the purpose of that exercise was to determine how much debate could there be.

There's always going to be some gray area, but I think the rule as written will provide greater clarity on which resolutions could or could not be abstained from.

There's additional background information in the memo that I wasn't going to walk through today, but it's available for your reference.

So before we, before I, Madam Clerk, help me out here.

So before I move the committee recommend adoption of resolution, do we have a, do I move it and get a second and then have some discussion?

I would be preferable.

OK.

Yeah, I want to get that out of the way, because sometimes I forget to do that.

I realize I didn't move and there was no second.

So I want to go ahead and move that the committee recommend adoption of Resolution 32051. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of the resolution.

So at this time, let's discuss, are we going to discuss the amendment first?

It is up to you.

Just a point of clarification, Amelia.

They amended the resolution prior to the resolution officially being before them.

Is that okay?

Do we need to do that friendly amendment a second time?

At a committee meeting, it's more, I should say, it's more informal.

But yes, the practice should be that first the committee should first have the resolution before them.

And after the resolution is before them, then move to amend if there's any amendments for consideration.

I believe that the amendment from Council Member Esqueda was a last minute addition.

And so therefore, we were not prepared to take that actual item in that order.

Right now, we can discuss Council Member Peterson's first amendment, and then we can, then I can, when I move for, we can vote on the Council Member Peterson's amendment, and then after that, I will move the amended resolution, and then we'll, that's for the base, the base legislation.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I believe so.

So we will just accept the amendment taken sort of out of order, discuss Council Member Peterson's amendment after he moves and assuming there's a second, and then vote on the resolution as amended.

Correct.

Thank you.

Hold me to that.

I know I said all that, but I don't know how long that's going to stay in my head.

So Council Vice Chair Peterson, you were recognized in order to move your proposed amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, for purposes of discussion, I move to amend resolution 32051 as presented on amendment one on the agenda, which was in the memo from central staff.

It's been moved and seconded that resolution be amendment as presented as amendment number one.

I'm going to call it 1B.

Is there a second?

Oh, there was seconded, I'm sorry.

Somebody seconded it, correct?

We're still waiting for a second.

Council Member Peterson, I'll second it and then I have some discussion as well now.

Okay.

So Council Member Mosqueda's second, Council Member Peterson's first amendment.

So Council Member Peterson has sponsored this amendment.

You are recognized in order to address it.

Thank you, Council President, and thanks for being able to discuss this.

I want to thank our central staff and city clerks for their ongoing research and expertise on these issues.

Colleagues, the good news is that the council rules that we adopted at the start of this year already formalized the concept of abstentions at full city council meetings on a subset of resolutions.

and not materially related to city government.

And today we simply have a couple of options to refine that rule to improve the practical implementation of the abstention concept, which would still be for just a subset of resolutions.

Yes or no votes, obviously still required for council bills.

So rather than relitigating the general merits of abstentions for resolutions, which are already standard for Robert's Rules of Order, already allowed at our committee meetings, already a standard option for independently elected officials and several other Washington cities and across the nation.

I'll address the specifics of my proposed amendment here.

Let me start by saying I already support the resolution before us today.

So my amendment to that resolution would, however, allow for additional flexibility and instances to abstain on resolutions at full city council meetings.

The current resolution says abstentions are not allowed on resolutions related to city government, whereas my amendment says abstentions would not be allowed on resolutions directly affecting city government.

And as our central staff pointed out in the memo, and it would be great if we heard more from them on this, using the words directly affecting is likely to capture more resolutions so that we as independently elected officials can choose.

We have the choice whether to abstain.

It's between us and our constituents whether we choose to take that option rather than not having a choice at all.

So thank you, colleagues, for consideration of this additional option before us.

Thank you.

Before I say anything, is there anyone who would like to respond to Council Member Peterson's amendment which would add the language directly affecting the administration of city government regarding abstentions.

Council Member Esqueda.

This is a fun discussion because, again, I was thinking that this was just for discussion today.

So again, apologies, Council Member Peterson, that I didn't have the chance to connect with you on your amendment here.

So I'm going to say something that might be might be something folks are hearing from me for the first time.

I, you know, I don't actually have a concern when it comes to resolutions.

If council members are choosing to abstain, I think that the concern that I have with our process or what's being proposed right now is that it sort of put somebody in a position to have to defend why they're abstaining and by determining whether or not something is either related to city government or directly affecting city government, I think one is still in the position of having to explain their abstention.

If for whatever reason, if it's lack of ability to dig into a topic that might not be within their purview or something else, if we're confining abstentions to resolutions, period, I don't have a concern with that.

The concern, again, is more like having to justify their abstention.

So one of the things that I'd be interested in, and Council President would love to hear more about what your legislative intent or vision is here as well, but one of the things that I was interested in is basically just codifying that last sentence.

Any council member wishing to abstain needs to announce that their vote gave their right to abstain, and then they abstain versus having to sort of go through a rubric of determining whether or not something is connected to city business, whether related to or directly affecting.

And thus, I think, allowing for us to more swiftly move through resolution votes without folks, again, having to justify their abstention.

It's less of a proposed amendment and more a point of hopefully discussion to see if that is also maybe in alignment with where others might be.

If there's the desire to abstain, I think that that's fine if it's scope to just resolutions and thus that final sentence.

Great.

So I'm going to say why I'm not supporting this.

And it gets to what you have said, Council Member Mosqueda.

So let's go back on the time machine here.

I was never comfortable with our original.

I understand why President Gonzalez did what she needed to do with the word not materially related to city government, because that put the council president in a position to have to make a determination whether or not something was materially relevant to city government, which brought up all kinds of issues with law on you know, policy, um, one person making that determination, kind of being a gatekeeper.

But we, we tried to work with that.

And so coming back and working with Councilmember Peterson, um, we worked with Ali and her staff and the clerks and came up with the general, you just should be allowed to abstain if you, um, if you, if you deem you don't want to vote on a particular resolution.

I should add, thank you staff and Ali and team.

They provided us with 18 pages and 245 examples of resolutions in which only 44 of them a council member could abstain.

And if you have a chance to look at them, because I went through them and kind of circled which ones you could abstain on.

And some of them, I could see why.

Let me give a good example.

One of the ones that you could abstain on was a resolution that I proposed where I wanted the Seattle City Council to oppose or look into or support tribal nations in regards to boarding schools.

And technically, you don't have to vote on that.

We did, and if you didn't want to, you didn't have to.

I'll tell you the problem that I have with Council Member Peterson's amendment.

I don't wanna be in the position, the judge, the arbiter of deciding what is directly affecting the administration of government.

I think that adds another layer.

I think it gives too much power to the council president and discretion.

And I think it just opens up a Pandora's box and adding this qualifier, where then someone's gonna argue, well, I think it does directly affect.

And then we get into that, and I don't want that.

I would rather have it clean.

I'd rather have a resolution and an opportunity that there are some instances where some council members do not want to abstain.

Yesterday was a good example.

Council Member Peterson and Council Member, I forgot Council Member's name.

Nelson, I'm sorry.

I understand why they left because they didn't want to vote.

I understand that.

They didn't want to say no because they didn't want to sound like they were Councillor Peterson, please follow up and I'm what I saw and you can correct me.

Didn't want to be on record with the Seattle City Council signing a resolution that they felt was broad and possibly attacking the Biden administration and the Medicaid issue.

And I'm using this as an example.

I'm not trying to call anyone out.

I don't think anyone should be put in that position that they have to leave.

I'd rather they can just abstain.

And again, I'm trusting my colleagues and we're all adults, we're all elected, we all have experience in subject matter.

you know, expertise in other areas.

We all had other lives before we got here about what's common sense and what you want to vote on and what you don't.

I know in the past, there's been some issues about whether or not we should be voting on things that are happening in another country.

That's more of a black and white issue.

And again, everyone should have that opportunity as an elected to say, I'm not going to vote on that or I'm going to vote on that.

And there should be no stigma attached, no inferences attached if someone decides to abstain.

And I'll admit there's been many times in my six years on Seattle City Council where I voted where I'm like, you know, this is not really our purview.

We don't have any jurisdiction here.

We have no regulatory authority here.

This isn't another country.

But I understood where the council member was coming at, because they felt it was a human right, whether it had to do with the environment, or what we were seeing in the with the South Dakota Access Pipeline when we sent a resolution supporting those folks against Department of Interior.

But I want to allow your own intellectual conversation to happen with you and your staff or as Council Member Peterson said his constituents.

We put out a newsletter every week and some of the mail we get is actually quite some of it's kind of mean.

You know, some of it is, you know, why are you writing things about Indians?

How many Indians live in your district?

Why are you writing issues about, you know, LGBTQ issues?

And so, you know, we're kind of back to this.

I'm trusting your judgment about what you believe you want to vote on when it comes to a resolution.

And I think that it's very clear the way and thank you, Ali, for going through all these resolutions and your staff.

You know, what is what is what you deem appropriate to vote on in a resolution.

I'm not gonna sit here and be the arbitrator of what's material, what's directly related.

I'm not gonna do that.

I think you should just have the opportunity to abstain.

And I really want it that clean.

So I'm done with my speech.

Council Member Skater.

Thank you, Council President.

I think that you and I are saying the same thing.

And I also don't want you or any other person in that position to have to make that decision.

I also think that it is maybe in alignment with the legislative intent as originally written and as Council Member Peterson is trying to massage here.

And I wonder if Council Member Peterson, if you might be interested in a friendly amendment to put a period in the first line after resolutions, strike everything through any council member, not that last line, any council member wishing to abstain would still announce.

And so that is, I think, Madam President, a way to possibly still allow for somebody to announce that they're going to be abstaining without having to justify it.

And also doesn't put the council president in a position to have to determine what is related to or what is directly affecting the city administration.

It just simply says a council member has the right to use this on resolution specifically.

I'm going to let Allie and the clerk respond because there's some issues here before we go to Council Member Peterson.

So just for the viewing public, I highlighted the language that I believe Council Member Mosqueda is suggesting be removed from the rules.

And so it would just allow abstentions on any resolution.

It would require that a council member still announce their intent to abstain.

And then the existing language that if you don't abstain, you have to vote.

yes or no on the resolution.

I think that in terms of having gray area or not, this is the simplest application of when a council member may or may not abstain.

There may be certain resolutions, like for example, when the council is considering an emergency resolution, a declaration of civil emergency that requires a, I believe a two thirds vote of council members that we on central staff, the clerks in the city attorney's office may advise that it would be best if all council members participate in the vote, but this would be the cleanest.

It wouldn't be debatable of whether or not they have the right to abstain.

Okay, so you, let me, I'm gonna kind of understand what you've just said that I'm gonna hand it over to Councilor Peterson.

So basically Councilor Mosqueda wants to amend Council Member Peterson's amendment.

So with that, and you've highlighted where Councilor Mosqueda would like that part gone, correct?

Correct.

Okay, Councilor Peterson, you have that up on your screen?

You see it?

Yes, I appreciate the amendment of the amendment offered by Councilor Mosqueda, and I would support it.

Great.

So can you then now, Madam Clerk or Ali, then just read what we would be amending it to for those who are listening who maybe can't see the text in front of us?

Yes.

So I'm going to so The existing rules read, absentions are not allowed on actions other than resolutions that in the sole discretion of the council president are not materially related to city government.

So that language would be stricken.

as well as the rest of the amendatory language highlighted in yellow that was included in the current resolution before the council.

And so the final rule around abstentions would read, abstentions are not allowed on actions other than resolutions.

Any council member wishing to abstain must announce that they are invoking their right to abstain pursuant to Council Rule 5A2 prior to the final vote on the resolution.

Council members not having abstained or disqualified themselves pursuant to Rule 5A1 shall vote aye or no.

Okay.

I see Council Member Mosqueda has a question.

I do.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thanks again, central staff and to the clerk's office for your thoughts on this.

Is there a reason that that last line was added, though, initially a council member needs to announce or can they just abstain when the rule call is made?

I actually think that if the rule is that and I Amelia, correct me or weigh in if you disagree.

I don't think that sentence is necessary if the rule is just you are allowed to abstain on resolutions.

The purpose of that sentence was that if there are some resolutions, but not all resolutions that may be abstained from, we needed to give council members an opportunity to challenge that decision.

This would be really not debatable.

You may abstain from any resolution.

And so I actually would, suggest that you strike more.

You strike all the proposed language included in the resolution as introduced, as well as the amendatory language and just strike that in the sole discretion of the council president or not materially related to city government and keep the last sentence that's already existing in the rules.

So you just added two, three more yellow lines.

So then we would also strike any councilor wishing to abstain must announce that they're invoking their right to abstain pursuant to council rule BA2 prior to the final vote.

So we don't say that anymore.

We're looking at just council members not having abstained or disqualified themselves pursuant to shall vote aye or no.

Right.

And in practice, a council member would have to say they are abstaining, right?

When the clerk is calling the roll, they would say I abstain.

but I don't think we need to say that in the rules.

Exactly, you don't.

So Council Member Peterson and Council Member Mosqueda, are you, well, this is Council Member Peterson's amendment that Council Member Mosqueda has amended.

Do you wanna add anything else before I do the parliamentary stuff?

No, I support that additional sentence being removed.

You feel like you've done enough?

I think this is an improvement.

I appreciate the suggestion from Councilor Mosqueda and clarification from staff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Mosqueda, are you okay?

Great.

Thank you very much to both of you.

So Madam Clerk, this is how I'm going to do this.

So do I move, do I have Council Member Peterson do this or do I do this?

I see two easy options in the sense of one, the council members can withdraw this amendment and easily just make the amendment to the base legislation, which has all this language.

Or as we are currently considering amendment one is before us, we can move to amend section two as highlighted on the screen, which starts out after the word resolution.

and ends before the word CMs.

OK.

So can the council president move that the amendment by Council Member Mosqueda to Council Member Peterson's amendment is, I want to move that the language is now abstentions are not allowed on actions other than resolutions, period.

Council members not having abstained or disqualified themselves pursuant to rule VA1 shall vote aye or no.

I am going to move that amendment forward, correct?

Second.

OK, great.

Just got a second on the amendment to the amendment.

So that is got a second on that.

And now we go to a vote on this amended amendment.

Amended amendment, correct?

Yes.

OK.

So with that, Madam Clerk, will you call the roll?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

OK, so the amendment to the amendment carries.

And so with that, Madam Clerk, we will go to the base legislation, correct?

Amended?

We need to now adopt Amendment 1 as amended.

Okay, I move to adopt amendment number one as amended.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

So now, where do I go to a vote on that?

Yes, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

No.

Council President Warris.

Aye.

Four in favor, one opposed.

Thank you.

So with that, Madam Clerk, I am now going to go ahead.

I'm guessing it passes.

So now I will go and ask for the roll call on the base resolution as amended.

Correct?

Correct.

OK.

So I do move for a full vote on the base legislation as amended.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation that Resolution 32051 as amended will be sent to the council on May 17th for final consideration.

Is that correct, Madam Clerk?

It is.

Good.

I'm looking at both of you, Sarah and Amelia and Ellie.

Okay.

So with that, so we are done with that.

Is there anything else, Council Member Peterson or Mosqueda?

Is there anything else you want to share?

Good.

Okay.

Let's keep going on our agenda here.

We're done with that.

Is there any other business to come before Before I adjourn, I really, really mean this.

Thank you, Ali.

You've been great.

You and your staff.

Thank you, Amelia.

I know that we've been going through and the fact that you gave us 18 pages of every resolution and which ones failed and which ones didn't and why, you know.

Thank you that it was really helpful and then attaching you know your memos and your fiscal notes and all your information I don't know the public knows how hard you all work behind the scenes to make us look good So thank you so much.

I appreciate it And thank you for giving me the book amelia when I became council president about how to run council meetings It's been it's been I actually look at it Okay, so we're done with that.

No other business.

Um, so That concludes our items of business today.

The appointment pass of this committee will be forwarded to the May 3rd City Council meeting for final action.

The resolution, the amended resolution passed today will be forwarded to the May 17th City Council meeting.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, May 19th.

And colleagues, thank you for your work today, everybody, and we stand adjourned.