Seattle City Council Briefing 6/29/2020

Good morning, everyone.

The June 29th, 2020 council briefing meeting will come to.

The time is 9.32 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Strauss.

Present.

Juarez.

Present.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Seven present.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, if there's no objection, the minutes of June 22nd, 2020 will be adopted.

hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, just really quickly wanted to let folks both on the council and in the viewing public to know that in observance of the 4th of July holiday, my office is going to be closed on Thursday and Friday of this week, that's July 2nd and 3rd.

We will still be looking, obviously following email and checking our voicemails, but just wanted to let folks know that we will be able to provide that information to you as soon as our office will be technically closed on July 2nd and the 3rd.

Really quickly, I wanted to give folks an update apropos of the holiday weekend coming up.

As a reminder, due to the holiday and the abbreviated work week, all legislative process deadlines occur a day earlier.

And we are asking all of you the opportunity for our council central staff to appropriately work up any legislation that is being referred to the council president's office or amendments that may be needed to existing legislation, which I know Council Member Mosqueda will talk about during her report.

So I'll just give you a quick example.

So for example, the deadline for transmitting legislation to my office for inclusion on next week's introduction referral calendar is tomorrow.

Tuesday at 12 p.m.

noon instead of Wednesday at 12 p.m.

noon.

Again, the purpose of this is to make sure that we can manage the workflow and that we are being respectful of the fact that July 3rd is a federal holiday and that our staff from the entire legislative department will be off.

So in order to maximize the possibilities of them actually getting a little bit of rest, I ask for you to please consider strict compliance with that particular deadline.

Happy to answer any questions if any questions exist on that.

We're available to you all on that particular deadline as it relates to getting things on the introduction referral calendar for next Monday.

We are going to go ahead and shift now to begin the discussion on the preview of those items.

I will call councilmembers in the established rotated roll call.

I will conclude with my report.

Just for the viewing public and for you colleagues, Councilmember Herbold did advise she has a conflict this morning.

She is not going to be able to join us for the Council briefing portion but she So if there are no questions, we'll go ahead and dig into the reports.

First up is...

Thank you, Council President.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee still plans to meet on July 22nd at 930 a.m.

to hold public hearings on the Child Care Near You legislation, the annual Land Use Omnibus Bill, and I met with SDCI this last week and I'm excited to receive their report about tree protections, director's rule, I'm excited to see how the tree ordinance is moving along.

Some changes have been made, and I'll be excited to share with the public what work has been done, and there's some exciting updates, so we're really excited.

Last week, my office and myself were engaging with small business groups in District 6 regarding the Jump Start Seattle Stimulus Plan and how to continue supporting our local This week I will be bringing some amendments to the jumpstart plan.

That includes strengthening the level playing field language to ensure that if a of the city.

The higher level of government passes a similar type of stimulus plan that there will be a proportional representation of revenue kept within the city.

Small business funding would modify the 2020 spending plan to increase the funding for small businesses support by allocating an additional $9 million from the emergency and businesses.

Right now, the small business stabilization program is only eligible for businesses with five or fewer employees.

And I've heard from so many businesses that this does not incorporate enough of our really important small businesses.

And so we will be bringing an amendment to broaden this to 20 FTEs and why FTE is important rather than employee.

is because so many of our small businesses do rely on people who work part-time.

And so this amendment will broaden the eligibility so that we can support more small businesses throughout the city.

We're also going to be talking about B&O relief because this amendment would also set aside a portion of the 2020 spending plan to fund B&O tax relief for small businesses.

We've heard from so many small businesses that the B&O taxes here in the city That's where they need the most relief.

The Small Business Stabilization Fund is a great way to provide resources to these businesses because it allows them to choose where those dollars go.

And we've heard from people throughout District 6 and throughout Seattle that these additional resources are needed.

So we are continuing to meet with people about this jumpstart stimulus plan, and I will let my colleagues know if there are additional amendments.

We are also looking forward to District 6 Town Hall on July 7th.

We continue to hold constituent meetings, resident meetings every week.

Newsletters are going out.

We've got a new blog post up.

And so the District Town Hall will be another great way to engage with people throughout the district.

So that will be on July 7th in the evening.

Last week during resident meetings, I was able to talk to residents in District 6 about Golden Gardens and the street closure that is occurring there.

I want to let everyone know that we have engaged with SDOT and with Parks, and there were already changes that were made this last weekend to ensure better notification was made on Golden Gardens Way.

and that this last weekend was a good pilot program to see how well things work, and I know that we'll be working with Parks and SDOT more this week to ensure that what worked well is kept, and if things didn't work so well, that we're able to make those adjustments.

I also talked to residents of District 6 about SPD's use of force during the protests of several weeks ago, talked to residents about homelessness throughout the district and healthy streets, not at Golden Gardens, healthy streets over on First Avenue.

So that was a great week and it's always great to talk to residents of District 6. If any residents are watching right now and want to speak to me directly, don't hesitate to sign up.

We talk to residents every week on Thursdays and oftentimes Tuesdays now.

I was also happy to join the mayor and councilmember Peterson in announcing the city's initiative to broaden street cafe permits so that there are new types of cafe street excuse me, I'm getting my cafe street and street cafe proposals mixed up.

So street cafe or sidewalk cafes, excuse me, sidewalk cafes are the cafes that are on the sidewalk just adjacent to the business.

And so SDOT has announced a new set of those types of permits and the mayor and Councilmember Peterson and I announced our intentions to bring forward legislation to make those free.

We are also now separately talking about street cafes where you close a portion of a street for cafe purposes and while I wish that we could have opened some of those streets this last week, I am heartened to know and have been reassured that this process is moving along as fast as possible.

Last week for regional committees I joined with councilmember Mosqueda the association of Washington city's business meeting and we were very happy and excited to put forward deputy mayor blocker of Tacoma to fill the large city representation, large city seat.

Deputy mayor blocker was very excited to hold this position and councilmember Mosqueda This coming week, I will be joining Metro for the Route 40 update.

This is an online public meeting in order to update riders about the survey that they have recently conducted about improvements that will be made to Route 40. There were 1,060 responses to their survey, looking at what drivers' experiences are, I would like to highlight for the record that everyone who either is around route 40 on the street or on the bus themselves.

I will be excited to join them for that.

Also I would like to highlight for the record that the locks, the Ballard locks has a master plan update occurring.

The goals of this master plan are to provide best management practices that can respond to regional needs, resource I want to say thank you to all of you.

Master plan update is receiving your input until July 31. I encourage anyone and everyone whether you are on the water or on the land to add your voice to this locks master plan update.

Thank you, Council President.

Next up is going to be Council Member Juarez.

The floor is yours, please.

Thank you, Council President.

So the public asset, let's see, the communities, there is one item listed for the introduction and referral calendar on this afternoon's council agenda.

This is related to the monorail agreement that we did that we had been doing for the last year.

It's the expansion of the Westlake Station monorail platform is one of the efforts the city is undertaking to mitigate the impacts of increased traffic due to the construction of the Seattle Arena and the arrival of NHL hockey at Seattle Center.

Those of you who remember the last year or so, we've been working on all these contracts and they were just coming out of committee with council's approval.

And so what we're doing is just adding on some of these further issues that came up in our negotiations in our contractual relationships with the monorail folks.

So patrons will be encouraged to use the monorail as an effective way to enter or to connect to sound transit and other mass transit at Westlake Center or to park downtown and ride to Seattle Center.

This legislation continues necessary expansion of the platform and improvements to the station.

So as far as parks.

As usual, our office will submit our weekly parks COVID-19 updates.

Very briefly, regarding Lake Washington Boulevard, the Stay Healthy Street closure, Seattle Parks and Rec is partnering still with the Seattle Department of Transportation to expand the space where people can walk, roll, bike near Golden Gardens along Lake Washington Boulevard as part of SDOT's Stay Healthy Streets program.

Program will be active in Golden Gardens 24-7 until further notice, at least that's my understanding now.

Lake Washington Boulevard is providing a five-day pilot from June 26th to June 30th to see if it would be worth extending the closure into the summer.

On stay healthy streets, through traffic is discouraged, but local access, deliveries, waste, pickup, and emergency vehicles are allowed.

Let's see, the shelter program passes its 90-day mark.

We have passed the 90-day mark of continual operations for our shelters for people experiencing homelessness.

From June 17th to June 23rd we sheltered on an average between 40 and 45 people at Garfield Community Center and between 44 and 45 people at Miller Community Center.

Update on the indoor shower program.

From June 17th to June 23rd Seattle Parks and Rec served about 560 users.

with a total cumulative users of about 6,000 people.

Green Lake serves the most users at 371, and Delwich is now closed on Saturday.

Moving to our other program, up to the 90-day mark, the Emergency Child Care Program for Essential Workforce.

Initial Emergency Child Care Program at five community centers under the Governor's Phase I supported about 1,100, 1,200 child care slots, Starting this week Seattle Parks and Rec expanded child care services to 21 locations with a maximum number of 400 children child slots available per week.

Five out of the 20 community centers are at maximum capacity or registration.

Let's see.

And very briefly I met with the Seattle Neighborhood Group and their new executive director Thomasita Schmidt.

and we look forward to working with them and community, particularly in the north end on their goal of working with the community for public safety and community conversations in deciding and, well, basically discussing with us when we start siting tiny villages, how they can work with us in community.

I attended a Sound Transit board meeting where we voted to approve the final criteria list for Sound Transit for future Sound Transit I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

I am a member of the board of trustees.

And we basically just voted out the recommendations.

We approved a project list of recommendations to go to the Puget Sound Regional Council.

As you know, Council President, because I believe you attended the original Puget Sound, the last meeting, where there's about $53 million in grant money, and there was about $166 million requested for about 86 projects.

And we had a list of recommendations, which we voted yes on, which will move forward.

And Seattle will be receiving about $17 million out of that 53 for about seven projects.

And again, those are recommendations.

And of the seven projects, one of them I'm hoping Councillor Herbold is listening, there will be an additional 4.9 set aside for design and replacement of the West Seattle Bridge.

And my staff can give you more information, but right now these are just recommendations.

We can certainly share what we work with with OIR and also working with all of our neighbors on these projects and supporting other projects, not just within King County.

So I think that's about it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez for that report.

And thanks for attending that original committee meeting.

And thanks, my thanks also to Councilmember Peterson for stepping in as the alternate.

Unfortunately, I had a pre-existing conflict on my calendar that I couldn't reschedule.

So I appreciate Councilmember Peterson stepping in.

Really wanted to express my gratitude to the folks for the Transportation Policy Committee who continue to recognize the value that West Seattle plays in terms of a regional connector and how important it is to make sure that we come together as regional entities to continue to identify appropriate funding to be able to solve for the issues and the traffic impacts that will result and continue to result from the closure of the West Seattle Bridge.

So, again, really appreciate the update, Council Member Juarez, and thank you so much for representing the city on behalf of the City Council.

Council President, if I may just add, thank you for bringing up that about the West Seattle piece.

The 4.9 for the West Seattle replacement design, that, in addition to there's already another 2 million that was set aside in contingency funds from the PSRC executive board at their meeting.

So it looks like they're really as you say they've been meeting and staff has been phenomenal in getting for the recommendations and how they were going to weigh each grant.

So so you got 4.9 plus 2 so that's 6.9 looking at West Seattle replacement design.

So I hope that the people in West Seattle know that we are paying attention and trying to pull these federal and state dollars from everywhere to make sure that that link to West Seattle and that community is taken care of because they do provide a workforce and an economic engine.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

It's also a conduit for folks from Vashon who are coming into the city as well.

So really important component of the region's goal for moving people around the city.

So appreciate the report.

Okay, any other questions or comments for Councilmember Juarez and her report?

Okay, hearing and seeing none, we'll go ahead and move down the roster.

Next up is Councilmember Lewis, please.

Thank you, Madam President.

There are no items on the introduction and referral calendar or on this afternoon's agenda from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I am having a town hall tomorrow, Tuesday, June 30th at 2 p.m.

to discuss my proposal where the bill is still coming together on a to make long-term investments pursuant to the regional plan put forward by the third-door coalition of business owners, service providers, and community leaders to make meaningful long-term investments in chronic homelessness through permanent supportive housing and other interventions.

That town hall, as I said, will be tomorrow at 2 p.m.

I'm very proud to have one of my former law school professors, Robert Reich, joining me to talk about capital gains as a progressive source of revenue that diminishes inequality and inequity in tax systems.

I'm going to be joined as well by Colleen Echo-Hawk of I think it's important for us to recognize that we're talking about permanent supportive housing, and the efficacy of permanent supportive housing as a long-term way to exit people from chronic homelessness and let the most vulnerable folks in our community live with dignity and live going to also be joined by Senator Joe Nguyen, who has been a big advocate of taxing capital gains in the legislature to talk about his efforts there and talk about how state and city efforts on taxing capital gains could be synced up and how we could work together as a delegation.

in Olympia as well as the City Council in long-term tax reform in the state.

And then Sarah Rankin, who is a co-chair and board member of the Third Door Coalition.

So it should be an interesting conversation.

Very much looking forward to that tomorrow.

And members of the public can sign up to get the information for the Zoom town hall on my website.

Very much looking forward to this discussion.

I did, while we're still on the topic of tax equity, want to flag my support for Councilmember Straus' comments on seeking a way to insert B&O tax relief for small businesses that have been hit hard by the impact of COVID-19.

I think that that is a really creative solution and it's something I've been interested in throughout the COVID-19 crisis and how we as a city can be supportive to small businesses who have really taken a massive hit in COVID and are really making it hard, having a hard time making ends meet given the struggles and the massive downturn in business.

to provide assistance to the local community.

I want to flag my interest now, I do think that that is a great way that we can expand our impact on helping the small businesses, women and minority-owned businesses who have taken it the hardest in this downturn and make sure that We are doing everything we can, even beyond our community development block grant money, which has provided so much important and critical relief, but is also a finite and limited resource dependent on the federal government.

So I do think some level of B&O tax relief is a creative way that we can go above and beyond and provide some more relief to those businesses that have been hit hardest.

I do want to flag that I continue to hold office hours in the district, strongly encourage all the residents of District 7 who have concerns about current matters before the city and especially our budget deliberations right now for the summer to I will continue to contact and set up an appointment through Calendly on my website.

Continue to have those meetings every week.

It has been great to talk to people from Magnolia to I think we have a lot of work to do.

As a last update, I want to flag two more updates.

Last week, I had the privilege of sitting down for an interview with Brian Callaghan on the channel.

that discussion about ongoing matters of the budget, public safety, being out there for the public to see.

I think it was a good discussion, and it's always very prescient, and I thank Brian Callahan for a good interview.

I did want to just flag, as the final thing, I did have the privilege of representing the city at the General Assembly of the Puget Sound Regional Council.

For those who are unfamiliar, in the general public, the Puget Sound Regional Council is basically a United Nations of all of the local governments in Kitsap, Snohomish, King and Pierce counties, and those four counties.

In the general assembly, we did reelect Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier for another term as president of the Puget Sound Regional Council.

And we also reelected Claudia Balducci of the King County Council as vice chair and continue to be excited to look towards engaging with the Puget Sound Regional Council on making long-term investments in the transportation infrastructure of our region.

I think it was good to be present for that discussion.

With that, I don't have any further updates.

I look forward to another week of budget talks and the work of the council.

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

Next up is Council Member Morales, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, everybody.

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

I do want to make note last week I'm sure you all heard there was a fire at 8th and South Weller in the International District.

There was some initial speculation that it was caused by arson but after communicating with the fire department I want to make clear that the investigators ruled that the fire was an undetermined cause, but they didn't find anything to indicate that the fire was set.

So we are having fire prevention materials translated into Vietnamese and traditional Chinese for business owners there, and we'll continue to monitor what's happening and just be in touch with the fire department to make sure that we're clear on the results of that investigation.

I do want to let colleagues know about two things that will be coming from my office soon.

We have been working with Care Washington, with One America, and the Right to be Banked campaign to introduce a resolution addressing financial inclusion.

There's been a longstanding issue with money transfer organizations and particularly with our East African community being able to send remittances back home.

So this is a resolution that reaffirms our support of the East African community and the right of money transfer organizations to engage in lawful commerce in a safe manner.

We'll distribute the resolution this week, by tomorrow.

Thank you, council president Gonzalez for that reminder, um, uh, in anticipation of being able to introduce and vote on it next week.

Um, I also want to let folks know pre COVID, um, we had started working on an ordinance that would protect people age 17 and younger from being questioned by the police without legal counsel.

Um, we're working with the King County department of public defenders, uh, uh, sorry, department of public defense.

And with Black-led organizations like Community Passageways and Creative Justice who really center their work around supporting young people who have been incarcerated.

In 2018, we know that over 73% of children charged in the King County Juvenile Court were children of color.

44% of children charged were black, even though they only represent 9.7% of the population.

And so the ordinance that we are working on and we'll introduce soon is an important first step in protecting the rights of black and brown youth, and eventually the abolishment of jailing young people altogether.

My hope is that as we continue to engage in the budget discussions, as we talk about how to shift spending away from SPD, that we're also thinking about how we divest from the institutions that focus on punishing and incarcerating young people, and instead redirect and reinvest in education and social services that really get at the root causes of some of the community conditions that are creating challenges for our young people.

I know that there are several council members who are interested in this work.

And so I welcome discussions with anybody who wants to co-sponsor this.

We are eager to get it passed soon so that we can ensure that as we enter summer, our young people have this protection.

And we'll be happy to put this legislation forward when the time is right, knowing that right now our business is really focusing on the budget and the the 2020 rebalance and the 2021 process.

So just want to flag that for folks and let you know, we will be talking about that soon.

And then moving on to the budget discussions, we have been hearing for weeks now that our neighbors do want a significant shift away from investing in the police department and instead putting our public dollars into black communities.

I'm committed, as I know many of you are, to making these really important shifts in budgeting to design transportation and to increase community ownership of land.

But reducing the police budget is only one tool for increasing the investments that we want to see in communities of color.

This week, we'll be voting on progressive revenue.

And I just want to flag for folks, I was asked recently on one of our neighborhood radio stations, why the black community should care about progressive revenue.

So I just want to take a minute to remind folks that this is Definitely about increasing resources that can go to communities of color, but it really is critical to just finding a more equitable way to pay for public services.

Right now we pay for public services on the backs of individual households.

Every time we pass a housing levy or an education levy or parks levy, I hear about it in my community about homeowners who are really frustrated with their inability to keep up with increasing property taxes.

But we do that because increasing property or sales tax is the only tool that the city has to pay for the things we need.

And so this is important.

Progressive revenue is important because as many of us have said, It fixes our upside down tax code by shifting some of the burden from our neighbors to the largest corporations in the city.

So I know, you know, we here on council are talking about this all the time, but I just want to remind community members why this is so important and particularly why it's important to communities of color.

As I mentioned before, I'll have two amendments on the tax side of the package that we're considering.

One is to increase revenue.

to $247 million.

And we do this by inserting a third category in the total payroll between $100 million and $1 billion in total payroll.

So we will have that available soon.

And then the other, as I mentioned, is about allowing the sunset clause only if another jurisdiction passes progressive revenue that would keep Seattle whole.

I also have an amendment to add the Green New Deal back into the spend plan, and I understand we will be talking about that separately, so I will wait on that discussion.

But I just want to be clear that the priorities coming out of my district include significantly more revenue, no sunset clause, and commitments to fund the equitable development initiative and the Green New Deal.

These are really reflecting the needs of communities of color to have greater access to resources.

And we've been hearing a lot about that from the King County Equity Now Coalition and others who really want to make sure that we are investing in communities and finding ways to prevent disaster gentrification and really increase community ownership of land in our communities of color.

That is all I have this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any questions or comments on that report?

OK, hearing and seeing none, we'll go ahead and move along down the line.

Next up is Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Madam President.

Good morning, everybody.

Morning.

I do want to start today with just a quick thank you.

I want to thank the folks and our central staff.

They have been working around the clock as we have been deliberating very important issues to address the challenging times in front of us, especially related to revenue, a spend plan, and the ongoing conversations that we're having about the SPD inquest and our ongoing deliberations around the 2020 rebalancing package.

So if you will join me in just saying thank you to them and an applause for all of them.

We really appreciate your time.

I hope that everybody had a good weekend last week.

You might remember I sent a revised calendar for our July Select Budget Committee deliberations on progressive revenue and the 2020 rebalancing package.

Thanks to all of you for your ongoing work, your feedback, and your strategies around possible amendments.

Per the calendar we sent out, this Wednesday we plan to hear amendments and possibly vote on the progressive revenue package bills.

And given the possible amendments to the revenue bill itself, the total amount of funding that could be raised may change.

So central staff is preparing a substitute version of of the jumpstart spend plan, again, that's council bill 119811, so that we can have a high-level description of the broad spending categories for our discussion and possible vote on Wednesday.

That allows for us to have a substitute version of the spend plan that includes these high categories that reflects both the current deliberations and the initial spend plan priorities and once the revenue bill is finalized, fingers crossed, we will then be able to go back the following week and reintroduce the text of the original spend plan as a resolution to consider amendments and specific allotments for each category in each year.

This process, colleagues, is very similar to what we've done in the past, for example, on the families and education levy, where we followed up with a resolution detailing specific spending allocations.

The resolution will be introduced on July 13th with the original text from the Jump Start Spend Plan so amendments can be made to the language as introduced as you've all been looking at that base for possible amendments.

And most importantly, this will allow sufficient time for central staff to draft possible spend plan amendments for our deliberations on July 15th and ensure that everyone is able to take a well-deserved three-day weekend.

Again, I want to thank all of you for your ongoing participation in this process, your thoughtful amendments that you've already discussed so far, and want to especially thank again central staff who've been working around the clock as we seek to finalize this progressive revenue proposal.

The updated calendar will be sent to you in just a moment.

I wanted to give you a quick heads up verbally.

I'm going to send that to you in just a moment with the updated details in that calendar as an attachment.

And the substitute jump start spend plan with these high-level spending categories will also be sent to you shortly in anticipation of our conversation on Wednesday.

As always, happy to follow up and have any conversations one-on-one as we juggle these critical issues in front of our council, including the revenue package and the upcoming spend plan.

As a reminder, that's our proposed conversation for this budget committee's deliberations on Wednesday, July 1st.

Again, the first session starts at 10 a.m., where we will focus on the revenue proposals, and we will have public comment at the very beginning.

I'm going to note we have been trying to do as much public comment as possible.

Again, we will keep this at one minute.

with 20 minutes of public comment, and then we will dive into the details of possible amendments and a conversation around the high-level supplemental version of the Jump Start spend plan.

But the real focus will be this Wednesday on the Jump Start Seattle revenue package.

The second session on Wednesday starts at 2 p.m., and we will continue the 2020 revised budget presentation by the CBO and get our questions addressed and have a deep briefing.

Last week, you all asked a number of questions, and we expect the CBO to be working very hard between now and Wednesday and we'll come back to you with some additional responses to your questions and we will have additional time for you to all ask additional questions so that we can get to the meat of the proposal in front of us before we begin our amendments on that in subsequent weeks.

We will not be hearing on the 9-1-1 calls.

I've talked to the Chair of Public Safety, Council Member Herbold, and we know that based on our discussion last week, the executive knows that we want detailed information.

They have taken the time to go back and add more information into the 9-1-1's 9-1-1 call analysis so that we can have more information when they present it.

That will be presented on July 8, along with a panel that will be talking about strategies around the country, but from the academic's perspective on what has worked to reallocate funding from police departments in the past and what current strategies are.

that are being analyzed right now to move some of those funds upstream to really invest in black and brown communities and to invest in a more community-oriented public safety model.

So that will be on July 8th.

I think it's actually a really good sign.

I want to know, I think it's a good sign that the executive has taken a second to go back and provide additional detail to the 911 analysis because I think we're all going to be in a much better place when we get that information with the details you all expect.

Colleagues, also wanted to note for you that we had an opportunity today on today's full council agenda, we will have a public hearing on item number one, which is Council Bill 119814. This is an ordinance related to funding for housing and community development programs, adopting a substantial amendment to the city annual action plan.

and it will be amendments to the 2018-2022 consolidated plan for housing and community development and authorizing its submission to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This legislation adopts amendments to the city's annual action plan to detail how the city will spend approximately 8.9 million dollars of federal funds allocated through HUD.

These funds were previously appropriated by the council through ordinance 1-2-6-0-7-4 and ordinance 1-2-6-0-8-4 passed in May.

Funds have been allocated to the Human Services Department, Office of Housing, and Office of Economic Development to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.

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

In order to enter into this grant agreement with HUD and receive the funds, jurisdictions have been directed to amend their most current action plans to reflect these appropriations.

So that is why we have this piece of legislation in front of us.

This legislation is considered part of the broader rebalancing package.

However, it is scheduled for a vote, ideally on Monday, July 6, because adoption of the amended annual action plan is required before these funds can be distributed.

And this afternoon is the public hearing, just the public hearing on the amendments to the action plan.

Finally, on today's introduction and referral calendar, we have the CBO's 2020 Washington Commerce Grant Ordinance transmitted on June 17th.

This is co-sponsored with Councilmember Herbold and would accept and appropriate $13 million in emergency housing and homeless COVID funding from the state.

This is the grant that we have been talking about quite a bit that was approved from the Department of Commerce on March 27th, and we've been eagerly waiting for this.

We've been pushing and working with CDO for A number of weeks to try to get these dollars out, and it finally came through last week, so we want to move as quickly as we can to get these long-awaited funds out the door.

This legislation includes funding for things like permanent supportive housing that would have come through in revenues from the short-term housing rental tax, which is now impacted from the economic shutdown.

It includes food delivery for permanent supportive housing sites, funding for substantial unexpected additional COVID-related costs incurred in our shelter services including hygiene centers and permits for housing providers and funding for shelter D, intensification and hygiene services and food and meal delivery to seniors.

The CDO is going to provide an overview of this legislation at our budget meeting on Wednesday and we will have a possible vote on any amendments to that legislation in that meeting as well.

In other updates, we We will have a public hearing on the 2020 rebalancing legislation scheduled for July 8th at 4 p.m.

This is so that people who are not able to call into our 10 a.m.

or 2 p.m.

meetings can provide public comment into the evening.

Your attendance is not required.

I would love to have as many people as possible there to hear what folks are saying, but I understand that people have other family obligations and individual obligations in their community.

Appreciate and understand that, and we also understand that folks have work schedules that don't allow for them to call into our daytime public hearings.

So as a reminder to the viewing audience, we will open public comment sign up at 2 p.m.

on Wednesday.

Public comment will begin at 4, but we will go until we can until the wee hours if we can.

And so you're welcome to sign up if your shift ends at 5 p.m.

or 6 p.m.

You'll still be able to sign up for public comment.

Speaking of shifts at grocery stores, I want to thank the workers from Trader Joe's who abruptly had their Trader Joe's shut down on Capitol Hill when they wore masks saying Black Lives Matter, the Trader Joe's shut down that store.

And many of the workers began organizing to call attention to this form of retaliation.

I want to thank Aretha Basu, who was there on behalf of my office.

And on June 11, a dozen of Trader Joe's Capitol Hill workers informed the store management that they would be participating in the June 12 protest.

The store managers determined that broad participation in the protest would lead to staffing issues and decided to close the store.

Store management assured workers participating in the protest that it would be considered an excused absence and would not result in any disciplinary measures.

But on the morning of June 12th, a representative from Trader Joe's corporate called the store to ask about the early closure.

Unsatisfied with the rationale for the early closure, corporate informed the store management that the store would be closed indefinitely, effective immediately.

Since the workers have organized the store, the store has partially opened back open, but the management has still refused to engage on their demands.

The demands include Trader Joe's making a public statement explicitly acknowledging that Black Lives Matter, making sure that there's no retaliation for the crews that are at store number 130 and be given the opportunity to return back to work, that the store end all contracts with private security companies which focus on theft prevention at the expense of real safety, and invest in the store and the crew by providing clear and consistent store-wide communications about policy safety protocols.

I want to thank folks who are organizing up there and calling attention to this issue.

Appreciate all of the solidarity that those workers showed by supporting the Black Lives Matter protests.

And if you'd like to learn more about the ways to support these workers, you can visit www.savetjs130.com.

And finally, I'm going to take the council president's lead and our office will also be closed on July 2nd and 3rd.

And I'll see you all when I turn a year older after this.

All right.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Any questions or comments on that report?

You have a comment and question on your own report?

I do have a comment.

I have Councilmember Herbold's comments as well, if there's no questions on mine.

Okay.

Anything else on Councilmember Mosqueda's report?

If not, we'll hand it back over to her to give a report on behalf of Councilmember Herbold.

Okay, hearing none, I do want to wish you an early birthday, Council Member Mosqueda.

All of America celebrates your birthday on the 4th of July, so happy early birthday on behalf of myself, my team, and I'm sure the entire city council and all of our legislative department.

We hope you get to celebrate it well with your family.

So we'll go ahead and hand it back over to you so you can you can give us a report from Council Member Kerbal, please.

Thank you very much, and thanks also for the motivation to close the office on the 2nd.

I think we've all been working around the clock, as we mentioned earlier, and working from home does not mean that our work is less.

In fact, I think in some ways it demands more of our teams and our staff, so good idea.

Thank you, Council President for letting me borrow that approach as well.

So on behalf of Council Member Herbold, she is going to be introducing a resolution this afternoon.

This afternoon, the Council will have an opportunity to vote on the Cities are Essential Resolution, sponsored by Council Member Herbold, who was unable to make this morning's briefing.

So here's a few notes from her.

The resolution calls on the federal government to recognize the central role that cities are playing right now on the front lines of the coronavirus public health emergency.

Because of that work, it asks the federal government to provide direct financial assistance to cities in its next round of emergency relief.

The resolution recognizes that the City of Seattle is facing a shortfall in revenue of up to $300 million in 2020, with over $50 million in employee time redirected to COVID relief activities.

In addition, it recognizes the City's effort to respond to the emergency with new expenditures for rental assistance, grocery vouchers, small business stabilization grants, expanded shelter services, and personal protective equipment and coronavirus testing for first responders.

The resolution will add Seattle's voice to a national campaign of cities, towns, and villages that are requesting federal support for our frontline workers and frontline efforts to keep people healthy and safe.

The resolution was previously circulated by council members on councilmember Herbold.

She will be here this afternoon and we really appreciate her putting forward this resolution.

I want to voice my support for it now.

I'm not seeing any, so we'll go ahead and move along down the line.

Thank you again for doing double duty.

I really appreciate it.

Next up is Councilmember Peterson.

Regarding the jumpstart tax proposal, as I mentioned to our budget chair, Council Member Mosqueda earlier, I am planning to bring forward some amendments for everyone's consideration on her well-crafted jumpstart Seattle payroll tax and spend plan.

One of my amendments for consideration would exempt nonprofit organizations.

I also support the idea of strengthening the provision that would balance the taxes imposed on Seattle employers if our state or county governments finally create more progressive taxes.

I'm glad to hear other council members considering that similar amendment.

I'm also open to hearing how strengthening that provision might help with the debate over the sunset provision.

Another key amendment would allow us to follow through on the idea put forward by other council members in the not-so-distant past to put this measure on the ballot for voters to consider this November.

This proposal is well-crafted, yet it also is four times as large as the head tax from 2018. A lot's changed since then, of course, but back then, as you recall, many in the public, when they became aware of the details of the 2018 head tax, they had concerns and the city council ended up reversing that ordinance.

And so this amendment is just to put on the table for our discussion and consideration, the idea of putting it on the ballot.

Another key amendment would be in the category about spending for small businesses.

My amendment would focus that on preventing economic displacement and would give preference to marginalized communities, including small businesses and organizations led by black, indigenous, and other people of color.

So I look forward to discussing those on Wednesday along with the other amendments.

As if we don't have enough to do already, the Seattle Transportation Benefit District is expiring this year.

So at the end of this week, we're planning to present the proposal to renew the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

We'll have more information at the end of this week.

The main point is that it's expiring and that, in my opinion, and I know many others, we believe it should be renewed.

and specifically put on the ballot in November for voters to consider that renewal.

As we know, transit remains a vital backbone of our regional transportation system even today for essential workers, and it will for all workers as our economy reopens.

Transit's also a key solution for addressing climate change, and we have substantial needs with our city bridges, including, of course, the West Seattle Bridge.

Regarding sidewalk cafes, as Councilmember Strauss mentioned, we look forward to introducing legislation during COVID to eliminate the cost and red tape to obtain temporary permits from our Seattle Department of Transportation for restaurants and other stores to make better use of our sidewalks.

This will enable more Seattle residents to visit and enjoy their neighborhood business districts outside.

This legislation is supported by the University District Business Improvement Area and other business districts throughout Seattle.

Just want to be clear that I want the millions of viewers of Council briefing to know that Councilmember Strauss really did the bulk of the work on this legislation, and I'm honored as Transportation Chair to co-sponsor.

That's all for my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Peterson.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Council President, Council Member Juarez.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

This is just a general observation for those of us that were around when this head tax started in the fall of 2017 and now we are in the summer of 2020. Without going into all the detail, I do want to say two things.

First, I want to thank Councilor Mosqueda and our conversations about this tax and what it means and looking at the dueling tax proposals and spending plans.

I want to reiterate and support what Councilmember Pearson just shared on this issue going to the ballot.

I just feel that at this point, particularly in regards to non-profits and taxing, and where we're at with the global pandemic, a recession, and now this political unrest, that I would like to see a lot of these issues go to the voters.

That being said, I'm still open to the discussions.

Like I said, I'm glad that Councilmember Muscade and I can have very robust, respectful, calm conversations about how we change the inequities in our world.

I think it's important that we should note out for everyone that real change goes beyond a budget or a tax, and that the protests that we're seeing, which are amplified by the pandemic and the recession, are not just about an inequitable policing.

These protests go to and has shown us, particularly with the with the pandemic the cracks and the fissures and the safety net and social and the world about who gets hurt most when something bad happens.

I keep telling my staff and people that we're in this trifecta again this global pandemic this recession and this political unrest and we're asked to do all of these things from home and putting immense pressure on our staff and central staff in particular to churn these things out and make changes.

Again, my feeling is that, again, these protests are about justice, about honesty and racism, and that race is a major predictor of success.

And we have to deal with the causes before we can deal with the effects.

And the causes are poverty and racism.

And a lot to what Council Member Mosqueda or Morales spoke to, but some of us just know, we don't need to be on city council to know this, is that you need black and brown equity and ownership.

You need jobs, you need careers, you need brick and mortar.

And I, in good conscience, just can't make good, I can't make good, solid decisions that I feel good about, just as a person, through a political or an electoral lens.

And I think when you reimagine a new economy, it isn't just sitting back and saying, well, I'm going to try to put this money here or tax this here, is that you can't tax your way out of recession.

And, you know, particularly a recession in response to a pandemic.

I think some of the businesses that we've seen on Capitol Hill and the calls that we've been getting, small businesses shutting down, people being looted, people being afraid, and now the recent lawsuit have all caused a lot of concern for this city.

And I think I'm talking about, you know, the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone's kind of pretending isn't happening.

Well, it is.

And we just had two more shootings on Capitol Hill, and that breaks my heart.

Well, with that being said, and again, I've had these conversations with Councilor Mosqueda, and I do appreciate, I appreciate her enthusiasm, and even though she's getting a year older, her youth and her, she inspires me to think bigger, but I'm still, you know, of the mind that, as Councilor Peterson has shared, I want to be supporting an amendment that we put this on the ballot, because I think a lot of the issues that we're stuck on, whether or not there's a sunset clause what is the number, what is the amount, is it for profits or non-profits can be answered when we have a real airing of public comment with business at the table and everybody at the table when I say this.

And then we actually vote to tax ourselves and then it's done.

The last two taxes that I was involved in is the one on the bullets and then the sugar tax, which came from city council and were upheld.

But there are other taxes where we have to, I believe, have more than just Zoom meetings and community meetings.

And I'm inclined to believe in like a lot of the things that Council Member Sawant has put forward.

I think if you're going to swing wide, you should swing wide and you should swing big.

But I think you have to be pragmatic about how the good people of the city of Seattle want to tax themselves.

And so, and I'm not sharing anything that's new.

You all know where I've stood on this.

And I want to thank Council Member Esqueda again for the third time.

because we will be submitting questions to her about my concerns about taxing essential governmental functions, essential governmental services, nonprofits, hospitals, research and development, all of these groups that are focusing all of their energies on trying to contain this pandemic and look for a virus.

So those are the questions that I'm going to be, the bigger questions that I'm going to be asking and pushing.

And I just wanted to share that and, um, And I also want to thank you, Council Member Gonzalez, because we were around, you know, in 2017, and you co-chaired the committee, and we all worked hard on that, and it didn't work out.

The voters were very clear with us, probably seven months, and now we're back here again.

But, you know, we're back here hopefully using the past as an experience to do it better and to do it right, and I don't want to see it go down the tubes again because we have another fatal flaw that perhaps it should go to the voters.

So I will leave it at that, and thank you for letting me state my mind today.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

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

Okay, I do just want to clarify something.

Council Member Juarez, you mentioned in your remarks that that is sort of as a argument in favor of sending this potentially of this amendment to send this piece of legislation to the ballot.

You mentioned that people have the right to vote on whether or not they should tax themselves.

I just want to make really clear that this isn't a tax on people.

It's a tax on the city's largest, most profitable corporations or wealthiest corporations.

And so I just want to In the spirit of making sure that the general public isn't confused about who the tax liability would be created for, I just wanted to make sure that I had an opportunity to clarify that Jump Start Seattle doesn't create tax liability for individual voters in the city who in favor or against this should Councilmember Peterson's amendment pass, but just wanted to state that for the record in the event that there's some confusion about who the tax liability would be incurred by.

Thank you, Council President, for that clarification.

You're right.

Jumpstart Seattle is a tax on corporations.

Thank you for that clarification.

I think that's all I have to say.

Okay.

Next up we have councilmember Sawant.

Please.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

My office thanks all the city council central staff for working practically around the clock not only on the legislation related to the Amazon tax that our grassroots movement has been fighting for, but also for I would also like to announce following other councilmembers that our office, my office will also be closed on the second and third and I wanted to use that opportunity to thank all the community organizers in my office, my staff, who have been also working nonstop on countless efforts, including the Amazon tax struggle.

Solidarity with the Trader Joe's workers and the Whole Foods workers, and congratulations to them for their courage in standing up for Black Lives Matter movement and for their rights as workers.

And clearly they understand that the fight against racism and economic exploitation are interlinked, and that as workers, we have to explicitly stand, as workers, as workers in a workplace, explicitly stand against racism and other oppressions.

I wanted to express the deepest condolences from Socialist Alternative and my council office to the family and friends and fellow activists of the community member who was killed in the drive-by shooting at the Capitol Hill organized protest.

While we are still awaiting the details of this incident, it again highlights the urgency to address the endemic violence in our society under capitalism.

And to quote Katrina Johnson, the cousin of Charlene Lyles, who spoke last night at the protest we did outside, I think, somewhere where Mayor Durkin lives.

And it was a protest against Mayor Durkin, and there was a demand for Durkin to resign for her failure to address the police violence.

As was pointed out, the violence was happening on Capitol Hill and in other parts of the city long before the CHOP occupation was created by the movement, and that we should completely reject the false claims, claims that have no basis in statistical analysis, that the CHOP occupation and the movement was the reason for any of the violence.

And as people have pointed out, violence has existed in our society.

There were killings and other violence, unfortunately, happening near the East Precinct when the police were there for years.

And all it does is basically show the urgency to fight to win the funding of Seattle Police by at least 50%, reinvesting in community efforts that will actually have a very positive effect that has been proven through studies and through pilot programs throughout the nation to have a positive effect on violence in our community.

and also for winning the other demands put forward by the movement.

I wanted to commend all the CHOP activists, many of whom are young people, young people of color, people of other races, who have shown tremendous courage facing down brutal violence from the police, including tear gas.

And that activism, specifically that activism on 11th and Pine, has been instrumental in allowing our movement to win Seattle's historic ban on the use and purchase of chemical weapons and other so-called crowd control weapons.

The Supreme Court today has struck down a Louisiana law that could have left the state with a single abortion clinic.

The vote was 5-4.

And earlier, a few days ago, in a historic decision, the U.S.

Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex.

Then the ruling was six to three, with Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's first appointee to the court, writing the majority opinion.

And we have to clarify, this is not because President Trump is secretly progressive or his appointees are secretly progressive.

They are all extreme.

I mean, this is an extremely right-wing and reactionary regime, and the appointees reflect those politics.

But these progressive rulings and, indeed, historic rulings in favor of women and the LGBTQ community are clearly showing the influence of the uprising around the George Floyd protests.

And even if the movements have sprung, you know, the immediate cause for the uprising was police violence and racism, it shows once again, just like we saw in the seventies and throughout history, that when you have a wave of mass movements, it puts tremendous pressure on the ruling class and the capitalist state to deliver concessions on other progressive matters as well.

And so it really shows how movements can help each other and it's a positive example of how we should have support and solidarity among the grassroots movements.

As I mentioned in my public letter to councilmembers last Friday, I'm really pleased that the council is now seriously considering passing a historic tax on Amazon and other top 3% big businesses in Seattle, with seven of the nine councilmembers having now publicly pledged our support, making it a veto-proof majority.

The fact that the city council might now be moving forward together on an Amazon tax, and I really look forward and hope that the vote will happen on Wednesday at committee.

But the fact that the city council is at this point is entirely and exclusively due to the thousands who have been fighting in the tax Amazon movement, including black and brown community members and leaders, multiracial community organizers, LGBTQ community members, immigrants, rank and file union members, Democratic Party rank and file, faith leaders, and socialists.

And it is very much related to the demand from the Seattle BLM movement that the city must pay the fee.

In other words, the demand for redressal for the decades of injustice to the black community and other communities of color and immigrant community and our indigenous communities.

And these injustices, of course, are continuing rampantly in our society.

And so raising taxes on big businesses, especially in the city with the nation's most regressive tax system, is actually a viable and proven way in which we can begin to address racist gentrification.

And also, it is also an avenue to address the recession, in fact, because the possibility of passing a zero budget cuts budget is a real possibility, but only if we raise taxes on big business to make sure that we have revenues to address the shortfall, and that's a gaping hole that the mayor has announced, nearly $300 million worth of budget cuts, which would be quite devastating for the communities that rely on it the most, not to mention the sacrifices that will be put on the shoulders of City of Seattle employees in the form of mandatory furloughs or layoffs.

And that's why it's important not only that we vote on this tax on Wednesday, but that we show commitment as a council for the strongest possible Amazon tax.

And I think the tax as it stands now in the proposal as it stands now, It would be a real substantive step forward.

It shows how successful the movement has been in the grassroots.

And at the same time, my office and the tax Amazon movement are ready to work with any council member to strengthen the legislation on Wednesday and remove some of the I will be bringing forward from my office is to increase the tax rate to raise at least $500 million a year to have revenues commensurate to address the unprecedented scale of housing, unaffordability, homelessness, and the COVID crisis, to completely reject the mayor's austerity program and allow the council to pass a zero cuts budget by increasing the amount to be raised with the tax by the additional $293 million a year, which is what the budget cuts are going to be because of the recession.

to put substance behind the slogan Black Lives Matter by increasing the tax to fund the construction.

And this is, you know, we're talking about additional amount, not rearranging the pie that exists in the base legislation to fund the construction of at least 1,000 new quality affordable homes in the Central District to allow African American households to return to the neighborhood.

And this is a core demand from many of the African American faith leaders I would urge the city Council to support this.

And then also to another amendment to bring in an additional $50 million to be used for Green New Deal investments, which many of the environmental justice and indigenous rights organizations have been calling for to reduce Seattle's climate pollution by insulating and weatherizing tens of thousands of homes.

to eliminate the outrageous sunset clause that big business is demanding.

What we need is a regressive taxation.

for the city to advance the start date for the tax to August 1st, 2020, so that the city can bring in an additional $74.5 million for use in 2021. And as I said, again, I hope council members will support as many of these amendments as possible on Wednesday, and please let my office know.

If you'd like to co-sponsor, happy to work with any of the offices.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Sawant, for that report.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, I just want to thank you for highlighting some of the issues around gun violence in particular.

That segues nicely into what I wanted to address as part of my remarks, Councilmember Sawant.

So thank you so much for highlighting the realities around the the more recent episodes of gun violence occurring within your district and you know really want to reiterate our condolences obviously to the families and to the other community members who have experienced yet another loss of a life as a result of I want to just comment generally on this issue.

There is a lot of reporting and information on social media that I think misses the point around what we are seeing manifest itself again in your This isn't an issue about whether or not gun violence is incited by or perpetuated by the creation of chop and peaceful protest demanding racial justice and for the city and elected officials like us to take action that is actually consistent with preserving life and safety of particularly black and brown community members.

Gun violence is a public health epidemic across the country.

Seattle is not an exception to the plague of gun violence within our communities.

And this is not being caused by, you know, a zone, a specific zone within our city.

This is frankly being caused by unscrupulous gun dealers who allow far too easy access to weapons that are then utilized by people in this way.

And that is, let's not lose focus of the reality of how guns make their way into our communities.

If you look at all of the literature, and in fact, I have a report that was created by the Brady campaign in front of me now, and it talks about the following.

Gun violence is responsible for more than four year reduction in life expectancy for black men in America.

Let me read that again.

Gun violence is responsible for a more than four year reduction in life expectancy for Black men in America.

While gun violence touches Americans in diverse communities across the country, homicides are largely concentrated in urban areas.

with high minority populations.

The most recent five-year average of the CDC data on gun deaths showed that approximately 80% of them incur in such areas.

Nearly every gun recovered in a crime starts as a legal sale from a licensed dealer.

The small percentage of dealers that are responsible for the majority of crime guns are not only affecting lives through the physical impacts of gun violence, but also contributing to the social, racial, and economic injustices that continue to plague this country.

So again, make no mistake that guns have an intentional way of working their way into the hands of the most impacted communities by gun violence.

And this is a uniquely American problem, but it does not impact all Americans equally.

And we know from research and data that we can all probably cite and rely on, that gun homicide has a disparate impact on African American communities.

The same report talks about how gun violence in America is largely a story of race and geography.

Nationally, the homicide rate for black men is 30.7 per 100,000, as compared to white men, where you see the proportional a homicide rate as being 2.4 per 100,000 people.

This disparity, of course, is greater in some areas than in others.

I just want to make sure that we continue to center our conversations around gun violence in America in the actual real causes of gun violence, as opposed to trying to create this false narrative, frankly, that somehow these protests are leading to increase in sudden, unexpected, never seen before in the city of Seattle gun violence.

That is just absolutely not true.

And in fact, that's part of the reason why members of this city council voted years ago to pass an ammunition tax on the sale of ammunition in order to fund the Heart Review Injury Prevention and Research Center to help us figure out how to end the devastating impacts of gun violence, particularly on black and brown communities throughout the city of Seattle.

So gun violence is not a new issue.

It is horrifying for all of us to wake up and hear that there's been another life lost to gun violence.

But let's stay focused on what the actual reason is and the cause is for how guns get into our communities and why they make their way into our communities.

So I just think it's really important for us to continue to champion gun safety laws, firearm safety laws, and again, to do what we can in our control, which is unfortunately not banning these guns from our streets.

but finding and identifying revenue sources and additional investments in black and brown communities that will help them overcome the trauma that they have generationally experienced at the hands of these types of experiences that, again, are fueled by the interest of selling guns to as many people as possible that then make their way into our communities and are used to perpetuate that trauma and so I just really think it's important for us to stay focused on that particular causation on these issues and hope that we can all come together as a city council to continue to elevate the need to have a holistic approach to stopping and preventing gun violence and to, frankly, supporting with a trauma-informed model supporting those victims and survivors of gun violence.

And, you know, obviously that requires resources and it requires us coming together as a community to make sure that we are wrapping our arms around the people who are being, once again, impacted by by gun violence in our city.

This is not the first time that this has happened here, and I think, you know, we have taken some actions on the city council to have strong, firm positions on safety laws related to guns, and look forward to continuing that partnership and that work with all of you and our new public safety chair.

And obviously, lots of work that we need to continue to do at the state and federal level to get them to finally see that action is what communities are demanding and that the status quo is no longer acceptable as it relates to issues of gun violence and how guns make their way into our community and in the systemic reasons why people in our communities feel like they need to resort to having a gun to protect themselves.

So thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to talk a little bit more about that issue.

It's an issue that I feel very passionate about, as you can tell.

So I will go ahead and go on with the rest of my report unless folks want to have an opportunity to address that particular component as part of our conversation this morning.

Any questions or comments?

councilmember Muscato, please.

I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for reframing the discussion.

Thank you for recentering us on what we've already done as a council and for putting into focus the macro issues that are at play when we talk about what's happening in our city right now.

I really don't think those issues have been highlighted enough and the way that you framed it all was eloquent, comprehensive, and needed to be said.

And I hope that people are paying attention across our city.

Thank you very much for your summary of those issues.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

And I'm happy to share any of the research that I have that if other council members are interested in getting a better sense of sort of how this issue, how we should really be talking about this issue and what the macro issues as you've articulated really are.

Okay, any other questions or comments on that component?

I will go ahead and complete my report.

The governance and education committee does not have any legislation on today's full council agenda.

And we don't have anything on the introduction referral calendar either.

We will not have any regularly scheduled committee hearings for the month of July.

updates really quickly.

I have two things to share that are unrelated to my committee's work.

First, almost two weeks ago, King County Councilmember Gamay Zahili and Spokane Councilmember Kate Burke and I launched a statewide pledge that is open for all Washington state electeds to sign on to.

Huge thanks to our friends over at Local Progress who provided us with some technical assistance on crafting that statewide pledge.

And the goal of this pledge is for a shared framework for electives across the state, whether they are at the port, school board, or other city councils to use our positions of power as policy makers and budget makers in many instances for anti-racist budgeting and addressing laws that criminalize blackness.

The pledge also gives us shared language and values to be legislating or directing investments for black and brown communities to thrive.

I want to thank Council Members Mosqueda and Lewis and City Attorney Pete Holmes and members of the Seattle School Board for signing on to the pledge.

So far we also have other electeds from Shoreline, Redmond, Port Angeles, Mercer Island, and Auburn who have also joined the pledge.

For any of you colleagues who may wish to sign on but may have lost track of the email and are very busy inboxes, feel free to reach out to me and Bean Gwyn in my office and we will resend our pledge to you in hopes that you will join this statewide effort.

I have a Families in Education Preschool Promise Levy Oversight Committee meeting to attend.

this Wednesday and looking forward to joining as much of that meeting as I can as it currently conflicts and overlaps a little bit with our Select Budget Committee scheduled for the same day, but looking forward to joining those members of community who sit on the Levy Oversight Committee for that important discussion.

Lastly, we have a letter that we circulated to each of you colleagues related to the CARES Act 2.0, as we're referring to it.

The Senate begins working on the next version of a coronavirus relief package known as the CARES Act.

OIR has drafted an updated letter, including the current projected revenue shortfall for the city in order for us to send to Senators Murray and Cantwell.

It's very similar to the letter that we all agreed to sign and sent to Congress in April, but it includes a few changes to the numbers to better reflect the HEROES Act and other updated needs.

I want to thank Councilmember Morales and Herbold for sending us a few.

Edits which we incorporated into the draft of this letter.

It was circulated at about 920 a.m.

this morning and the edit edited version was circulated 920 a.m.

this morning, but the original version was circulated late last week.

I wanted to have an opportunity to go ahead and do a roll call this morning during council briefings so that we can go ahead and sign on to the letter and get that over to OIR for shipment to our senators.

And happy to answer any questions or hear any concerns about that letter or any other aspect of my report before we call a roll on the letter.

Any questions?

Council Member Sawant?

Actually, I don't, but I just want to use this opportunity to say I forgot to add one thing in my report, so if you can come back to me at some point.

Sure, absolutely.

OK, hearing no questions or concerns, I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the roll on the letter related to advocacy for CARES Act 2.0.

Strauss?

Ores.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Sorry.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Swann.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

8 in favor.

Thank you so much.

Thank you colleagues for your agreement to sign that letter.

We are we will go ahead and take care of the process of making sure that it gets over to our office of an intergovernmental relations for distribution to Senators Murray and Cantwell Okay, any other?

Oh, I'm sorry customer salon.

You had flagged for me that you missed something on your report.

So I'll hand it back over to you.

Okay

Thank you.

As Council Member Morales mentioned earlier, and as I have mentioned in the past, AHRQ and my offices have been working with the Department of Public Defense and community organizations to prepare a youth rights ordinance to prohibit the police from interrogating children without having them have the right to first talk to a lawyer.

People have the right to remain silent and are not required to incriminate themselves.

However, too often, people are intimidated.

This is a real-life situation.

Too often, people are intimidated into abandoning this right, even when we are adults.

And for children, it is totally unreasonable to expect that they would be able to stand up to adult police officers in a very intimidating situation, and this is especially starkly that we have to make sure that we have the right information relevant to children of color to demand their rights.

This bill would require at least a phone call to an attorney in the Department of Public Defense before any interrogation may take place.

And it will also be important that we include strong enforcement in this legislation.

And I hope that the City Council will support that effort.

Thank you.

or comments.

Okay, thank you all so much.

We have one last agenda item and that is an executive session on personnel as published in our agenda.

So I'm gonna go ahead and read through the script to call the executive session to order.

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

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss personnel.

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

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

I expect the executive session to end in approximately 120 minutes, so that's 11 a.m.

now, so that means no later than 1 p.m.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.

you