Council Briefing 2/27/23

The council briefing will come to order.

The time is 2.02.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

And Council President Juarez?

Here.

Seven present.

Thank you.

If there is no objection, the minutes of February 13th, 2023, will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing objection, the minutes are adopted.

So let's move on to the president's report.

I'm going to have a little bit more here than I normally do.

So I'd like to begin by thanking Council Member Morales for serving as president pro tem and chairing the council meeting last week.

I was in I was representing Seattle at the National Congress of American Indians in Washington DC and meeting with our congressional leaders and staff.

And I will provide more detail about those meetings later in my report.

So thank you, Council Member Morales.

Looks like I missed a big party.

So on today's agenda, we will again welcome OIR Director Gail Tarleton and her staff to provide a legislative update to the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

My understanding is that you should have all received the documents that you guys, did you send these out Friday?

No, today, this morning?

This morning.

This morning.

Okay, good.

So you should have those two in front of you.

One is a list of the bills that didn't make it and one is a list of the bills that are still moving forward.

We have no proclamations or letters to sign today.

As you know, we'll go to and have the individual reports by each council member.

The roll call today will start with Council Member Strauss and Council Member Mosqueda is excused from today's briefing.

Please note that after the end of this meeting, we will go into executive session, which I hope will last 20 minutes.

And if we need to extend it, then we will go back on the record and extend it.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as nine appointments to the Community Technical Advisory Board, recommended by the Economic Development, Technology and City Light Committee, and that is Council Member Nelson, and she will be speaking to those.

There are seven items under committee reports on the agenda tomorrow.

The first six are related to the 2022 surveillance impact report, also known as SIR.

All six were unanimously recommended by the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

Council member Nelson is the sponsor of those council bills and she will be speaking to them as well.

The seventh committee report is from the land use committee.

It relates to urban forestry and amends requirements for registered tree service providers and council member Strauss will be speaking to that as well.

The final two items on tomorrow's council agenda will be our annual resolutions adopting the council's work program for the new year.

and adopting our statements of legislative intent.

Information on all these items on tomorrow's agenda is available online.

The next council briefing will be next Monday, March 6. So with that, moving on in our agenda, I'm going to hand it over to Director Tarleton to give us the state legislative update.

Thank you very much Council President Juarez and Council Members.

We're happy to report that the very important fiscal cutoff happened last Friday as scheduled.

Sameer and Ana will be giving you a rundown of a couple of the bills still very much in play.

You'll see on the list of bills still in play that there are a lot of pieces of legislation that are still active.

I like to focus on the bills that are in rules from a policy standpoint.

And all of those bills that are still in a fiscal committee, in the finance committee, or appropriations, or ways and means in the House or the Senate, they are still active and engaged.

They are not subject to cut off within their house of origin until March 8th.

So fiscal bills are necessary to implement the budget.

Lots of things happen between now and budget time, and so Those that are still fiscal, just keep watching them, because they're unlikely to move a lot.

But those policy bills are really important to see whether they come out of rules and into the floor of the House or the Senate.

So I'll turn it over to Anna Johnson, who is going to kick off the presentation today.

And she and Samir will do a duo.

So Anna, please share your thoughts.

Yeah.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone.

Ana Johnson, State Legislative Liaison for OIR.

So as Gail mentioned, last Friday was the fiscal committee cut off.

And today we are starting week eight of the legislative session.

So bills that did not make it out of fiscal committees last Friday that are policy bills, if they didn't make it out of the committee last Friday, they likely are not moving and they're considered dead.

But sometimes bills can show up in the budget or they can get incorporated into other bills.

That's just kind of a caveat I would add to the bills on the list that we provided that we noted were dead.

So the next cutoff will be next Wednesday, which is March 8th.

And this is the House of Origin floor cutoff.

So bills are all sitting in rules now, which is the next committee in the process.

And the rules committee will need to pull those bills out and take them to the floor for floor action by March 8th.

So that's kind of where we're at in the legislative timeline.

So going over some of the bills that are alive and moving, starting with the category of climate and environment.

Three of our priority bills are alive, including the WRAP Act, which is the Washington Recycling and Packaging Act.

That is House Bill 1131, as well as the Extender Producer Responsibility Bill for batteries.

That's Senate Bill 5144. and Right to Repair, House Bill 1392, all made it through the fiscal committees last week.

The WRAP Act and Right to Repair passed out of the Appropriations Committee on Thursday, and on Friday, EPR for Batteries passed out of the Ways and Means Committee with bipartisan support.

Can I ask you a quick question, Anna?

Mm-hmm.

Just briefly, can you share what the Right to Repair is and where that's going?

Yeah, the right to repair allows electronic products to be repaired outside of the manufacturer's realm.

And so that bill is essentially to make it easier for electronic products to be repaired.

And so you don't end up having to buy a new one and those materials go to waste and there's less incentive to have more waste management for electronics products.

And so that one's sitting in rules in the house.

That's been a very hard bill to move out over the years.

I am impressed to see it got to rules.

Kind of why I was asking, because this has been around.

Yeah.

Who's promoting that?

I can't find it in my thing.

Can you just tell me who the senator or the representative?

Yeah, it's sponsored by Representative Gregerson, who is a Democrat, down in the Des Moines area.

I don't remember the legislative district off the top of my head.

That's right.

33rd.

She's in the 33rd.

OK.

It's a very big, important bill for a lot of small businesses that do laptop repair, cell phone repair, clearing devices of their existing data and dealing with normal people in neighborhoods as opposed to going back to the manufacturer.

Okay.

I guess I was looking at the other one that she had on here.

Funding digital equity by imposing a tax on certain wireless devices.

Gregorston has that one as well.

All right.

Sorry to interrupt your flow, Anna.

No worries.

Hi, everybody.

Samir Janejo, State Relations Director for OIR.

I'm going to go into the general government section a little bit, highlight a few bills that had action last week.

The House Finance Committee moved a couple of bills that I wanted to flag.

They moved House Bill 1425 relating to municipal annexations.

This is Representative April Berg from the 44th District.

It's meant to incentivize municipalities to annex areas.

It does this by modifying existing law allowing cities to impose a sales tax against the annexed area credited against the state sales tax.

The lower the population requirement of the annexed area from 10,000 to 2,000.

Another very Seattle-specific bill that the House Finance Committee moved out is House Bill 1510, sponsored by Representative Santos.

This bill imposes a $1 fee on each admissions ticket sold at events at Lumen Field and T-Mobile Park.

And all revenues from this fee will go to the Pioneer Square International District Community Preservation and Development Authority, which is also known as Historic South Downtown.

The vote on that bill was pre-divided with close to party line vote.

And then the Senate State Government Committee passed House Bill 5723 by Senator Valdez, which allows cities to hold municipal elections in even numbered years.

All three of those bills are now sitting in rules waiting for floor action.

Moving to healthcare and behavioral health.

As you can see in the council bulletin, many of the abortion access bills are still moving through the process and moved quite early on.

One that moved last week was the Keep Our Care Act, Senate Bill 5241, sponsored by Senator Randall.

It passed out of the Ways and Means Committee on a mostly party line vote.

And as a reminder, this bill creates a reporting requirements for hospital mergers and acquisitions and requires the attorney general's office to determine the impact of the transaction on healthcare access and affordability.

And a couple of bills that are still continuing to move relating to behavioral health are House Bill 1134 on implementing the 988 crisis line, and then Senate Bill 5120 creating the 23-hour crisis relief centers.

Both bills moved out of the finance committees last week.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Yeah.

Were you talking about Senate Bill 5241, health care marketplace?

Is that what you're talking about?

That's right.

Yep.

So just help me out here.

Is this the one where when hospitals decide to merge?

Yep, that's the one.

OK, sorry.

Thank you.

Now, moving to housing and homelessness bills, I think we got a question.

OK, go ahead, Mr. Nelson.

Yeah.

What's the number of the bill that had to do with Lumenfield?

That is 1510.

Thank you.

Hey, you guys, you should just feel free to just jump in.

Don't wait for me to call on you because I can't.

pay attention to all these titles.

So thank you.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry, Samir.

No problem.

Moving to housing and homelessness.

I'll talk first about the land use zoning bills, House Bill 1110, which among other things required residential zones to allow for middle housing.

It passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan vote last week.

A couple notable amendments related to Seattle.

One was it allowed cities with an affordable housing incentive program like Seattle's MHA to modify and expand upon the affordable housing requirements in the bill.

It also added a SEPA exemption for government actions that remove parking minimums.

In the Senate, there's a transit oriented development bill, Senate Bill 5466, that passed out of the Senate Transportation Committee on a bipartisan vote.

As a reminder, this bill requires higher density in areas within three quarters of a mile of a major transit stop.

On tenant protection bills, the Rent Stabilization Bill, this is House Bill 1389, which limits rent increases.

It passed out of the House Appropriations Committee.

It also included the contents of another tenant protection bill, House Bill 1388 by Representative Macri.

That bill kept moving the fees and deposits and also provided the Attorney General's Office with enforcement authority of certain landlord prohibitive practices under the Consumer Protection Act.

Another bill of note is the covenant homeownership.

Quick question on the tenant bills.

The cap on moving fees, can you let us know what that is, what amount, dollar amount?

Yeah, I'll have to look up a specific number.

I don't have that in front of me.

Okay, that would be helpful.

I believe Council Member Sawant has a bill and just interested to compare what they're talking about at the state legislature with what is proposed here for Seattle.

Thank you.

Yep, definitely.

We'll get that to you.

Moving on to the Covenant Home Ownership Reinvestment Act.

This bill creates a $100 document recording fee for the purpose of creating a special purpose credit program to help people who are impacted by racially restricted covenants with down payment and clothing cost assistance that also moved up.

out of the House Appropriations Committee on Friday.

Another bill that moved out of the House Finance Committee last week is House Bill 1596. It's a housing affordability bill which allows King County and also cities within King County to create a property tax exemption for ADUs that are rented to extremely low income households.

And then a couple of permitting and development regulation bills that continue to move and move out of the fiscal committees last week.

One is 1167, sponsored by Representative Dewar.

It asks the State Building Code Council to recommend ways to allow multiplex housing to use a residential building code.

It also asks the council to study allowing of residential buildings to have single exit stairways up to six stories, which is something that Seattle already allows.

There's also been a...

Oh, go ahead.

When you're done, Council Member Lewis has a question.

Go ahead.

Okay, last one in this category is Senate Bill 5412 by Senator Solomon, which requires only clear and objective regulations for exterior designs of new development.

And it also creates a new SEPA exemption for project actions that propose to develop residential housing units within incorporated areas.

Go ahead, Jerry.

You have a question?

Yeah, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Council President, and great to be talking to the OIR team.

I do want to give a shout out to the State Relations team for working with my office to get some important amendments into 1110 and really appreciate the nimbleness of our ability to do that and that those amendments were incorporated in the substitute.

I have a question about another bill.

I'm sorry, I just, I have all these things up on my screen and including the bill, so I'm trying to just find the number really quickly.

1042, ESHB 1042, the use of existing buildings, which is, it looks like in Senate housing currently is the status of that bill.

And my read of that bill is that it kind of speaks to adaptive reuse processes and making it easier for local jurisdictions to get through a lot of the state imposed red tape that makes adaptive reuse more difficult.

In the bill summary located on the website for 1042, it looks like that would include an exemption from SEPA study as one of the things that the bill would waive.

if someone wanted to build housing units within the footprint of a zone that permits multifamily housing.

So my read of the bill is that it could include an office building, for example, being converted to multifamily, but I want to maybe make sure the state relations team is also interpreting it that way, or that's what the policy is partly calling for.

And it looks kind of similar to a bill recently introduced in the California Assembly, Assembly Bill 1532, dealing with a similar issue.

That bill specifically calls out office conversion.

And these are things that, I mean, I know we're kind of halfway through the session, but there are some things that have come to light in my conversations with builders and property owners who are looking at trying to do adaptive reuse as one of their strategies.

where there are certain state impediments.

And if this bill is unsuccessful, there's a couple of these that rise to the top for our purposes.

Some of these things in the summary might be more relevant in suburban jurisdictions as hurdles they encounter.

Like in Seattle, we've waived quite a few of these.

But there are some things here that deal with state issues that it would be nice to try to resolve this session as part of our downtown recovery efforts and office to housing conversion efforts.

So I guess I'll leave it at that just to confirm that 1042 is the bill that does this.

And then talk about maybe the viability of that bill and if we might find ways to hang some of these things that are in it on another bill in the latter part of the session if this bill itself is not moving.

Yeah, so I think your interpretation is right.

The intent of it is definitely, I think, to non-residential buildings to be converted to residential.

The only limitation to that, they have the zoning, doesn't change the zoning, so that the area in which they exist would have to already be zoned for multiplex housing.

And the bill, I think at this point seems pretty viable in that it moved off the house floor already and is now already in the Senate Housing Committee where it had a hearing last week.

So it's further along than most of the bills on your list.

I'll just add it had a unanimous vote off the House floor.

And it does take very specific look at what cities need to be able to retain in order to implement this adaptive reuse and what ordinances cities can manage and how the state needs to step aside for the cities.

It will be interesting to see how fast it gets to the Senate floor.

Thank you.

Great update.

Appreciate it.

All right, and now I'll move on to some cannabis bills.

A few cannabis bills moved the fiscal committees last week.

First one, well, actually one moved off the Senate floor last week, which is Senate Bill 5123. It's sponsored by Senator Kaiser.

It prohibits employers from discriminating against someone in the hiring process for cannabis use or cannabis use outside of work.

And that passed off the floor 28 to 21. And then the Senate Ways and Means Committee moved a couple of bills last week related to cannabis.

One is 5377, sponsored by Senator Rivers.

It allows out-of-state ownership of cannabis businesses.

And then they also passed Senate Bill 5367, which gives the Liquor and Cannabis Board authority to regulate some non-cannabis products containing THC, like cannabinoids and hemp.

And then lastly, they also passed Senate Bill 5080, expanding the state's social equity and cannabis program.

All right, we're moving on to the topic of public safety.

The House Transportation Committee heard House Bill 1513 from Representative Street on Tuesday.

This bill limits officers' use of stops and detentions for non-moving violations as the primary offense.

It specifies additional processes for traffic stops and requires a written consent before an officer may search a vehicle or the passengers.

and it creates a grant program focused on interventions for non-moving violations for low-income road users.

This bill passed out of the Transportation Committee on Thursday.

A few other bills related to police accountability and police reform that made it through fiscal cutoff.

So House Bill 1579, this bill establishes a mechanism for independent prosecutions within the Office of the Attorney General for criminal conduct arising from police use of deadly force.

House Bill 1025, this bill creates a private right of action for harm from violations of the state constitution or state law caused by peace officers.

House Bill, there's a couple of bills related to vehicular pursuits that made it through the cutoff as well.

And that would be House Bill 1586, which requires the Criminal Justice Training Commission to establish a work group and grant program related to vehicular pursuits.

and House Bill 1363. And this modifies the statewide standard for police to engage in vehicular pursuits.

Additionally, oh, yes.

What was the last one you said you got there too quick?

The last two I mentioned that are related to vehicular pursuits are House Bill 1586 and House Bill 1363. 1363 is by whom?

This bill is by Representative Rule up in the 42nd District.

Got it.

So can you just, I mean, I know kind of this has been going on for a while and I know that there's been a lot of intense discussion about the vehicular and the pursuit and all that stuff.

So where are we at on these, just offhandedly, where are we at on these debates about, because there was confusion.

So now where are we at on that?

Yeah, so just for some information, House Bill 1363 lowers the evidentiary threshold, statewide evidentiary threshold, to engage in a vehicular pursuit by allowing officers to pursue a suspect if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person in the vehicle has committed or is committing a violent offense, sex offense, vehicular assault offense, assault offense involving domestic violence and escape or driving under the influence offense.

So we've been monitoring all the bills related to vehicular pursuits this session.

House Bill 1363 is a bipartisan bill that is looking to change the threshold at the state level.

And then the other bill related to the Criminal Justice Training Commission work group is tasking the CJTC to come up with a model policy for the state and bring that back to the legislature by the end of the year.

OK, so 1363 is bipartisan, obviously.

Yeah, that one has a number of bipartisan co-sponsors.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Ana, we discussed this, I think, last week in our check-in.

I wanted to make sure everyone understood.

It's very possible that both of these bills could move forward simultaneously in this session.

So, in other words, not wait for the findings of the workgroup.

It's also possible that they could decide to have a workgroup and leave the status quo in place until the findings of the workgroup.

So we need to track these two bills very carefully.

Okay.

Is this the one where, is it, please correct me if I'm wrong, is it Senator or Representative Lovick from Sohomish County?

Senator.

Senator.

But this is the House Companion, which I think it was the chair of the Health and Safety Committee.

Correct.

Yeah.

So House Bill 1586 is sponsored by Representative Goodman.

who is also the chair of the Community Safety Justice and Reentry Committee.

Senator Levick also had a bill that was establishing a work group to examine vehicular pursuits that ultimately ended up not moving out of the fiscal committee last Friday.

It was on their long list to get to, but they didn't take action on it.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

I see Council Member Nielsen.

So, Director, when you say we should keep watching these, has Seattle wasting an opinion or a position on this?

Well, now that they're in the process of getting ready to go to the floor, there will be no more hearings on the House side.

They're in the Rules Committee, which doesn't take hearings.

Ana and Samir, did we sign in in support of the work group?

I think we may have.

in support of the work group?

We did not.

Although a grant program, the grant program would go to local government and local police departments.

And so it would be beneficial to cities.

Yeah.

Any other questions before I move on?

Okay.

Another bill I want to highlight in the public safety category is Senate Bill 5477 from Senator Torres.

On Monday, last Monday, the Ways and Means Committee heard this bill.

This bill reauthorizes the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women's and People's Task Force and extends it to 2025. It also requires law enforcement authorities to investigate missing persons cases and enter them into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

This bill has broad support and passed the committee unanimously.

Additionally, last week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee exec out House or Senate Bill 5533. This bill is concerning controlled substances, counterfeit substances and legend drug possession and treatment.

This is from Senator Robinson.

This bill is now on to a second substitute version, it retains some provisions from the underlying bill which were to increase the penalty for knowing possession of controlled substances.

to a gross misdemeanor.

It creates a pre-child diversion program for individuals charged with possession of prohibited substances and requires courts to vacate convictions of possessions for defendants who successfully complete treatment and file proof with the court.

The new substitute also adds provisions related to testing of the suspected drugs at the toxicology lab and adds provisions related to sentencing and probation for individuals convicted of possession.

Now on to social programs in the education section of your council bulletin.

On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee heard House Bill 1238 from Representative Vercelli.

This is the bill pertaining to free school meals.

The among other provisions, the bill requires school districts beginning next school year to provide no charge meals to public schools.

They scaled back the bill to only apply to educational services for students in the grades of five or kindergarten through fifth grade.

And the school also has to have 30 percent or more of enrolled students on federally 30% or more of enrolled students that meet federal eligibility requirements for free or reduced price lunches.

And this made it out of the committee last Friday.

So this means everyone gets a lunch.

So now the bill applies to only grades kindergarten through fifth grade, and the school has to have 30% or more of the students enrolled in the eligibility of free and reduced lunch.

Okay, I just crazy.

Okay, we've been dealing with this for at least three decades.

Why you can't feed children.

K to 12. Okay.

Yeah.

Using the federal poverty line, the feds definition of 30% federal poverty line.

There may be statistics that we can find about how many schools in the state, how many K-5 schools in the state meet that minimum criterion.

I bet it's a very large percentage, but we should find that out.

Yeah, I do know that as they looked at another version of this bill that scaled back, there is obviously a continued effort to continue.

This is just the version that moved out of the committee.

So onto the topic of childcare, there's a couple of bills that made it through fiscal cutoff that I want to highlight, starting with Senate Bill 5225. This expands the Working Connections childcare eligibility to include childcare employees who have incomes up to 85% of the state's median income, and it also waives their co-pay to the extent allowable.

Also, House Bill 1528 expands eligibility for the Working Connections Child Care Program to apply to persons in their first 12 months of state-registered apprenticeship when the person meets certain eligibility criteria.

A bill related to elementary school recess has also made it through the fiscal cut off both the House version and the Senate version.

So that's House Bill 1504 and Senate Bill 5257. This ensures elementary school students receive sufficient daily recess.

House Bill 1693 expands the students experiencing homelessness and foster youth pilot program.

And Senate Bill 5048 eliminates high school, college and high school fees.

Both of those bills also made it through the fiscal cutoff.

And there's a number of other social programs and education related bills that are on the council bulletin that are continuing to move.

I was going to ask you about that on the one about college and high school fees.

So before, are you saying like, is this have to do with like running starter?

What, what is this?

So they, they had to pay college fees to go to.

Correct.

That's my understanding.

And now the state will cover those fees for students.

Okay.

That's good.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, the last one we'll flag for you is in the transportation section and that's Senate Bill 5383 related to jaywalking.

So the Senate Transportation Committee passed out a bill last week, but with some significant amendments.

So the bill now allows pedestrians to freely cross roadways along the speeds of that road are less than 45 miles per hour, and also as long as the pedestrian is not impeding the flow of traffic.

It also prohibits crossings at any crosswalks where there is an official sign prohibiting a crossing.

And it also prohibits moving suddenly from a curb onto the path of a moving vehicle.

And that bill is 5383 sponsored by Senator Saldana.

And that is our list for you today.

Happy to answer any questions.

What's going on with the right turn on red?

Yeah, what's up with that?

The neither bill moved out of their committees last week.

So those bills are considered dead.

And in the alcohol concentration?

Yes, that and then the Senate that is that bill is moving forward.

And it is, I think it's already for a floor vote, getting ready for a floor vote.

I'm gonna ask a stupid question.

So there's two bills here.

How are they different with the bridge jumping signs?

House Bill 1004 and Senate Bill 5478, one by Brown and one by Albano.

Is there, are they the same?

They might be the same.

I'll have to check on that.

Yeah, they might be the same.

Yeah, they are.

I think I just caught that.

Oh, they are the same.

You just have it in there twice.

My mistake as well, sorry.

No, I'll make sure that's true, but thanks for flagging.

Well, it was really dumb luck, so.

Is there any other questions?

Are you guys finished?

Or is there more to do?

Does anyone have any questions?

That's it from our side.

I did get Samir to at least smile once.

So are there any questions from my colleagues before the director takes us out?

Nope, not seeing any.

Director Tarleton, is there anything you want to add with before or end with before we move on in our schedule?

So I just really want to thank all of the council members who have given their time to testify, given their time to call a legislator, send a note, an email.

As these bills get off their respective floors and go into the other chambers in the next couple of weeks, if there are any in particular that you would really wish to speak to.

Testimony is still able to be given remotely or in person.

Please let Sameer and Ana know.

And there are members of the different departments who are starting to weigh in on different pieces of legislation now that they are in the other house or house of origin.

And so just thank you for all the time.

And Council President, thank you for the time keep you up to date once a week.

Things are moving really quickly now and it will be an intense budget season for the next four weeks.

Thank you.

I see Council Member Nelson has her hand up.

One last question.

House Bill 1206, Newspaper Publishers Tax.

So what's up with that and when might people be able to weigh in?

Yeah, that bill is still alive.

It's since it's a tax bill, it's not subject to cut off.

So there's still going to be opportunities to talk to that bill.

And I think it was there was a hearing in the finance committee.

So that hearing is passed.

But I mean, if it moves continues moving forward, then I think we'll get other opportunities for a hearing as well.

Thanks.

Yeah, keep us posted on that right hand turn thing.

So.

OK.

All right.

So we are.

Thank you, guys.

See you.

Thank you very much.

All right, everybody, moving on in our agenda, the we have no letters or proclamations for today, so I'm going to go ahead and do our round robin thing.

So it looks like we are going to start with council member Strauss.

Herbold, Lewis, Morales, Nelson, Peterson, and then me.

So Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you to the whole Office of Intergovernmental Relations team.

Your updates about what is going on in session are always helpful, and I appreciate you meeting with me offline as well.

From the Land Use Committee, items on full council tomorrow.

There's one item from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

Council Bill 120509, the Tree Service Provider Registration Bill.

This legislation makes some small changes to the Tree Service Provider Registration Ordinance that was passed last year.

The bill is mostly technical fixes and corrections.

We were able to work with high road arborists in Seattle and Urban Forestry Commission chairs on these changes.

What these changes do are it renames major pruning to reportable work within the legislation.

It includes ECAs, moves posting requirements from physical to online and also requiring a map to be created, requires TSPs to have contact information on their trucks, as well as allows arborists to remove dead branches and roots, changes posting requirements to at least three business days in advance of reportable work and six business days in advance of tree removals, and adds a requirement for tree service providers to post public notices at or near the work site while the work is underway and recommends the notices be left in place for at least five days after the work is completed.

This also allows SDCI to determine if a third party assessment on hazardous tree removal is necessary.

I wanna thank Council Member Peterson and Toby for all your work on these technical fixes and creating the underlying bill.

I wanna thank the arborists and the Urban Forestry Commission SDCI Yolanda and Naomi on my team for working so hard.

We received emails regarding this legislation, and I know that there might be some confusion between this legislation and the overall tree ordinance.

This is just the note that we'll be taking up the tree ordinance in full coming soon.

This is not the last opportunity to engage on trees.

Now, the report for the land use committee, the next regularly scheduled land use committee is next week on Wednesday, March 8 at 2pm we anticipate hearing the following items, a missing middle housing presentation briefing and discussion I mentioned this at our last council briefing.

And since that time the presentation has moved to the March, 8 meeting will also have an ad you annual report.

The ADU legislation was passed in 2019. And so this is a report with no intended legislative action.

This is informational purposes only on how the ordinance has been working.

I'm looking forward to hearing OPCD's findings on this.

We'll also have home based businesses for briefing and discussion and then following a vote.

This is the permanent legislation for the temporary bill that was permitted during the COVID-19 civil emergency that allows home occupations operate within their garages without unnecessary burdensome policy.

Finally, tree legislation.

I am excited to announce we're expecting to receive the overall tree legislation soon.

We will be scheduling our land use committee meetings once we have confirmation this legislation will be transmitted.

And so we expect to have three meetings dedicated to the tree ordinance.

We plan on segmenting the legislation, focusing on one section at a time for amendments and discussion, then moving on to the next section.

We will begin the process with an overview of the entire bill, move section by section, and briefing the entirety of the bill as amended at the end, and then pass to full council.

This bill has been in the works.

Some people have been working on it for 20 years.

Some others have been working on it for 13 years.

I've been working on it for five years.

So with this much anticipation, the process next month may feel fast after so many years of inaction.

I want to assure everyone we will take the time needed to fully examine and amend the bill if needed.

And we will be moving quickly so that we can ensure tree protections are put in place as fast as possible.

So colleagues, if you have any questions on this or anything in the Land Use Committee, I'm always, door's always open.

And with that, that is the committee report.

Colleagues, any questions?

Seeing none, I will pass it on to Council Member Herbold, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Good to be here with you all.

There are no items on the full council agenda tomorrow from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting tomorrow morning.

We only have two items on the agenda.

One is a briefing from the Human Services Department on their planned 2023 notices of funding availability across several lines of Human Services Department business.

This is a rescheduled briefing from our last committee meeting where we ran short on time.

And then we are also going to be receiving an update on the full dispatch pilot from Council Central staff and from the Community Safety and Communication Center, primarily focused on their update of dispatch protocols that will serve as the foundation for the future pilot.

There are safety.

It's just a thing that see stat shows that we're marginally below last year's count for shots fired year to date as of February 23 with 96. reported shots fired here in seven in 2022. Also, the Seattle Police Department has begun their nationwide search of five assistant chief positions in patrol operations, criminal investigations, collaborative policing, metropolitan division, and the special operations bureaus.

SPD will be soliciting applications from both internal and external candidates.

And they expect their efforts, we expect their efforts, will build a command staff that is capable of enacting a vision of the department shared by Chief Diaz, Mayor Harrell, and Council.

Last week, I met with Chief Diaz, where we discussed several topics, highlighting a few of them, one being timing on enacting the new ROOS policy that I know many of us are waiting for the next stage after SPD has worked really hard with the Office of the Inspector General in the stakeholders that they pulled together to develop a draft policy.

We're now waiting for SPD to announce its implementation.

Look forward to that timeline moving forward.

We also discussed how SPD can better track use of naloxone for overdose reversals.

I think many of you may have seen the estimate in the chief's letter to the CPC last week or maybe two weeks ago where the estimate was only 26 times in 2022, but with an acknowledgement that that number might have been an undercount.

SPD is going to be working on a new approach for making sure that we're accurately capturing the use of naloxone for overdose reversals and beginning to have a conversation about rule definitions with the Seattle Fire Department.

Of course, it's absolutely appropriate for SPD to do overdose reversals when they come across an individual in the course of their day.

The question that the Fire Department has been asking though is, shouldn't it be only the Fire Department that is being dispatched to these reversals?

And so, getting a better handle on the number of times that that actually happens, I think is a really important part of that work.

Also, Chief Diaz in our last meeting, let us know that SPD is currently on target.

one and a half months in towards the 2023 hiring plan.

Again, just for the first month and half of the year, but I like to light the bright spots when we see them.

And then lastly, as far as public safety related updates, their last council briefing, I also met with the CPC and Fire Chief Hoggins.

As far as events coming up this week, I will be participating in a public safety roundtable at Arts West hosted by the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce that's happening this evening.

I will be joined on the panel by Chief Diaz, the City Attorney's Criminal Division Chief Natalie Walton Anderson, and King County Prosecuting Attorney Lisa Manion.

I'm also going to be meeting this week with some high school students here at City Hall to discuss their concerns about the delay in the building performance standards legislation.

And lastly, I'll be representing the council as co-chair of the Domestic Violence Prevention Council there at our general membership meeting on Friday.

That's all I've got for you today.

Does anybody have any questions or comments?

Not seeing any, I'll pass it over to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Just a couple of updates this afternoon.

First off, for the committee this Wednesday, the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee, we will be meeting.

There is going to be one adjustment to the agenda.

As all of us who attended the State of the City speech know, Mayor Harrell mentioned some legislation that would be coming to Council, allowing Major League Baseball to fund a restoration of Rainier Playfield.

We had anticipated hearing that legislation during this week's committee meeting.

However, the Parks Department has notified us this morning the legislation is not quite ready for the initial hearing, so we are going to hold that legislation until March 15th.

We are going to go forward with our committee meeting for a presentation from University of Washington Professor Catherine Beckett, and the Public Defender Association on the results of the Just Care Program's Wave 2 work, although it will be a comprehensive presentation on work done throughout the entire time period of the Just Care Program's existence.

And we are really looking forward to that presentation in anticipation of the next ongoing evaluation report being released by Professor Beckett.

And that will be a component of having this public hearing to look over it as the City of Seattle was a significant funder of that program.

So that will be during this Wednesday's meeting of the committee.

Clean City Update for February 13th to February 17th.

The Clean City Initiative collected approximately 1,287 needles and approximately 80,000 pounds of garbage from 96 different locations.

And then finally libraries with the cold weather that we have been experiencing throughout the past week and anticipated to continue this week.

The library branch staff and website have been proactively sharing out information from the King County Regional Homeless Authority on cold weather shelters and appreciate the partnership of our folks over at Seattle Public Libraries for providing that service.

And with that, I don't have anything else to report back on, and I will hand it over to Councilmember Morales if there aren't any inquiries based on the report.

Seeing none, I will hand it to Councilmember Morales.

Thank you very much Councilmember Lewis.

Good afternoon colleagues, there are no items from the neighborhood Education, Arts and Rights Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

The committee did meet last week, and voted to recommend 12 appointments and reappointments, which will be included on the consent agenda for our March 7 full council meeting.

We also had a presentation from deal on the slide that Council President included last year in the budget process, requesting a summary of funding sources for student mental health resources.

The presentation is available online, but in summary, I will say that.

There are, you know, city, county, state, federal philanthropy sources, it was hard to get a total dollar amount for a few different reasons, including public health Seattle King County where our school based health centers are located, or are managed.

can't provide specific dollar amounts, or FTEs, you know, the funding is braided, it's complex.

And so there is a summary of dollars, it is in the, I'd say, $10 million total, maybe.

But there are different sources doing different kinds of things.

And I think what this presentation reminded me is that it is important to remind folks that the city is able to provide some mental health services, some other nursing, FTEs, facility support, school-based investments to support Seattle Public Schools.

Including the preschool program including Seattle promise.

The city is able to provide about 100,000 hundred million dollars in investments, a year, thanks to our FEPP levy.

That's a seven year levy.

And, of course, this is the support is needed, because the state funding doesn't fully cover the cost of serving our students, and particularly those students who live in under invested communities.

You are probably seeing the news.

These last few days Seattle Public Schools is facing a dramatic deficit due in part to dropping student enrollment, but due to some other structural problems in the way we fund public schools in this state.

I will say as a parent with two kids in Seattle Public Schools, I'm watching very carefully how the state and the district respond to this crisis to ensure that our kids are getting the services and the resources they need to be successful.

So more to come there.

The next committee meeting is going to be on Friday, March 10. This week, we will be meeting with Department of Neighborhoods to get an update on the generational wealth building slide.

We've reported on this.

DON has come to my committee a couple of times now to provide updates.

We will be hearing another presentation on that in March and and I'm looking forward to that work.

There is a lot of overlap with what they're doing, with what OPCD is doing, with what OED is doing.

And so it's an exciting opportunity to see how, as a city, we can start moving forward on some of this opportunity to build generational wealth for our community members.

The mayor has also announced his appointment of Jennifer Chow as the new director for the Department of Neighborhoods.

We'll get a chance to meet with her and begin her appointment process in the coming weeks.

This week, I'll also be meeting with State Senator Saldana to discuss capital budget requests.

I think I've mentioned before that I've been working with Representative Chopp and with Senator Saldana for state funding for the social housing program, assuming it had passed and now it has.

So we're working with them to try to get some state resources for that.

I'll also be meeting with Julie Tim of Sound Transit to discuss both the MLK safety investments that I have been meeting with Sound Transit about for a couple of years now, as well as the CID station options.

There are some new options that are being discussed and I want to make sure that I'm able to meet with her about that.

I also have a PSRC Growth Management Policy Board meeting and the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee meeting this week, and my office will be there for both of those.

District updates.

Last week I held my first Seattle within reach panel discussion for 2023. I was joined by David Mendoza from the Nature Conservancy, formerly a front and centered, as well as Sacramento City Council member Katie Valenzuela.

And we had a lively discussion on the intersection of the comprehensive plan and climate justice.

It was great to hear from both of them.

There's some really interesting things that they are trying in Sacramento.

If you want to check out that discussion that is available on the Seattle channel.

Our office was also present with staff from Councilmember Mosqueda's office at a meeting of the Restorative Practice Community Coalition.

which aims to expand the implementation of restorative practices across Seattle Public Schools.

It was great to hear from educators and students from across the city about their desire to see more restorative justice practices in our schools.

My office has written a letter in support of their work, and I will say in my conversations with high school students, particularly in the South End, they are very eager to have these practices in their school, not just for the students themselves to learn and practice healing circles, and what it means to, to talk about conflict in a way that is productive and restorative rather than punitive or potentially violent.

So the students are interested in learning those skills themselves, but what they also want is for their educators, their administrators, and the adults in their buildings to also learn these practices.

I've got a lot of students reporting that they feel like they aren't treated very well by some teachers in their schools.

by some educators, and so they're really interested in not learning these things just for themselves, but in having the adults in their environments also learn these skills.

So I'm glad to hear that that work is moving forward.

I also had a chance to visit the Temporary Black History Museum that, if you know Tony Benton from Rainier Avenue Radio, he's also the new owner of Columbia City Theater, And he's been housing this temporary exhibit at the Columbia City Theater.

My staff and I got to take a tour, some fantastic history lessons on the Black experience, specifically in the Pacific Northwest.

There were exhibits that included the history of Six Stadium and the Seattle Steelheads baseball team, the live music scene here, the 20s and 30s and 40s.

We got to learn about Prohibition.

the history of black firefighters in the city and lots more.

You have one more day if you want to go down to Columbia City Theater and check it out tonight and tomorrow.

I think there is a plan to have it sort of cycle in throughout the year.

If you miss it this year or this month, there will be another opportunity.

And then finally, this week, my office will be meeting with the Seattle Hotel Association.

Later this week, I'll also be joining the Cascade Bicycle Club to ride through Columbia City and the North Rainier area.

The goal really is to see what we could build as a bikeable future to make our communities more sustainable, more healthy, more equitable.

I will be sure that the group is wearing helmets and whatever other safety gear we need to be safe on that trip.

And then finally one more thing we know that the initiative 135 has passed the mayor will be transmitting or I think has transmitted the clerk file that has been certified and so that work will be coming through the implementation work will be coming through my committee, and we will be talking about that tomorrow but.

We are working with central staff, with the campaign themselves, and with labor partners to make sure that the implementation of that is off and running.

It's a quick timeline, and I'm looking forward to making sure that that moves well.

Unless there are questions, that is all I have.

I don't see any, so I will pass it to Council Member Nelson.

Thank you and good afternoon, everybody.

The Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee met last Wednesday and recommended confirmation of six appointments and three reappointments to Seattle's Community Technology Advisory Board, or CTAB, which addresses issues of community-wide interest relating to information and communications technology and, as noted, those appointments will be included in the consent agenda tomorrow.

And the committee also unanimously recommended council approval of six group 4B surveillance impact reports for technologies or devices that the Seattle Police Department currently uses.

and these include camera systems for images or non-auditory video recordings, vehicle crash data retrieval tools, computer, cell phone, and mobile device data extraction tools, geotime software, remotely operated vehicles, and tracking devices.

Council Member Herbold offered 15 amendments in total to each two for each bill plus three more for remotely operated vehicles.

And all of those passed unanimously.

We voted to adopt them and they will be included in the legislation that you all vote on tomorrow.

I understand that Lisa Kay has reached out to everyone offering to provide a briefing on the six SIRs before the meeting.

All right, meetings I took Last week, my staff and I worked with Senator Patty Murray's office and representatives of Cascade Public Media, Northwest African-American Museum, and Sound Transit to support their respective requests for direct congressional spending.

And the request for Cascade Public Media, which is the parent organization of KCTS 9 and Crosscut, is for the renovation of their new facility at 316 Broadway, the old Child Haven building.

And staff and I toured that building the week before last with CPM CEO Rob Dunlop and his teams.

And they will be relocating by the end of this year.

On Saturday, I attended the 10th annual State of Africa Town in the beautiful Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in District 3. This year's theme was celebrating a decade of realizing the vision for Black Seattle.

And last week, my chief of staff and I, or last night, my chief of staff and I were invited to attend a special screening of the Screen Actors Guild Awards by the local SAG-AFTRA chapter here.

And I must extend a shout out and thank you to all of our labor friends who contribute to Seattle's film industry.

And I'll say more about that at the very end.

meetings this coming week or today I met with representatives from the life sciences to discuss upcoming building performance standards legislation and also today I had an in-person meeting with members of the Seattle Hotel Association who spoiler alert sorry for meeting people that are going to meet this week also but they highlighted worker concerns about safety riding on and walking to and from public transportation and most of them have to ride public transportation to get to work in Seattle because of the high cost of Seattle's housing.

Tomorrow I look forward to meeting some of Seattle's Brightest Sports Stars at the Seattle Sports Commission's 88th Annual Sports Star of the Year Award.

And unfortunately, I have to leave that event early to join Council Member Lewis and folks from SPD and the mayor's office at a meeting with over 20 Queen Anne small businesses to discuss crime in that area.

And just from the invite or the email description of the meeting, it says, The business community in Upper Queen Anne has experienced significant increases in crimes in the last several months.

Rather than the historic crimes of convenience with people dashing into stores and walking out with a few items, these recent events reflect the targeted actions of professional criminals coming with tools to breach security measures the businesses have already taken in efforts to prevent or reduce the frequency and severity of these events.

So, of course, this is going on all over the city, but I'm looking forward to hearing directly from those businesses tomorrow night.

And then finally, the long-awaited sequel to our work establishing the Seattle Film Commission last year is finally premiering this week.

I'm thrilled to provide a sneak preview of commission applications and nominations going live this Thursday.

So basically, we are entering the stage of empaneling the Seattle Film Commission.

And so if you or someone you know has experience and passion to help Seattle's film economy and bring movies, more production to town, please think about nominating yourself or somebody else.

And then, so OED will have information about how to apply or how to nominate on their website on Thursday.

And I'll also share that on my social media.

So I'd like to thank the team at OED who's been working behind the scenes for months to get us to this exciting point.

Are there any questions?

All right, seeing none, Council Member Peterson, I pass it to you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we were all shocked last week by the devastating news of the passing of our esteemed colleague and dear friend Malik Davis.

For those of us who knew Malik and his passion for his family and for serving the city of Seattle, we are experiencing a deeply painful sadness with his sudden loss.

For me, Malik was more than just a seasoned and steadfast colleague.

He became an uplifting life force and a trusted friend.

Malik was first and foremost a devoted husband, father, brother, and son, both in his words and in his actions.

Malik was also a courageous and constant champion for everyone in our city.

He had an impressive career that included working for former City Council President Margaret Pageler and for the University of Washington.

It was always an honor to have Malik working alongside me as an energetic and effective director of constituent services and legislative aid who advised me on public safety and parks and many other issues facing our city.

Born and raised in Seattle, Malik attended Montlake Elementary School, Meany Middle School, Garfield High School, and the University of Washington.

Struggling with how to be in a world without him, I'll keep remembering and cherishing all the life lessons, humor, and sage advice he generously shared with me so that I continue to feel the larger than life presence of Malik Davis.

Colleagues and constituents, if our office is relatively slow to get back to you, please know that we're still processing our grief of losing our colleague and friend.

And so we thank you in advance for your grace and patience.

When we are made aware and subject to his family's wishes, we'll let colleagues know details of any memorial services or celebration of life.

I'm also drafting a proclamation for consideration at a later date.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Mr. Peterson, thank you for sharing those words, and I'm sure that we will have more to share later on when you can come back with more information and want to honor the family's request to kind of like, you know, allow them to heal and do what they need to do.

So just make sure I'm sure you will not just let us know, but letting the public know and how we can help if there's any other efforts that we can do to say goodbye to our good friend, our dear friend.

I mean, in Indian country, when someone passes, you know, we want to say their name, but we want to say it in a good way.

And we want to talk about not just what a good person, but what they brought to our lives.

And you know that Malik was the first one in this office to give me a hard time about a certain way I voted and just a kind person.

So I know there's more to come and I don't want to make this about me.

So thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

I just wanted to take this moment to thank Malik's family for sharing him with us.

He was an amazing person to be with and around.

And it was just, I feel lucky to have gotten to spend time with him here at the City Council.

So thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Hey, so with that, let me Go ahead with my report.

There are no items from the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 16th.

Native communities, a big congratulations to the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and the Seattle Kraken and the Climate Pledge Arena of the First of Its Kind Partnership.

The Muckleshoot Tribe Seal will now be featured as a patch on all Kraken jerseys.

Kraken has continued their partnership with Indian Country, Indigenous-led organizations, and Indigenous artists, and we thank them for that.

Mogadishu will become the first tribe to be honored in this way by the NHL, and we hope to see more.

Other aspects of the partnership include creating Indigenous artwork at not only the Climate Pledge Arena, but at the Kraken Community Iceplex.

A member of the Suquamish Tribe provided the art there as well.

will they will move on in part need to build a multi-sport athletics court on the Muckleshoot Reservation.

And they are now up their commitment to new programs for indigenous youth, much like the group Rise Above in which this council has provided seed money for starting three years ago.

Last week, my staff and I, two of us, Brindell and Sarah, joined many local community leaders for the National Congress of American Indians, NCAI.

Probably a lot of you don't know about NCAI, but I've known about it since I was a girl.

NCAI meets four times a year, and this time they have their executive meeting in Washington, D.C.

in February.

NCAI was established in 1944 as a voice for over 574 tribes in our country.

So the NCAI meeting in D.C.

is an opportunity to hear from federal agencies, elected officials, members of Congress on all legislative priorities.

While we were there, we also heard the 2023 State of Indian Nations address by our own NCAI President Fawn Sharp from the Quinault Nation.

Some of you may have seen her on national TV sitting next to former Vice President Al Gore at Davos regarding climate change.

which she has been working on for well over a decade.

In her address, Fawn outlined a wide number of priorities, including government to government relations, climate change impacts, and health and welfare of families, as well as the federal budget, not just for Indian country, but for indigenous-led organizations, urban Indian organizations, and their response to COVID.

So I was pleased to announce Fawn Sharp at the Women's Honoring Luncheon, where we honored indigenous women leaders, including the new treasurer of the United States, Marilyn Malabra from the Mohegan Nation.

And Marilyn will be in charge of the U.S.

Mint printing and engraving Fort Knox, and will serve as the senior advisor to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

That's the first for our country in our history.

So you will soon see Maryland's signature on our newest dollar bill, which we're all excited to see.

Another honoree was the president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, Shannon Holsley, in which I'm hoping she will be the next president of the National Congress of American Indians.

The keynote speech was given by my good friend, Peggy Flanagan.

She's lieutenant governor of Minnesota.

So we also attended, we all kind of split up, different sessions on offshore wind energy.

The recent Holland versus Brackeen, which is a Indian Child Welfare Act case, which will It's an important case, not just in Indian country, but in this country and state courts regarding Indian children and the states and their ability to place Indian children and non-Indian families.

We also attended workshops on the federal transportation spending and funding, land back and co-management, native language preservation, and recovery from boarding schools policies and other issues.

We also heard remarks from several senators, members of Congress, and our friend, the National Park Service Director, Charles Sams.

Another first, he is a member of the Umatilla tribe.

There has never been a Native American director of the National Park Service.

So we're proud of that as well.

We also met with our friend, our federal lobbyist, Leslie Polner.

We discussed council priorities, the federal budget, appropriations, the outlook for the debt ceiling debate and the shape of the new Congress.

And we hope to follow up with Leslie again here at City Hall.

My staff attended the Sound Transit Board meeting, which included a briefing on the West Seattle Ballard Link Light Rail project.

And we anticipate a major vote on this project on March twenty third.

I would also like to thank Councilor Morales again for serving as president pro tem last week and presiding over the council meeting on Tuesday.

Her service allowed me to attend the NCA conference, which was in planning for three months.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Coming up this week, we will be meeting with HSD Human Services Division regarding impacts of some additional ongoing encampments citywide and in District five.

We will be attending the Sound Transit Ridership and Operations Committee meeting.

We will be attending the Soto BIA regarding sound transit issues.

And on Friday with Council Member Strauss, we'll be touring the West Seattle Ballard Link Light Rail Extension.

It's a field trip.

So we're going to be looking at what are some of the preferred alternatives, what it actually looks like on the ground.

So Council Member Strauss, thank you for joining me.

Before I say, before I close out, I want to give a huge shout out to the AP government students at Summit Atlas High School.

They came to visit us on February 16th.

They did a tour of City Hall.

They took pictures with us.

They came into my office and we had an opportunity to bring them out in chambers and let them take pictures from the dais.

I want to thank all the students that came as well as the teachers and the parents, and first time ever, the 17 students that sent me a personal thank you note and a promise to read a book.

Yes, I said that to them.

They need to learn how to read books.

Anyway, It was a huge thank you to the teacher, Jess Barco.

She is the AP government instructor who brought them to City Hall.

And I hope they come back.

It's not often you get a bunch of students to come in and talk to you, not just about City Hall and government, but also about what they want to do and what the future looks like for them.

So I'm hoping that we can welcome them back to City Hall.

And also, they sent me, not only did they send me thank you notes, they sent me a bunch of pictures actual pictures that they took on the dais, which was pretty cool.

All right.

With that, I think I'm done.

So if there's anything, I'm going to read the script that so we can go into executive session.

Any questions for my colleagues?

Not seeing any.

If there's no further business, we will move into the executive session.

We will now move into an executive session.

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

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

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

A legal monitor is always present from the city attorney's office to make sure that we do not discuss questions of policy and questions of policy or left for an open session.

Madam Clerk, my understanding is that we are looking at 20 minutes and you would advise us when the 20 minute starts, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

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

At the conclusion of the executive sessions, the council briefing meeting will automatically be adjourned.

The next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is on March 6th at two o'clock.

The council is now in executive session.

Recording stopped.

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