Seattle City Council Budget Committee 102820 Session I

I want to welcome everyone back.

Thank you very much for joining the Select Budget Committee.

Again, today is Wednesday, October 28th, and the Select Budget Committee will come to order.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Member Strauss?

Council Member Strauss?

Council Member Gonzalez?

Oh, thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez?

Here.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Here.

and chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I am present and I'm going to ask you real quick to call Council Member Morales one more time.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

A present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And when Council Member Lewis joins us, I'll make sure to announce that we do expect to have all of our council colleagues here with us today.

So I will make sure for the record to announce when Thank you so much.

Council colleagues, thanks again for joining us.

I know it was just less than 11 hours ago that we saw each other on the same format for our public hearing.

Thank you again for everybody who called in.

We had over 227, 223, 25 people sign up.

I'm happy that we were able to get through all of those who are present with all of you.

And here we are today, the first of three meetings to really dive into the form B documents that you all have provided to central staff.

These form Bs are our efforts to identify priority investment for the budget as the city council considers its balancing package and amendments to the mayor's proposed budget.

You can see from the long list of items on today's agenda, and you will see soon the long list of items on Thursday and Friday's agenda, we have a lot of deliberations to go through today.

So I am going to ask folks again to be short in their comments, to allow for other council members to ask questions, and to make sure that we get through all 122 forms that were submitted on time.

Like many years in the past, this year we have asked for there to be two co-sponsors on all of our forms so that we can ensure that the forms we are discussing have a small amount of various council members' support so that the central staff is doing the hard work that they need to do to provide research on possible priority areas that are going to continue to advance.

Before I move on, I do want to thank Council Member Lewis for joining us as well.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good to be here.

Thanks so much.

Making sure that we have two co-sponsors allows for us to ensure that as we are considering various proposals and a rebalanced budget, that we are working diligently to make sure that we're meeting deadlines and working together to make sure that all council members have the information that they need in front of them.

I want to note, though, that any form B that does not have two co-sponsors or did not meet the deadline, which was last Thursday at 5 p.m., are still eligible to be considered as walk-on amendments.

To make sure that they are ready for discussion, I have asked for all of the walk-on amendments to be circulated by 5 p.m.

the day before and to make sure that the proposing council member has submitted the information necessary The criteria for whether a proposal is to be discussed and should be discussed by the Seattle City Council, whether it has been discussed with residents and stakeholders, whether central staff has had the opportunity and time to consider the proposal.

and whether it has or needed to go through law review.

So when you do and if you do submit a late form B, the request is hopefully before 5 p.m.

the night before and to submit that information on the criteria.

I've turned that criteria into cover sheets so that it's easier for council members to see how that criteria corresponds with the proposals if they're coming in late.

So before we finalize the agenda today, we're gonna go through that exercise.

We are going to consider two walk-on amendments and decide whether they should be considered and added to the agenda today.

I wanna remind folks.

that the conversation about whether items should be added to the agenda is not about whether or not you support the proposal.

This is not about whether you find the proposals meritorious or you want to ultimately support it.

This is truly about the process question, because we wanted to make sure that forms were submitted on time, and if they weren't, that they had met the criteria in front of us.

So please, when you consider these next two votes, just think about that criteria in front of us.

The cover sheets were provided last night.

I want to reiterate my email, which indicated that I had mislabeled the documents, but they are correctly labeled now.

There's amendments one and two, and make sure that everybody has all of that information in front of them.

And I also want to say that if there is any Form B walk-on amendments today, tomorrow, or Friday that don't meet the criteria and do not muster the vote for a simple majority at this point, because the two that we're considering were circulated before 5 p.m., and if they don't meet the simple majority vote, that does not mean that the conversation is over.

That just means it's not right for today.

So we still have our Form Cs.

As a reminder, folks still have another chance to craft their forms.

to make changes to the council's proposed balancing package.

With that, I want to make sure that folks have any questions answered, and I think we're ready for a quick discussion about the Form B walk-on forms, which were circulated before 5 p.m.

You do have a cover sheet, and we will also give the sponsor a chance to speak to them very briefly before we consider votes.

Okay.

I would like to move to adopt the agenda, and then we can consider amendments.

Is there a second?

second.

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda before council members move their amendments.

Please note that I'm going to ask the clerk to first verify the amendments have met the rule on circulation and um and then we'll ask the council member to speak to it if they have.

Madam clerk, have the two amendments in front of us met the rule on circulation for the for the floor.

Council.

Um excuse me, chair Mosqueda, they have met the

Councilmember Sawant, I see you have two amendments today.

Thank you very much for circulating those before 5 p.m.

That means only a simple majority is needed to put them on the agenda today.

We have amendments one and two.

We're going to take them in order and have a vote after each one, just so folks know.

Can you please provide an indication to the clerk on which amendment you are presenting first to seek verification from the clerk on whether, I'm sorry, that already happened.

Let's see here.

Here we go.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the agenda by adding the amendment at the end of the corresponding department.

And I would like to turn it over to council members to want to talk about your amendment at this point.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

I would like to move to amend the agenda by adding amendments one and two as sent out over email yesterday.

So first I move to amend the agenda by adding the HSD walk-on one amendment entitled, add $13.8 million to the office of housing to purchase property in the central area for non-congregate shelter and by placing it at the end of the corresponding department section.

Thank you very much.

It's been moving and seconded.

Are there any additional comments?

Council Member Sawant, do you want to speak to this amendment?

Yes, just very quickly, as I mentioned at our briefing on Monday, this outstanding proposal has been brought to our attention after the Thursday deadline, but I would really urge council members to agree to discuss it today and also, of course, support it because it's such an important proposal.

Africatown Community Land Trust is advocating for an affordable housing development in the site of the former Cairo Center at 1601 Yesler Way in the Central District in District 3, which has been The sort of the epicenter of the massive gentrification that we have seen in our city with skyrocketing rents, which is disproportionately affecting our black community.

This is a rare opportunity to use a full square block in the rapidly gentrifying central district to develop affordable housing to help prevent displacement.

And also, as I shared, I joined hundreds of community members last year rallying against the sale of this site to a corporate developer.

And the protest actions, while not successful in preventing that, were able to disrupt the board meetings in such a way that it had an impact.

And now, because of the pressure from the Black Lives Matter movement, Africatown believes they have the opportunity to acquire it from the developer and turn it into community.

They are advocating for the property to be used to develop affordable housing for populations earning 30 to 50% of area median income.

The proposed interim use for the site is noncongregate housing for community members experiencing homelessness in the current 275 beds spread out over the 70,000 square feet of the building space.

This project will represent an and a step against racist gentrification, and it's a demand to make black lives matter.

Thank you.

Okay, so thank you very much, Council Member Sawant.

Before we hear additional questions or comments, again, this is not on the merits of the proposal.

This is about the criteria.

I will just note some of the interesting criteria.

For me, it was yes, worked with stakeholders, as you see from the cover sheet.

Africatown was cited.

Central staff did have a chance to work with the sponsor.

And it appears that it does not need legal review at this point, as indicated by central staff.

This would affect the Office of Housing.

It doesn't appear that Office of Housing was consulted with, but that is something that if this were to move forward, I think the conversation could continue to happen.

So on the merits of having worked with central staff and the stakeholders involved and checking to see if it needed to go through law, that helps to meet the criteria that I am looking at for this first vote this morning.

Are there any additional questions, colleagues?

comments?

Okay, I'm seeing no hands.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1 to the agenda?

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Gonzalez?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

And Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Nine in favor and none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the agenda is amended by adding Amendment 1 to the end of the corresponding department section.

We have another amendment for consideration.

Council Member Sawant, do you want to summarize Amendment 2 and put it before us?

put it before us, and then summarize.

Thank you.

I move to amend the agenda by adding OH Walk-On 2 amendment titled Add $20 million to the Office of Housing to increase resources for converting homes from gas or oil heating to electric and to expand Office of Housing's weatherization program and by placing it at the end of the corresponding department section.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Swatt, would you like to briefly summarize this amendment as well?

Yes, this was an amendment that was circulated as Form A, but we didn't get the co-sponsors in time.

And thanks to the organizing of the environmental and indigenous organizers, we now have three co-sponsors together.

And I really wanted to thank Council Members Morales and Herbold for supporting it.

This is the amendment that would invest $20 million into the Green New Deal programs, weatherizing and doing electrification retrofits of homes throughout Seattle.

It will be an essential part of combating climate change.

and over time, it will create thousands of good jobs, which are especially necessary in the recession.

Council members may remember that the tax Amazon movement fought for the big business taxes to fund Green New Deal and housing starting in 2021. What eventually passed, however, did not make these investments until 2022, and this budget amendment would begin the program in 2021, as community organizers have been demanding.

I just want to note that 350 Seattle was part of the that was truncated off the form for community outreach.

I just want to mention that.

Okay, thank you very much, council members.

That was one of the questions that I had on the stakeholder question for the criteria.

It's helpful to see organizations just so folks know that the outreach has been done.

You mentioned 350 Seattle this morning.

That's helpful.

Yeah, for some reason the form truncated.

We entered that information, but the way it shows up doesn't include that.

Okay.

And you mentioned indigenous and environmental groups.

Is there anybody else that you'd like to highlight as we consider this?

Well, I think the entire community that is fighting for housing affordability is also pushing for this.

So everybody in the people's budget movement and certainly in the solidarity budget movement who are also calling for the Green New Deal program to be funded, I think those should be included in addition to 350 and indigenous organizers.

Thank you very much, Council Member Swann.

Colleagues, are there any comments or questions?

I again will summarize what I saw from the criteria document.

This amendment number two has been worked on with central staff, yes.

According to both the summary that we just heard from council members to want elaborating the information that was provided in the cover sheet, stakeholders such as 350 Seattle and others have been involved in this conversation.

It looks like it does not need legal review, according to a conversation with central staff.

Again, Office of Housing was not directly contacted, but if this is to move forward, I know that there's still time to do that.

So those are the criteria I'll be looking at with this vote.

Great, I see no additional questions.

Okay, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 2 to the agenda?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

And Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Okay, great.

The motion carries and the agenda is amended by adding amendment two at the end of the corresponding department section.

Are there any additional amendments for consideration today?

Okay, I'm hearing none.

Is there any other comments on the agenda in front of us for today?

Okay, seeing none.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the amended agenda?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

And Chair Mosqueda.

Yes.

Nine in favor, nine opposed.

Okay, the motion carries and the agenda is adopted.

As we have done in other long day budget sessions, we will have a full one hour break between this morning session and this afternoon session with the goal of adjourning by 5 p.m.

this evening.

That's the timeline we're going to be aiming towards and hopefully sticking to.

I know it's been a long night for many of you as we were all participating in the public comment section yesterday during public hearings, so I really appreciate your time.

At this time, we are going to move into public comment again briefly.

I want to note for folks on the line.

We are going to give folks one minute.

We do have more folks than we are going to be able to hear from this morning.

We have committed to 30 minutes at the beginning of our meeting.

So we will begin.

Now you're going to hear a chime at 10 seconds to the end of your a lot of time.

That's your indication to wrap it up because you will be cut off at one minute.

So we want to hear your full comments today.

We endeavor to hear from everybody in the order in which they have signed up.

So I will call people by the order that they appear.

And I will also note if you are listed as not present, but want to make sure that we read your name in for the record.

After you're done testifying, please hang up and go ahead and listen in on our listen in line or the Seattle channel or other options that are posted on today's agenda.

With that, let's go ahead and officially open up public comment.

And the first three speakers are Spencer Rittering, Maya Garfinkel, Karen Gilling.

Good morning.

Good morning, Spencer.

Let's also do a quick reminder.

When you hear you have been unmuted, that's your clue to hit star six.

We've got to do both those functions.

And with that, do we have Spencer with us?

Yes, I'm here.

Hi, my name is Spencer Rittering.

I live in District 3, and I'm a member of 3...

Hello?

We can hear you.

I'm sorry.

Can everybody hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, great.

Okay.

My name is Spencer Rittering.

I live in District 3, and I'm a member of 350 Seattle.

If you could go back in time and limit COVID-19 to a mere outbreak rather than a pandemic, would you do it?

Of course you would.

We have a similar opportunity now.

It's a chance to limit the severity of the climate crisis.

The Green New Deal proposals in front of you today are the first steps to averting the climate crisis.

They are investments in our collective future, transitioning low-income homes to clean energy.

This is not something that the market will address.

A transformation of this scale requires government intervention.

Although temperatures started rising significantly 30 years ago, our nation's leaders knew about this problem 50 years ago.

We have waited until the last moment to deal with this problem.

swift, unflinching action is required from all of us, especially from you, City Council members.

I urge you to support funding of the Seattle Green New Deal in this year's budget.

Please preserve Jumpstart Seattle's $20 million transition funding for low-income homes to clean energy.

You don't need to go back in time to prevent this disaster.

You can begin.

Thank you, Spencer.

Maya, good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Maya Garcinko.

I'm a renter in District 4 and a tenant organizer with Be Seattle.

I'm calling to urge you to support the solidarity budget, divest from SBD by at least 50%, and invest these funds in Black communities and community-led health and safety programs through a participatory budgeting process.

Tenants across the city continue to experience landlord harassment, unlivable conditions, and financial insecurity.

Many tenants have not paid rent for many months and are at risk of eviction once the state and city moratoriums expire.

In order to fight for Seattleites and mitigate the coming wave of eviction, displacement, and houselessness, we need to fully fund tenant services and eviction defense.

Specifically, please support the budgetary amendments for funding tenant services and eviction defense, tiny house villages, purple bag trash pickup for encampment residents, and street sinks, as well as implementing the proposed HOPE team Please support the solidarity budget.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for your time today.

Karen, good morning.

Hello, my name is Karen Gillen.

I'm a resident of District 7. I object to an item proposed by Council Member Harwell during Monday's committee meeting.

This is also reflected in number 10 of today's agenda.

She proposed amending the criminal code to basically allow homeless people and people with behavioral health issues to be immune from prosecution with the expectation that a reduction in county jail services could result.

Changing Seattle's criminal code should not be buried in a budget discussion, but instead considered in the appropriate committee with adequate opportunity for public comment.

In fact, this proposal would do immeasurable harm to those afflicted by returning them to a life filled with danger and physical deterioration.

It also will cause immeasurable harm to our communities, especially children and seniors who will lose the ability to safely use our parks, open spaces, and community green areas.

Instead, the council must get these people into rehabilitative housing, mental health and patient care, or drug rehab programs.

The only way to mandate interventions is to continue to arrest people.

We are over 10 years into a homelessness and drug addiction crisis.

Thank you.

The next three speakers are Eric Schmidt, Armand McMurray, and Howard Gale.

Eric, good morning.

Hello.

Good morning.

My name is Eric Schmidt.

My comments today are focused on the passage of redefining terms of the arrest in Seattle Municipal Code.

Last week, my partner was held up at gunpoint by a burglar at her home after a manhunt involving 11 SPD officers.

This person was booked and then later released.

22 hours later under a catch and release policy.

The underlying motivation for catch and release is motivation to support financial shortfalls within King County.

Much like the proposal by Mr. Bold, this legislation can significantly decrease the city's bed use.

It can inform long-term renegotiation of jail contracts.

The net net of this is you're literally robbing Peter to pay Paul in both of these cases Specifically the council and this herbal have no plan on how the savings will increase public safety and will be redirected to drive systems such as mandatory drug of redelegation So seismic change requires holistic executive thoughts.

I implore you to pause passage of this budget action As it is not a budget item.

It's a multi-dimensional public safety issue that will have exponential impact well beyond

Thank you very much.

Armond, good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Armond McMurray, and I live in Ballard.

I'm commenting on agenda item 10 that would redefine the terms duress and de minimis in the Seattle Municipal Code.

I urge you to vote against this for two reasons.

Number one, I believe it would lead to effective dismissal of most charges for misdemeanors in the city with bad consequences.

Number two, as it has not had the normal analysis and discussion befitting a change to the city's laws and somehow ended up in the budget process to our city's embarrassment, it should properly be considered as part of the council's normal business next year in 2021. Thank you for your time this morning.

Thank you for your time.

Howard, good morning.

Hi.

Howard Dale from Lower Crinan District 7. Ever since Seattle police murdered Charlena Lyles three years ago around the time that Seattle enacted into law its police accountability system police accountability and justice have remained illusory.

The Seattle police murder of Charlena followed by the police killings of Kyle Gray Jason Seavers I.C.O. Paul Togo Danny Rodriguez Ryan Smith Sean Lee Kerr and Perry Kaver provide shameful testimony to this failure.

So too does the extreme abuse we have witnessed of our fellow Seattleites at the hands of police over the last five months.

Except for council members Morales and Sawant I have not heard council members mention these names.

As a psychologist I do understand the deep cognitive dissonance created by pretending that we have a functioning police accountability system while at the same time recognizing the unjust murder of so many.

Council members please end the cognitive dissonance by saying their names and honoring them by starting on a path towards true community-based and independent police oversight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Howard.

The next three speakers are BJ Last, Kote Sorenz, and Tari Nelson-Zagar.

Good morning, BJ.

Good morning.

My name is BJ Last.

I'm a Ballard resident and a small business owner.

I'm calling in support of the solidarity budget We need the budget to reflect a city that works for all of us and not another budget that gives more money to SPD than education and health and human services combined.

Invest by SPD by at least 50% next year and support distribution of funds divested from SPD through participatory budgeting process.

Please do not create public safety.

Investments in black communities and community-led health and safety need to come from funds divested from the carceral system, not from jumpstart Seattle funds or any other city funds.

We cannot let community needs be pitted against each other.

We need to preserve vital public services, including transit.

We need to fund dignified shelter and affordable housing instead of criminalizing homelessness.

And curb the criminalization of poverty by expanding the duress language, the diminished language in the Seattle Municipal Code that a person can avoid conviction if they are or trying to meet a basic need or experiencing mental health.

Budgets are moral documents.

We need a budget that supports our marginalized and vulnerable communities instead of

Thank you, BJ.

Kote, good morning.

Good morning.

This is Kote Sorens from South Park.

I am a business owner in South Park and I'm also with, I'm a co-founder of Cultivate South Park, a group of BIPOC neighbors who are working to connect gifts in the community for a more equitable neighborhood.

And I am requesting the consideration of item number seven to fund the position of public safety coordinator in South Park.

This position has actually proven to be incredibly impactful for the community, and this role has evolved into connecting members of the community, which creates better safety in the way that we're trying to define safety, which is neighbors knowing each other, less police, and it's been impact and incredible as a business owner and as a neighbor.

We support it.

We requested it years ago.

And thank you, Lorena Gonzalez, for co-sponsoring as it moves forward.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Tari, good morning.

Good morning.

I am calling to respectfully ask council to reinstate funding for the South Park Public Safety Coordinator position in this budget.

My name is Terry Nelson-Sager and I am the Associate Director of Seattle Neighborhood Group.

We are a local nonprofit focused on supporting public safety through community organizing.

The South Park Public Safety Coordinator position is important because neighborhood organizations and community members asked for this person to be based in the community as you just heard.

A person who could identify and address problems from a community perspective coordinate resources and share information widely.

This task force chose the staffer, and the first year of the position, we built a very strong framework, identified areas to focus on, and spent a lot of time discovering what types of programming would be really impactful.

Now that we're in the second year, the body of work that our coordinator is doing in South Park is having very far-reaching impact in the neighborhood.

He's engaging youth in projects.

He's supporting placemaking through a variety of types of community participation.

He's leveraging many, many modes of communicating, especially reaching out to those who are most left out of the loop.

Thank you.

The next three speakers are Thomasina Schmidt, Ahmed Hussein, and Denise Harnley.

I want to note that Mohamed Farrar, Anika Bashay, and Muqattar Sharif, you are all listed as not present, so now is the time to call in.

Thomasina, good morning.

Hello.

My name is Thomasina Schmidt.

I'm the Executive Director for Seattle Neighborhood Group.

and I'm calling in support of continued funding for the South Park Public Safety Coordinator position.

I want to thank Councilmember Herbold for putting this proposal forward and also thank President Councilman Gonzalez and Councilmember Pedersen for co-sponsoring this proposal.

We appreciate your support for this position and the South Park community.

This coordinator position was the top priority recommendation in the 2017 South Park Public Safety Task Force report which was funded by the City Council.

The work that the coordinator has been doing for the last few months is already in line with alternative public safety approaches that the council and mayor have been discussing and considering.

As you heard, this public safety coordinator has had positive outcomes and impacts.

We respectfully ask that the council continue to fund this important work and continue to provide much needed support and resources for the South Park community.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much.

Ahmed, good morning.

Good morning, councilmembers.

My name is Ahmad Hussain.

I'm with Bridging Coast Guard Gaps.

And this morning, I just want to implore the councilmembers to stop wasting money and resources on criminalizing poverty, mental health, the struggles, and drug use.

90% cases in the Seattle Municipal Court end up qualifying for public defenders.

This means that Seattle spends millions every year prosecuting poor people, 48 million this past year alone.

And even though black people make up less than 7% of Seattle's population, black people made up 27% of the cases prosecuted by Seattle Municipal Court 2017-2018.

With that said, we're demanding that the expansion of the duress and defense so that a person is not convicted of a crime if they were trying to meet a basic need or struggling with mental health or drug use.

Also, the expansion of the Minimus Ordinance so that a judge can dismiss a prosecution when a person was trying to meet a basic need or struggling with mental health drug.

Thank you for your time this morning.

Denise, good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Denise Harnley and I'm chair of the Seattle Neighborhood Group.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of a community-based South Park Public Safety Coordinator position.

The position truly is an investment that works and is wanted by the residents and the businesses of South Park.

Evidence of the value of the position is clear by the many and varied organizations supporting continued fighting funding.

South Park Neighborhood Association Concord Elementary Duwamish River Cleanup just to name a few.

The coordinator is involving the residents of all ages in building community and revitalizing South Park.

As we explore ways to create safer and healthier communities, we need only to look at what is happening already in South Park.

Continued funding of the South Park position is consistent with public safety approaches.

I hope you will consider it.

It is a high-impact investment.

Thank you.

Thanks for your time this morning.

The next three speakers are Adam Burkwa, Hassam Almwata, and Ruby Holland.

Adam, good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, customers.

My name is Adam Berka.

I live in District 2 here in South Seattle, part of DCG.

I just want to say Seattle Municipal Court is part of city policing, which convicts people who are mental health problems and drug abuse.

These victims are very poor and a lot of them are homeless.

Such living condition impacts the well-being of individuals.

However, police put these same individuals in jail for some small erratic behaviors.

Instead of finding them necessary help, therefore, I urge the city council members to endorse the duress and de minimis code of the city's ordinance so these victims can get proper help.

On the side, if they can invest part of this money in housing and finding them a right healthcare, this problem should be minimized.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time.

Hussam, good morning.

Hey, Hussam, I see you on our line here.

It looks like you are muted still.

If you want to hit star six one more time.

Okay, I'm still looking at that.

It looks like it's muted.

So we're going to move on to Ruby and Hussam.

I'm happy to come back to you.

Just star six to unmute.

Ruby Holland, good morning.

I'm Ruby Holland of D3 and I support Alex Peterson's bill to create a displacement database and allotting $250,000 to the Department of Construction and Inspection for this database.

I'm also asking you to support payment performance reporting with the MHA.

We need to know how many affordable units are being built on site versus developers opting to pay the in lieu of fee.

that may create affordable units at some unknown time and place.

We need affordable units now.

We need to house those who have an income but are living on the streets or in their cars because rents are too high.

COVID showed us that essential workers and tech workers can live in Seattle and thrive in Seattle together.

I'm asking Seattle's developers to take the targets off our homes in the CD and South End.

Substitute H Bill 2343 allows you to build density in many areas that previously were not up zoned.

Allow us space to maximize our own property and create wealth for our families.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for your time this morning.

The next three speakers, we're going to try to go back to Hussam, but the next three after that is Michelle Phillips, Fatima Mohammed, and Colleen McAllen.

Hussam, good morning.

Can you hear me?

I'll try one more time to get you off mute here.

I see you are off mute.

Yes.

Excellent.

This is Hussam.

Can you hear me?

Now we can.

Thank you for waiting.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

My name is Wassam.

I'm a lifelong community member in the Seattle area, a volunteer, an advocate, and a member of the local nonprofit Bridging Cultural Gaps.

I'm calling to urge you to divest at least 50% from SPD's budget and reinvest those funds through a participatory budgeting process, creating real, tangible public safety.

For years, the culture in SPD has shifted focus from being an asset to the community to being a danger to the community.

This is evident in the massive militarization of the police force to include purchasing of expensive new military arms and vehicles to do the job of policing.

Tax dollars should not go to fund a militarized police force when basic needs are missing from so many people's lives.

When the people say defund the police, they mean undoing a system of oppression.

They also mean putting a stop to the wasteful spending on persecuting the poor and those with mental health issues.

Instead, we should be investing that money in meeting people's basic needs.

I urge you to expand the duress defense language and also to expand the de minimis ordinance so that the person, so that a person is not convicted of a crime if they were trying to meet a basic need or experiencing a mental health or substance abuse struggle.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Michelle.

Michelle Phillips.

Good morning.

Hi, good morning, council members.

My name is Michelle Phillips, and I'm a resident of District 3. I'm a Black small business owner, a parent, and I'm also a clinical mental health counseling graduate student at Seattle University.

On August 6th, I watched in horror as James and Jerome Ta'afilisiya were convicted of crimes committed as children ages 16 and 17 and to the additional trauma of a 40-year jail sentence despite having had clear and present evidence brought forth by forensic psychologists of trauma, PTSD, mental health challenges, and specific cognitive delays.

Regarding agenda item 10, I urge you to expand the duress defense and expand the de minimis ordinance so that people and children who are convicted of a crime can go unprosecuted if they were trying to meet a basic need or experiencing mental health and substance abuse struggles.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The next person is Fatuma.

Good morning, Fatuma.

Good morning, everybody.

My name is Fatuma Mohamed.

I am with the local nonprofit Bridging Cultural Gaps and also a district, a resident of District 9. My comment is specific to the duress defense and the diminish ordinance.

I'm urging you to divest from Seattle Police Department budget and put the necessary funds aside to meet the needs of the community.

The needs of the community include increased access to dignified emergency shelter and affordable housing, access to hygiene and decriminalization, homeless services, true public safety will not be achieved by punishing people who are just trying to survive.

Poor people are persecuted using taxpayer money for taking food from a store without paying when they are hungry or sleeping in a parking structure when they have nowhere else to go.

This tragedy has been exasperated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

People who have been convicted of such crimes are jailed and heavily exposed to the global pandemic.

We should stop wasting taxpayer money and the city budget to criminalize poverty, mental illness, and homelessness.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for your time this morning.

And the next person is Colleen.

Good morning, Colleen.

Good morning, I'm Colleen McAleer, and I've served on the state mediation team for SR 520, as well as worked on some citywide projects and transportation for the University of Washington and Children's Hospital.

I urge you to support the allocation of the $350,000 in budget to study and inform a program of transportation impact fees.

Our city's infrastructure is crumbling, and taxpayers are paying the price for overuse and misuse of bridges, roadways that are needed to move people and freight throughout the city.

The state funds the larger corridors, but the city has to repair and maintain its own bridges and build new capacity near the light rail stations.

Seattle has given away way too much to developers who blitz in, build new structures, and leave with a free pass, paying no impact fees for transportation, except for maybe providing a little bike storage.

Please vote to support the allocation of that $350,000 to at least study for a public vote how we can study transportation impact programs and provide the resources for Seattle so it can have its growth matched simultaneously with infrastructure in a much more equitable way.

Thanks so much.

Thank you very much.

Just for everybody who is listening in, I think we are going to be able to get through all of you.

We have less than 10 people and less than 10 minutes.

Let's do this.

Valerie, Charlotte, Sean, Glaze, and Fatima Isaac.

That is who's next.

Good morning, Valerie.

Good morning.

I hope you can hear me.

I'm Valerie Chlorette.

I live in District 2, and I've been following policing in Seattle for 10 years.

I've seen that we've made numerous mistakes with policing.

One that is key to all the others is our so-called accountability system.

It costs millions every year to make it look like we have police accountability when we really don't.

It's not transparent.

Most people in Seattle don't know that the OPA has no real power.

When it's obvious we've made a mistake we face a moral test.

Do we double down in defensiveness and denial or do we admit our mistakes and take steps to correct them?

The right thing to do is to begin defunding the OPA and use those funds to research and build an elected and entirely civilian system for police accountability.

The opportunity is in this budget.

The time to do it is now.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time this morning.

Good morning Sean.

Sean, just checking to see if you can hear me.

Star six to unmute yourself.

And after Sean will be Fatima.

Sean, it looks like you're still muted on my end.

We'll come back to you.

Okay, I think I got it.

Hi, I got you now.

Go ahead, please.

Okay.

Sorry, y'all.

Hi, y'all.

This is Shawn Glaze.

I'm in Councilmember Morales' district.

I'm a business owner.

I'm also Black, queer, and very excited to be organizing with King County Equity Now on the research team as the research director.

I'm calling an obvious support of a few key pieces.

I think we should stop prosecuting poverty, stop punishing poor people, and stop Wasting money, honestly, on failed attempts to create public safety.

I have four key points.

One is I think that Council should support expanding the duress defense and de minimis ordinance.

Again, I think as much as we can do to stop wasting money on things that and to allow, to give judges the discretion to also recognize that and act as important.

The second thing is that I think we should be extending the hiring freeze on key processors.

Third, I think we should be supporting the solidarity budget and all of the points therein.

And finally, supporting internet for all so more residents can participate in online

Thank you, Sean.

The next three people are Fatima Isaac, Isabella Ramirez, and Deb Barker.

Fatima, good morning.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Fatima Isaac.

I'm with Virgin Cultural Grab in collaboration with King County Equity Now.

I'm calling today in support of the de minimis ordinance.

I believe the courts should not prosecute criminals, crimes committed by individuals who are suffering from drug use, mental health related issues.

To meet the basic needs Seattle Municipal Court should not consider these trivial matters that they waste a lot of money on each year.

We demand for the extension of duress defense defunding the STD and giving people that money to help with the basic necessities until we invest that money into the community and communities of people of color.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Isabella, good morning.

Hi.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Isabella Ramirez.

I live in Capitol Hill and I'm here to express my support for the solidary budget and urge all of you to support it as well.

Now more than ever, we need to preserve our vital public services and complete projects that will support the local economy, cultural centers and the community and the budget that you vote on needs to reflect a city that works for everyone and that elevates Black lives.

And we can really take common sense measures to care for the community rather than policing people.

As part of the 2021 budget I urge you to expand the direct language and the minimus language in the Seattle Municipal Code so that a person can avoid conviction if they were trying to meet a basic need or experiencing for example a mental health struggle.

I also want to express support for Amendment 2 that Council Member Sawant put forward.

We need to implement Seattle's Green New Deal that is preserving $20 million for transitioning low-income homes to clean energy.

We need to address the climate crisis now, not later.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Deb Barker.

Good morning, Deb Barker.

I'm your District 1 resident.

We have a bridge that is broken.

I am asking you to support funding for the transportation impact fees.

It's a continued funding request.

You know, we are so close to accomplishing a practice that the rest of Puget Sound City really take for granted transportation impact fees.

Developers expect to pay them everywhere else but here.

So I urge you to support CBA LEG 002-A-001 transportation impact fees.

are important, just do it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And the last three speakers this morning are Katie Hurley, Deanna Glaze, and Ruby Kyle.

Katie, good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Katie Hurley and I'm a special counsel with the King County Department of Public Defense.

I strongly support agenda item number 10, the proposal to expand the draft defense and the de minimis ordinance as part of the budget.

The city spends $20 million a year incarcerating people, many of whom are poor, unhoused, and suffering from behavioral health disorders.

This legislation would decrease the number of individuals incarcerated and acknowledges the reality of people's lives by giving them an opportunity to present to a judge or jury the full story behind their behavior in the community, not just what happened, but why it happened.

And it reflects a confidence in the judges and residents of Seattle to determine, in the words of the Seattle Municipal Code, what conduct merits condemnation as criminal.

Judges and juries can do a better job when given a more complete picture of a person's behavior.

The current legal system and incarceration are incredibly expensive and gerrymanders all the systemic issues out of trial proceedings while continuing to exacerbate them with its outcomes.

We must respond deliberately and thoughtfully and reinvest money currently spent incarcerating individuals into a-.

Thank you Katie.

Diona.

Good morning.

Hello?

Hi there.

Hi, this is Deanna Glaze.

I'm calling to voice my support for item two, the internet for all item, because the internet has only increased in its importance in commerce and civic engagement and now in education.

And the digital divide has been a known issue for years and years and it's time to provide it as a utility.

We don't need to wait until the duopoly lose their fight to be called utilities to provide internet for all.

I'd also like to repeat that, repeat Sean's call to extend the hiring freeze on police officers.

The council has already committed since the summer to divest from police at least 50%.

And we do not need to be hiring more police in order to meet that commitment.

Thank you for your time.

And the last speaker is Ruby Kyle.

Hi my name is Ruby Kale.

I'm a resident of District 3 and a student at Garfield High School.

I'm calling as a member of Our Climate Washington to urge you to divest from Seattle Police Department by at least 50 percent and support distribution of funds divested from SPD through a participatory participatory budgeting process.

I also urge you to extend the police hiring freeze into 2021. As police quit or retire, we don't need more investments to replace them.

My main point is that police do not create public safety.

Instead of criminalizing homelessness, we can fund dignified emergency shelter, basic sanitation, and affordable housing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for calling in this morning.

Okay, colleagues, that gets us through public comment.

Everybody who signed up did get a chance to speak.

That was about 33 minutes of public testimony, and we wanted to offer a few extra minutes since we were almost through the list.

Thanks so much, everybody, for calling in.

Let's go ahead and have the clerk, Madam Clerk, could you please read item one into the record?

Madam Clerk, you may be on mute still.

My apologies, Council Member Musqueda.

Yes, we will move into an introduction and overview of council budget actions and statement of legislative intent.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Bond Clerk.

I'm going to turn it over to Allie for some quick opening remarks.

And then I have some remarks as well for orientation before we dive in.

Allie, good to see you again.

Thanks to you and your entire team.

Please help us walk through the introduction of what to expect today.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, good morning committee members.

Today we are on step three in the budget process.

Next slide, please.

Where we will discuss, oh no, sorry, the second slide.

Where we will discuss council budget actions and statements of legislative intents proposed by council members.

And I will just note here that we are halfway through after we get through committee this week.

So we are almost to the downhill part of the budget process.

Next slide, please.

There are about 32 proposals that will be discussed today and more than 80 additional proposals that will be presented on Thursday and Friday that affect a number of departments' 2021 proposed budget.

These proposals and the discussions today will inform development of the balancing package that is the next step in the process.

Next slide, please.

In addition to the proposals discussed in committee this week, the balancing package will include budget actions for the 36 pieces of legislation that were transmitted with the proposed budget and budget actions necessary to balance the balancing package.

All of the budget legislation was summarized in the miscellaneous issue identification paper that was presented to the committee on October 16th.

Council members have any questions about that legislation that won't be discussed this week, please get in touch with central staff.

If you could move on to the next slide.

The balancing package, along with the revenue update, will be presented at the November 10th Budget Committee meeting.

And then following that, we will move into the Form C deadline, where council members can make proposals to change the proposed balancing package.

And just as a reminder, those proposals are due on November 12th at 5 p.m., and they must be self balancing.

So if you're proposing to increase spending in a department, you must propose an offsetting cut.

Next slide.

Unless there are questions, I'm happy to turn it back over to the chair for her opening remarks.

Thank you so much.

Ali, if you could stay with us for, I know you'll be with us the entire morning, but stay with us for a quick second.

There might be some questions for both of us after I offer some additional context for hand-raising feature and signing on to Form B's.

So folks if you have any questions feel free to ask Ali and I.

I want to note as it relates to the hand-raising feature a number of us have been talking about for years how it might be hard for folks following along especially at home and even when we were pre-COVID in the council chambers to see when hands were being raised to add your names to Form B's.

So we're really excited about this process today both for transparency with the public for better I think accountability for all of us to make sure that we know who's signing on to which items.

It's a great opportunity for us to use technology to our advantage today.

So as we add our names onto Form Bs today, the public will also be able to follow along.

Today, as Form Bs are discussed, we will have the names and pictures of the prime sponsor, along with co-sponsors who have already indicated that they would like to be listed, on the document.

Thanks so much to Joseph from our communications team for making this possible.

Here's a great example.

You will not actually physically raise your hand.

You're going to use the form, the feature in the Zoom application in front of us.

And we, behind the scenes, will be adding your picture and your name.

If you're not already listed, you want to be listed, great.

We can go ahead and do that.

I'll then summarize at the end, before we move to the next form, the co-sponsors that I see along with the prime sponsor again.

This will give us a chance to make sure that we've gotten this correct.

And if you need to remove your name for any reason, and we've misunderstood your intent, you can also take it off at that point.

This is really a helpful tool for transparency as we make sure that the public can follow along with our discussion, given the speed of our discussion.

the high number of Form Bs and the fact that we're remote, we want to make this as welcoming as possible for people to follow along.

And again, this is not a roll call.

I'm not going to be calling for people to sign on.

If you are interested, please use that hand feature.

And we do have one council member on the phone.

Thank you very much, Council Member Juarez.

I do have an indication along with our central staff and Patty.

We have a list of the numbers that you would like to sign on to.

So those will be loaded as well as we get to those forms.

I want to thank Joseph for creating this feature, Patty and central staff for working on this and for getting those names and pictures uploaded behind the scene.

That's very helpful.

There may be a few glitches.

That's just life in 2020 right now with everything going on remotely, but I'm really excited about this.

I want to thank you for your patience in advance, and I hope you see this as a good addition to the budget process.

So as it relates to signing on, just a word of advice or a cautionary note.

From my experience in the first year, I wanted to sign on to everything.

And I think I almost did.

And I think at this point, given that we are in a much different revenue situation and there's so many different priorities in front of us, I would urge folks to use caution or reservation on the number that you sign on to obviously I don't want to limit anybody and expressing support for various Form B's but do note that the tradition here is for us to use your sign-on as an indication of the highest priorities that council members have and it helps the central staff and the budget chair to be able to identify which priorities the entire council is interested in.

I want to make sure that our council's rebalance budget is truly a reflection of the various priorities that we have.

And I know that we would all want to do more, and we will continue to strive to do more as we continue to push for more opportunities in the progressive revenue realm.

But we need to also make sure that this process here today has a clear distinction if you are putting your name on everything, it's hard for me to know which ones are the biggest priority for you.

So thank you so much in advance for your interest in signing on.

I just wanted to offer that from my own personal experience.

I wanted to sign on to everything and given where we are at, it is very helpful if you do add your name, that's a really helpful indication to all of us that this is a top priority or a high priority and will carry additional weight.

With that, I just want to see if there's any questions for Allie.

Any questions about the process for signing on to Form Bs?

We did a really good job, Allie.

Thank you very much for sticking with us.

And again, thanks to the crew who have made this process possible, especially Patty for getting those names up today and Joseph for creating this application for us.

All right, let's go ahead and proceed with the list of Form Bs.

We do have a summary document that is included.

If you use the agenda as a summary document, that's helpful as well.

Each of the forms have their own page, so take lots of notes, ask the questions that you need to get asked today, and let's dive in.

Allie, am I turning it back to you?

Yes, thank you.

Let's do this.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I will be presenting the first item today on behalf of my colleague, Lisa Kay.

Before we jump in, I just want to note that we will be presenting what is in front of you on the screen, the number and the title, as well as the sponsors for the proposal.

If there is a need to highlight details in the actual amendment sheet, please signal to us and Patty can open that document.

But for the most part, we will just be focusing on the title and we will verbally describe the proposal.

So this first item, CBO 1A1 is a statement of legislative intent proposed by council member Peterson that would request that the city budget office include a new section called internet for all in the 2021 adopted budget book chapter for the information technology department.

This section should reference resolution 31956 passed unanimously by the city council in July, 2020, as well as the executive's action plan that was presented in September to the council.

And note that the next report from the IT department that's due in the first quarter of 2021 will summarize progress on initial strategies to increase access and adoption of affordable and reliable internet services.

And that should include having set up a dashboard to track results.

Turn it over to the sponsor.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson, anything to add?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, Allie, for that great summary.

And council members, this could be the easiest thing we approved today because it's just adding a couple of paragraphs to the budget to illuminate something we've already voted on and supported, but it was absent from the budget document itself.

So happy to answer any questions.

OK, great.

I am not seeing any questions.

Excellent.

And if you are interested in signing on, please do raise your hand.

Council Member Swan, question?

I want to make a few brief comments.

Please, go ahead.

Thank you.

I will be supporting this because of course I support municipal broadband and my office and the people's budget movement has been really fighting for municipal broadband but has not succeeded because of having obstacles in city hall.

And I'll support anything that's related to this.

But I do want to express a frustration.

Every year I see council members propose something that looks like support for municipal public broadband, but not anything material.

Several years ago when my office proposed a budget amendment to actually study So actually start building municipal broadband, starting with a pilot project in one neighborhood of the city.

The majority of the council at that time refused to support it.

So I will be supporting this, but I just wanted to stress that what we need is actual municipal broadband and we need to start that project in reality.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

Okay, I am seeing no additional comments.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson.

And to summarize, we have Councilmember Peterson as the prime sponsor, Councilmember Herbold, Sawant, Juarez, Straus, Lewis, and Gonzalez signed on as co-sponsors.

And appreciate your time today.

All right, we did it.

We used the Form B hand raise function.

That's a good first step for today.

And just a quick note as well, I will not be signing on as a general rule.

I'm not gonna be signing on as a co-sponsor, just so you know.

That is not an indication I don't support your pieces, but I just wanna make sure that folks knew that at the get-go.

Congratulations, customer Peterson, you helped us get through the first one.

All right, let's move on to number two.

Okay, good morning council members.

Brian Goodnight from council central staff.

The next two items relate to the department of education and early learning or DEEL.

So the first one is DEEL 1A1.

And this budget action would add $550,000 of one-time funding from the fund balance of the 2011 families and education levy to DEEL to support culturally responsive and identity affirming programming for black girls and young women and black queer and trans youth.

Up to $175,000 of the funds are intended to support DEEL in performing a study that should, at a minimum, identify gaps in the programming that's available to support Black girls and young women and Black queer and trans youth, should determine strategies for addressing those gaps, and should make recommendations on appropriate programming opportunities.

The budget action request of the findings and recommendations be reported to the council by the end of May.

And the recommendations should address both programming opportunities for the one-time funds that are made available by this budget action, as well as ongoing source of funding for future programming.

And as you can see, this item is sponsored by Council President Gonzalez, along with Council Members Morales and Wise.

I'm loving this feature.

Council President Gonzalez, I can see you as a proud sponsor.

Would you have anything to add?

Just really quickly, this is an item I am thrilled to sponsor, and I'm deeply appreciative to do so with a strong partnership and allyship of Councilmember Morales from District 2. So also, huge thank you.

Thanks to council member Juarez from district 5 for her sponsorship on this citywide proposal.

The city already has similar programming through the program.

Our best, which is focused on black males through the families, education, preschool and promise levy.

We have been able to make targeted investments to support students outside of the classroom.

But there is more to do, as we know, and 2020 has brought this into sharp focus for all of us.

If included in the Chair's initial revised budget package, this funding would make targeted investments in Black girls and young women.

In doing so, we affirm our commitment to not leaving Black girls and young women, as well as Black queer youth and Black trans youth, behind in our work towards achieving equity for those furthest from educational justice.

In an article published in the New York Times on October 1st, 2020, entitled, A Battle for the Souls of Black Girls, the writer provides a picture of why black girls are arguably the most at risk student group in the United States.

Focusing in on disproportionate rates of discipline, the article provides, quote, statistically, black boys have led the country in suspensions, expulsions, and school arrests.

And the disparities between them and white boys have been a catalyst for national movements for change.

But black girls' discipline rates are not far behind those of black boys.

And in several categories, such as suspensions and law enforcement referrals, the disparities between black and white girls eclipse those between black and white boys," close quote. The article goes on to provide that, quote, a New York Times analysis of the most recent discipline data from the education department found that black girls are over five times more likely than white girls to be suspended at least once from school seven times more likely to receive multiple out-of-school suspensions than white girls, and three times more likely to receive referrals to law enforcement. Black boys experienced lower rates of the same punishments compared with white boys," close quote.

Researchers across the country have long said that teachers and administrators judge the behavior of Black children more harshly.

This is affirmed by past federal civil rights investigations that have found generally that Black students are punished more harshly than their white peers for the same exact behavior.

So in conclusion, I believe this additional investment is absolutely necessary for identity affirming and culturally responsive programming to help more black youth fulfill their educational potential and their potential in general.

So I would encourage colleagues to be supportive of this request.

And again, really appreciate the partnership of Councilmember Morales in particular, who we worked very closely with in shaping the proposal before us.

And of course, huge thanks also to Councilmember Juarez, who's long been a champion for additional investments in culturally responsive programming at the city for a broad set of diverse community members.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

We had a constituent who was hoping to testify this morning and wasn't able to, so if I could beg your indulgence, I would like to read the statement that she was hoping to make.

Please go ahead.

So this is from Monica Matthews, who is a black business owner, entrepreneur, educator, mentor in our community, and a resident of District 2. The courage of African-American girls is most commendable and inspirational.

In spite of the isms this population faces, Black girls continue to set trends, care for others, and innovate in every arena.

This is especially true for young minds in middle and high school.

The sheer inside-out beauty of Black girls permeates through the darkest days and manifests itself through tenacious and passionate actions toward any issue Black girls focus on.

Black girls show up despite the heavy burdens they carry on a day-to-day basis, demonstrating persistence.

However, carrying these burdens gives an illusion of strength when in all actuality they are chipping away at the health and wellness of Black girls in Seattle.

Greetings, my name is Monica Matthews.

I'm the owner of Queen Care Products and executive director of Life Enrichment Group.

I founded Life Enrichment Group 16 years ago, specifically to serve my community in addressing the needs of black girls.

In this time, the academic failure rate amongst black girls continues to increase, widening the achievement gap even more and undermining positive community development.

The criminal justice system increasingly reflects African American girls.

In addition, the effects of racism has crushed Black family structure, leaving Black girls in dysfunctional home environments that negatively affect their mental health, stability, and performance.

Moving forward, community and government must work together to provide a holistic set of community supports that will establish the ability of Black girls to thrive in Seattle.

The concerted efforts of community-based organizations have held up this work for close to two decades.

However, we now desperately need our city's support.

Right now, Black girls are the victims of countless atrocities stemming from a broken system.

Through educational advancement, personal development, and healing, girls can become victors in our society with policy changes and focused financial investments.

Investing in economic development opportunities for our Black girls is essential.

We must commit not leaving our Black girls behind.

2020 has forced us to reset our course.

Let's rebuild the essential foundational framework that Black girls need.

The statement does go on and I am going to send it to you.

But in the interest of time, I will stop there and just, as Council President Gonzalez said, ask for your support and ensuring that we are making the investments that we need to make in black girls in our community.

OK, I'm not.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both to Prime Sponsor President Gonzalez, co-sponsor Morales and Juarez.

And I see already some folks adding their names.

I just want to do a quick reminder for PSA.

I'm sorry if that's the right frame here.

So to raise your hand.

For the folks from IT, could you do a quick reminder for folks on how to raise your hand.

I can do it if you want me to.

Oh, sure.

It sounds good, Council President.

Colleagues, if you'd like to raise your hand to indicate co-sponsorship of this particular item, you go to the bottom of your bar in the Zoom function, click on participants, which will open up a panelist box, and then go down to the bottom bar in the panelist box and click on raise hand.

I'm a technology consultant, just so everybody knows.

It is a little bit of a hidden button because it's at the bottom of the screen.

You'd expect it sort of at the top.

But thank you very much, Council President.

That is leadership.

I really appreciate all of you all for signing on.

Tremendous support for this.

So I don't see any additional hands virtually.

or hands saying that there's a question or comment.

So just to summarize, Council President Gonzales, Prime Sponsor, Council Members Juarez and Morales, along with Herbold, Sawant, Peterson, Strauss, and Lewis.

Thank you all.

Let's move on to the next item.

Thank you councilmembers.

So the next item is it's numbered deal 2A1 and this budget action would add $550,000 of general fund to deal for a restorative justice pilot program at a limited number of schools in partnership with community organizations.

The funding would be used to set up the pilot program and to fund the first year of programming for what's intended to be a multi-year pilot.

It would allow the schools and community partners to provide restorative justice coordinators or teams that would facilitate school-wide trainings for teachers and students to build and strengthen relationships, would address behavioral issues and culturally responsive in a trauma-informed way, and to assist with conflict resolution.

The budget action also asks DEEL to examine restorative justice programs that have already been operating in Seattle for lessons learned or best practices before developing the program and moving forward with a procurement process.

And as you can see, this item is sponsored by Council Member Morales and is supported by, co-sponsored by Council Members Herbold and Lewis.

Thank you very much.

Brian, Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So this, Again, through some work that black education now organizers have created this work has been happening for a while but folks are really asking now for the city to make for elected officials specifically to make these investments.

As Brian mentioned, this would create an opportunity for joint partnership between community organizations and schools.

And I think the community-based limit of this is especially important.

And as he mentioned, there is already some funding happening.

So King County Best Starts for Kids, their funding cycle will end in 2021. And that funding did support some restorative justice work, some different, it's not all Circles, for example, peacemaking circles, but it did create a kind of a benchmark for us to be able to look at what these practices are.

So, while this initial investment is one time funding, the intent is for the city to take seriously the importance of committing ongoing funding.

for this work.

And through Best Starts for Kids and through this pilot, we can start to create a baseline of data that will allow us to make decisions in the future about how much to invest.

The city chose to invest in school resource officers years ago, and this is just one example of how we invested in punitive practices when we could have invested in more mental health counselors and restorative justice teams to provide more holistic support for schools and for students.

So while the SPD budget item was cut this summer, we have to continue that trajectory and make sure that we're investing in community members and in our young people.

So I do want to read one more comment from a constituent, a teacher at Rainier Beach High School, who says, as a teacher at Rainier Beach, I see even without school resource officers, students being suspended, expelled, and even just losing instructional time due to battles of ego, nonviolent arguments, possession of marijuana, et cetera.

Students lose time in the classroom, lose their education altogether in some instances.

Those that do return to the classroom do so largely without having relationships healed to the extent that would be necessary to learn alongside folks who were part of the conflict.

We have had restorative justice coordinators the past few years who've begun to do the work and their effect has been incredible.

We have students who are trained in restorative justice circle-keeping in every grade level, who are leading these healing circles for each other.

That is the goal.

That we set up systems to dismantle punitive systems of colonization.

Students feel the agency to heal each other and their community.

The restorative justice grant runs out this year, and we will be without a restorative justice coordinator next year.

Please pass Council Member Morales' proposal, teacher and resident of District 2.

Thank you, Council Member Alex.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Seeing no additional comments or questions, thank you so much.

I see folks raising their hand in the feature.

I also want to note, please don't lower your own hand in the Zoom function.

We will have our team do that behind the scenes so that we're making sure that we're getting everybody on the screen before we move forward.

Okay, so to summarize, I see Council Member Morales as the prime sponsor.

I see Council Members Herbold, Sawant, Straus, and Lewis as co-sponsors.

Anybody have anything else before we move on?

Excellent, that summarizes this one.

Thank you.

Actually, may I ask a quick question, Council Member Morales?

Okay, great.

What I didn't see, and you just started to speak to it, the person who you read the testimony, they said that the money is running out for restorative justice efforts.

Is this a continuation of an existing program?

Because it says pilot program.

So there's some additional community programming in other parts of the city.

You know, the best starts for kids, for example, is some existing funding and some existing work that is happening.

But this work needs to pilot.

This is a new pilot.

Yeah.

OK, thank you very much.

All right, folks, I think we got everybody summarized here.

Councilor Morales, Herbold, Sawant, Strauss and Lewis as co-sponsors.

Excellent.

Let's move to the next

Right.

Good morning.

This is Lish Whitson with Council Central staff.

We have three items for the Department of Neighborhoods.

The first is DLN 1A1 sponsored by Council Member Juarez with Council Member Strauss and Gonzalez supporting it.

This would add a new planning and development specialist position and funding to the Department of Neighborhoods to staff an indigenous advisory council.

It would be set up in 2021 to provide a voice and forum for the urban native community to provide input on their needs and interests to the city.

Thank you, Lish.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Good morning.

First of all, a big thank you to you, Madam Chair, IT, and Joseph for the new format regarding the budget.

It's so much easier and nicer to see everybody's face instead of us shuffling all this paper behind these screens.

So thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

The Indigenous Advisory Council, I want a big thank you to the co-sponsors with me, Council President Gonzalez, and Council Member Strauss, particularly to Council President Gonzalez, who obviously had served with me last term and is very aware of the issues, not only for the city of Seattle, but in Indian country in general.

So thank you for that.

This is very exciting because the city of Seattle has never had this type of Indian, I'm sorry, Indigenous Advisory Council and a companion FTE within the Seattle government family.

So, we need this permanent space dedicated to empowering urban Indian communities to advise city officials on urgent issues that Native communities and the tribes within King County, quite frankly, currently face.

The devastating reality is that American Indian and Alaska Native communities experience disproportionately high rates of gender-based violence, health disparities, including chronic disease, racism, poverty, and the barriers to education, and of course, number one in homelessness.

I have a few more notes on here, but I want to make a point here.

This isn't just limited, just like Indian country just isn't limited to the four corners of a reservation.

It isn't just about urban native populations.

It's also about working with our tribal governments, not only in King County, but statewide where their members live in the city of Seattle and leveraging the resources of tribal governments, which we've done and we have always done since the 90s on a state level.

So right now, City Council can do more to engage and serve the variety of Native voices and leadership in our city in order to promote government-to-government relations with the tribes, tribal governments, decolonize current structures, and promote the livelihood of Native populations in Seattle with an empowered Indigenous Advisory Council.

This budget action makes this happen.

The Indigenous Advisory Council, the IAC, will serve the important purpose of providing direction, guidance, and subject matter expertise to advise Seattle elected officials and city departments on issues pertaining to Native populations and tribal government.

The IAC will work closer and well and fit into our Seattle City Council Committee structure and also work with the legislative branch, more city departments, the executive, commissions, and committees.

So I think what we've learned when we added, back in 2018, when we added Native communities to our former Public Ethics and Civic Development Committee, is that our office and our committee, even though we added Native communities in general, could not do all of the outreach for all the departments, including the executive, and city departments, and other organizations.

And I think some of you have experienced this.

Where do you go for some of these social issues, some of the issues, legislative issues, where you need a body that is not the Seattle Indian Service Commission, because they're not the same, where we can address these issues that we hear from our brothers and sisters at United Indian, Seattle Indian Health Board, Seattle Indian Center, Chief Seattle, and I could go on and on.

So every year in budget, I find myself and our staff trying to reach out as much as we can.

And it was clear, and I've always known this, that we were going to need at some point an indigenous advisory council.

So other cities have successfully created a position or similar entity like this advisory council.

We already know the state of Washington does that.

San Francisco successfully created a cultural center and advisory council by and for Native people.

Portland has an active tribal relations director who is positioned to assist the executive, city council, and all city bureaus in strengthening relationships and coordinating overall policy development.

They work in collaboration with tribal governments and the Portland Native American community.

We have this opportunity to follow these models to better understand the impacts of our policies on Native communities here in Seattle, and an advisory council will fulfill Seattle's obligation to promote the lives of Native Americans in a more permanent way.

So we have the opportunity to not only put together the Indigenous Advisory Council, but have a companion one FPE within Department of Neighborhoods to make sure that we execute the policy issues that are brought to committee that we would bring to the full council.

In the meantime, we are working with LISH to create the Advisory Council through legislation outside of the budget season to provide more time for public engagement to shape the final structure in the new year.

So I guess what we would be looking at is how many, how many mayoral appointments, how many city council appointments.

This proposed staffer would be instrumental during the beginning phase of the engagement.

And so just on a side note for what I've had to do, and again, this is the nice part about being old.

I remember the days when President Clinton signed the executive order back in the early 90s requiring federal governments, and then eventually this date, to adopt a government-to-government relationship with tribes.

So it isn't just a matter of having an FTE in an Indigenous Advisory Council.

It's a matter of having community people come forward to inform us what issues need to be turned into legislation.

And also, which is another, more than a bonus, which I'm hoping that we leverage more, is that we work closer with tribal governments not only on issues that this council recently passed, thank you, on missing murdered indigenous women and girls, but other issues, so that when we're looking at funding for Chief Seattle or United Indians or any other organization, that we actually have an indigenous advisory council that's on the ground, in community, doing the work, advising our committee, and then us bringing forward more legislation and more budget proposals to address those issues.

We've been doing it on an ad hoc basis, We are going to be doing this for a long time.

We are going to be doing this forever.

I'm excited and I'm hoping we get this through budget.

Again, a big thank you to Council President Gonzalez and Councilmember Strauss.

I just want to real quickly thank Councilmember Juarez for bringing this forward and her steadfast and ongoing advocacy for indigenous communities.

did a little sort of poking around about other jurisdictions with advisory councils like this.

And as Council Member Juarez stated, other jurisdictions, particularly throughout Canada, have these similar type of advisory councils that are not just advisory, but they're really important to driving planning and resource allocation.

I also see that in Portland, they formally recognized and provided staffing and funding to their Native American Community Advisory Council.

in 2013. So this is, I think, a much needed and welcome and time relevant emphasis.

And again, I really appreciate the laser focus of Council Member Juarez on this type of engagement and lifting up of voices.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

That's very kind of you.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

Okay, now's the time to go ahead.

If you are interested in signing on, I'm going to summarize who we see as additional co-sponsors.

We have Council Member Juarez as the prime sponsor, Council Member Morales and Council President Gonzalez, joined by Council Member Herbold, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Sawant, and I believe Council Member Lewis is interested in signing on.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Excellent.

I think we have everybody that I see on my end.

I want to appreciate all of you for continuing to engage in this process.

Just a quick PSA behind the scenes as well.

Council Member Peterson, I see your name also listed, if we could add him.

So what we're doing behind the scene is when you raise your hand, Patty is using that information to put your information on the screen.

And then Fadi Nikwemis from my office is lowering your hand, so you don't have to worry about lowering your hand.

But we will endeavor to make sure that we get through all of those hands before we move on.

You don't have to wait until somebody is done summarizing, if you already know you want to sign on.

But again, you also don't feel like you have to sign on to everything, but appreciate everybody doing this.

So we will move on to the next one.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you very much.

DON 2A1 would add $200,000 to the Department of Neighborhoods to support the construction of the Detective Cookie Chess Park.

This is underutilized right-of-way in the Rainier Beach neighborhood that the community has been working on for a number of years to develop into a community gathering space that includes outdoor chess playing, inspired by Detective Cookie, who leads a chess club in the Rainier Beach neighborhood.

Council Member Morales is the sponsor, with Council Members Herbold and Strauss as co-sponsors.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Well, as I said last week, this would help build out the park to include a giant chessboard on the ground.

Young people in the neighborhood have used this area and this chess club for years as a way to connect and build bridges of healthy communication in their neighborhood and with adults in the neighborhood as well.

Parts of the Rainier Beach community have come together to honor the club and have a positive outlet for our young people, the neighborhood, and this would just help ensure that that process of building gets completed.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Okay, I see co-sponsors, Council Member Herbold and Council Member Strauss.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

I don't see any additional questions or comments.

Appreciate your summary here.

Let's move on to, actually Council Member Morales, I do have a question.

I keep doing that, I'm very sorry.

Do you happen to know if this park has any additional matching dollars from the state legislature?

I don't know the answer to that.

Sorry, but we can certainly find out.

Thank you very much.

All right, appreciate it.

Let's move to the next one.

All right, DON 3A1 would add $75,000 to the Department of Neighborhoods to continue the work of a South Park safety coordinator for an additional year.

This is sponsored by Council Member Herbold with Council Members Peterson and Gonzalez as co-sponsors.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate the support of Councilmember, Council President Gonzalez over several years for this item and the sponsorship of Councilmember Peterson as well.

This is an item that we've brought forward a couple of years in a row.

It arose from a community-based planning process that the council supported and funded.

And I appreciate that last year I received strong support from both council members Sawant and Juarez to get this added to the budget.

As you heard this morning, this proposal has received strong support from a number of South Park organizations.

and as noted in public comment, residents and businesses as well.

It's a given that the multilingual approach is critical for community-based safety efforts in South Park.

We've heard from several organizations supporting funding this position, South Park Neighborhood Association, The Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, Cultivate South Park, Friends of the River City Skate Park.

I'm a member of the public safety committee.

I'm a member of the public safety committee.

I was emailed this week from a constituent about the importance of this work.

And with an example of how effective Dennis Diaz is in this position.

If you can indulge me, I'll make it really short.

I just want to share this very specific example.

On July 2nd, around 8 p.m., a neighbor posted about an older Spanish-speaking woman being in a mental health crisis on her front porch.

She was confused and repeatedly knocking on the door and tried to enter the house.

The homeowner, who doesn't speak Spanish, posted on the neighborhood group.

Seeing there weren't any useful responses, I was quickly able to contact the neighborhood safety coordinator Mr. Dennis Diaz, who is bilingual.

He left his house that evening and was able to resolve the situation without tragedy or malice.

I was able to contact the South Park safety coordinator directly.

He was quickly willing and able to assist neighbors with a Spanish speaking person in a mental health crisis when no others had come forward despite repeated pleas on community forums.

It seems antithetical to the goals of the city and the council.

to reduce reliance on police resources for such scenarios by not providing permanent funding for this job.

Without his compassionate and effective responses, particularly evening, the outcome could have been disastrous.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any additional comments or questions?

Okay, just a quick question for me.

Is there a BIA in the South Park area that this position works with?

There is not a BIA.

There are actually two separate associations, but there is no BIA.

This is not a neighborhood that is well positioned at this time to form a BIA because integral to having a BIA is the ability to self-assess yourself a fee in order to fund the BIA.

And this is, again, an equity issue with these businesses that are struggling to maintain their economic vitality and cohesiveness as a business association.

The position itself, is funded through Seattle Neighborhood Group.

And Seattle Neighborhood Group is the primary organization that works throughout the city in providing resources in targeted geographic areas throughout the city to organize around community safety priorities.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

Okay.

Let's summarize co-sponsors.

Primary sponsor is Councilmember Herbal with co-sponsors already, Councilmember Peterson and Council President Gonzalez.

Being joined by Councilmember Morales, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you so much, colleagues.

Let's move on to the next one.

All right.

We are moving on to the department.

I'm so sorry.

Just real quick, Council President Gonzalez, I think I missed your comment.

Would you like to say anything else?

Oh, yeah.

Um, sorry to take us back here just a little bit.

I just wanted to, um, I wasn't planning on saying anything, but, um, but I did want to, um, just signal, uh, my strong, strong, um, support for this position.

Uh, we heard one of the public commenters, um, go, they call in and, um, talk about why this is so important from both a resident and business owner perspective.

Of course, South Park is one of the communities that is being subjected to an incredible amount of gentrification currently, and there's a lot of displacement occurring, but this is such an important investment for this neighborhood.

They really have utilized the position well, and it has really made a significant difference in terms of how South Park residents and business owners connect to each other and to the city related to issues of public safety.

Again, I can't emphasize enough how important this very modest investment is. in terms of what we gain as a city and as neighborhoods in terms of the benefits of such a modest investment.

And hope that the chair will include it in her initial revised package.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Let's go ahead and move on.

Appreciate those additional comments.

So we are moving on to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

Sly FAS1A1 asks the Department of Finance and Administrative Services Real Estate Division to work with a food bank in Belltown that is losing its home to identify whether there is space in publicly owned buildings that could accommodate that activity.

Council Member Lewis is the prime sponsor with Council Members Morales and Juarez, I think, and Strauss.

Excellent.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is a pretty simple but impactful proposal that I'm bringing forward.

Parker Dawson on my staff and I have been working on this for the last several months.

As folks who are frequenters of the Labor Temple know, there is a food bank that is housed in the Labor Temple, which unfortunately is losing its home due to the Labor Temple moving on to building a new hall elsewhere in the county.

But the result of that is it will displace this critical food bank, which provides a really critical lifeline for a lot of my constituents who live in the Belltown.

and uptown neighborhoods.

This is also an area with a high density of city-owned properties and city-owned land around the Seattle Center and the new arena site, and would really like to explore a way that the city could potentially assist in finding a new home for this critical food bank to not dislocate its network of service and get rid of this critical lifeline for people who really depend on it.

and we would just like to formalize that in the budget and continue this work with the rest of our city team to find a new home for this critical service in the district.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Lewis.

Additional comments or questions?

Okay, Councilmember Lewis is already joined by Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Strauss.

Also joining as co-sponsors are Councilmember Herbold, Council Member Sawant, Council Member Juarez.

Okay, thank you so much, colleagues.

And Council Member Lewis will also note that I am going to inquire as well with the Central Labor Council about how that addition, it could be a potential addition to the, what's the right term, condition of sale.

There's a lot of great history in that building.

And I know it's in a very prime location.

And one of the important aspects that they provide is that food assistance to families in the area.

So thank you for moving this forward and look forward to learning more from the CLC as well.

Okay, the next item here from Council Member Lewis as well.

Good morning, members of the Budget Committee.

Tom Mikesell with your Council Central staff.

Council Budget Action FAS 2A1, sponsored by Council Member Lewis with co-sponsorship from Council Members Morales and Strauss, would pass legislation to create a business and occupation tax credit for businesses with taxable incomes in 2020 below $200,000.

So just as background, businesses with taxable income below $100,000 are completely exempt from the tax.

the next highest income tier for which data is available is the $100,000 to $200,000 tier.

Okay, Tom, I'm going to ask that you speak up real loud next time.

Council Member Lewis, anything to add?

And if folks couldn't hear, maybe just a quick summary as well.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I am proud to bring this forward to really think creatively about some of the ways that we can provide relief to the businesses that we know are just really, really struggling and suffering through this very unique recession that has had such a big impact, particularly on bars, on restaurants.

And there's an awful lot of businesses in that category that are family owned, that are small, that are women and BIPOC owned, that fall below this $200,000 threshold that may not survive this recession.

or this downturn due to the hit they've taken from COVID.

As we are all very well aware, we are very limited in our state in what we can do to provide direct relief due to the prohibition on gifts of public funds.

And that rule has never had sort of crueler implications than it has during this crisis in limiting our ability to really provide direct relief only through our pass-through community development, block grant money from the federal government, making us dependent on the federal government for that kind of relief.

So this is a way that we can provide some relief by remitting or simply waiving B&O taxes that would be coming into the city treasury.

I'm open to considering to work or continuing to work with central staff and and my colleagues on way and the executive on ways to maybe get around administrability costs.

And, and maybe tighten up the criteria a little by including maybe an FTE criteria in addition to the 200,000.

I think we should fully explore it.

This is one of the limited tools we have given the prohibition on the direct contribution or the direct gift of public funds.

I think we should fully explore it given the massive strain that our small businesses are under.

I do not believe so, Madam Chair.

Okay, thank you so much.

Are there questions?

Council Member Herbold, did you have a question?

I do not.

I'm sorry.

I'm off.

I'll put myself back on.

Thank you.

No problem.

Just looking for cues.

Okay.

So just so I understand, Tom, the expected potential impact on the budget at this point is $540,000.

Madam chair, that's correct.

That would be in the 2022 budget.

Um, there is a 2020 impact of $150,000.

And the difference is between, um, those taxpayers that file on an annual basis and those that file on a quarterly basis, um, annual basis filers.

We, uh, city receives the money in April of the following year.

which represents the $540,000.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay.

I am not seeing any additional questions at this time.

Council Member Lewis was joined by Council Member Morales and Council Member Strauss, also adding their names.

Our Council Member Herbold, Council Member Peterson, Council Member Sawant.

Good to get everybody.

Thank you so much, everyone.

And let's move on to the next one.

And it would amend those terms to include crimes that were committed because a person is trying to meet a basic need or somebody that is experiencing behavioral health symptoms during commission of the crime.

This is sponsored by Council Member Herbold and currently co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Salant.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

My apologies.

Thank you very much, Asha, for the description.

And thank you to council members Morales and Sawant for their sponsorship.

And of course, many, many thanks to the solidarity budget proponents for making this a central request and priority for the council.

There's been some information out there about the impact of this amendment.

I just want to be very clear.

This amendment would give the court, our judges and juries, the ability to hear a defense that would be offered by public defenders.

And this is really about creating some transparency about the conditions of the lives of people who have been accused of offenses currently, you know, just given the fast-paced nature of Seattle Municipal Court and of these particular misdemeanor prosecutions when they happen, there just really isn't the opportunity despite the efforts of the defense to allow, to create the room and the space and the time to allow defendants the opportunity to talk about the conditions that led to the defense.

And so this gives the ability of the court, the judges and juries to consider that experience, whether or not there is an issue of poverty that led to the commission of the offense or substance abuse disorder.

or mental illness.

The proposal does not require a dismissal or acquittal.

It simply allows for the defense.

Again, this is a really important distinction because it's really the authority of the judges and jury to fully hear that story and make decisions about what circumstances would lead to a prosecution.

We know that the city currently spends $20 million a year on incarceration.

This significantly increases the risk of housing instability and homelessness.

We have seen from reports like the prolific offenders report that being prosecuted and going to jail over and over and over again, is not helpful to addressing the underlying issues that people are suffering from.

Our ultimate goal is to ensure that people don't get caught in the criminal justice system in the first place by robustly funding programs like LEAD and CoLEAD and Just Cares, those types of interactions that rely on community referrals so that the police are not called, somebody doesn't get charged, and people do not have to use this defense.

But given the fact that we don't have our, what we learned last week were intercept zero programs fully funded and at full scale, some of these cases are still being prosecuted.

I just want to also lift up that just this week, the Washington Post had an editorial about the unfortunate Proposition 1 in California.

And that is sort of a tough on crime proposition on the ballot in California.

And the Washington Post specifically gave a shout out to Seattle.

and for this effort and cited this proposal as a positive step in the right direction, whereas Prop 1 unfortunately further criminalizes mental illness, substance abuse disorders, homelessness, and poverty.

And so I think we really have an opportunity again, as Seattle does, to lead and begin working to provide proper services to these individuals instead of simply hoping that individual circumstances change after a jail sentence.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Are there any additional questions or comments?

Councilmember Lewis?

thank you madam chair i i just want to make a couple brief comments about this just based on a lot of the the commentary that's been out there and the uh...

analysis by certain folks uh...

i would also recommend that folks that are following along with this read uh...

kevin schofields very thoughtful write-up uh...

today uh...

which did a deep dive analysis into this that uh...

was very fair and analytical I just want to comment that I appreciate Council Member Herbold bringing this forward and starting this conversation.

I think it is a critical conversation because we know from a lot of the work that has been done, and I can attest from my personal experience of working in the municipal court, that there is a massive issue of unmet longstanding behavioral mental health needs that should come as no surprise, given that we're a state that ranks 46th in behavioral mental health treatment and services, and that is reflected in the burden that the criminal legal system takes on to try to highly unsuccessfully deal with and mitigate through those issues.

I want to just say to the general public that there's been no formal bill or proposal introduced yet.

I've read the model ordinance that the defenders have put forward that is being discussed and where hypotheticals are being posited about the effect that that might have.

I mean, I would say now, I don't think that model ordinance in its current form should be the final thing that the council passes.

But undoubtedly, if the council takes this on, there will be conversations around language, around tightening it up, around making sure it reflects the intent of what everybody is really looking at here, which is, should we really be in a position where we are criminalizing extreme poverty, behavioral mental health, and substance addiction, which I would hope everyone could agree we should not be.

and just for folks to really make sure that we're engaging with this critically instead of jumping to extreme conclusions before anything has even been introduced and to treat this with the seriousness that this problem presents.

I would also just flag, because I went to law school in California and have studied a lot of California criminal law as well, there's a lot of jurisdictions in the country that have very broad powers and abilities for judges to dismiss offenses they consider de minimis or in the furtherance of justice, Washington State does not have a very broad dismissal and the furtherance of justice giving judges that discretion or that ability.

um states like california and even montana do and i i don't think there's anything wrong with us examining giving our judges who we elect who we hold accountable who we trust to be experts in their field to have the ability and discretion to take everything into account and if something warrants it to dismiss a case based on criteria that they determine and and a record that they make uh...

that something should not be going forward with the criminal sanction because of some really clearly articulable compelling interests uh...

that that should not be dealt with in the criminal system i just wanted to get all that out there to say you know i know that there is very heightened interest in this that this is very early in the process, and I appreciate Council Member Herbold raising this very critical and difficult conversation.

Because a lot of the reasons for the policy failures that we are all discussing and frustrated by is that our approach of over-relying on incarceration to meet these problems has not been working.

If you think it's been working, then you're not being completely cognizant of the state of what's going on, because that's what we have been doing up until this point.

So I think talking about ways to change the approach are good.

I don't think that that final, or that that current model ordinance the defense has put forward is the be all, end all.

I have a lot of experience personally working with affirmative defenses, and I know how one would need to be crafted to be successful and tailored to address what we're trying to address, and I think work needs to be done to do that.

But we should take a step back, commit to doing it right, and make sure that we can do it without hyperbole, exaggeration, or unfair attacks.

So with that, I don't have anything to add.

And Council Member Herbold, thank you for bringing this forward.

Thank you very much.

So that we can discuss it.

But I think there's a lot more work that needs to be done, a lot more discussion that needs to happen.

But we should be doing it with the dignity that this issue deserves to be addressed with.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I also want to thank Council Member Herbold for bringing this issue forward.

And I do think, as Council Member Lewis just mentioned, it is an important issue and it is one that is going to require a lot of work.

So I want to say that I do support the policy outcomes and goals as articulated by Council Member Herbold and as included in, you know, potentially included in proposed legislation, which we know has not yet been drafted.

I continue to believe that it is time to stop the criminalization of poverty, mental illness and addiction.

And it is time to find new ways to solve these ongoing challenges and to do so with an eye towards rehabilitation and restorative justice and connecting people to the services that they desperately need in order to discontinue needing to engage in that negative behavior for purposes of survival.

We know that cycling people through the carceral system is not producing the results that any of us are looking for, which include stability, rehabilitation, and a future based in independence and autonomy for those individuals who continue to cycle in and out of the carceral system.

People continue to re-offend not because they are lacking in moral virtue or fortitude, but because the system is designed to pull them back in through aggressive and punitive oversight during the probation period and the many challenges they face finding a way to sparsely available services they need to recover and to stop re-offending.

The permanent damage done by interacting with the criminal legal system has been noted extensively, so we don't need to take that up now during this Budget Committee hearing.

And I think that it's important for us to keep all of those policy points in mind.

I do, however, want to spend a little bit of time explaining why I believe that this legislation would be more appropriately addressed through the council's ordinary legislative process rather than through our budget process currently.

First, the budget process is designed to undertake actions directly related to the city's budget.

I am concerned that there is not a sufficiently strong nexus between the purpose of our budget process and the significant policy questions presented by Council Member Herbold's potential affirmative defense bill.

Here, of course, Council Member Herbold, I think I've heard assert that the City Council, if we pass this during the budget process, that there would be a reduced need for jail services that the city currently purchases from King County.

And I think that intuitively that is true, that if we are charging less people with misdemeanors, then it is likely that this will mean a reduction in the use of beds at the King County Jail for those purposes.

And as many of you are aware, I have been following and advocating for a reduction in the city's obligation to the county for jail services for the past two years.

And what I know from that work over the last couple of years is that the city of Seattle is today already using less beds than we are paying for.

The reason for this is not because we have reduced the number of charged and booked misdemeanors.

The reason for this is because the McGinn administration committed the city of Seattle to a 30-year jail services contract with King County.

I make this point not to defend the jail services contract.

I highlight it.

I highlight this fact to illustrate why I believe that the argument that the bill is budget legislation is a bit of a stretch in my mind.

And so this belief is also further bolstered by my conversations with Interim Director Dan Eder, who has indicated that even if the passage and implementation of this bill was realized, any additional savings would need to be realized through renegotiating the 30-year jail services contract or through litigation to end the 30-year term contract.

Secondly, I just want to say that it's my understanding, as Council Member Lewis just alluded to, and I think Council Member Herbold also said in her remarks, that this draft legislation has not yet been drafted.

And it's also my understanding that it is legislation that would be one of first impressions.

So in other words, the City of Seattle is the first in the nation to consider this kind of legislation.

And as many of you know, and I would include the reality that Councilmember Herbold also knows this, is that I'm not one to shy away from legislation simply because no one else has done it yet.

And I know that this council has historically leaned into those spaces to make sure that we're fulfilling Seattle's legacy of leading the nation towards innovative and just laws.

that improve the lives of our residents.

So I am proud that this legislation appears to fall into that category, and I'm excited about deliberating its merits.

But as council president, my role is to manage the council's legislative process, both for the purpose of ensuring the integrity of that process, but also to ensure that council central staff has the resources, bandwidth, and capacity to analyze significant policy proposals such as this one.

You know, obviously, it's no secret that during budget, the capacity of our central staff is extraordinarily limited.

And the capacity of our central staff and, frankly, the bandwidth of council members and our staff is precisely why, as a council, we approve council rules every winter agreeing to cancel all non-budget committee hearings and thus shelf policymaking for a short two months during the year.

While central staff are focused on the important work of evaluating a $6 billion budget, that serves the most impacted across the city.

It is, I think, too much to ask them to add this First in the Nation legislation to their workload on top of the budget obligations that they currently have.

So again, this is not a comment on the merits of the proposed policy, which I Absolutely agree with the underlying intent there and look forward to having those conversations.

I'm just concerned about having this conversation during the budget process and would strongly recommend that the legislation be placed on the introduction and referral calendar once it is drafted.

But it would be my strong preference to have it referred to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Herbold.

And I'm proud to be her vice chair for consideration after November 23rd, which is about four weeks away from now.

And I really do think that considering this legislation after our budget session concludes would be the best course of action.

So just wanted to state that for the record and for consideration as we continue through our budget process.

Again, as someone who has been critical of the jail services contracts, I look forward to working with Council Member Herbold and others on this important policy, and I appreciate the opportunity, Madam Chair, to provide some longer than usual comments in this area.

I do apologize for that, and thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to just talk a little bit about the process, not the substance or the merits of the proposal, the process that I think would be more appropriate in the context of our budget process and my understanding and conversations with Council Central staff around bandwidth and capacity to address some of the significant policy issues that will come to bear as we continue to have a conversation about this very important proposal from my good and honorable colleague, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council President.

No apologies necessary.

This is a very helpful conversation.

I want to thank Council Member Lewis and the Council President for your comments.

And Council Member Herbold, would you like to add anything?

I see you off mute and then I see Council Member Sawant.

Please go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Just a couple of items.

I, of course, defer to Madam President as it relates to the resources of our legislative department and our analytical staff on this issue.

Just two things I do want to correct for the record.

When I referenced the Washington Post article and referred to the opportunity to continue to lead the nation, I did not mean to imply that there are no other laws like this in the country.

That is not the case.

There are other jurisdictions that allow for defendants to offer circumstances of poverty and substance abuse disorder and mental health disorders.

When they are able to establish that those underlying conditions had a nexus with the alleged offense, there are other jurisdictions that have laws like this.

Boston is one that I'm aware of.

And then secondly, as it relates specifically to the jail contract, Madam President is of course correct in that we are paying for more beds than we use.

I think our minimum cap of what we pay for is about 189 average daily population, whereas right now we are at around 50 because of the change in practices associated with public safety response in a time of COVID.

But the county has agreed to, even though we're not reopening or renegotiating the contract, there has been an agreement with the county to only charge us for the beds that we're using during this period of time.

And there are currently conversations about, again, moving forward, not reopening the contract itself, but exploring options with the county to receive money from the county to be using on resources upstream, investments that make it possible for people to avoid getting wrapped up into the criminal justice system, And those conversations are occurring right now, and they will allow us, again, if we continue to maintain a lower ADP, even after coming out of the COVID-19 crisis.

looking for other reasons to keep that ADP low other than social distancing reasons.

I did feel that adopting a policy like this would sort of help cement that lower ADP and in a way that will help us in receiving these really critical funds from King County for not using all of our jail beds.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

I just wanted to speak in response to Council President Gonzalez's comments and state my position on whether or not- Council Members Sawant, sorry, could you hold your microphone a little closer?

Thank you.

Sorry.

I just wanted to respond to Council President Gonzalez's comments and state my position on the question of whether this proposal should go forward now or at a different time.

I, first of all, I'm proud to be a co-sponsor on this proposal and I thank Council Member Horbold for bringing this forward and also really wanted to thank the advocates of the Solidarity Budget who have put this forward.

I think it is absolutely correct from a movement building strategy that activists in the movement are using whatever momentum there is and pressure they can put on the city council during the budget actions to push for something that is urgently required to improve the lives of especially young people in marginalized communities.

But as a whole, we know that poor people and working class people are in an unending cycle of poverty and law enforcement wrangles.

And so in my view, as a representative of the working class, I don't believe that it is of significance whether or not this proposal is technically speaking budget related.

What matters for, what should matter for elected representatives of a legislative body is, is this good legislation?

Is it going to improve the lives of those who are suffering?

And then if that's true, then we should support this.

And certainly for my part, I think It's actually better if such an ordinance is passed as soon as possible.

And I also wanted to clarify, obviously, I have every aspect of solidarity with the city council central staff who I am fully aware work nonstop during the budget season every year and do tremendous work and are extremely dedicated and talented.

And as I would stand up for any workers, I would, of course, stand up for them as well.

But I think it is incumbent on elected officials, elected representatives to make any to treat any supposed integrity of a bureaucratic process as secondary to the dire needs of the most oppressed.

And so I think this is good if it moves forward.

Thank you.

Are there any additional comments?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And thank you Councilmember Herbold for the clarification around the leading the nation comment.

Really appreciate that.

And I'll take a look to see if I can find that Washington Post article as well as we continue to have this conversation about this important policy.

I do just want to sort of for the record state very clearly that my primary motivator in in recommending that this not go through the budget process and wait for weeks for discussion in Councilmember Herbold's committee.

My primary motivator for making that recommendation is as Council President and as Council President overseeing the legislative process as it relates to resources and bandwidth of Council Central staff.

So I just feel very strongly that we are asking our Council Central staff to do a lot.

We all know that.

We know that they are working countless hours.

And I just, I can't imagine knowing what I know about their workload, asking them to add a bill of this significance and a bill of this import to their current workload related to the budget process.

So I would just respectfully request that we work together to create space and time to allow Council Central staff to appropriately staff this particular policy issue beginning on November 24th or thereafter to really make sure that we are getting the high quality staffing that we come to enjoy.

from our council central staff and to allow us all an opportunity to be able to focus both on the policy issues down the road and allow us and council central staff to, during the budget process, remain focused on the budget process.

So just wanted to clarify that for the record, that my motivation is not some, you know, My motivation is primarily and largely motivated by wanting to make sure that Council Central staff is not going to be overloaded and overburdened during this very intense historic budget process that we're currently undergoing.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much.

Council President, is there any additional comments?

Okay.

I see Councilmember Herbold as the prime sponsor, already joined by Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Sawant, and I believe Councilmember Juarez is also adding her name as a co-sponsor.

Thank you so much.

I think Councilmember Juarez is indicating earlier an interest in adding her name to a different item.

I just, in fairness, I don't want to...

Thank you.

It's my fault too, I apologize.

I apologize.

Thank you so much Council Member Juarez and Council Member Herbold for the clarification.

I mentioned at the beginning there would be glitches.

Appreciate it.

Anything else Council Member Juarez?

Did I cut you off?

No, I'm good.

I got some more coffee, so let's do this.

Okay, excellent.

We have about an hour and 15 minutes left to go.

Ledge 1A1 is proposed by Councilmember Morales, who is joined by Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Lewis, would add $275,000 to the Legislative Department to contract for a report on citywide human service wage inequities.

$250,000 of this appropriation would be used to subcontract with a human resources and research consulting company.

to analyze wage information, including but not limited to researching wages and wage inequities for HSD's internal human service workers, as well as contracted human service workers.

The remaining 25,000 would be used for facilitating and managing development of the report by a nonprofit such as the Public Defender Association.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, we'll turn it over to you.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Good morning.

So the purpose of this would be to study and research wage and wage inequities for human service workers and within HSD and other agencies contracted with HSD.

These folks are doing important work during the crisis that we're all living through.

And we know that folks in the human services career take on both firsthand and secondary trauma while doing the work that they do.

Anecdotally, we know that the wages in this field don't always match up to the tremendous amount of work being done day in and day out, especially for folks who are directly serving our neighbors.

So this study would allow us to have an accurate picture.

What human services agencies.

I think it's important to understand what human services wages are and where we can make them more equitable.

It would also serve as a tool in the future discussions.

We talk about things like expanding human services contracts and other budget discussions related to Justine.

I'm seeing none.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

Let's go ahead and move on.

Ketel Freeman, Council of Central Staff.

The next item, Ledge 2A1, would add $350,000 in general funds to the Legislative Department to fund continued development of transportation impact fees These funds could be used to complete or start new studies to authorize a GMA impact fee program or an impact fee program authorized pursuant to the city's Transportation Benefit District Authority.

The sponsor for this potential amendment to the city budget is Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmember Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and I want to thank my co-sponsors on this as well.

As we seek additional revenues, it's important to note that our state government already allows us to collect impact fees to pay for some impacts of new real estate development.

The state provides two paths, and we can use one or both, the Growth Management Act and or the Transportation Benefit District.

Impacts from new real estate development include the increased costs and demand on our streets, schools, parks, and fire stations.

Most jurisdictions in King County and Washington State and in California throughout the country charge things like real estate developer impact fees.

So when we adopted the ordinance for the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, we added five recitals to that council bill stating our support for impact fees for transportation, including a whereas in response to public requests that the city pursue progressive sources of revenue to supplement the STBD, The City Council intends to consider imposing a transportation development impact fee under RCW 36.73 or RCW 8202. This could fund necessary capital and other transportation investments that support transit capacity.

So this budget action provides the funds necessary to start and finish studies that are required to implement this greatly needed revenue source in Seattle from both potential paths, GMA and Transportation Benefit District.

I know I've talked a lot about bridge maintenance in the last few weeks.

And yes, at least one of these sources could be used for bridge maintenance.

But this is really about a wide array of transportation needs that our city has in the face of funding reductions.

So I'm hopeful we can follow through and make this source available from both angles.

I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to say that as a strong supporter of the development of developer impact fees, working collaboratively with previous Councilmember Mike O'Brien and Councilmember Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to say thank you.

to create a transportation impact fee program under the Transportation Benefit District as well.

I am very concerned, though, that these funds would be used to restudy and relitigate the project list that has been created and docketed for comp plan amendments associated with transportation impact fees And that project list is a project list that has been developed in collaboration with folks like the Sierra Club and the Mass Coalition.

There's strong support in the community for that particular version of a transportation impact fee from stakeholders who sometimes don't support transportation impact fees.

So I really do not want to upend the apple cart for the direction that we're moving in by either adding projects to the list or taking projects off.

And I have been in conversation with Council Member Peterson about my desire to maintain the current project list.

I am willing to show a little bit of flexibility on that, given that he has committed to me that the goal would not be to remove the projects supported by the Sierra Club and the Mass Coalition from the existing project list, but perhaps to add projects.

But I have a question for Keto Freeman as it relates to how restudying this issue is going to affect the timeline that we're currently on for the comp plan amendments.

I understand that we have docketed amendment that includes a particular list.

If we are going to go back and study whether or not that is the right list, how does that affect our timeline around the comprehensive plan amendments?

It depends.

I guess it depends on the scope of the changes.

So what the council has now is a study that is based on a specific project list, and that study establishes a maximum supportable fee.

If the council wants to add projects to that list, and the changes are sort of relatively minor in scope, it probably would not affect the schedule very much for council consideration of that list next year.

If the council wants to significantly revise that list, then there's more work for the consultant to do.

Among other things, the list establishes the impact fee eligible cost associated with those projects that are on the list.

There is some back-end work that would need to happen, but it depends on the scope of the changes.

And so you say it wouldn't affect the schedule very much if the scope of the changes was small.

Can you elaborate a little bit with a little bit more specificity on this?

This is so important to me that we move forward with the schedule that we are currently on.

We have been delayed so many times because of appeals and lawsuits.

And again, we have the critical support of stakeholders who do not normally support transportation impact fees for this particular list.

So given that these dollars will not be available until January, and a study presumably takes some time, even for a narrow scope, can you just give us a little bit more, like, are we talking about months?

And if so, how many months?

Hopefully we're talking about weeks.

Yeah, so just to that, I want to first distinguish between a TBD authorized impact fee program versus a GMA authorized impact fee program.

And what we are talking about here is a GMA authorized impact fee program.

So the proposed appropriations in the council budget action that we're talking about now are for 2020, and they could potentially be used for both the TBD or GMA authorized program.

There's about $80,000 that is currently encumbered by a contract that can be used in 2020 to do further work on a GMA-authorized impact-free program, because that's what that contract contemplates.

So there's work that can happen now.

So there's money available now to continue work on a GMA impact-free program.

It's a little bit of a theoretical question, and it's hard for me to answer without knowing what projects the council members may want to add to the current list.

The list that the rate study is based on draws from a variety of different sources, the modal plans, the freight master plan, the transit master plan, the pedestrian master plan, and the bicycle master plan, and also from the Move Seattle levy projects.

So it's pretty wide-ranging.

If council members wanted to add to that list some other transportation improvement that is not specifically contemplated in any of those modal plans.

For instance, if the council members wanted to add capacity related improvements to either the Magnolia Bridge or the West Seattle Bridge, that would take some more time.

And it would depend on the availability of information from SDOT.

If there is relatively new information about what the cost of those projects are, then it may take less time.

But those are the factors that would sort of drive how much additional effort would be needed for a GMA-authorized impact-free program.

Any additional questions?

Well, I guess I would just again turn to Council Member Peterson and ask whether or not he would be willing to focus these dollars on the TBD Transportation Impact Program and a study for that program, something that would go beyond the GMA-considered program that is moving forward.

If there is a willingness to do so, I would certainly be excited about signing on to this item.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda, may I?

Oh, please.

Yes, Council Member Herbold, yes.

Actually, the impetus for this budget action was the Transportation Benefit District as a potential path because there are additional uses and project types that are available under the Transportation Benefit District that are not available under the GMA.

So, you know, if council members who, you know, as they talk to their district, since we have a lot of new council members including myself, as we talk to our districts about what projects are needed.

The Transportation Benefit District path provides more possibilities.

So we want to make sure we have that available.

The old GMA project list will just have to move forward and get support on its own through that path.

you know, there could be some dollars here available to complete that process.

It sounds like there's 80,000 left over to complete that process.

So, but yes, the main thrust of this council budget action is to open up the path through Transportation Benefit District, RCW, so that there's a wider array of transportation projects that can be funded through this potential source.

Thank you.

I've just added my support.

Appreciate that.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

I'm not seeing any additional names.

So just to summarize here, we have Council Member Peterson as the prime sponsor, Council Member Swann and Lewis, and then folks adding their names as co-sponsors include Council Member Strauss, Council Member Morales, and Council Member Herbold.

We've got everyone.

Thank you so much.

Let's move on.

The next item as we move into the Office for Civil Rights is CBA OCR 1A1.

This would add about $1.1 million of general fund to OCR for awards to the collaborative grant-making process.

This is community-based organizations that are providing alternatives to or addressing harm created by the criminal justice system.

These were funds that are proposed for a cut in the mayor's proposed budget.

this item.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, please go ahead.

Sorry.

Thank you so much.

Again, thank you, As we probably all recall, these are funds that are long fought for by the community for the collaborative grant making process.

This was intended to be ongoing annual funding.

It was first provided with the council's vote in November 2018, but intended to be funded in 2020. It was the result of years of community advocacy by groups including Ending the Prison Industrial Complex, the Budget for Justice, specifically to be used for investments in alternatives to incarceration.

Of course, also builds on the work and the advocacy of organizations and coalitions like Youth Undoing, Institutionalized Racism, No Youth Jail, EPIC, People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, European Dissent, all leaders who have called upon us to support a vision free of incarceration.

As a result of this community organizing, in 2015, the council unanimously passed a resolution for zero use of Detention for Youth.

In 2018, as I mentioned earlier, advocates with the Budget for Justice called on the city to realign its criminal justice system funding priorities.

And as a result of this and other organizing efforts, the council added $1.08 million to SOCR's 2020 budget to fund this community-based grant-making process.

to ensure that organizations in Seattle supporting alternatives or addressing harm created by the criminal justice system had access to resources for those alternatives.

SOCR has been using a collaborative grant making process to make these grants.

This allows for a democratic process to make funding decisions based on a collective shared analysis.

The collaborative grant-making process participants are community members who develop the request for proposal.

They will screen and rate the proposals and make funding recommendations, including who to award, funding amounts, and contract duration.

The funding will be used to address the harms created by and fund alternatives to the carceral state while addressing the disproportional impact of incarceration and policing on Black communities and families in the COVID-19 landscape.

Grantees will work to create a community-owned and self-sustaining collective network that builds capacity for community members to create and define safety for themselves, explore responses to the harms created by incarceration and policing, and proposes transformative approaches to community crises.

If the funding is not restored, 2021 will be only the second year since 2016 that SOCR would not be involved in providing community funding to help reach the goals of the zero use of detention resolution, and communities' request to support the city's visioning in imagining a city free of incarceration.

This will greatly hamper communities' ability to support organizing and policymaking efforts that help the city reach its goals regarding public safety and addressing the needs of communities that have been disproportionately harmed by the criminal justice system.

I just want to also share that Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now have indicated that they see continuing this money in the 2021 budget is a priority, given their recognition that their momentum, that the momentum that they are using to urge policymakers to rethink community public safety, they recognize that their momentum is actually built on these past organizing wins, including this one.

So I would really appreciate the support of my colleagues on this item.

And again, really appreciate the support of co-sponsors, Gonzalez and Morales.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Herbold, I did note earlier that Council Member Juarez wanted to sign on as a co-sponsor, and I was speaking to the wrong amendment.

So we do have Council Member Juarez reflected here, joining with the original co-sponsors, Council Member Morales and Gonzalez.

I do see Council Member Sawant and Council Member Strauss, along with Council President Gonzalez.

Are there any additional questions?

I'm sorry, I already mentioned Gonzalo.

Council Member Sawant and Straus and Juarez are adding on, and I see one more, Council Member Lewis.

Excellent.

Okay, are there any additional comments or questions?

Seeing none, thank you, Council Member Herbold for that background, and Again, the importance here is that it was slated to start in 2020, did not start, and this was something that we had worked on in 2018, according to your summary there.

Correct.

Again, SOCR is working to get the dollars out for 2020. And they may still do so, but the issue is it's not in the 2021 budget, and this is supposed to be an annual allocation.

Excellent.

Thank you for that summary.

OK.

Let's move on.

Thank you very much.

Oh, let me just summarize because I want to make sure we got this right for the record.

Council Member Herbold, joined by Council Member Morales, Sawant, Juarez, Straus, Lewis, and Council President Gonzalez.

Thanks for the summary.

Okay, let's go to the next one.

The next item is Sly OCR 2A1.

It would request that the executive participate in a work group regarding the implementation of a 2019 racial equity toolkit report.

This would be a council convened work group that would request that the mayor's office, members of the city's RSGI network and the office for civil rights come together to review and determine how to implement recommendations that came out of a 2019 racial equity toolkit report that was done regarding the structure and functions of the Office for Civil Rights.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Morales and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Gonzalez.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Morales.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

So I think I've referred to this a few times already this year.

As a former Human Rights Commissioner, I worked on the development of this RET, and it was, I can assure you, a long process.

But it provided a really strong roadmap for better accountability and efficacy and really for strengthening our civil rights enforcement and implementation of our city's race and social justice initiative across departments.

So this slide continues that work by charging the work group to bring forth legislation by June 30th.

on the role, governmental structure and function of OCR.

And as Asha mentions, asks for the executive to join the work group that has been crafting some of this from the beginning, but needs obviously to finish that work so that we can get legislation done by June.

I do want to thank Council Member Hurwold and Council President Gonzalez for their work to strengthen and provide the appropriate resources that we can all do our jobs with racial equity in mind.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Are there any additional questions?

Okay, I'm seeing no additional questions on the slide.

Council Member Morales is joined by Council Member Herbold and Council President Gonzalez.

Adding their name is Council Member Sawant.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

Let's move to the next one.

All right, hello, council members, Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff.

So we have four items for the Office of Economic Development.

First one is OED 1A1.

It would add about $214,000 of general fund and one strategic advisor to, for the nightlife business advocate position.

This is sponsored by Council Member Lewis, with co-sponsors Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales.

This position, which is currently filled, and funding would be eliminated in the 2021 proposed budget.

The position was originally added in a 2016 adopted budget to support the Office of Film and Music's efforts to support the nightlife industry and develop related strategy and policy work.

This council budget action would add back the position, the strategic advisor too, as well as the funds.

I would note that the amount includes about $156,000 for the cost of the position plus $58,000 of general fund.

And I'll explain why.

The 2021 proposed budget recognizes only $98,000 of the vacancy savings from this cut because OED is proposing to use $58,000 from this reduction to backfill their special events program lead position, which was added by the council in the 2020 adopted budget and was intended to be funded by admissions tax revenues.

Given that ad tax proceeds have sharply declined in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and are probably going to be impacted again next year, It will not be possible to support the position completely using ad tax proceeds.

If that $58,000 is not added along with the costs associated directly with the position, it would result in partially cutting the funding for the special events program lead position.

That is my explanation.

Thank you, Yolanda.

Council Member Lewis, would you like to add anything?

Yes, I would just briefly say I was really pleased to hear quite a few people calling in last night through our marathon public comment session to support this position.

I mean, it is just clear how critical this position has been to the vitality of our critical nightlife and music community in the city of Seattle.

and that the community is really coming together to protect and defend this position in light of the possibility that it might be cut.

Very few industries have been hit as hard during COVID than our performing arts, our musicians, and that is the core of our nightlife is musical performance and making sure we're in a position for that recovery when we're finally through to the other side of this, that that can be swift, it can be well resourced and can be supported by the city.

This position is our bridge to being able to be supportive in doing that.

And, you know, just given the immense outpouring we're seeing from the community and really wanting to maintain this position in the service, I think it's critical that we work to try to keep it in place, even in these tough times, knowing that that support is more critical than ever, given the unique challenges this section of the economy is facing.

Are there any additional questions, colleagues?

Okay, I do have a question for you, Wanda.

On this position, given that there's the partial funding from events, is the FTE a partial FTE?

at this point through the end of the year in 2020?

Or is it still full-time?

The special events program lead?

I believe that that one has not been filled because of the hiring freeze, because that position had been just added last year.

And as we know, many departments were kind of gearing up to hire just as the hiring freeze went into place.

So I do not believe that position has been filled yet.

OK.

Thank you for that.

All right.

I don't see any additional questions.

Councilmember Lewis is joined by Councilmember Herbold and Morales, also joined by Councilmember Sawant and Councilmember Strauss.

We also have Councilmember Peterson adding their name, and I think that is everyone.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

Let's move to the next one.

All right, the next item is SLY OED 2A1.

This proposed slide would request that the Office of Economic Development, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Fire Department, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Office of Sustainability and Environment, and Department of Neighborhoods draft legislation for council consideration that would implement changes to code and business practices that would reduce barriers for farmers' markets, such as the creation of a new permit specifically for farmers' markets.

This work would include updating and formalizing the multi-departmental administrative rules 9-1 that created a pilot strategy for permitting farmers' markets in the public right-of-way and on parks property.

This would also request that the departments conduct a racial equity analysis on any proposed changes, and the response would be due to the Community Economic Development Committee by June 30th.

Thank you very much.

I'll turn it over to Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

This statement of legislative intent requests that the Office of Economic Development recommend legislation to council that would implement code changes or business practices to better support our neighborhood farmers markets.

Among the changes that should be considered are streamlining the permitting process for farmers markets by creating a master permit and lowering fees, evaluating what additional staff support is necessary to manage and coordinate farmers markets, and updating and formalizing multi-departmental administrative rule 09-01.

This would create a pilot strategy for permitting farmers markets in the right-of-way and on parks property.

The slide also calls for a racial equity analysis to be conducted on the proposed changes.

In addition to OED, SDOT, Fire, Parks, OSC, and DOM are included in the slide due to the cross-cutting nature of farmers markets interaction with the city.

This spring and summer, I worked closely with the Ballard Farmers Market and the Fremont Market and other markets across the city to help them start back up and provide safe outdoor setting for community members to buy healthy local food.

These are essentially grocery stores that directly connect farmers to the market and farmers to our neighborhoods.

Through that experience this summer and spring, I saw firsthand the overly complex web of bureaucracy that our neighborhood farmers markets must navigate to provide us this very amazing public good, which is a direct farm to neighborhood market, supermarket, if you will.

And so this slide is aimed at streamlining that process.

I noticed that we have six co-sponsors already, and I heard that Council Member Herbold is also interested in supporting these slides.

So maybe this is the one item that gets all nine co-sponsors.

We'll see.

Fingers crossed.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Strauss.

And if you don't see my name on there, again, that's not an indication that I don't think it's a good idea.

I want to give folks a second to sign on.

I did also confirm that Councilmember Herbold is interested in signing on as a co-sponsor.

I'm not seeing any additional comments or questions, so let's go ahead and summarize.

We have Councilmember Lewis as the, I'm sorry, Councilmember Strauss as the prime sponsor, Councilmember Morales, Peterson, and Lewis signed on as co-sponsors already.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Joining with them are Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Morales, and Councilmember Sawant, did you have a comment?

No, I did raise my hand, but it's not showing up here.

Oh, I see you.

Yes, we are just catching up there.

Councilmember Sawant and Council President Gonzalez are also adding their names.

Excellent.

I see you listed there.

Let me summarize it for the record.

Councilman Strauss, joined by Herbold, Morales, Watt, Peterson, Juarez, Lewis, and President Gonzalez.

Thank you very much.

Let's move to the next one.

All right.

The next one is a related budget action.

It is OED 3A1.

It would add about $167,000 of general fund and a strategic advisor to term-limited position to the Office of Economic Development for a farmer's market advocate position.

This is a proposed two-year term-limited position, and the sponsor is Councilmember Strauss and co-sponsors Lewis, Morales, and Peterson.

The position would support farmer's markets by conducting an internal process improvement analysis across departments to understand current workflow, coordination and efficiency efforts already in place, and then use this information to inform a comprehensive overhaul of the permitting and business practices for farmers markets with the goal of reducing permitting complexity and costs.

So essentially this position would be responsible for the body of work that we just discussed in the slide previous to this one.

I would note that OED has indicated that they anticipate that they would be able to meet the June 30th deadline for the slide that would be going to the Community Economic Development Committee.

But if the council opts not to add the position, they may need some additional time to fulfill that slide request.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, colleagues, for your immense support.

And Chair Mosqueda, I agree with you having Staff Budget Chair Bagshaw last year.

I understand your position in not signing on.

As I mentioned in discussing the last item, the farmers markets face a complicated bureaucratic landscape.

Anytime they need to renew, make adjustments, or even make the slightest of tweaks to their market layouts.

And so this position's first duty would be to complete the slide.

And Yolanda, I'm sorry if we may have gotten communication lines crossed.

I thought this would be due in March.

Yeah, so that was communicated that After the deadline for this for our document production purposes, but as I understand it is pretty slammed for the 1st, quarter of next year, given the focus on distributing the small business stabilization funds.

You know, the 2021 portion of that.

And so I kind of anticipate that they would need more time in order to actually do.

It seems like a pretty large body of work.

I believe that they have done some work, but I think there's still a lot of outreach that needs to happen.

And so that is what I've understood from the department is that they would just need more time to make sure that they're.

getting it right for the farmers markets.

And I understand kind of the conflicting scheduling because the farmers markets obviously want to be operating under a new kind of permitting regime sooner rather than later.

But that's what I understood from the departments.

Thank you, Yolanda.

And so, as I mentioned in the last in the last slide conversation that farmers markets oftentimes have bureaucratic web to navigate and oftentimes it is difficult for the city to prioritize them despite them creating this direct farm to neighborhood supermarket of fresh goods and produce.

And so this proposal would add a business advocate position to OED to serve as the liaison to farmers markets and help them navigate many different city departments, not just OED.

This position would work would support the work to review and renew policies and practices, as well as recommend policy improvements.

And while this is an independent proposal from the earlier slide, their first line of work would be taking a full scale analysis of city departments and how the farmers markets interact with them to provide us the recommendations requested in that previous slide.

Thank you.

Thank you council colleagues for all your support on the last slide.

And I hope to earn your support on this one too.

Thank you chair.

Thank you very much.

Council member Strauss and Yolanda.

Are there any additional questions or comments?

Okay.

I am seeing none at this point to summarize co-sponsorship at this time.

The prime sponsor is council member Strauss joined by council member Mora.

Please go ahead council member.

I think you are frozen, but we look forward to hearing from you.

Is that Council Member Morales?

Okay, sorry.

Go ahead.

Yeah, of course.

Oh my gosh, can you hear me?

Council Member Morales, we can hear you.

Do you have a question or a comment on the...

If you have a question or comment on the farmer's market FTE allocation from Councilmember Strauss.

Okay, I'm going to come back to Councilmember Morales if she does.

But just to summarize again, Councilmember Strauss, co-sponsor Morales, Peterson, and Lewis signing on as co-sponsors on this one.

Okay, I'm going to move us to the next one.

We cannot hear you.

Oh my gosh.

Why don't you try again?

Oh, my gosh.

Thank you.

OK.

I will be brief.

I just want to say that I think this is really important work.

I know we often think about food security when we think about farmers' markets, but they are, in fact, businesses, albeit the association might be a nonprofit.

But the farm businesses, the other food-related businesses that pop up so that we can enjoy hot food or buy ice cream or whatever else we might enjoy at a farmers' market, All of those businesses need support.

And so I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for bringing both of these.

I think we all heard from Farmers Market Association members over the course of the summer.

And as the Community Economic Development Committee Chair, I want to assure Councilmember Strauss that I will be working closely with OED to provide them as much support as I can, knowing that they also have the Business Stabilization Fund work in front of them, but try to get as much of this done before the next farmer's market season so that we have an ability to facilitate smoother operations for them next summer.

Thank you.

We did hear all of that comment, so thank you for continuing to provide additional context.

Okay, let's move forward.

Council Member Peterson, you are up next.

All right, so the last OED item is SLY OED 4A1, and this proposed SLY would request that OED and the Seattle Department of Transportation propose a strategy for funding and distributing financial assistance to small businesses that are The strategy would consider potential eligibility criteria for recipients, funding options, also include a racial equity analysis, and other relevant considerations.

This would be due to the Community Economic Development Committee by August 2nd and is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson with co-sponsors Council Member Herbold and Council Member Lewis.

Excellent.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Yolanda, for that summary, and thanks to my co-sponsors on this one.

I know we appreciate the work that our Seattle Department of Transportation does to improve our streets for pedestrians and all modes of travel, yet we, and especially small businesses, know that the construction work on our streets can temporarily disrupt access and enjoyment for residents who want to eat, shop, and buy services from our neighborhood businesses.

I believe there's a good argument to make that if our city government is causing the disruption, then we should do more to mitigate these potential negative impacts.

There has been some assistance for small businesses like this in the past, but it seems that there are limited certain program sources like the Federal Community Development Block Grant Program.

that are not limited by the state of Washington's so-called gift of public funds.

This slide directs the executive to get even more creative about this and identify funding options available for vulnerable small businesses to mitigate temporary but material negative impacts from city-led transportation projects.

Thank you.

I see Councilmember Herbold as a co-sponsor, Councilmember Lewis, and Councilmember Juarez has added her name.

Any additional co-sponsors here or questions or comments before we move on?

Seeing none, thank you very much.

Councilmember Peterson.

Folks, we are getting into the Office of Housing items.

We're gonna go through the, my intent is to go through the three items from the Office of Housing before we take a break for our lunch, and we'll come back to the two items that Council Member Sawant walked on this morning when we come back from break, just to give you a sense, to orient you to what the next few items are.

Okay, let's go ahead, Council Member Andrew Lewis.

This is your item, we will turn it over to Tracy.

I don't see Tracy.

I'm here.

Good afternoon, council members.

So I will be going over the CBAs for the Office of Housing that has caused quite a frenzy of activity over the last few days.

So the first one is OH1A1 sponsored by Council Member Lewis and co-sponsored by Council Member Juarez and Strauss.

This budget action would add $200,000 in general fund to the Office of Housing to continue funding of the Home and Hope Program.

This program works to accelerate the development of affordable housing in conjunction with early childhood education centers, health clinics, or other community uses on underutilized public or tax-exempt sites.

The city has provided $200,000 in annual funding for this program since 2017. The mayor's proposed 2021 budget did not include funding for this program.

I think that is all I have to say.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Lewis, please provide any additional comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think this is a really critical program and it is important to hang on to it in terms of the scalability of what this $200,000 has been able to produce.

A lot of us here have worked with enterprise community and line up deals on a lot of sites that have resulted in the city acquiring more public land to build housing that is affordable to folks at very, very low income levels.

on a number of different occasions.

Beyond that $200,000, the city has definitely gotten its bang for its buck on acquiring sites from state and nonprofit sources that value in the millions of dollars at a marginal cost to the city that has been passed on in providing stable and secure housing for thousands of Seattle residents.

Keeping this partnership going and especially building that nexus between quality on-site childcare and affordable housing at multiple different AMI levels is something we need to be continuing to invest in.

And I really, really think this is a critical investment that especially coming out of a recession where so many of our neighbors will continue to experience we need to be investing in these partnerships that are building long-term permanently subsidized and supported affordable units.

And that is what this $200,000 investment does.

It's the acorn that keeps growing these opportunities.

So I'm happy to bring this forward today and hope that we can bring it forward ultimately to be part of this budget.

Excellent, thank you.

Are there additional comments or questions on this item?

I'm not seeing any additional questions before we move the slide just real quick.

Tracy, can you remind folks in the viewing public?

What are some examples of pre development services?

If you could break that down for us real quick.

So that can include doing environmental work on a site that may have questionable environmental issues.

It can be doing cost estimates on different kind of scenarios for the type of housing and or other services that might be on site.

It can be looking at different potential funding sources, those kinds of pre development activities.

Thank you, Tracy.

All right.

We may be able to get through more Office of Housing items than we anticipated.

So let's go to the next one.

Perfect.

This would be OH2A1.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Juarez with co-sponsors Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Lewis.

So this council budget action would add funding of $1.7 million in general fund to the Office of Housing.

$1.5 million would be for the property acquisition and $200,000 would be for a feasibility study.

for a proposed Aurora Commons redevelopment project.

This project could include low-income housing, service space for the Aurora Commons community organization, and co-location of a health clinic, as well as service space for other services needed by the community.

Council Member Juarez, please go ahead.

Hold up, hold up.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Big thank you to Councilmember Strauss representing District 6 and Councilmember Lewis representing District 7. The reason I share that as a note is that we have been, since the voters passed in 2014, that we moved to a district representation.

Many of you heard me say this, but I want to show this as a really good example of why When we sit on city council as district representatives, our first and foremost responsibility is that we represent all of the city, but we honor the needs of our district.

And when I say honor the needs of our district, this is why when we look at on the ground in our district or our end of the town about what's going on for transportation needs, housing needs, street lights, crosswalks, community centers, libraries, this is why we went to a district system.

So you live in the district, you know the district, you know the needs, you know the social service needs, the political needs, the business needs.

So for me, this is an exciting example, Aurora Commons, about how when the city invests in a brick and mortar social service program on the ground in which council members who use these services in the North End can support it.

So as I mentioned last week, Aurora Commons was founded in 2011. It provides specialized services every day to help women in the sex trade industry.

Nearly all of their clients, both men and women, are experiencing homelessness, and most are facing addiction and mental illness as well.

Clients are frequently feeling domestic violence and are recovering from sexual assault.

The City Council has invested in the Aurora Commons for the last three years, and I'm here to share that it's been a great investment we have gotten returns tenfold.

From their storefront on 89th and Aurora, Aurora Commons provides basic services such as hot meals, laundry, we help buy the washing machine and dryers, hygiene clothing.

They work with Harborview Hospital's Mason Clinic to provide medical services on site.

Neighbor Care provides a clinic to clients with addiction and Seattle King County Public Health supports testing and treatment of HIV.

And we should add, a couple years ago, we helped them purchase 20 Narcan kits, in which my understanding is they used 19 of them.

All of this is happening on the Aurora corridor, whether you're on, you know, 60th or 70th or 80th or 145th.

So it isn't just a D5 issue.

It's an Aurora corridor issue that has a long history of dealing with some of the issues that we're dealing with now, most notably homelessness, mental health and addiction in a community that is often overlooked.

So recently it had come to our attention, my attention, from the CEO, Elizabeth Dahl, that the one-story building, which currently houses Aurora Commons, had been put on the market for sale for $3.35 million and could be sold at any time.

So timing was great.

met with them, so we wanted to move forward with this budget request by dedicating seed money to help acquire the site, and the city would ensure Rural Commons can keep serving the people from the same location, but more importantly, the zoning for the area would enable the city to locate six to seven stories of affordable housing above, which was great news when we found out what the zoning capacity was.

This would expand the needed housing on Aurora Corridor along a transit spine and serve one of our city's highest needs areas.

And again, it's the location, the fact that it's on a transit spine.

It has social services in place.

It has a long-standing, underserved, client-based population and community that is in place to receive continued services, and hopefully we can expand those services.

Because of this prime location, this project is a good candidate to leverage regional and state funding not to mention non-profit investment.

And we have been in discussions with that, with state level, working with some folks in Olympia, and also Aurora Commons has an amazing board with some wonderful people on it that have been seeking and have been successful in the private sector in getting money for the Aurora Commons.

King County regularly partners to help fund housing and transit-oriented development along high-use transit corridors.

The King County is looking at supporting efforts to get people off the street through the health through housing initiative.

That's one prospect that we're working on.

In addition the Washington state capital budget includes acquisition dollars to support shovel ready job producing and service expansion projects.

That's another opportunity that we're looking at.

So this small set aside I believe it is now of one point five million by the city of Seattle will attract partners and hopefully keep our options for housing open on this site.

So your support will help the city of Seattle, those folks needing our help on the Aurora Corridor or anywhere across the city, of course, to provide housing for homelessness as this crisis demands in just the location and at just the time when we need it the most.

Again, I want to just share this anecdotally from my experience on Seattle City Council.

I think I made this analogy before, but those who are now listening again, Aurora Commons under Elizabeth Dahl is where Chief Seattle Club was under the leadership, CEO of Colleen Echo Hawk about three years ago, maybe four.

And every budget cycle, we've invested money in brick and mortar and programming, and it's come to fruition.

And now we're at the tipping point for Rural Commons.

So I hope I have your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm just going to be really brief.

I'm really, really happy to stand with Council Member Juarez on this and bringing this forward.

I had the great pleasure way back in what seems like eons ago in February to hear a presentation from Aurora Commons at a 36th District Democrats meeting and had intended, I think we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we are doing the right thing.

I think we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we are doing the right thing.

I really appreciate the leadership of Councilmember Juarez in getting this great package together to start materially improving the capacity of Aurora Commons to make a huge difference in this area.

And, you know, totally to echo Councilmember Juarez's comments, they have been doing amazing work with very little investment.

So to be able to come in and enhance their mission, give them the resources they need to be successful, we are going to see colossal returns on that and a massive alleviation of suffering from folks who are in the Aurora Corridor without a lot of resources.

So really, really proud to support this.

And this is just a great step forward in serving the community in North Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

I am not seeing any additional comments or questions, so Councilmember Juarez will be happy to know that as you were speaking.

In addition to Councilmember Strauss and Lewis who are already signed on, we have Councilmember Herbal, Sawant, and Council President Gonzalez signed on as well.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your support.

I don't know if I can do that.

This is OH3-A-1.

Sponsored by Councilmember Gonzalez with co-sponsors Councilmember Herbold and Lewis.

So this council budget action would add $200,000 of general fund to the Office of Housing for the Home for Good program.

To remind council members, this new program was provided $750,000 in funding by the council in 2020. Due to the pandemic, the program has just begun implementation this fall.

The existing funding is expected to serve 70 to 100 individuals in 2020 and 2021. As the program was launched, they expanded the program to serve more than just the original target population now to include individuals living in shelters who might need assistance getting housed.

The program can provide up to one year of rental assistance and case management services.

The funding that would be provided would be increased to serve more people who will be eligible for this program.

Okay.

Council President Gonzalez, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm really excited about advancing this particular council budget action.

Thank you to Tracy for that wonderful summary and description and for I'm highlighting this as an additional need for us to consider advancing.

I was excited to be able to advance this, the funding for this program last year alongside with Council Member Herbold, and believe that, believe as strongly today as I did then that this will provide a model for what we know is a real, for addressing a real system failure in our state.

Thousands of Washington residents rely on temporary state benefits in order to access or maintain housing, and they are at grave risk of losing housing and becoming homeless when they qualify for federal disability benefits, which are too small to meet their housing needs, but not enough to access market-rate housing.

So the Home for Good program provides for a shallow rental subsidy that can help cover that gap between insufficient federal disability benefits and the high cost of housing in Seattle.

for those who can access affordable units.

So all of the challenges as described by Tracy that were brought on by 2020 did, unfortunately, cause some delays in standing up the RFP process.

But we now have a contract in place that will carry forward into 2021 most of the $750,000 that the council originally allocated to this program through last year's budget process, thanks to former council member and former budget chair Sally Bagshaw for her willingness to support this program back then.

So the additional funding that this council budget action proposes would go directly to serving more households and keeping more folks in stable housing during and throughout these joint crises that we're facing as a city.

So again, now that we've addressed some of the implementation costs and whatnot, this is an opportunity for us to identify Just a small additional set of dollars to be able to.

reach even more people and provide greater housing security for this very targeted group of individuals who have qualified for federal disability benefits, but are just inches away from being able to afford even the affordable housing that currently exists within the city of Seattle that they would be able to qualify for.

I think this is a smart, I'm requesting that we get upstream to those preventative services that will prevent these folks from entering into homelessness.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

I am not seeing any comments or questions.

I think that there's a few folks that are still interested in adding their names as co-sponsors, so we'll get that up as I start to summarize.

The co-sponsorship here, Council President, as you were speaking, we already knew we had Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Lewis, and you are being joined by Councilmembers Morales, Straus, Sawant, Peterson, and Juarez.

Did I get everyone?

Excellent.

Wonderful colleagues.

Why don't we do this?

It's about 10 minutes to one o'clock.

Let's just go ahead and do the last two for Office of Housing after we come back.

That'll give folks a chance to look at the walk-on amendments that were sent around last night if you're And then we sent a summary document around with Tracy's summary from central staff and the cover sheets as well.

So again, we are going to go ahead and recess until 2 PM.

We will start up with the two walk-on amendments from Office of Housing.

Tracy, if you don't mind joining us after lunch, we appreciate your time.

And with that, colleagues, we will see you at 2 PM to continue with session two of the Select Budget Committee.

Have a good lunch.

Thanks all.

Thank you.