Seattle City Council Briefing 10/18/2021

Great.

Thanks so much, son.

Good morning, everyone.

The October 18th, 2021 council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 930 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Lewis?

Council Member Lewis?

Morales?

Present.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Peterson?

Sawant.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Present.

And Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Thank you.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

We will move to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of October 11th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, really quickly, colleagues, given the very light agenda for the upcoming city council meeting, I think at this juncture, we might only have approval of the bills.

I am wanting to propose that we actually cancel next week's city council meeting on Monday, October 25th, in order to make capacity on all of our calendars to focus on the very busy week we're going to have related to select budget committee deliberations.

My office and the deputy city clerks have worked to make sure that there is no legislation that would be substantively impacted by canceling the city council meeting on October 25th, but I did want to give uh you all an opportunity to provide feedback if for any reason you prefer that our city council meeting on october um sorry i think i said october 25th is that right yeah october 25th um the uh if you'd prefer that it not be canceled um would like to hear from you so if you could let me know by the end of the day today if you object to canceling Monday, October 25th's city council meeting.

I would really appreciate that.

Barring any objections, we will publish notice of the cancellation tomorrow morning.

So again, colleagues, if you can let me know by 5 p.m.

today, if you object to the idea of canceling the October 25th meeting, I would greatly appreciate it.

If I don't hear from anyone, we'll go ahead and issue the cancellation.

All right, well that concludes my president's report, so let's go ahead and move on to the discussion on the preview of today's City Council Action Council and Regional Committees.

I'll call on Council Members as established by the rotated roll call.

This week's roll call rotation is going to be chained slightly to accommodate Council Member Strauss who needs to depart early.

So this week's roll call for council briefing will be Council Member Strauss, followed by Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Herbold, Juarez, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So I'm gonna hand it right over to Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

Good morning.

Today, I am very excited to be joining the Ballard Food Bank at their grand opening at their new location.

Here in District 6 last week, due to the three days of budget meetings and the public hearing, I was not able to hold Official office hours, so I'll be extending this week's office hours, which will be scheduled for this Thursday afternoon.

I was still able to speak to a number of people in the district, a few folks, two separate meetings from people in Finney Ridge, who spoke about maritime issues, public safety, permanent supportive housing, and a few other issues.

In other meetings in District 6, I continue to hold operational coordination meetings with government entities and non-governmental entities to make meaningful interventions and impacts on homelessness in specific places here in District 6. Last week, I also met with the Ballard Alliance, the Fremont Chamber, North Seattle Industrial Association, and the Port of Seattle regarding public safety and water safety.

Last week, my staff was able to meet with the Finney Neighborhood Association, and I hope that their annual fundraiser focused on the power of community was a huge success.

This coming week in District 6, this evening, my staff will be attending an informational meeting about the DESC Woodland Housing Project, which will bring about 95 units of permanent supportive housing to District 6. On Tuesday, I'll be meeting with the Ballard Alliance to discuss the interim design change plans for cafe streets on Ballard Avenue.

And on Thursday, I'll be heading to the Woodland Park Zoo to attend a gratitude gathering.

And I'm excited to share more about that after the gathering.

Last week, I was also able to join the mayor and the Storm for the signing of Council Bill 120149 that would allow the Storm to build their own practice facility here in the city of Seattle.

Very excited about this.

For many who might not know, the Storm currently practices at Seattle Pacific University.

And so they literally, their court time is dependent upon the college's schedule.

So this is going to be a really big deal and a really important step forward to supporting our most winningest team, the Seattle Storm.

This coming week, generally, I'll be meeting with Youth Care and their interim CEO, Colleen EchoHawk.

I'm scheduled to tape Inside Edition with Councilmember Pervold and Seattle Channel's Brian Callahan.

I've got a check-in scheduled with Director Ben Noble.

And as part of my duties as board member of Association of Washington Cities, I'm looking forward to meeting with council members Ed Sturm, Kent Keele, and Mayor Suing Moody, all current or past presidents of Association of Washington Cities.

I'll also be attending the Regional Transportation Committee.

And Friday, I'll be meeting with the Seattle Conservation Corps to hear more about their important work.

And I'll end my week with a meeting about the proposed 200-unit community Longhouse at the North Seattle College campus.

In the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, there are two items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction referral calendar.

Council Bill 120206, which establishes a mobile home park overlay district and is sponsored by Councilman Juarez and myself.

We also have Council Bill 120207, which establishes a registration requirement for tree service providers, and is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, and also thank you Councilmember Peterson for letting me join you as a sponsor on this bill.

The Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will have to hold two very brief meetings during budget in order to consider quasi-judicial contract rezone application in the state-mandated timelines.

And so those meetings will occur on Monday, October 25, and November 1. both meetings will be scheduled for 10 30 a.m.

or after council briefing and we hope that each of you that each of these meetings will take under an hour.

So thank you to council president's office and central staff for working to coordinate these meetings.

Council president, colleagues, that is my report.

Thank you so much council member Strauss.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, I am not seeing any hands raised, so thanks again, and we will go ahead and head down the line here.

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

Good morning, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

I have pretty brief remarks this morning.

I don't have any items on this afternoon's agenda, nor on introduction or referral, either from my office or the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I am looking forward to joining Councilmember Strauss later this morning for the ribbon-cutting of the Ballard Food Bank.

And similarly, Councilmember Strauss, it was good to see you last week at the bill signing for the new legislation in Interbay.

There's really not all that much going on given that budget is the omnipresent thing, but there are a few other appointments this week.

The Board of Health is going to be meeting this Thursday afternoon, and I'm looking forward to further discussions regarding the Board of Health's helmet law, as well as the regional updates that we receive in that forum regarding the county's ongoing efforts.

at combating COVID-19.

I'm going to be attending the opening of Climate Pledge Arena tomorrow evening and looking forward to that great District 7 asset coming online.

And otherwise, I think it's mostly just budget preparation and anticipation of our future deliberations.

So with that, Madam President, I don't have anything else to share.

Thank you so much, Councilor Luis.

Any comments or questions?

Hearing none, we will hear next from Councilmember Morales and then after Councilmember Morales will be Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning, Councilmember Morales.

Good morning, colleagues.

Well, as everyone else has indicated, we have no committees happening, so there is nothing on the from the community economic development committee on this afternoon's agenda.

I do have a board of health meeting on Thursday, as Councilmember Lewis said, in addition to the items he mentioned, we will be receiving a briefing on gender-based violence.

So looking forward to hearing more at that meeting and we'll report back next week.

Last week, I toured the Evergreen Treatment Services Facility.

You all know that that is down on Airport Way in the Soto neighborhood and well, really closer to Georgetown.

They have purchased the neighboring building and are beginning the process of imagining what they might be able to do there in terms of providing additional treatment and really providing the kind of drug treatment services that they offer on a larger scale, so they are excited about that work and are really just sort of pre-development there and will certainly be talking about their fundraising strategy and how the city might be able to support some of that in the very near future.

We also met with Seattle Greenways to discuss their vision for streets that meet all ages and abilities.

Here in District 2, as I've said over and over again, public safety really also needs to include pedestrian safety and safety for folks who walk and roll through the neighborhood.

So we discussed whoops, something weird just happened to my computer.

We discussed the need for safety improvements along MLK and existing bike corridors, as well as the opportunity to make Lake Washington Boulevard an inviting street for folks who walk and roll.

My office met with folks from the Community Safety Initiative who, as we discussed last week, were surprised and concerned not to see their project included in the proposed budget.

And so I believe Councilmember Herbold is going to be working on an amendment for that.

So just want to express my support for that work.

We also met with the Graham Street Community Action Team.

This is a group of folks who have been working and organizing and planning and helping design what the Graham Street station, infill station, would look like.

And this group of folks have continued to work together and to organize together about all kinds of other issues in their neighborhood.

So they are looking for more support.

for community investment from the city and wanted to talk about their vision for how to preserve cultural space in the neighborhood, how to provide affordable spaces for small businesses, and to build affordable housing for neighbors who are living near what will soon be the Graham Street Link Station.

Saturday evening, I had the pleasure of joining neighbors at the Columbia City Patio.

This is one of the projects, as Council Member Strauss mentioned, the Cafe Streets projects that popped up during COVID.

Folks are very interested in making that permanent and have been working with some designers to figure out what that might look like, working with surrounding businesses to make sure that everybody has has the ability to weigh in on what they would like to see this project look like.

There is some requests coming for some support from SDOT for, you know, it's at the corner of Ferdinand and Rainier, and so some support for changing the lighting, signal timing, possibly some street striping.

hoping to include some of this work in the continued effort to make cafe streets permanent and look forward to continuing to work with them.

They also invited me to give away the raffle prizes at the event, so it was fun just to spend the evening with some neighbors.

This week, I am participating in the Week Without Driving that is hosted by Disability Rights Washington.

I urge my colleagues to do the same if you can for neighbors who can't drive.

Most of our streetscape is unsafe and unwelcoming.

And this is one small way for us to show solidarity and to experience firsthand what the daily hurdles are that are faced by folks who don't drive and can't drive, getting from point A to point B.

So I will be riding my bike tomorrow to join the mayor at Rainier Health and Fitness as we celebrate the next round of the Small Business Stabilization Grants.

This Thursday from 10 to noon, I'll hold virtual office hours.

Any constituents who are interested can sign up for a meeting on our website.

And that is all I have this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

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

Next up is going to be Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member Mosqueda will be Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you all for the work we've been doing together on the Select Budget Committee meeting.

Because we are in Select Budget right now, we do not have any items from the Finance and Housing Committee or the Select Budget Committee on today's full council agenda.

Last week, we did have the chance to have our first public hearing.

And for those who weren't able to join the public hearing, I want to make another announcement about the opportunity to join us on November 10th.

at 530 p.m.

There will also be another public hearing at 930 a.m.

on November 18th.

In addition, there will be continual opportunities for public comment during the first 30 minutes of each of the budget meeting concluding at 10 a.m.

Last week, the committee had discussions on issue identification led by central staff.

Central staff presented items that they were identifying for potential budget issues, policy options associated with those budget issues for the council's deliberation and consideration, among the many other options that your offices may be considering.

The purposes of the issue identification discussions were so that council members could review, discuss, and ask questions about the proposed budget and provide direction to staff on issues and amendments they're currently considering.

As a reminder, those possible considerations are due today at noon.

Noon is the deadline for central staff to be able to receive your concepts for possible amendments.

Just a reminder, as we noted on Friday, and I'll send around again our Monday memos that outline what to expect each week during budget.

This week's memo will include a reminder that for any budget items to be considered in the balancing package, it's just the concept and the funding request that needs to be provided in this CBA, City Budget Amendment document.

So thank you for working to submit those budget concepts and central staff will be working with you over the next week to finalize those amendments.

You'll then have the chance to review the proposed language with central staff before they are published for our consideration on the committee agenda next week.

Again, a reminder, the Select Budget Committee meeting meets October 26th, 27th and 28th.

Those will be all-day meetings again with the opportunity to have a one-hour recess so that everyone can take a chance to grab lunch, relax, and come right back at it.

But please do plan for a full day on the 26th, 27th, and 28th.

The central staff will be analyzing the draft budget amendments that you have sent.

And this following week, you will have the chance to really work with them to finalize those.

those amendments and the central staff will work with you to make sure that you've received the necessary factual and descriptive information for the city budget action document.

And as a reminder, these are city central staff documents.

So as much as we may want to have talking points or the rationale for why included in these documents, this is more of the facts.

And then you'll have the chance to walk through the rationale and why you are proposing the amendment that you're considering.

Thank you again for the opportunity to work with you all over the last few weeks.

We are headed into, I believe, week four of eight.

So we are halfway there and look forward to the deliberations to come later this month in anticipation of our council proposed draft budget in the early part of November.

This week, I have back-to-back meetings, as I know many of you do, to talk with various stakeholders and community groups, organizations representing housing and homelessness providers, labor and small business entities to talk about their budget priorities.

I also am going to be joining the Board of Health meeting and look forward to the conversation to come on both gender-based violence and the helmet laws and our commitment to both protect health and safety while also making sure that we're looking at the disproportionate impact of enforcement of the helmet laws.

And then lastly this Friday I'm gonna have the opportunity to present at the opportunities for early learning and education on the pandemic recovering, how deciding to invest our state and city and federal dollars it presents a unique opportunity to rebuild back and rebuild back better as has been discussed in D.C.

I'm going to be participating on the NASEM early care and education webinar and look forward to talking about the work that we've done as a council to support child care providers and working to continually invest in brick and mortar to open additional child care facilities.

I'll also be talking about the importance now of making sure that we're opening up childcare across the city as a incentive for small businesses and workers to be able to know that their kiddos are in safe places for care, including working in partnership with members at SEIU 925, so that there's more representation and greater opportunity for those providers, as well as the small businesses and organizations who are seeking to not only stay open, but potentially open up more facilities, especially in the realm of zero to three.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, look forward to seeing you in our deliberations as we get the chance to touch base on the possible amendments that you're submitting.

Thanks for all the work that you and your team have done.

And especially want to thank central staff and the folks in my office, Sejal, Erin, Farideh, and Aretha, along with Lori, our intern, who is working hard to help track all of those ideas as well.

Looking forward to talking to you soon.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

We'll go ahead and hear now from Councilmember Peterson, and then after Councilmember Peterson, we'll have Councilmember Stilwell.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our city's Transportation Utilities Committee has no items on this afternoon's full City Council agenda.

We meet on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, but we've got budget season now, so our next meeting will be on Wednesday, December 1st, and we'll also have a meeting on Wednesday, December 15 for the Transportation Utilities Committee.

In District 4, my office hosted a virtual budget town hall for our constituents this past Thursday evening.

I'd like to thank Malik Davis from my office and the rest of the team, as well as Joseph from Council Communications for keeping us organized for the town hall.

I'd also like to thank Budget Director Ben Noble for his excellent presentation on the budget process with highlights of Mayor Durkin's proposed $7 billion budget.

We started our town hall by addressing the top concern of many constituents, homelessness.

We were joined by the CEO of the Regional Homelessness Authority, Mark Bones, who provided an overview of our new regional strategy to this regional challenge of bringing people inside.

Dr. Noble and I then answered a wide array of budgeted questions asked by constituents who participated.

The event was recorded and will be posted online to my blog for those who are not able to join.

And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any comments or questions for Councilmember Peterson?

All right.

Hearing none, next up is Councilmember Sawant.

And then after Councilmember Sawant will be Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning.

Good morning, President Gonzalez.

Thank you so much.

I wanted to start today by thanking all the working people and community members who have organized with the annual People's Budget Campaign for seven consecutive years and are now doing it for the eighth year running and also to those who are speaking up in support of the solidarity budget.

And I also wanted to thank all the council members who have already agreed to co-sponsor several of the amendments from my office and happy to do likewise.

I know my staff are having those conversations with your offices and I really appreciate that.

As I mentioned last week, my office has sent a number of proposed budget amendments to all council members.

These amendments from my office include both the people's budget demands and also the most prominent ones from the solidarity budget, especially those that are relevant to increasing the funds.

in a significant way, increasing significant funds for affordable social housing and Green New Deal programs.

We don't yet have co-sponsors for those amendments.

I really urge council members to support those because those are the paramount ones that we have to do as a city council for addressing the needs of our city.

The 2018 Seattle report from the Office of Sustainability and Environment showed that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 58 percent by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. This requires a reduction rate 17 times larger than our current rate, and that is a serious, serious problem we have.

And in fact, as some of you may have heard me mention, in one of this year's meetings of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, that my office shares, the OSC, the Office of Sustainability and Environment, presented the 2018 Community Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory.

And the stunningly alarming highlight of this report is that since the last report in 2018, Seattle's overall greenhouse gas emissions have increased 1.1%.

It's an increase of 1.1%.

While overall emissions since 2008 have gone down, By 4.1%, right now the reduction is grossly inadequate and the emissions from the building sector have increased an 8.3% since the 2016 report, largely as a result of growing fossil fuel gas used for cooking space and water heating in buildings.

So we have a serious task if we are to bring Seattle to that kind of goal that we have for zero emissions.

And we are so not on track.

And so every year's budget poses a serious challenge to us.

And I hope that council members will support these amendments because they are urgent.

And they, of course, funding the mandate of these amendments requires increasing the big business tax rate this year.

And so I urge council members to also support that.

On today's city council agenda are the confirmations of three appointments to the Seattle Renters Commission.

Typically those appointments would first be considered by the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee.

However, because committee meetings are on hold during budget deliberations, we are referring the appointment directly to the city council.

So the new members of the renters commission can be in place in time to attend the November 1st meeting of the Seattle of the renters commission, my office as chair of the committee and.

Also, the mayor's office were contacted by the Renters Commission because they have accumulated several vacancies.

Many of the members of the commission really work hard.

They're one of the commissions that are setting the standard for what the commissions should be doing for the people in Seattle, working people in Seattle.

But because of all of that, they are currently having difficulty reaching quorum.

Council members may remember that the committee filled all the council appointed positions on the commission over the summer, but there have been five positions that the mayor is responsible for appointing that have been vacant for an unusually long time.

And in addition, there is a council appointed position that was newly vacated over the summer in addition to two recently vacated commission appointed positions.

So the renters commission.

has taken proactive steps to help the vacant positions.

They advertised the openings, received many applications, conducted interviews, and made recommendations for filling all eight vacant positions.

As chair of the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee, I've moved the appointment of Haley Friedland, the commission's recommendation of the council-appointed position, and the appointments of Arianna Loriano and Rachel Sanchez, the two commission-appointed positions, and those are the three that are on today's city council agenda for a vote.

Unfortunately, even though the commission also recommended candidates for the mayor appointed positions.

We continue to wait for the mayor to make those appointments which honestly literally just means signing her name to the appointment packets that the commission is prepared for and I hope that she does that.

And as I mentioned during briefing last week, I urged the mayor to do that.

The Lerner's Commission has, as I've mentioned before, played a tremendous role in fighting for renters' rights in the last several years.

Most recently, the bill the city council passed increasing the notice the landlords must give renters for rent increases to six months came at the recommendation of the commission.

And they have done exemplary work on many other bills that the council has passed this year.

The bills coming from my office, but, you know, they wouldn't have had the momentum had the renters commission and other renters rights advocates, like be Seattle tenants union and other organizations, including labor unions not advocated for it.

With the five mayor controlled vacancies it leaves very small margins for quorum on a 15 person commission.

It is a volunteer board and if only three people are absent for a meeting suddenly they do not have quorum.

So I hope that the mayor makes the appointments in the next two weeks.

I will do what it takes to support placing those appointments on the city council agenda for November 1st so that the commission can be fully staffed for their November meeting.

Also at today's city council meeting, I intend to make a motion to amend the introduction and referral calendar to introduce the legislation requiring contractors to pay the parking expenses of the construction workers working on their projects in Seattle.

My office has sent a copy of this legislation to all your offices and shared it with the public last week.

And I've let council members know that it was being drafted by central staff in my council briefing remarks for the past several weeks.

At least 315 working people have emailed all council members in the last few days urging they support this paid parking legislation.

As I mentioned before in briefing sessions, we also circulated a community petition which has garnered 1,147 signatures, 366 of whom are from construction workers.

Construction workers are often required to drive to work because they are transporting heavy tools.

They commute long distances and start work extremely early in the morning, often before many transit lines have begun operating.

This is not a question of whether construction workers will drive to work.

It's a question of who will pay for it when the job requires them to drive to work.

My office heard from many rank and file carpenters and union leaders on the picket lines on the recent carpenters strike that the cost of parking is a major issue for construction workers.

It's an issue faced by carpenters, but also by construction workers and other building trades.

The legislation from my office protects all construction workers, even those who are not yet protected by a union, similar to the approach taken by prevailing wage legislation.

My intention is to move to introduce the legislation today and refer it directly to the city council for a vote on November 1st in two weeks.

During the budget, we know committee meetings are on hold, but there is nothing that stops council members from supporting workers' rights by putting that legislation directly to the full city council meeting for a vote during the budget.

I'm happy to address any questions or concerns that council members might have, please feel free to reach out to my staff.

We're happy to sit down and discuss the legislation.

There's nothing really complicated about the legislation, but we're here to answer any questions or concerns.

And in fact, it's precisely what we're doing about the renters commission appointments, taking them directly to the city council.

while ordinarily we would not do that.

While this legislation is important and it will have a big impact on the lives of thousands of workers in Seattle, as I mentioned just now, it is actually very straightforward as the legislation language itself goes.

There are no complicated technical questions that would require an extensive committee discussion and amendment process.

Either council members think that construction bosses should pay the parking costs incurred by their workers each day and support this legislation, or they think workers should continue to pay thousands of dollars a year apiece and support the status quo.

It's really as simple as that.

This legislation, in my view, should be passed as soon as possible because council should not have a lackadaisical attitude towards protecting workers' rights.

Parking costs have been a big issue in every single construction workers' contract filed in recent years, from electricians to operating engineers to, most recently, the carpenters.

Because workers have been demanding justice here for years, this is a priority for my office and every day the city council delays is another day workers are forced to pay a shockingly large portion of their paycheck for the privilege of going to work every day in the form of parking costs only to make enormous profits for their bosses.

Beyond that, there's no clear alternative to sending this legislation directly to the City Council.

My staff did talk to the staff of the Office of Council Member Muscata, who's the chair of the Housing and Finance Committee.

There's also the Council Committee overseeing the Office of Labor Standards issue.

And as far as we know, they're not aware if they would have the capacity to hear the bill in the December committee meeting.

But most importantly, it would be unacceptable, in my view, to delay the passing of the bill because that would mean workers would lose the momentum they have built with the courageous strike action by rank-and-file union carpenters and by the organizing they have done with this community petition and writing emails to the city council.

And let's all remember, come January, there will be new council committees.

So, any legislation that has not been acted on this year will have to be re-referred at the beginning of 2022. In other words, we might have to start again next year, and what's a given is that the current momentum built by working people will be lost, and that is just not okay.

It will be an example of that famous MLK quote, which says, when he said, justice too long delayed is justice denied.

I appreciate the work of Karina Bull from council central staff and the city attorney's office staff, efficiently drafting and reviewing the bill so it is ready for the city council to take action on.

And I especially appreciate the activism of the hundreds of construction workers and hundreds of others in the labor movement who have written to the city council to demand that this legislation be passed.

They all work hard and have done their jobs.

Now it is our turn, council members' turn to do our job.

I hope that council members will agree to place this legislation on the introduction and referral calendar today and vote it into law on November 1st.

If, however, council members are not prepared to vote on November 1st, I'm also prepared to make room in the November 30th meeting of my committee to assure that council members have every opportunity to have whatever discussion that you want to have with any community members, any questions you want to run by our office, any discussion that we need to have as council members, and that will give us enough time to pass the bill this year.

I just wanted to conclude by saying two things on behalf of the construction workers and community members who are supporting this bill.

One is to note that I believe all of you have received a letter from a community member and that letter I just want to read out quickly because it really shows how much support there is for this legislation and why people are supporting it.

And the second point is to note that we got a letter from a rank-and-file apprentice who's a member of IBEW Local 46, a woman electrician apprentice who has written to my office and I wanted to share that letter with you all.

I will circulate that letter on email to all council offices because I think it's a really excellent example of how a construction worker, a young person who is a single parent and Who is struggling to get by who's really struggling to excel in their job, and why they feel that this is a necessity and what they have heard from their co workers as well.

And as I said, I just wanted to quickly read.

the letter from Caroline Street, who is a District 7 resident and member of the 36th Legislative District of the Democratic Party, who wrote to all council members this weekend saying, quote, while the Carpenters just won a minimal parking increase in their contract, my construction worker friends tell stories of sites, especially in and around Seattle, where the only public lots available cost just over a full hour of their wages in each day.

Over the course of a week, that amounts to more than half a day of work just to pay for parking.

That's clearly absurd.

Big contractors should not be allowed to force their employers to shoulder the higher cost of doing business in a dense urban area.

Can you imagine if a Google employee was forced to pay half a day of wages to park each week?

Can you imagine if you were the alternatives?

Public street parking and mass transit are equally untenable.

Mass transit does not work for folks who have to carry heavy tools and protective gear they need to do their jobs.

Public street parking in the 10-hour zones necessary to avoid parking tickets fills up by 5.30 a.m.

In order to snag a spot, folks who live an hour or more outside the city since they can no longer afford to live in the city, must drive in early and sleep in their cars until their shifts start.

I go to a gym in South Lake Union and every morning I watch construction workers struggling to find street parking or sleeping in their cars after doing so.

Again, that's completely unreasonable.

I understand that budget discussions are going on right now, but this straightforward and vital legislation in support of construction workers should be passed immediately.

Every week that passes without this legislation is a week in which we are allowing wealthy big contractors to push their costs of doing business down to their employers.

These folks have families and lives, and the fact that they are blue-collared workers who don't vote in the city does not mean that we should stand by and allow this extraction of time, energy, and financial wealth.

Nor should we pretend that a delay on our part does not have a substantial material impact on their well-being and the well-being of their families.

A city that works for everyone is a city that works for everyone who is part of the community that makes the city work.

The construction workers who build our city are part of our community.

They spend most of their waking hours in our city, and they are making daily contributions to the future of our city, even if they cannot afford to live among us.

I urge you to support this legislation and to pass it without delay, end quote.

I just thought that was really, really important to share because this is a constituent who is not a construction worker themselves, but who clearly has observed through their experience in the community that construction workers really need this.

So as I said, just reiterate my offer to discuss with all council members, whatever you need, and I hope that we can pass this legislation in November.

Thank you.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line to Council Member Herbold, and then after Council Member Herbold will be Council Member Juarez.

Good morning, Council Member Herbold.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

So there are no items on today's full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, nor is there a Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting this week.

A couple updates, first public health related update.

Just a reminder that beginning a week from today on August, sorry, October 25th, people ages 12 and older will be required to show proof of full COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test in order to enter many indoor and outdoor events and businesses in King County.

The requirement will help to protect customers and workers, protect our healthcare system, and workers prevent business closures as the Delta variant continues to spread in King County.

If you have questions about what you can use as proof of your vaccination, you can go to kingcounty.gov forward slash verify.

They have a really helpful list of frequently asked questions.

If you're not COVID vaccinated yet, now is the time to get started.

Anyone 12 or older can get vaccinated.

It's always free regardless of citizenship or immigration status, and at many places now you don't even need an appointment.

Vaccine locations can be found at kingcounty.gov forward slash vaccine.

Along those lines today is the deadline for vaccinations for city employees.

I've been in touch with both Chief Diaz and Chief Scoggins about this over the last few weeks, and the executive will be sharing the most recent numbers later today.

As of last Thursday morning, SPD had under 15% of sworn staff still not submitting proof of vaccination.

Last week in briefings meeting I shared with all of you some detail about SPD's contingency plan specifically that SPD is prepared to move to stage three operations where every sworn member of the department shall be in their class AB uniforms for the duration of their shift and and those members who are in non-patrol units shall be prepared to immediately report to one of the five precincts for 911 call response.

This week, I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the Fire Department's contingency planning.

Chief Scoggins briefed me on Thursday about the staffing plans if a large number of fighter fighters do not get vaccinated.

And again, these numbers that I just that I'm reporting today or Thursday's numbers, they're going to be updated.

We'll see a change when the dashboard is updated at 10 a.m.

today.

But as of Thursday, the Fire Department is at 92% fully vaccinated department-wide.

Top line is that there are no impacts on the ability of members of the public to call 9-1-1 for life-threatening medical, fire, and rescue emergencies.

Firefighters, EMTs, and firefighter paramedics for critical incidents will still respond.

No fire station will close.

All of the city's 33 fire stations will be staffed with at least one response unit.

The outcome of the expected departures of some uniformed personnel and the existing vacancies means that the department is implementing a contingency plan for operating below standard staffing levels beginning on October 19th at 7.30 a.m.

The plan is built around transitioning to a daily staffing level that focuses on some specific high level areas.

They may move some uniform members who are currently working and administrative position back into operations to respond to emergencies in the field.

Temporarily repositioning uniformed personnel who normally work on health to other apparatus so they can respond to all emergencies, including fires, is another strategy.

There will be mandatory overtime for the Department's Special Operations Units, that's Rescue One, Vault Response Team, the Marine Emergency Response Team, Fireboats, Hazardous Materials Unit, in the decontamination unit.

And then they will be adjusting the response model by reducing the number of units that will initially respond to certain incident types in order to allow for increased response availability.

They'll prioritize keeping fire department aid cars in service as a hospital transport option due to the possibility of decreased ambulances for basic life support transport and they'll be monitoring real time response times with the activation of the department's resource management center.

They'll work to restore staffing levels by increasing the number of firefighter recruits hired from 40 to 60 for the next academy, which is set to begin on February 2nd, 2022. And just as a reminder, Council, last year during the budget process, we added funding to allow the fire department to hire for an additional recruit class, and we may be looking at doing so again this year.

So the department is prepared to continue this response model if necessary for several months to ensure that there is continued citywide coverage to 911 calls for fire suppression, rescue and emergency medical services.

Again, we'll be hearing more from the executive.

I believe there's a press conference later this morning.

A couple other topics I wanted to cover today is that this afternoon I'll be bringing forward a proclamation recognizing this coming Thursday as Gender-Based Violence Providers Recognition Day.

This is a joint effort with the city's multi-branch domestic violence Prevention Council, and the Mayor is concurring.

Representatives from the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence will be joining us this afternoon to accept the proclamation and to talk about their members' life-supporting work with survivors and their families during the pandemic.

when, as we know, they've seen a significant rise in gender-based violence.

My office circulated the proclamation to all council member offices on Thursday evening, and I believe with Madam President's concurrence, I'll hand it over to you to walk us through the next steps of securing signatures on the proclamation.

Great, thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

As mentioned, Council Member Herbold does have a proclamation that we will call the roll call on to when I give folks an opportunity to ask any questions, if there are any, before I ask the clerk to call the roll.

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation regarding gender-based violence providers recognized today?

Strauss?

Yes.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

Council President Gonzales?

I. Nine in favor.

Thank you so much.

I'll hand it back over to you, Councilmember Herbold.

That's the end of my report.

Thank you.

Great.

Are there any additional comments or questions about that report?

All right.

Hearing none, we'll hear now from Councilmember Juarez, and then I will conclude this portion of this morning's council briefing.

Councilmember Juarez, good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Let's see.

I have a few issues to speak to.

I will be brief.

There are no items today from the Public Asset and Native Communities Committee on today's agenda.

Moving to Seattle Public Libraries.

As you all know, all branches of the Seattle Public Library are now open.

Yay.

A big thank you to our library employees who work so hard to get the libraries ready and make this happen.

Third, the Metropolitan Park District, in which you are all members of.

The next meeting of the MPD governing board is this afternoon after full council.

The public comment link will go live at 3.30.

If folks wish to speak on the revenue proposal, they should sign up for the public hearing portion of this meeting.

At this meeting, Seattle Park Superintendent Jesus Aguirre will present the 2022 proposed MPD budget.

This is a spending plan for one year.

Again, as you all know, because of COVID, we haven't been able to go into our six years planning.

The second half of the meeting will be dedicated to a public hearing.

Last Friday, our office emailed the agenda and summary of the legislation for your information, but we will not consider voting on this until November 22nd.

So that gives you all about five weeks to go through the four resolutions, which include, let me grab my notes here.

Resolution 44, that would maybe hopefully be a resolution adopting the 2022 budget.

Resolution 45, a resolution authorizing the levy of regular property taxes by the Seattle Park District for collection of 2022, representing an increase above the regular property taxes levied for collection in 2021. Resolution 46, a resolution relating to the levy of property taxes, fixing the rates and or amounts of taxes to be levy.

And resolution 47, which is just a resolution setting the, what our next board meetings will be for June 2022. So the ones to pay attention to are resolutions 44, 45 and 46. And again, you all have about five weeks to go through that.

Obviously we're available, but Tracy Radcliffe has been amazing, has been working with us as well as parks.

Let's see.

Briefly, right now, during the week of October 4th, our Clean City Initiative crew picked up 55,000 pounds of trash and 5,000 needles from 50 encampments.

They've been doing intense cleaning.

The crew's focused more on deep cleaning at Cal Anderson and Lower Hearst Playfield.

As of today's date, cumulatively, the park's arm of the Clean City Initiative has cleaned up 3 million pounds of trash and 90,000 needles throughout the city.

Let's see.

Upcoming this week, this is going to be fun.

The D5 team will be joining the preschoolers at the Refugee Women's Alliance Early Learning Center in Lake City.

I think I shared this with some of you last week for some fun with the Kraken.

at the Kraken Community Iceplex.

The team, the Kraken, have invited the children, or as Dean typed in here, the Tikes, for free skating lessons this week, and every Wednesday from now on until June.

My staff will be riding the bus with the kids and helping them lace up their skates for the first time on the ice, and we're all very excited to see this next generation take to the ice.

And then, of course, my D5 team will be forming a team, and we will be challenging Councilmember Peterson's district to a game.

So that's where we start.

Is that how?

Okay, good.

That's all I got for you, President.

All right, are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, hearing none, I will go ahead and conclude this portion of this morning's council briefing.

Mine is gonna be extraordinarily short.

I have nothing on this afternoon's introduction referral calendar, nor do I have anything on this afternoon's city council agenda.

I do have a King County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee meeting this Thursday at 10 a.m., and that concludes my report.

Are there any comments or questions?

as I get battered about the head by my toddler.

All right, hearing none, folks, that does conclude our agenda for this morning.

Thank you so much.

We will see you at two o'clock.

We are adjourned.