Seattle City Council 3/15/22

Oh, thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Tuesday, March 15th, the meeting of the Seattle City Council.

Will it come to order?

My name is Deborah Juarez, president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

And Council Member, sorry, Council President Juarez.

Here.

Six present.

Thank you.

Today we have a presentation and we have a treat today.

I see that our CEO, Estela Sero, our sister at the Salina Health Board is up on the screen.

So let me go ahead with the presentation proclamation script or what I have in front of me today, and then I will kind of walk us through how we're going to do the proclamation.

So I'll be presenting a proclamation recognizing March 20th as Native HIV AIDS Awareness Day.

I'll first present the proclamation, which I'll do in a minute.

Then I'll move to suspend the rules to allow our guest, that's CEO, Esa Lucero, to accept the proclamation and provide comments.

And finally, I will open the floor for comments or anything that my colleagues would like to share.

So with that, colleagues, as you know, this Sunday is National Native HIV AIDS Awareness Day.

This is the first time the Seattle City Council has recognized the devastating toll The HIV AIDS epidemic has had on our native communities and acknowledges the critical role that indigenous frontline healthcare workers play and the prevention and treatment of the disease.

We know about this lack of Council recognition in part because of a recent research, recent research performed by Jeanne Fisher at Seattle Municipal Archives.

Thank you, Jeanne.

Thank you also to council colleagues for your unanimous support of this proclamation, which our council offers this year in addition to the proclamation of Ms. Phyllis Little Day, honoring her three decades of persistent black trans leadership and the fight against AIDS.

As our community enters a fifth decade of learning to live with this awful disease, I've invited President and CEO of the Seattle Indian Health Board, Esther Lozada, to accept our proclamation declaring Native HIV AIDS Awareness Day this Sunday, March 20th, 2022. It is our hope that this proclamation will increase the understanding, start conversations, and spotlight the work being done to reduce HIV among American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians.

It also shows support for people living with HIV in our communities.

At this time, I would like to suspend the rules to allow our guest, CEO, Ms. Esther Lucero, to speak.

Hold up a minute.

Seeing that there's no objection to the suspension of the rules, the rules are indeed suspended to allow.

Esther Lacerro, my dear friend and president of the CEO of the Sialian Health Board, and I understand that accompanying Esther today is Wayne Harvey, Christina Diego, also of the Sialian Health Board.

Welcome, Esther.

You are recognized to speak to the proclamation, please.

Hi.

Good afternoon, everyone.

President Juarez, can I tell you just like how proud I am to be able to say to another Native woman, Native and Latino woman like me, that I'm just excited to see you as a president.

So it's amazing.

Thank you all.

And thank you to the city council for having me today.

It's always an honor to present to you all.

And I am always very much appreciative of the ways that you honor American Indian and Alaska Native people, particularly here.

in the city of Seattle.

It's something that really, I have to tell you, is unprecedented across the nation.

So thank you.

I'd like to share a few statistics with you.

So there are an estimated 25% of American Indians, Alaska Natives living with HIV that are unaware of their status still.

In the state of Washington, 48% of all American Indian, Alaska Native people living with HIV live in King County.

It's really important to note that.

We have the fourth highest mortality rate for folks living with HIV.

I think a lot of this happens because, you know, HIV hit our reservations late.

And we're a very migrant population just kind of by nature.

You know, here we are in Seattle where we have a very high population of urban American Indian and Alaska Native folks.

you know, Council Member Juarez and I were discussing the other night that we remember those days, right?

As a queer identified native woman, I remember the days when we were losing our queer brothers.

You know, I lived in San Francisco during that time where we couldn't get meds, where the Reagan administration refused to pay for medication, really referring to it as the gay plague, you know, just hoping to cleanse us from the ways that folks felt that we were living lifestyles that were inappropriate.

And I remember those days.

I actually entered into community health as an HIV case manager.

And I remember what it was like serving folks with substance use disorder, living with HIV and mental health challenges.

And one of the reasons that I'm here today is because I knew that the issues were not with our people, not issues with promiscuity or risky behaviors, but the issues were with systems.

And so here I stand in front of you as the president and CEO with incredible pride looking back on those days when we were losing our relatives, right?

And now being able to stand before you accepting a proclamation from a native woman.

And I just want to say thank you.

So now when we say something like I want to see the days when we end HIV.

I know that it is possible.

And I want you to know that the Seattle Indian Health Board is doing everything in our power to work from prevention mechanism to also early intervention, providing prep, and into treatment.

So with that, I just want to say we absolutely accept this honor, and we acknowledge your investment in our community.

So thank you.

Thank you, Estela Saro, my friend.

Are there any of my colleagues that would like to say anything?

Raise our hands.

OK.

Let's see.

I'm not seeing anyone.

Let me just, I'm not seeing anyone.

OK.

Before I close, and thank you, Esther, for being here today.

And I think we had this, yeah, you and I had this conversation offline, but I've had it with a couple other folks, including some of my younger staffers who were not here in the day when we were, you know, the late 80s, early 90s when we were losing friends that I had in law school to AIDS and are my friends on Capitol Hill.

And so without going too far back in the time machine, I want to keep it front and center, not just in the Native community, but nationwide.

And we've seen what this pandemic has done.

I think that thing that broke my heart is at the rate that we were losing relatives and brothers and sisters, like you were saying, the Reagan administration turned its back and would not reach out.

And you wouldn't have had this today, obviously, with COVID.

You know, they were talking about not giving people medication and all those awful things that we saw going on.

In any event, thank you for all your hard work.

I know that you've been involved with not only mental health, but medical care at the Sailing Inn Health Board, and you've dedicated your life to the betterment and the health of our people.

And for that, we do raise our hands to you.

So that being said, and all my colleagues are shaking their head yes, and everyone signed the proclamation.

So thank you.

All right, not seeing any other comments, let's keep moving on our agenda.

All right, let's move to D on our agenda, that is the approval of the consent calendar.

So we will now consider the proposed consent calendar.

Are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

All right, not seeing or hearing none, I adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

Clerk, please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Eight in favor and none opposed.

The consent calendar is adopted, and will the clerk please affix my signature to the consent calendar on my behalf?

Moving on to approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll move on to public comment.

I'm going to read some directions, and I'm going to hand it over.

Linda, how many, or Madam Clerk, how many people do we have signed up today?

We have nine signed up today, Council President.

Thank you colleagues at this time we will open the remote public comment period for items on the Seattle Council agenda introduction and referral calendar and the council's work program.

It remains the strong intent of the city.

Council to have remote public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, as a reminder, the City Council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

So I did offer some words last time I heard from a few of my colleagues.

I'm asking that those folks that are signed up that you speak to the city council agenda, the introduction referral calendar, and the council's work program.

And this basically asking you to be respectful and kind and just to get your words and your thoughts across so we can actually listen to you and do something about it.

So with that, Madam Clerk, you can go ahead and start with the speakers if you want to start calling them three at a time.

Oh, wait, you got to do the instructions first.

Then you're going to do a column, correct?

Correct, thank you.

Okay, great, thank you.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered to provide public comment on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when registered and use the ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

Please note this is different from the general meeting list and line ID listed on the agenda.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

Once a speaker's name is called staff will unmute the appropriate microphone.

An automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue.

That is their turn to speak and then the speaker must press star 6 to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin by calling on the first speaker.

Please remember to press star-6 after you hear the prompt if you have been unmuted.

And our first speaker is Howard Gale and Howard is followed by Christie Hufftaker.

Hufftaker.

Thank you.

Hi.

I just want to bring attention to the fact that the line quality in the last couple of weeks is been problematic and it's at the council end.

Good afternoon.

Howard Dale with Seattlestop.org commenting on our failed police accountability system.

Last week Carolyn Bick at the South Seattle Emerald published her 21st article over the last 14 months investigating the failures, malfeasance, and corruption in our police accountability system.

Last week's article reveals, once again, shocking mismanagement and misdeeds that require the city to seek investigations by entities outside of the city, yet the council does nothing.

Despite this, DOJ is allowed to continue to fail to oversight and to release reports on police abuse in 2020, as they've done this week.

Our council member where the newest OIG report continues a tradition of unpaneling 23 participants, 13 of whom come from the SBD or the failed accountability system, five from the academic or business community, with only three selected from the community, none of whom were themselves impacted directly by the police violence of 2010. Reports like these are simply attempts to sanitize the reality of the abuse people in our community have suffered at the hands of the police.

When sanitization fails, our police accountability system simply chooses to ignore things like the person in behavioral crisis killed by the SPD on January 5th, a person deemed so insignificant by our accountability system that now, over two months later, we still do not know his name.

This was the 19th person, 19th, suffering a mental health crisis and wielding either an edge or no weapon at all, murdered by the SPD since the SPD murdered John T. Williams.

Our police accountability system has deemed all of these killings when investigated, quote, lawful and proper, unquote.

We need to build through a city initiative, a police accountability system that provides full community control over city police.

Go to seattlestop.org to find out how at seattlestop.org.

Our next speaker is Christy Huffaker followed by Christopher King.

And Christy, you can start speaking.

Is Christy there?

Or is she just having problems?

She's there.

Now she's showing muted.

Maybe we can go to Christopher King and come back.

Yeah, let's do that, Madam Clerk.

Christopher King, are you there?

Yes, I'm here.

amandita pierce yet uh...

on the cb one two oh two eight three issue uh...

audited claims a measure that the what was paid today but it's uh...

i want to be the early discussion was fascinating as part cherokee but mostly what they call black in the country uh...

by the way i'm a seven-year resident of seattle uh...

former civil rights attorney just like bruce harrell all that anyway uh...

let's discuss the things that happened here now i got back to my lawyer in the nineties uh...

i didn't know if any of them claims of being paid out by the city relates to the $35,000 that his predecessor, Jenny Durkin's lawyers charged the city, which he refused to meet with black cannabis professional beyond corporate.

I'm speaking.

Don't interrupt me.

Okay.

I'm just going on.

Okay.

Uh, met with a black professional, uh, Brianna Corbett and me and fall of 2020. She refused to meet.

Okay.

So all we wanted to do, was to talk about cannabis equity, but instead she refused to do so and refused to provide documents and text messages related to the request.

And that cost the taxpayers $35,000 instead of just meeting with, uh, you know, one of the black pioneers of medical cannabis, Brianna Corbett gave collected.

Okay.

And there are others too I'm talking with.

And so, you know, you have the fact that the city does in fact have an equity and social justice department.

All right.

And so it didn't make sense for the mayor at the time and for every single council member to just ignore the emails requesting a meeting.

Doesn't make sense.

All right.

So now it doesn't, you know, the further impact to the community on what happened with the liquor cannabis board in the city.

These people have valid business licenses.

Many of them are my friends now, and they're gone now.

There are zero black owned cannabis stores in progressive Seattle.

Makes no sense.

Okay.

Now, back in the day, There was a black owned bar named Oscars.

It wasn't black.

Well, it's black owned.

The guy's wife was a German immigrant.

Oscars had a problem with the Liquor Cannabis Board.

They raised the bar, took his license without just cause.

Madam Clerk, Mr. King, can you hold up?

Mr. King, hold on one second.

Can you give Mr. King an additional 10 seconds?

Because he got cut off for a minute there.

Madam Clerk.

Thank you.

OK, go ahead, Mr. King.

And you have an additional.

Uh-huh.

Yes.

So anyway, to sum up, they gave Oscars, ACLU, NAACP, everybody wrote briefs for him, but nobody's helping out these black cannabis people who need lawyers now.

Thank you.

Wow.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Christy Heffaker.

And she is followed by David Haynes, who's not showing his present.

Go ahead, Christy.

Hello, this is this is Christy half acre.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council.

Thank you for the chance to speak.

My name is Christy half acre.

And I have probably worked for the city by serving Seattle City Light for the last 28 years.

And I wanted to just bring to the attention of the council.

And the fact that since I was hired in 1993, I'm one of the proudest my proudest things about working for the City of Seattle was the city valued diversity tolerance and inclusivity.

But after 28 years I am just wanted to share that I have been I am now being fired over the vaccine mandate and I wanted the council to just hear and realize that the lives of the people that they are impacting with this mandate me specifically I am a super healthy, physically fit, very healthy person.

But when I took this decision to my Lord and Savior, my guiding counsel in my life, who is Jesus, Jesus Christ, I prayerfully considered this decision.

And based on my relationship with my Lord and Savior, who is king of my life, it was clear to me that this vaccine was not was not in his plan for my life to put to put this injection in my body.

Because of my sincerely held religious beliefs and my desire to honor my creator I am unable to get this vaccine.

And because of that I have been discriminated against.

I've been segregated.

I have been I've been the victim of hate speech at Seattle City Light.

in ways that I have never seen ever in my 28 years at City Light.

I just wanted the council to know that it's been a huge impact and has caused so much stress and chaos in my family, my kids, where I'm the breadwinner.

The next speaker that we have up is David Haynes, who is showing us not present.

After that, we have Libby Haynes-Markle, who is showing us not present.

The next person is Jeremy Rowan, who is present.

Jeremy, go ahead.

Go ahead, Jeremy.

Well, thanks for your time.

I, like Christy, have been an employee of the city of Chatham since June 20th of 2000 in a similar situation.

It is, I was really proud when I got hired on the city of Seattle to work in a service city.

And it is my desire to continue to work for the city.

Positions like mine in surrounding areas have been able to be accommodated and continue to work.

And I would like just the opportunity to finish my career working at Chelsea Light and would like to Um, it is hard to, to have such a time of serving the city without having even a letter of reprimand or complaints from any system, um, to be asked to no longer be in the workforce.

Um, as a, also a healthy individual who has a clean belt health and has for many years.

And I would really love to continue this.

It is, like Chrissy said, quite a lot of stress on my family and is looking at potentially having to leave the area.

Please consider either pulling with an accommodation process that does actually have accommodations or trying to review this as an individual basis and try to find out ways that we can continue to work and serve the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeremy.

The next two speakers that we have up is James Shelton and Jane Williams.

And they're both showing us not present.

So Council President, that's the end of the list of everybody that is present to speak.

OK, so we had nine people signed up and five of them spoke.

Four spoke.

I misspoke.

There was eight people signed up.

Oh, OK.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you for those of you that called in.

And I appreciate you speaking to the issues in front of us today.

We reached the end of our list of our speakers.

And so with that, public comment is now closed.

And we will move on to our agenda to committee reports.

So today, we have three items.

One from the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light with Council Member Nelson.

Number two from the Land Use Committee for Council Member Strauss, and number three from the Public Safety Human Services Committee, that would be Council Member Herboldt.

I understand we're gonna start with item number one, which is Council Member Nelson, but Madam Clerk, will you please read it to the record?

The report of the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee, agenda item one, Council Bill 120-278, relating to the City Light Department, authorizing the Mayor and the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of City Light to execute a memorandum of agreement between the City of Seattle, the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, and the National Park Service.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Nelson.

Yes, so as the title so aptly conveys, this legislation does concern the transfer of about 300 pre-contact artifacts.

that were found during the 2013 restoration project of the New Halem Gorge Inn.

And that is property that is owned by City Light.

And so this legislation transfers the ownership and curation to the Upper Skagit Tribe where it was determined through ethnographic research that the upper Skagit tribe had a permanent settlement during the time that these artifacts date from.

And so these artifacts are right now at the National Park Visitor Center there, and they would remain there or they could be moved.

That is up to the tribe.

And this simply executes an agreement that transfers the ownership from the city to the tribe.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Are there any questions that anyone would have to Council Member Nelson regarding this item?

Okay, not seeing any.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation?

Madam Clerk, can you please read item two into the record?

Report of the Land Use Committee, Agenda Item 2, Council Bill 120-266, relating to land use and zoning, amending sections 23.47A.012 and 23.47A.013 of the Seattle Municipal Code to allow for transfer of development potential or transfer of development rights in the NC3200 and the NC3P200 zones.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Strauss, you're the chair of this committee.

Thank you, Council President.

As Linda mentioned, Council Bill 120266 relates to land use and zoning in the NC3200 and NC3P200 zones.

Transfer of Development Rights, TDR, or Transfer of Development Potential, TDP, are programs that allow properties in TDR eligible areas to sell their unused development rights to another site, allowing that site to build a larger floor area than would otherwise be permitted.

TDR is often used by landmark buildings to finance maintenance and other costs because as a landmark, they can't necessarily grow their building and they need additional dollars to keep their historic building in place.

TDR is only applied in certain areas in certain zones, primarily in urban centers like University District and downtown.

TDR is allowed in First Hill, but not currently allowed in the neighborhood commercial 3 and 200, 3 to 200 zones.

This legislation would allow for TDR to occur in NC3200 and NC3P200 zones, During committee, central staff member Lish Whitson showed a map that described these words better than any words can describe because what you see are most zones allowing for this and then a very narrow sliver not allowing.

And so this legislation would allow for TDR in that little sliver on First Hill.

The legislation does include restrictions.

including that the site receiving the TDR must be on the same block as the site selling the TDR.

The development receiving the TDR has a height limit of 350 feet and the total floor area gained through TDR cannot be more than 110,526 square feet.

There's only one landmark site in the NC3200 zone that currently would be eligible to sell TDR legislation under this legislation, and that's the Sorrento Hotel.

And there are other landmark eligible sites in the zone that could become eligible to sell TDR if they are landmarked in the future.

Council President and colleagues, that is the committee report.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any comments or concerns or questions that we want to ask Council Member Strauss?

Okay, not seen any.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

And will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation?

Our last item is from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Madam Clerk, will you please read it to the record?

The report of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, agenda item three, council bill 12277, relating to grant funds from non-city sources, authorizing the Seattle Police Department to accept specified grants and execute related agreements for and on behalf of the city amending ordinance 126 490, which adopted the 2022 budget, changing appropriations to the Seattle Police Department and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Councilmember Herbold?

Thank you so much.

As described in council briefings yesterday afternoon and discussed in the Public Safety and Human Services Committee last week.

The bill accepts $1.3 million in U.S.

Department of Justice grants for funding to maintain two task forces.

The first is the Northwest Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and the funding is to address technology-facilitated child exploitation.

The second task force is the Human trafficking task force.

These grants normally would have been included in a fourth quarter supplemental bill, but there was not a fourth quarter supplemental bill in 2021, and consequently this bill is being put forward now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any questions or comments that we have for Council Member Herbold as chair of the committee?

All right, not seeing any.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Eight in favor and opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation?

So with that, I think we've covered our three items.

Going into, is there any other business before Seattle City Council today, this afternoon?

All right, before we adjourn, colleagues, we will meet again March 22nd at 2 o'clock.

We are now adjourned.

Thank you.