Seattle City Council Briefing 3/31/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is March 31st, 2025. The council briefing meeting will come to order and the time is 2.02.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Solomon?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Present.

President Nelson.

Present.

Eight present.

Thank you very much.

All right.

If there's no objection, the minutes of March 24th, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Okay, we've got one proclamation, two presentations, and one executive session today.

I should reverse that order.

We've got two presentations, one proclamation, and an executive session today.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are 13 items on the introduction and referral calendar.

Council Bill 120961, the weekly payment ordinance.

Council Bill 120962, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning amending chapter There are a lot of numbers here.

Let's see, this has to do with rezoning of a property on Fremont Avenue North from neighborhood residential three to low rise two.

You can go ahead and look at the, or the IRC that's published today.

Council Bill 120963, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning adopting new major institution master plan for the University of Washington Medical Center.

And 10 appointments, five to the Urban Forestry Commission and five to the Seattle Design Commission.

And then the consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance and eight items, six appointments to the Housing and Human Services Committee, Commission maybe, two appointments to the Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee.

And there's one piece of legislation from committees, Resolution 32167 from the Public Safety Committee.

It's sponsored by Councilmember Saka and was recommended from the committee last week.

All right.

Moving right along with our next item, we've got our weekly state legislative session update.

And I will call the, and I note that today OIR is virtual.

That's why we don't see the director here.

with us in person.

But I would like to welcome you all again.

Thank you very much for doing so much for us down there in Olympia.

And you're welcome to introduce yourselves again and begin your presentation.

Good afternoon, Council President Nelson and council members.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Meena Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by our State Legislative Affairs Director, Ana Johnson.

Samira is out of the office today.

With less than one month left of the 2025 regular legislative session, the deadline for bills to be voted out of policy committees is Wednesday, April 2nd.

After this date, there is a very tight six-day turnaround for bills that have an impact on the state budget to be voted out of fiscal committees.

And this brief window of time means that lawmakers will have to act quickly to ensure that bills with fiscal implications but are not necessary to implement the budget receive the necessary attention before they can move forward in the process.

So today's briefing will focus on the recently released House and Senate Democrats operating and transportation budgets.

But before we dive into the policies, let's briefly recall how we got to this point in budget process.

The process began in the interim last fall when state agencies submitted funding requests to the Office of Financial Management or OFM.

AND BY LAW, THE CURRENT GOVERNOR MUST THEN PROPOSE A FOUR-YEAR BUDGET IN DECEMBER THAT DOES NOT ASSUME NEW REVENUE OR CHANGES TO EXISTING LAW.

SO THE INITIAL PROPOSAL WAS DRAFTED BY FORMER GOVERNOR INSLEY'S TEAM AND KNOWN AS BOOK ONE BUDGET, WHICH WAS THE STARTING POINT THAT INCLUDED THE 12 BILLION IN CUTS.

THE LEGISLATURE IS CONSTITUTIONALLY REQUIRED TO PASS A BALANCED BUDGET.

So they are using that as the foundation for negotiations.

And in January, when session began and the governor's budget was read in as the 2025-2027 operating AND TRANSPORTATION BILLS.

WE ALL SAW THE PUBLIC HEARINGS HELD.

IN FEBRUARY, BUDGET REQUESTS WERE SUBMITTED TO LEGISLATORS IN BOTH CHAMBERS FOLLOWING THE RECENT REVENUE FORECAST.

WASHINGTON'S HOUSE AND SENATE DEMOCRATS RELEASED THEIR OPERATING BUDGETS LAST MONDAY.

Both budgets hinge on significant new tax revenues over the next four years, $17 billion in the Senate's plan and $15 billion in the House's plan.

And the next step is for each chamber to pass the budget off their floor and establish conference committees.

These committees meet and negotiate throughout April to refuse or accept the other chamber's proposals.

and the final budget must be approved by signee die on April 27th.

And before then the committee must adopt conference committee reports, which are really the final budgets or the state could face a special session.

So all that needs to be done by April 27th.

And then of course the governor must sign it.

And then on July 1st, the state's fiscal year would begin.

So in short, the state is facing some very hard decisions, and I will turn it over to Ana to get into the details of the revenue and budget proposals.

There's a lot of information to absorb, and we're interested in hearing your feedback about the budgets and revenue proposals both today and in our regular check-ins with your offices.

So thank you, Ana.

Yeah, so jumping in today, we're not going to be able to cover every section of the operating budget, but we wanted to focus on where the House and Senate landed in the issues that are specific to our legislative agenda and where it's most impactful to local government.

um last year or last week you might remember we went over some of the operating budget um revenue proposals the house and senate differ um quite a bit so the house is proposing a financial intangibles tax a property tax lift and a bno surcharge whereas the senate is proposing a financial intangibles tax a payroll expense tax a property tax lift they are going to repeal some tax preferences and then also provide a sales tax cut So in terms of spending for public safety, starting with a few areas where the Senate and House are very similar, both the Senate and House fund the municipal criminal justice account, which is a account that funnels from the state to local governments on a per capita basis.

They funded at the same amount, a little over 60 million.

They both fund 23 new basic law enforcement classes, two per year in each of the new four regional academies, Arlington, Pasco, Spokane, and Vancouver, and then the remaining classes in Burien.

They also reinstate the 25% local match for sending new recruits to BLEA, so that means 25% of the costs for sending the recruits to BLEA are covered by the local government.

And then both the House and the Senate include a $4 million grant program to the Association of Washington Cities to fund alternative response programs around the state.

A few areas where the Senate and House operating budgets differ for public safety is that the House includes a $25 million grant program for supporting recruitment, hiring, and retention of law enforcement officers and co-responders.

This is associated with House Bill 2015, which has been a city priority throughout the legislative process that has passed the House but is under consideration by the Senate now.

Both the House and Senate include almost $1 million for public defense grants that goes to cities.

The Senate includes an additional $2 million for grants for cities as well.

Both budgets include a little bit over $1 million to help decrease the case back load for Washington State Patrol Toxicology Lab.

The House also includes a $4.5 million grant program for a law enforcement assisted diversion program.

So LEAD, that is a grant program through the Health Care Authority.

And the House also includes the Recovery Navigator program run out of the county BHSOs.

For behavioral health, a lot of similarities here, varying amounts, but both budgets include money for clubhouse programs, money for substance use disorder peer support services, dollars for health engagement hubs, money to help increase the administration of buprenorphine, The Senate also includes funding for crisis triage or relief centers, as well as money for local behavioral health mobile crisis teams.

And then the House includes about $60 million for supporting the housing needs of individuals with behavioral health disorders.

And so those are kind of the main differences in the behavioral health section of the budget.

For housing and homelessness, a few areas where the budgets are very similar, both budgets fund about $200 million for the Covenant Home Ownership Program, a little over $130 million for Housing and Essential Needs Program, $111 million for grants for local governments and non-government organizations for homelessness, housing programs, and services.

Both budgets include $90 million for transitioning those who are living in encampments to safer housing.

The Senate budget includes about $78 million for grants for local government to maintain programs impacted by the loss of document recording fees.

Document recording fees are one of the main revenue sources that goes towards homelessness programs as well as operations and maintenance for affordable housing programs.

The Senate includes it at $77 million, whereas the House includes it at a higher amount of $117 million.

Some other areas for housing and homelessness, both budgets include 62 million for grants to support the operation and maintenance cost of permanent supportive housing.

Both budgets include about 26, 27 million for homelessness supports to families, youth, and that for prevention and diversion to homelessness.

Both budgets include around 22, 23 million for emergency housing and rental assistance for unhoused individuals.

The Senate budget includes a higher amount of 14 million for the consolidated homelessness grant program, whereas the House funds it at 6.5 million.

And then the Senate includes 5.4 million for foreclosure prevention assistance, whereas the House funds it at 1.2 million.

A couple more miscellaneous items here.

So both the Senate and House essentially propose a sweep, a quote unquote sweep of the public works assistance account.

This account essentially funds your traditional public works, water, waste, roads, bridges that SDOT and SPU have utilized in the past.

The Senate is sweeping about 165 million to the general fund for fiscal year, state fiscal year 2026. and then a transfer back to the Public Works Assistance Account from the General Fund in 2027. The House is sweeping about $288 million from the Public Works Assistance Account to the General Fund just for fiscal year 2026. The Senate budget also includes about $5 million to support local government in siting and permitting clean energy projects.

The House also includes that at $6 million, and then the House also includes $20.5 million to assist public building owners with energy audits.

So that covers the highlights in the operating budget.

Today, we also sent out the AWC budget matrix, which has a lot more detail that you can review.

And if you have any questions, we're happy to chat offline about some of the other funding areas.

So moving on to the transportation budget, both the House and the Senate's transportation budgets balance the budget and address the $1 billion shortfall over the next two years.

However, like the operating budget, the House and Senate both take different approaches to the revenue.

So the House is proposing a $0.09 gas tax increase indexed to inflation, and cities get about 6% of that new revenue increase.

They're also proposing an annual highway use fee that's based on car fuel economy and then also increasing the vehicle sales tax from 0.3% to 1%.

The Senate is proposing a kind of menu of different revenue options here, kind of all across the board.

So a $0.06 gas tax increase, there's no share to cities, a 0.3 sales tax transfer from the general fund to the transportation budget, an EV registration fee, luxury vehicle fee, rental car and peer-to-peer sharing car, tax increases, driver's license fee increase, a $10 traffic infraction assessment, 10% e-bike surcharge fee, and $1 per attendee assessment on large events over 20,000 attendees.

In terms of spending, the Senate transportation budget includes 83 million for safe routes to schools, same with the House.

The Senate includes 87 million for pedestrian and bicycle safety, whereas the House includes 82 million.

And then the Senate includes 8 million to address homeless encampments on state-owned rights-of-way.

And the House includes 9.2 million to address homelessness encampments on state rights-of-way.

And there's included in that budget is a dedicated $1 million for City of Seattle.

And then finally, I just want to highlight some of the World Cup funding.

This is both in the transportation and in the operating budget.

So the Senate transportation budget includes $8.2 million for WSDOT maintenance and operations, $8 million for public transit service enhancements, $8.4 million for transportation operation activities, $2 million for transportation management and support, $2 million for bike and pedestrian improvements, and $1 million of that, including $1 million for City of Seattle.

And then in the operating budget is included $5.5 million for safety and security investments, as well as $1 million for business assistance.

In the house transportation budget, there is $6 million for public transit service enhancements, $6 million for King County water taxi and Kitsap passenger ferry service enhancements, as well as the 1 million for business assistance in the operating budget.

so that concludes the some of the highlights for the operating and transportation budget which was kind of the main focus for today's presentation we also included here for your reference an update on all of our seattle priority bills just to make sure you're tracking as mina mentioned the next cutoff is this wednesday meaning policy bills will need to make it out of the opposite policy committee by wednesday so everything is looking in pretty solid shape but if you wanted to look further at the slides today just to check on wherever priorities are standing as of today we have included all of these tables for your reference and then what to watch this week today both the house and the senate capital budgets are going to get released and we'll update you more about that at our next briefing um we're also having a couple hearings in our priorities so today the senate transportation committee is hearing house bill 1423 which is the automated noise enforcement camera bill later this week their senate transportation committee is also hearing house bill 1774 which is a bill that allows wash dot to lease their land for public benefit at lower than market value we've got the cutoff this wednesday and then also looking to the next cutoff which is next tuesday is the opposite chamber fiscal cutoff and with that i think we can take any questions um thank you so much

Thank you very much.

I will open the floor for Councilmember questions.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson, Director Hashimi.

Thank you so much for your weekly update.

I know it's in the new phase here of what we're going through in terms of Olympia.

I just wanted to highlight a couple things.

One is, it's really important the functional, a functional criminal justice system, a functional public safety system.

And I really want to highlight the toxicology lab, for example.

That is very important to work through the issues that we're facing in the criminal justice system.

And it has huge impacts across the board and really goes to what we're trying to accomplish in the Public Safety Committee and more broadly in the Council.

And we need to support programs like that.

Tied to that is the recovery Navigator program.

Um, that's very important too, because what we're trying to do with public safety, you know, we're trying to push public safety and we're also pushing human services, you know, we're pushing the traditional pieces with, you know, police and fire, but we're also trying to do the alternative response and evolve it and move forward.

Um, like with our care department or the community response teams, you know, and, and then tied to this is the, you know, you know, the, the idea of the recovery navigation program.

So I just wanted to, as chair of the public safety, throw my support behind that program as well, because it's really important in terms of the overall architecture that we're trying to build here, which is really a model, I should add, for the entire country, never mind our state.

And on the behavioral health, again, I always talk about public safety, human services, we need both.

behavioral buprenorphine.

I just wanted to give a shout out to the hard work our Seattle Fire Department has done on this front in terms of bringing this capability to our streets, which is making a huge difference for our city.

And so that's another thing.

I don't think there's any issues with that one.

But that is a success story, and I think you can just point to the Seattle Fire Department when you're in discussions in Olympia and show how important it is, because it's being done right now on our streets.

So thank you very much for the update.

And again, please push, and we'll do our part two regarding the recovery navigation program and toxicology lab.

Thank you so much.

I'm not seeing any other hand.

Hold on a second.

I have a question about the recovery navigator program.

Could you describe that a little bit more?

You know, part of this is, you know, the public safety challenges that we're seeing on our street, you know, have this home, it's what we talk about, public safety, public health, and homelessness.

And then we have those individuals, because of the circumstances, who are in crisis, and we need to help them.

If they don't get the help, if they're not helped in that navigation to help, this is like the LEAD program, the law enforcement assisted diversion, the overall PDA, purpose and dignity and action.

you know, the work that they're doing and working with other organizations as well.

It's about getting them to that treatment because otherwise circumstances will dictate because of the the pieces with addiction and so forth, that they may go into some of the public safety challenges that we're seeing.

And it's sad.

Once we have a drug market, we have a stolen goods market.

I've said this a million times.

And so we need to address these things earlier and to assist on this side.

So we're not always going on the more traditional public safety side.

the recovery navigation program and similar programs, the care department, the crisis response team, I saw that in the update as well, to be more effective.

So thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

That brings to mind the, there was an article in the paper this past weekend, and I didn't ask that question to be able to show and tell this, but it's talking about pilot program to expand access to private substance use treatment.

That was something that I got in the budget years ago, but we can't, anything that can streamline access to comprehensive on-demand treatment is really important, too, because People that don't have insurance or who only have Medicaid often are on waiting lists to get into treatment.

And in that amount of time while waiting can sometimes succumb to overdose, fatal overdose.

Council President, can I follow up on that?

Because I did read that article as well.

And I think that article is really important because it highlights, again, having this ecosystem, this architecture of different types of organizations working and pressing and moving forward the navigation point that I just mentioned.

And that article that they talked about, We Heart Seattle.

And I think that's important too, because we do have to have this mix of organizations and approaches in order to, to see what is effective, because obviously each case is an individual case, and so in some cases, the WeHeart Seattle model may work better, as noted in the article, and in other cases, some of the other organizations and what we have going right now.

So that's an important article, and it goes straight to the same topic, so thank you.

Right.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, OIR team, for your incredible work.

Session moves fast, and it is certainly not an easy time, so your work is very, very much appreciated.

And thank you for presenting on some of the progressive revenue proposals on the Council-approved legislative agenda.

You know, we included language in there to encourage the legislature to look first at some progressive revenue proposals.

instead of looking towards options that might have a disproportionately higher burden on working families.

And so encouraged to see these proposals come forward.

And I've also learned over the past couple of days about some lobbying efforts specifically against the proposed bills, particularly a letter from a couple of cities around King County.

So I'm wondering if you can speak to a little bit about some of what you've seen on that front, as well as what is some of the justification they're providing, and are they proposing alternatives that you're hearing about, or is this an endorsement of some of the cuts that might be associated with an all-cuts budget?

Thanks for that question.

Yeah, there was on Friday, I believe, a press conference of a number of regional mayors, I think about 12 or 15 or so, don't quote me on that, but somewhere in that region, opposing both the payroll expense tax that the Senate is considering as well as a B&O surcharge.

And I can't speak to all of the interests and priorities of that coalition of mayors.

So I'll just say that what I learned from their letter is that they're opposing those pieces of legislation, but I cannot speak to essentially what alternative they might be proposing or what type of endorsement of budget cuts or not they are interested in.

So for that, that's all the information I have, but thanks for flagging that.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you for that.

I think as we've discussed in these briefings before, just the deeper all cuts budget that has been laid out would have devastating consequences for our entire state and many residents already at the margins.

And so would love to as this develops and there's more momentum against some of these proposals would like to just continue to receive updates on them.

Again, thank you for your work.

And thank you, Council President.

Well, speaking of that, what are the cuts that are being proposed?

Yeah, that's a good question.

So about a month or a month and a half into session, Governor Ferguson asked all of his agencies to do a budget reduction exercise, and he released all of those reductions.

And what we saw is reductions in health care access, reductions in food, food assistance access.

We saw behavioral health funding, recovery navigator funding reduced, the law enforcement assisted diversion grants reduced.

We're also seeing major delays in early learning and child care subsidy expansion that is going along with the Fair Start for Kids Act, as well as possible proposals around furloughing state employees.

So what we saw in the House and Senate budgets is that they took an approach of some cuts as well as some proposed new revenue.

So for the Senate, they are delaying the implementation of early learning and child care expansion, as well as proposing furloughs for state employees.

They're also dipping into some of the state reserves, whereas the House is not proposing the state furloughs, but they also are delaying some of those.

early learning child care programs, as well as not fully funding kind of the K through 12 issues that are so hot topics this session.

I also know that each kind of chamber took their own approach, as you can see in our slides, like there's varying amounts that I KNOW SOME WERE TRYING TO DO MINIMAL CUTS ACROSS THE BOARD, SO LIKE WHAT WE SAW IN THE HOUSE WAS LOWER REDUCTIONS, BUT KIND OF EVERYTHING GOT IN A REDUCTION, OR WHEREAS THE HOUSE MAYBE, THE SENATE MAYBE JUST CHOSE NOT TO FUND PROGRAMS LIKE LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTED DIVERSION AND RECOVERING NAVIGATORS.

SO IT'S VERY VARYING ACROSS THE BOARD, AND I THINK both the House and Senate were just taking different approaches of how they're going to balance both maintaining needs in the community and across the state while also maintaining a balanced budget.

So that's kind of some of the challenges that's ahead for the state over the next month as they negotiate all these details.

Got it.

I have a specific question.

Um, it regards, let's see, page.

Four.

And, um, the third bullet point under the House operating revenue proposal.

It says B&O surcharge, a 1% B&O surcharge on businesses with a taxical income of over 250 million.

B&O is levied on gross revenue, correct?

So are they looking at gross revenue and then trying to figure out the taxable income of those companies?

And if so, what is the gross revenue floor for companies that this would be subject to?

Thanks for that question.

I think we'll have to go review the bill and get back to you over email on that one, if you don't mind.

OK.

And then I had a question on, oh yeah, page 10. The transfers from the PWAA How much is in there right now?

Because it's hard for me to understand is 165 million or 288 million transfer, is that a lot or a little?

So what is the base amount that's...

Let me just pull that up for you.

It's a sizable amount that they are proposing to transfer to the general fund.

If I had to generalize, it is a concerning amount.

I don't know what the baseline is off the top of my head, but I can also get back to you about that.

Thanks.

That's it for my questions, or at least the ones that I'll take up everybody's time asking.

Are there any others?

All right, you might be hearing from us on a one-on-one basis, but thank you very much for your work down there.

And just let us know if there's anything that we should get engaged in that you need some help on when it comes to our legislative agenda priorities.

Thanks.

Absolutely, thank you.

All right, moving to our next presentation.

Thank you very much.

This is the FIFA World Cup briefing.

So we talk about this all the time at the dais and now we are going to have representatives from the organization of the group that is the inter-jurisdictional group that is digging into all these details.

So please introduce yourselves and feel free to begin.

Thank you, Council President, Deputy Mayor Greg Wong from the mayor's office.

I'll start with our introductions with the team at the table.

Hello, my name is Kylie Rolfe.

I am the director of World Cup operations in the mayor's office.

And hi, April Putney, I'm the Chief Strategy Officer for the Seattle FIFO World Cup Local Organizing Committee.

Thank you.

Well, we're delighted to be in front of you today.

I know that, as you mentioned, Council President, World Cup has talked about a lot.

And in fact, it's been around, talked about in this city for about seven years now.

But we're getting close to it.

We're still a little bit more than a year out.

So we wanted to come to you to be able to give you kind of a point in time briefing on where things are at for planning, because I know that you're asked about it quite a bit and need insight and oversight on it as well.

Because it's a very broad planning effort across multiple city departments, the mayor's office has a role.

As Kylie mentioned, she's our specific director of World Cup operations, and I work on it frequently as well.

I know some of you have already been briefed on World Cup and some of you are newer to it.

So we will go over a little bit of the background on it.

But just to go back in time a little bit, it was in 2018 that the city originally put in its bid to FIFA to be one of the host cities for the 2026 World Cup.

And we were fortunate enough to learn that we were awarded that bid along with a number of other North American cities and what is the world's largest sporting event.

And this is a very exciting endeavor indeed.

In 2023, we entered into a mutual support and collaboration agreement with what's known as our local organizing committee.

FIFA, while it recognizes that cities are the host cities, they also understand in this model that cities sometimes are not uniquely qualified to host a global sporting event.

And so it anticipated the setting up of independent local organizing committees that would essentially do most of the work of putting on the event.

And we'll talk a little bit about what that means in just a minute here.

But we want to let you know that we are working very closely with our local organizing committee.

This is going to take a lot of work, both on behalf of the city of Seattle as a city and our greater region.

And one thing I want to make sure that I'm emphasizing, because I do it in all times that I speak about the World Cup, is that this is an amazing opportunity for us as a city.

I don't want to say this too lightly, but a generational opportunity.

There's only so many times in our city's history where we get the eyes of the world on us.

And we're talking about billions of eyes that will be on the city of Seattle in the summer of 2026 as one of the host cities.

And we are excited to not only put on an amazing World Cup for those fans, for those people watching, but for the people of Seattle as well.

One thing I always let our communities know is that I want this to be one of the biggest points of history.

for the people of Seattle in their lifetime.

I want adults and kids to be able to look back and say, I remember the thing I did in Seattle in 2026 for the World Cup, much like people still talk about the World's Fair.

And so with that, we're going to go through a number of the point in time updates on where we are in planning.

And we just look forward to sharing that with you.

So with that, we'll go over background, planning goals, and moving forward.

And I'll hand it over to Kylie.

Thank you.

Yeah, so just to ground us a little bit in what we're talking about here, we are 436 days away, but who's counting, from hosting the largest sporting event ever staged.

The 2026 Men's World Cup, for the first time, the footprint of that tournament has dramatically expanded to span three countries, 16 host cities, and 48 teams.

So the tournament will include 104 games with the opening match taking place on June 11th in Mexico City and concluding with the final on July 19th in New York, New Jersey.

Vancouver, BC is our closest host city just right up the way.

And importantly, the tournament does overlap with our country's 205th birthday on the 4th of July.

Globally, there's estimated to be about three billion viewers for the final match, and we are anticipating about six million plus ticketed visitors to the United States.

And while Seattle will be the central hub of activity with the matches and official fan celebration taking place here, their tournament really is a statewide undertaking.

The University of Washington and Seattle University will serve as practice fields for the teams that play here.

We have also officially proposed two locations for potential team base camps.

Team base camps are essentially chosen by the teams playing in the tournament and serve as their kind of home away from home for the duration of the group stage.

The two locations that we have officially submitted as options for teams to choose from are the Sounders Clubhouse in Renton and Gonzaga University in Spokane.

So those teams will be making their selections of base camps following what's called the draw, where we find out who is going where.

And that will happen late this year, anticipated to be in December, with teams selecting their base camps shortly afterwards.

We have no way of knowing if one or both of these locations will be selected, but I think given the world-class facility that we have down in Renton, I think we're feeling pretty good that at least one of these locations will be chosen.

Teams are expected to arrive in late May and early June to their base camps.

So, and then in addition to the official fan celebration at Seattle Center, which we'll talk about here in a little bit, the local organizing committee also announced earlier this year that they'll be partnering with nine locations across the state.

You can see them here on the map to host fan zones, which are essentially mini fan celebrations aimed at ensuring that as many Washingtonians as possible can be a part of the games.

So specific locations and programming And each of those areas will be announced prior to the tournament.

They're in planning mode right now.

As I said, our closest host city is Vancouver, BC.

So we are expecting up to 1.6 million visitors between the two cities over the course of the tournament.

And here locally, our initial projection is that we will see up to 750,000 visitors over the three weeks that the tournament is here just in the city of Seattle.

And here you can see our full match schedule.

We are hosting six matches, two in the knockout round and four in the group stage.

Of note, we're excited to host a match on Juneteenth, welcoming the US Men's National Team.

That's gonna be a big one.

And then another match on June 26th, which kicks off Pride weekend.

Our local organizing committee has been working closely with other venues in the area, and there will be no dual event days for Mariners and World Cup.

And then a quick note on the Club World Cup, not to be confused with what we're talking about today, which is the World Cup in 2026. We are hosting a series of Club World Cup games this year, beginning in June.

These are anticipated really to be more like a Seahawks game than a World Cup 2026 match.

Planning is still obviously important there and underway, but just...

they are not anticipated to be at the scope and scale of what we're looking at in 2026. And with that, I'm gonna kick it over to April to talk a little bit about our overall structure and touch on some of the local organizing committee initiatives.

Thanks.

As Deputy Mayor Wong mentioned, it really does sort of take a village to put on the world's largest event.

So we just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page as to who's playing what role.

FIFA obviously continues to play the role of handling everything that's gonna happen inside the stadium itself.

They're also helping to support at an international continental coordination level and in conversations with federal governments really focused on ensuring that customs and visas are appropriately situated so that fans and players and workers can be here.

And then there's our organization.

We're the nonprofit, as the Mayor Wong mentioned, that was created for the sole purpose of getting our region ready for hosting this event.

But we wanted to make sure that we do that with our values in mind, and I'll get to that in a minute.

We're really focused on everything that's happening outside of the stadium, making sure that there's a great and safe and fun experience and atmosphere for fans and for our community residents as well.

And then our governmental partners like the city Continue to do your normal governmental things, providing your everyday services and enhanced services in some cases.

And then we have tremendous partners like First and Goal, Lumen Field, Visit Seattle, who are all working to help make sure that we have a facility where the games can be played and that support marketing internationally so that fans choose to be here.

I mentioned a little bit about our desire as an organization.

Although we were created for the sole purpose of hosting the World Cup and getting our region ready, we wanted to make sure that we are doing that in light of and consistent with our region's values and our state's values.

And so these are the six legacy pillars.

Human rights, accessibility, and sustainability are three pillars that unite all 16 host cities.

And then children, culture, and community are three additional ones that we've added here locally.

Every part of what we're working on, we really sort of make sure that we are hitting on these legacy values along the way, both in terms of how we are setting up and organizing and how we're being intentional about creating opportunity, as well as being intentional about using this global spotlight.

As Deputy Mayor Wong mentioned, it is unusual and infrequent that we have the opportunity and we know in advance that we are going to have the world's focus.

And we have that here, and we are really excited to leverage that moment for our community for a lasting, positive legacy.

And so you've probably have seen the numbers.

Our partners at Visit Seattle worked with Tourism Economics, which is a division of Oxford Economics, to put together a preliminary economic impact statement.

Just in King County alone, the early analysis is that we expect to see nearly a billion dollars of economic revenue and impact with more than $100 million in direct state and local tax revenues generated.

There's an additional $68 million of federal tax revenue that is projected to be generated here.

In addition to those great numbers, there's nearly 21,000 jobs that are locally supported by the World Cup here between now and the games themselves.

I mentioned wanting to be intentional and really making sure that we are sharing that prosperity, learning from past mega events about what's worked well, what's needed improvement.

And we have put together a three-part small business initiative to help make sure that more businesses have the opportunity to participate in this.

And I'll start outward and work my way down.

So at the state level, we are working with the Seattle Chamber, who is putting together a toolkit, or a playbook, rather, for small businesses.

They're just going to share a bunch of information about things they may want to be thinking about.

And again, that's really aimed statewide.

At the local level, thanks to funding from King County, The chamber is working with their community connector program to provide technical assistance to businesses across the county, inclusive of here in Seattle.

And then here in Seattle in particular, in the stadium neighborhoods with Soto, Pioneer Square, and Chinatown International District, we are really working to fund them to be able to hire World Cup liaisons that can provide one-on-one technical assistance to the businesses in those neighborhoods and find out what is it that they need so we can also be responsive to that.

And really just wanting to make sure that we are doing everything we can to help get people across the neighborhoods, in particular in the areas that bear most of the brunt of the impacts of having mega events.

And then I'll talk to the labor on the next slide.

Go ahead.

One of the other ways that we are working to help disperse tourism and really encourage people to be shopping locally and visiting all areas of the community here in Seattle, as well as across the state in those fan zones that Kylie mentioned, is we're working on an augmented reality app that is specific to the Seattle World Cup experience.

And this is a partnership with small businesses and tourism agencies across the state and really wanting to focus, here are places that you should go and visit.

And it'll be something that is available in the spring of next year in advance.

of the games themselves to encourage people locally to be traveling around, visiting small businesses, as well as fans who are traveling here for the games.

And they'll be able to win access to prizes of World Cup swag and things like that.

One of the values that I know is really important to the city of Seattle is the need to ensure that we are protecting human rights and workers' rights as a part of this organizing plan.

We know that historically with mega events, particularly large sporting events, that there is an increase of trafficking that can happen with people during that period.

And so we are working closely with the nonprofits that are involved in trafficking prevention, as well as the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, FIFA, the city of Seattle, of course, and the hospitality industry writ large.

to ensure that there's going to be trainings that are really specific to the nations that are going to be playing here as to what you should be on the lookout for.

And then more importantly, what are the remedies to be able to help ensure that people are safe?

So that's one of the examples that we'll be working on.

We have several advisory committees that we have stood up or are in the process of standing up.

to ensure that they are providing their expertise and we're not reinventing wheels where we have people that know what they're doing and are really tapped in.

So we are working, we have a Juneteenth and Pride match committee, advisory committee, and then we also have a sustainability, accessibility, and human rights advisory committees as well that are providing input and their expertise in each of those areas.

I did want to take a second to share that this photo is from a signing of the labor standards agreement between the organizing committee and MLK labor for ensuring that all work that is done at Seattle Center for our fan celebration will be done in partnership with the labor unions and making sure that all workers will be receiving a fair and good family wage salary for that work.

And we're really excited to be the only host city so far that has signed an agreement such as this.

Speaking of the Seattle fan celebration at Seattle Center, as Kylie mentioned, this is the primary place that many fans are really going to get to have a World Cup experience.

We're expecting 15,000 to 30,000 people there daily.

I think Kylie had mentioned, specific to Seattle, we think up to 750,000 people will be here.

So the rest will be here because they want to be around the atmosphere and a part of the community.

And this is where we think many of them will be at the Seattle Center.

We are really appreciative of the staff and leadership at the center and their work to get ready, to be ready to accommodate all of these people.

We're working really closely in partnership with the center staff, again, with the resident organizations, and in particular, pride naturalization ceremony and festal Iranian ceremony to make sure that there's not problems with their ability to move forward with their programs as planned.

And then in our vendor work, we're really focused, again, on being intentional about creating opportunities for Washingtonians and Seattle companies And so have worked to make sure that the vendor opportunities are sort of bucketed in such a way that small businesses have an opportunity to participate.

And it's not just a big national multinational company.

Great, thanks April.

So as April just explained, the main kind of official fan celebration will be at Seattle Center.

But one of our core values as a host city is to really create an inclusive experience that facilitates excitement and civic pride for our entire city, not just the visitors that we expect.

So one way we plan to do that is by resourcing community groups and arts and cultural organizations in neighborhoods across the city to put on their own celebrations within their community that's centered on civic and cultural pride, shared humanity, cross-cultural learning, and joy.

As you may recall, Council approved about 500,000 in the 2025 budget for this purpose.

We have a small IDT interdepartmental team working now on the process by which groups can apply and be selected for these community celebration micro grants.

Our aim is to have at least one community celebration in each council district.

We expect to open up RFPs for this sometime this summer with award decisions by early fall, giving folks ample time to plan and prepare to execute on their celebrations by the time the tournament comes.

We will obviously make sure to keep you updated as things progress on this in particular, and we'll really value each of your partnerships.

in making sure that your constituents are aware of these opportunities as they emerge.

And now we're just going to kind of transition into some of the more tactical planning pieces that we're doing as the city and as the local organizing committee.

The first being safety and security.

So obviously ensuring a safe and secure experience for everyone is top priority.

We have an interdepartmental team consisting of key operational departments that are currently developing what's called an overall event operations plan.

So that event operations plan will encompass safety and security procedures, transportation management plans, event support and emergency management functions, and interagency communications, as well as developing the protocol and staffing for a unified event operations center that will be active on game days, at least on game days, over the summer.

it is anticipated to be an offsite from our normal EOC somewhere hopefully closer to the stadium.

And that also allows the EOC to be activated if needed for anything else, non-World Cup related that goes on across the city.

In addition to our internal work, the LOC has about 18 subgroups working on key public safety components and coordinating across all 16 host cities, all of which the city is actively participating in.

One emerging component of our safety planning work brought on, partially by the vehicle attack in New Orleans earlier this year, is an overall city effort to evaluate and secure areas that are particularly vulnerable to vehicle attacks.

We're prioritizing this work first in key World Cup pedestrian public spaces like Seattle Center and Westlake Park.

But we know this all takes funding and resources.

We are currently engaged with the local organizing committee and other agencies to do a gap analysis, which will really inform an eventual mutual statewide mutual aid ask, which is really going to be critical to our ability to host a safe and secure event.

April, do you want to talk a little bit about the budget requests?

Yeah, thank you.

We are working closely with your OAR staff in both DC and in Olympia on funding request, as Anna and Mina mentioned earlier.

There was $5.5 million proposed in the Senate budget for safety and security, and we are working to make sure that that stays.

in the final negotiation.

In the DC, all 11 US host cities are working together both at the city level and in the local organizing level to ensure that our safety and security requests are moving forward.

Collectively, we are seeking $625 million from the federal government with our request here in Seattle at $33 million.

And that helps to make sure that we are fully able to have a safe and secure World Cup in 2026. This is the first time that the nation has had 78 simultaneous SEER rated 1 in 2 events because this event does cross the continent and both coasts.

So it really is an event of national interest and national security.

And it's far beyond anything that any city or state could do on their own.

So that's why we're working together at the national level.

Thank you.

Moving on to transportation.

Our overall goal here is to have 80% of ticket holders arrive without a personal car.

There has been for a while now, extensive coordination and planning with SDOT, Metro, Sound Transit and WSDOT broken up into five transportation working groups convened by the local organizing committee.

So we are working hard to coordinate and plan across all of the relevant agencies to keep people moving during this major event.

SDOT is, starting this year, SDOT will start a series of pavement and accessibility improvements in key areas surrounding the stadium to ready them for the surge in use.

Additionally, during the World Cup, Metro is planning to operate a circulator bus, which will connect Lumen Field, the CID, Waterfront, and Seattle Center for the fan celebration.

And then of course, the Elliott Bay Connector project that is slated to be finished by the World Cup will provide a new walking and biking corridor between Seattle Center and Lumen Field.

So that'll be a great opportunity there.

A little bit on budget requests.

Sure.

At the federal level, we are supporting the city's request that Senator Cantwell, or sorry, Senator Murray and Representative Jayapal had for $2.5 million for Third Avenue revitalization.

And then Senator Cantwell is leading on a national bill to help provide $10 million directly to each host community.

And it would go here to the Puget Sound Regional Council to help address the critical transportation priorities during World Cup that have ongoing benefit as well.

And so that bill is just about to be introduced.

I don't think it has been yet.

And then at the state level, Anna and Mina gave a great summary.

I would just say that the Senate funds it at a slightly higher level and includes the pedestrian improvements.

The Senate funds it at the full $10 million.

The House funded it at $6 million for transit service and no pedestrian improvements.

Thank you.

Let's touch on permitting a little bit.

So taking a cue from ongoing discussions of improvements to our permitting processes for housing and for small businesses, we're also modeling a more streamlined approach to event permitting as well, with the Special Events Office and the Special Events Committee playing a lead role here in citywide management and centralized tracking.

We've been collaborating closely for, almost a year now with the entities we know have complex and time-sensitive permitting needs well ahead of applications coming in to facilitate a seamless approval process.

Those entities are FIFA, of course, for the area within the stadium footprint, the local organizing committee for the fan celebration at Seattle Center, First and Goal and Lumen, for stadium improvements within their walls that they need to make before the tournament, and then both UW and Seattle University for their practice field improvements.

We will also be making improvements to the customer experience of community event permitting.

So aiming to set up a system that can really serve as a one-stop shop for information on what permits are needed for a given event and an easy way to navigate the application process and triage issues.

We know that there will be a lot of event permit requests coming in as we get closer to the tournament from members of the community and community groups.

So really aiming to make that a seamless experience for them as well.

And so now we'll move into a little bit of what we call building for the future.

So a key component of our overall vision of maximizing the unique opportunity that hosting these games presents to our city is to really seize opportunities to use the World Cup as a springboard for civic improvement projects that will provide benefit beyond the games themselves.

So we'll just touch briefly on a few of those here now.

So the map on the left that is showing sort of the central business areas of the downtown Seattle is an area that we're sort of working through to create something called the Unity Loop, which is really sort of taking a step back and recognizing first and foremost the World Cup with the numbers that Kylie shared earlier about how many people are watching and participating in World Cup events.

Men's World Cup in 2026, again, predicting 3 billion people.

That is a huge percentage of the world to all come together during the same 90 minutes to watch a game.

And so we understand that the World Cup is really a unifying moment for our world, for our country, and for our city.

And so really wanting to make sure that the fans who come here and the people that already live here have that same opportunity to enjoy unity.

And this time it's taking advantage and linking up the major arts and cultural institutions that exist in our community already and helping to just tie those together in a more sort of curated pedestrian oriented path, much like the Freedom Trail in Boston.

really trying to market that as something.

Here is a way to see all of the different major arts and cultural institutions.

And it's connected by a ton of street art.

There's, I think, 110 pieces of street art that exist or are already planned between now and the World Cup.

And we're working on adding a few that are specific to the World Cup as well.

So I think just a real great opportunity to make sure that people, again, traveling throughout our community, not just staying at the stadium itself.

And then the photos on the right, you see are two photos from our amazing partners, the Rave Foundation, who have been working to ensure that we can build and open 26 new play fields by 2026. to give children more access to free play across the state.

Not only has the Ray Foundation already succeeded at their goal of building 26 play fields, they have now doubled it and are trying to get an additional 26. And these are two play fields here in Seattle.

The top one is at Yesler Terrace, and the bottom one is down at New Holly.

We will also be making improvements to some of our local infrastructure, including Westlake and Occidental Parks.

They are obviously expected to be major hubs of foot traffic and activation during the games.

Parks and SDOT will undertake a series of safety and accessibility improvements.

at Occidental Park and along Occidental Mall, including trip hazard abatement and electrical lighting upgrades.

Leading up to the games, parks will also identify other opportunities for beautification in those areas.

And then as part of a larger effort around reimagining Westlake Park as a premier gathering activation space in the heart of downtown that's going on with stakeholders now, phase one of that work will really focus on what can be done by the summer of 2026 to get the park ready to welcome the surge of visitors and activations to come.

So a lot of that work centers on opening up the space, getting rid of non-functional or aging infrastructure such as the stage there and the fountain that hasn't worked for a couple of years now, I think.

Installing new specialty planters that also double as protection against vehicle attacks and installation of removable bollards as well.

And then also doing some major trip hazard abatement in that space.

Conversations are ongoing with downtown stakeholders on potential activations and celebration opportunities in both of those spaces but now we're focusing on getting those places safe and open to be able to host whatever activations come our way.

And then finally, our Third Avenue improvements, building off of the momentum from the Third Avenue Spark Block project that was unveiled a few months ago.

Estot is excited to continue that and is using World Cup as a key driving factor.

in continuing that work down the corridor.

So more lights have already been installed, extending from the spark block, excuse me, to Pine Street.

SDOT and Arts are working together to deliver new large-scale art on Third Avenue in front of Benaroya Hall later this year.

So that is the next node to be worked on.

And that...

and we'll continue that process to stand up art installations and public realm improvements at those keynotes moving down the corridor, Westlake Station, Pioneer Square, and 3rd and Jackson all by the summer of 2026. So you should expect to see more art going up this summer with larger pieces coming online this winter in time for the World Cup.

And now we'll just wrap up with a few key dates ahead.

So starting this week on Thursday, would love for you all to join us at our office based in Pioneer Square where we're going to be unveiling the official host city poster for Seattle.

All 16 cities will have their own unique poster and I think almost all of them, we certainly did, worked with local artists to really figure out who can best capture the look and feel of Seattle for the entire world.

So again, that's Thursday at Later this quarter, or sorry, next quarter, as I mentioned, we'll be kicking off the Juneteenth in Pride Advisory Committees.

And then we're really excited that June 9th is the beginning of one week to celebrate being one year out from hosting the World Cup.

It is tremendous to know that it is almost a year out.

And we have a lot of work to do, but I think we're in really good shape for where we want to and need to be in the planning efforts.

And then, of course, the city of Seattle is hosting and mayor is hosting a day of service to celebrate that one year out in the sunnier July, which we are very excited about.

And then we'll be officially launching our volunteer program for the World Cup locally later this summer as well.

And then as Kylie already mentioned, there's a final draw in December, which is when we learn what teams are also going to be playing here in addition to the US men's national team, who we already know is going to be playing here.

It's also one to learn really critical information like what time is the match?

happening locally.

And then sometime in Q4, tickets will also go on sale, as I imagine that that is something you or the folks paying attention on Seattle Channel are gonna ask.

I'll just wrap us up with a couple closing remarks.

Here's some of the information on the screen for the local organizing committee, particularly for folks.

If you have people in your districts or in the community who may want to volunteer in the future, we have a lot of interest in folks wanting to be part of this.

This will be a way to stay updated for people.

You can share this information out in your newsletters as appropriate.

And I think I just want to end on two points.

One is clearly, as you can see, this is a tremendous amount of work.

And I thank both Kylie and all of our city departments and April and the local organizing committee because they're doing this every single day.

What you got today is the most abridged version you can get of the planning efforts.

There's a lot of details.

And as has been said, as we learn more, particularly the draw of which teams are coming in December, we will be pivoting and making sure we're well prepared.

The second thing is I want to kind of circle back on what I started with about this being a moment of civic pride.

I really hope everybody's able to talk about this with all of your constituents in a way that whether people can go to a game, whether they can come to the Fan Fest, wherever they are, I hope that they feel ownership of this event.

and a love for Seattle and being able to share that with people around the world.

It's our time to shine on the world stage and I hope everybody feels that they can take some ownership and be part of that as well as we're all partners in it.

So with that, thank you for your time and welcome any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Looking at my colleagues for any questions.

I'm pulling up my screen to see them.

Okay, I see that there are three hands up.

Council Member Saka, did you already, did you put your hand up first?

Yes, you did.

Okay, go ahead.

All right.

You haven't spoken yet either.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Council President, and thank you, Deputy Mayor Wong, Director Rolfe, and Ms. Putney from the organizing committee here.

I really appreciate this insightful presentation and briefing, and appreciate your your collaboration on a one-on-one basis behind the scenes as well the past year, sharing out this important information with me in my office.

This is a very exciting opportunity that we have, as you all aptly noted, and that we have not just as a city, but as a region and internationally as well.

And for me, my vision is that we have a, for the World Cup next year, not the club World Cup, World Cup light, is that what you're calling it?

But my vision for actual World Cup in 2026 is that we have a safe, fun, vibrant World Cup games that truly showcase our unique arts and cultural scene along with the many wonderful economic opportunities here locally where prosperity and benefits are widely shared and any burden or negative impact is fully minimized and mitigated to the fullest extent possible.

And so I appreciate your work to help address that among other things.

And I know I'm excited for it, not just because the matches themselves happen to be in my council district in Soto, but as we learned throughout the presentation, there's many neighborhoods who are gonna be able to plug in directly through various fan zones, et cetera, watching locations and the like.

And as much hard work that went into, is going into every day, is planning this, I have a question about, I don't know what slide it is, but that first economic benefits sharing prosperity slide where it talks about the local organizing committee small business initiative.

And so, might be slide seven, I don't know.

But that slide where it talks about the LOC Small Business Initiative.

I guess first off, can you talk a little bit more about how the three specific neighborhoods there, so CID, Pioneer Square, Soto, were selected to receive this kind of enhanced recognition and funding, which is really important and impactful recognition, and really prestigious as well.

I've heard from other neighborhoods in my own council district and my senses, my colleagues have heard from certain members of their individual neighborhoods that they represent as well who want a stronger part of the opportunities available.

And so, for example, some of my constituents in Georgetown, in Elkai, in West Seattle, have raised some concerns about this, the concerns, the scope of the concerns, stem from some of the lessons learned from the Taylor Swift weekend, for example, or the All-Star Game, and some of the unintended consequences, if you will, or negative impacts of those events, from massive foot ferry lines, overflowing garbage, lack of public restrooms, And the list goes on and on, but a lack of sanitation, et cetera, et cetera, So just curious to better understand, I guess, first off, can you talk more about how those three neighborhoods for that specific initiative were selected?

And then just more broadly, zooming out more broadly, can you discuss your community outreach and engagement plans for other neighborhoods that are gonna be impacted directly and indirectly as part of this process?

So those two questions, thank you.

Thank you for that question, council member.

And so those three neighborhoods, Chinatown, International District, Pioneer Square, and Soto were selected because they are the three neighborhoods most closest to the stadium.

So they are going to bear the brunt of the impacts that happen when 65,000 people go in and out of that stadium six times over the course of three weeks.

And so really wanting to learn from previous mega events as to what is it that those communities need to be able to help mitigate as well as share the positive impacts as well.

And so that's why we focused our limited economic revenue opportunity or benefit funding for those three neighborhoods.

If we had unlimited funding, we would of course put it in every neighborhood and community in Seattle and across the state really, because we wanna be helping to drive people to communities across the state with up to 750,000 people coming to the region over those three weeks.

it's likely that at least half of them will be from international originations and people who haven't been to Seattle before.

And we want them to have a great first impression and to be able to say it and come back.

So our desire similar to yours that you talked about of wanting to identify mitigations needed and then actually start moving forward in mitigation is why we selected those three neighborhoods in particular.

Overall, in terms of community engagement and conversations, we are always available.

The slide had our email address there, but we are continuing to work through a more pronounced engagement plan so that people have opportunities.

We're working on creating some office hours to be able to sort of on a regular basis where people who can't find whatever they're looking for in some other way can know that they have this time dedicated to reach out to us and help get any questions answered that they may have.

Did you have a follow-up question?

Would you like me to add?

Thank you, April.

And I'll just add on a couple of, kind of on a larger city's perspective.

One of the lessons learned from the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is that fan behavior is actually very hard to predict.

You would think if everybody's going down to the stadium to see an All-Star Game, they'd all stop by all of the places in the CID or Piner Square.

Well, that actually didn't happen the way that maybe we would have thought intuitively it would.

And so I think that one of the things we're looking at for World Cup is, first, how are we making sure we're trying to facilitate that by the neighborhoods that are closest to the stadiums?

And then how are we talking to communities outside of that most impacted area?

the benefits and burdens of World Cup will not be evenly spread throughout the city.

And I think that's something we should acknowledge up front.

We don't know if people are gonna go to Georgetown or if they'll go to View Ridge or wherever they'll go.

They may, they may not.

And that's part of why we're trying to emphasize as a city, we want our own neighborhoods to be able to create celebrations And when we come out, as Kylie mentioned, this summer, hopefully, or perhaps fall, with the RFP, that would really help those communities figure out, how do we make this work for us?

How do we make this a win for us, regardless of what fans do?

We will have suggestions.

We want to get them out to all the neighborhoods.

I know Kylie had a discussion with one of the Alki community leaders about the Taylor Swift ferry lines.

And so we want to understand those issues.

But we also want to make clear that we can all be part of the solution.

We can all be part of communities coming together and we can't work for their community.

And maybe that's as simple as gathering at their Rave Foundation mini-pitch and having a celebration with all the cultures of your community together.

And that could be a way to remember World Cup.

I also want to talk about mitigation of things like trash.

I think that's something, as we start looking at the one-year-out mark, we're starting to think, what's the ramp-up we're going to need?

We certainly know it'll be heavy impact in that Seattle Center to Stadium area, as that's where most of the fans will be and most of the visitors will be.

But if there's issues in other communities that you're seeing, you know, overloaded trash cans, things like that, that you know happened in other mega events, please let Kylie know and we'll work with our departments to figure out are there areas that need, for example, extra trash runs during that three week period.

We want to make sure the departments are working for all of the people in Seattle to make it to mitigate those harms as much as possible.

And I would also just add on that same IDT that is coming up with the process for how we resource communities to put on their own celebrations, it is also top of mind for them to develop an outreach plan that really complements the work that the LOC is doing in those stadium neighborhoods and expands it citywide to ensure that residents and business districts all across the city have the information that we need.

Another initiative that will be coming out soon is actually facilitated by the Seattle Sports Commission.

They are developing what's called a community playbook.

And the intent of that is really for it to be an inclusive, a comprehensive resource for community members that want to do something in their neighborhood.

It will encompass information like what types of permits do you need, what types of things do you need to think about if you are wanting to host a watch party in terms of potential licensing issues.

So that is set to come out in a few months, I believe.

later this, sorry, this is March still, next month.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilman McKittle.

Thank you, Council President.

Great to see all of you again.

I think my first question is, I would like to invite you to my office to talk about D7-specific, and then later to my District 7 neighborhood council, because I think that'd be an easy, quick way to reach out to the neighborhood councils, community councils in my district to baseline the expectations and possibilities.

I think that would be a fantastic outreach opportunity, so I'd like to facilitate that.

So I got some heading on, so good.

My first question is, and it didn't come up in the OIR, but when I was down in Olympia three weeks, a month ago now, whenever it was, I was talking to some folks, and we've had discussions about this, and there was the bill in terms of facilitating the fan zones in Seattle Center.

A lot of folks didn't realize that A, the World Cup was about to come, and it's going to be statewide, not just Seattle.

So it sounds like that word has gotten out now, which I think is good.

Do we know where that legislation is in terms of the alcohol?

Which legislation?

Is it the one for the?

House Bill 1515, the bill, yeah, LCB.

LCB-1.

I believe the LCB bill is still moving ahead.

It is.

Last I had heard, it was still alive.

And we can follow up with you with the information on exactly where it is, but it's not dead.

I believe I passed out of committee either this morning or yesterday.

Oh, excellent.

Because it was fascinating to hear some nonchalance or kind of pushback.

I'm like, do you realize this is not just Seattle, but the state?

So thank you for that.

My next question, or just, you know, to highlight, you know, the Seattle centerpiece, Westlake is well known.

But, you know, we're going to have other opportunities.

And it's funny because just today I was having a, you know, a walkabout with my First Hill part.

I have a little bit of First Hill in D7.

It includes Freeway Park, which is a great opportunity.

And they're getting some work done through parks based on some funding that they received.

And that's a great opportunity to connect downtown with First Hill coming down.

And as I was doing that, talking to the First Hill Association, we walked down Cherry on the way back.

We did our own little walking loop, unity loop, if you will, Deputy Mayor.

And we came down Cherry.

And it was highlighting all the painted columns for I-5.

Beautiful, but very problematic in a graffiti world in which we live in now.

And we're like, hey.

This is like connecting Seattle to the neighborhoods.

Imagine all these with a base level painted in a way that defeats graffiti.

But imagine the tops, like the 48 teams having their flags represented.

There's 72 columns.

Imagine 48. And then maybe those that got in past years, maybe not this coming up.

What an international welcome that would be.

Kind of piggybacking on the monorail.

lines with first with MLB and then the Kraken, the Kraken S and so forth.

So these are the ideas that are coming out of, you know, community.

And as you, well, you already know, I'm always talking it up.

And so, and by the way, part of the Freeway Park renovation, which connects to the convention center, that is a place that most people don't know in terms of being a connector.

And there's a public restroom that they're going to be butting in.

It's already there, but renovating as part of this project.

So we talk about public restrooms.

This is really important.

And so these are the things that can come out of these meetings.

And I just wanted to highlight that.

you know, Portal Park, you know, Market to Mohai, you know, oh, do Market to Mohai, and then take a left to Seattle Center, you know, these kinds of things, Cary Park is gonna be featured, no doubt, because of, you know, it shows up in every NFL, you know, other kind of sporting event.

You know, what can we do to leverage that?

So I just see the opportunities being endless in terms of District 7 specifically across the city, and since we're, tangential to my colleagues from D1, but it's really key.

And so I just see the possibilities there.

And so thank you for that.

By the way, England's already had a couple qualifying matches, so I'm already tracking what's going on.

There were ones against Latvia, so it doesn't really...

We'll see what happens at the end.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rank, looks like you had a question.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I know when talking to constituents, I've heard a lot of excitement, I've heard some anxiety, and so I'm just really grateful for today's presentation just being read in a little bit more so I know how to speak to some of those questions.

So thank you all for being here.

Now, did I hear correctly that Seattle is the first city for FIFA to sign a labor standards agreement?

The organizing committee signed it, not FIFA, but yes.

Understood.

Well, still something certainly to celebrate.

Seattle continues to be a union town and leading the way on workers' rights.

I have a couple questions for today spanning across revenue and financial pieces as well as transportation, public safety, and so on.

Starting us off, how much does it cost to attend one of the Seattle matches?

What's the cheapest ticket a Seattleite might be able to buy to go see, watch their favorite team on our own Lumen Field?

We don't know the answer to that question yet because the tickets haven't gone on sale.

So they'll go on sale in Q4.

But we do know that no matter what, all Washingtonians and Seattleites will not be able to fit inside of Lumen Field.

And that's why we have the Seattle fan celebration in the fan zones across the state so that all Washingtonians and Seattleites have access to a free place to be a part of the World Cup experience.

Okay, understood.

Certainly would love updates once those tickets drop.

Are there any reimbursements to Seattle from FIFA for direct expenses incurred by the city for event related costs?

Yeah, I'll take that.

Yes, there will be.

We are actually right now in negotiations with the local organizing committee or legal counsel are talking about what that reimbursement agreement will look like in the scope of which direct costs are reimbursed and which ones are not.

That was great.

And I was really excited to see, you know, this goal to focus on having 80 percent of folks arriving without a vehicle.

I think folks up here know that I'm a personal fan of that, just being someone who's car free.

And so thinking about how are we going to be providing incentives for some of our visiting guests to use transit?

Yeah, thank you, council member.

And I also am car free, so super excited as well.

And that is both like a reality on wanting to match our values in sustainability, but it's also a reality on the security parameters that are going to be in place.

because it's nations that will be playing here.

We have more dignitaries and heads of state than traditionally.

So the security perimeter is going to be much bigger.

So there's not gonna be any onsite parking for fans that are publicly available.

So they're...

that will help.

But our conversations with the transit agencies and SDOT are really focused right now on what are the sort of both what is it that we're going to need to provide services looking at past mega events as an example.

And I think we're really looking to that Taylor Swift Blue Jays weekend as the like, here's the crowd that we're looking for.

And so using that to help determine how much additional service is needed, both in a sort of circular bus like Kylie mentioned, as well as additional service commuter rail or other things.

And then we'll be moving into, and how do we incentivize people to get it?

How do we market it?

How do we make sure that fans know?

FIFA will have an app that any ticket goer will have access to.

And we anticipate a lot of people, even if you don't have a ticket, will use as well, because it'll be a one-stop shop for all of the information about what's in that region.

And so we're going to have that as an opportunity to be broadcasting all of the transit spaces.

We're also really excited that we're working with the transit agencies on potentially creating and developing a multi-day transit fair across the ORCA agencies.

So we're really hopeful that that will be something that can move in time for World Cups to help facilitate multi-day travel.

Certainly would like some updates on that as it develops.

And on the transportation slide, there was a point about a state request of 8 million for transit service.

Now, is that related to expanding transit service or is that backfilling for any type of?

It's all for increased services during June and July of next summer.

Great.

And what is the current plan for connecting unhoused folks throughout the CID, Pioneer Square, or stadium areas, connecting them with shelter and services?

So as we go into the year out, we're going to start ramping up kind of our different operational pieces.

I mentioned like trash pickup and things like that.

So there's no separate plan for addressing homelessness in those areas.

I think as with most mega events, you know, our work addressing homelessness is It remains constant.

So we always will look to do outreach, to get folks into shelter or housing if we can, and to be able to keep our public spaces free and accessible for people.

So I don't anticipate any major change or shift in focus during World Cup on that.

certainly would like to avoid a scenario where we're sweeping folks unnecessarily and really having an eye towards getting folks housed.

And we're in a rapidly changing environment as it relates to immigration.

Do we have any concerns about some of our international guests and their ability to even come to the US?

I think rapidly changing is a really great way to describe what is happening right now.

This is a space that FIFA has really been leading in the conversations directly with State Department and CBP here, as well as their counterparts in Canada and Mexico, because this is a three country event.

And so I know that we are continuing to push about the need for people to be able to access.

For this to be a unifying experience, people need to actually be able to be here.

We are really excited that the federal government and President Trump issued a executive order, I think two or three weeks ago at this point now, to establish a World Cup task force that is really trying to unite the whole of the national government around this entity or around this event to make sure that the nation is ready as a whole.

And my final question on the city side, what instructions and training will be provided to SPD on our state and our new city shield law and the legal restrictions it places on cooperating with ICBP and Department of Homeland Security?

Thank you, council member.

So our trainings for SPD and our policies and laws in place, again, will remain consistent as what they are.

Nothing should change in that regard.

And so all of our officers, as with all of our city employees should be trained on those and aware of what our state and local legal obligations are in that regard.

And again, nothing will change just because it's World Cup.

Thank you all again for the presentation.

Council member Solomon.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

Thank you all for being here and providing this information.

My question specifically is about the Port of Seattle.

Are they involved with you at all regarding this?

Because I'm thinking about the major amount of traffic, pedestrian traffic in particular, as well as rapid transit that is going to be flooding into the stadium area.

And we know that there's concerns about freight mobility through Soto.

So is the port at the table regarding this?

Yeah, absolutely.

Council member, um, a really great point.

The port of Seattle is a strong partner and they are in our planning meetings.

They participate in both security and transportation planning, as well as our larger leadership planning committees.

Okay.

Right.

Thank you for that.

And I would just add that, uh, one of the things I did bring up with the, uh, Port Commission President is anti-trafficking signs at CTAC in languages other than English.

And I believe they have them.

They just haven't put them up or less I checked.

But that is something that I'm hoping as planning goes through, we do see those signs, not only at the port, but in other locations throughout.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you all for being here.

It's really nice to see you.

April, I didn't know you were at the city, so it's nice to see you.

Kylie, it's nice to see your return.

Nice to see you, too, at DM.

I just wanted to actually echo what my colleague, Councilmember Sacco, was saying just about the neighborhoods, and I know that the practice matches are going to be between UW and Seattle University, so making sure that we're making provisions for the traffic mitigation and some of the other issues that might arise with more folks in that area who are out to watch the practice matches, et cetera.

I imagine that the UW is at the table since they're part of this, but also that we're making really looking at the university district and then the surrounding neighborhoods because Sandpoint is nearby the stadium at the UW and the neighborhoods surrounding, like View Ridge is actually not too far away.

DM, you mentioned View Ridge.

And we know that there'll be places for people to watch, go places to watch.

But we also know that because the practice matches will be at the stadium, there'll be more congestion in there.

which Montlake gets really busy during Husky games.

So making sure there's, I imagine it's part of it, but since I represent the district, I'm going to call it out now.

Just making sure that we're making, you know, planning for that extra traffic in that area.

And then related to light rail, because it's really great, you can go to light rail to take the light rail to the practice area.

matches as well as UW is ensuring that we are working with and I imagine again you're doing all these things so I'm just raising it as points of concern for the district I represent is safety on public transit whether it's the metro buses or light rail as folks are getting about town I mean to be fair this is something that's on my mind every day not just for FIFA just the safety issues as people are writing but that that becomes you know that that that issue is still there and we haven't made the inroads there that I would like to see and many of us here have talked about we would like to see so would love to hear more about planning efforts to ensure that as you're working with the partners what are they going to be providing in terms of a safe writing experience, not just at FIFA, but now, but since you're in charge of the FIFA planning as part of the event.

Thank you, Council Member.

I do wanna just make one thing a little bit more clear, that the practice field at University of Washington and Seattle University are where the team who's about to play at Lumen Field, they'll practice the day before, but they're not gonna be open to the general public overall.

Teams will have the opportunity to decide if they let the public come and watch.

And it sounds like some have traditionally allowed for a small period.

You're totally right that that's not going to mean that people aren't going to be there in hopes of seeing their country or players.

So for sure, the transportation planning and sort of neighborhood engagement planning around those areas is is something we'll be moving into, but we haven't gotten there yet.

But yeah, just wanted to clarify that.

And then as it relates to the transit safety, I think two things important to point out.

One, that the transit funding and the security funding requests are inclusive of the costs and needs for supporting additional transit ambassadors, additional transit security, whatever is the right sort of space and need for each of the different transit stations or lines that folks will be using.

So that funding is inclusive of the requests that we're asking for at the federal and state level.

Thank you, April.

And Deputy Mayor Wong, this goes to something you said earlier about we just don't know what's going to happen.

Even though those may not be open to the public, I just think people are super excited.

And there's so many folks at the university to begin with, students and such, and just it's a very populated area as it is.

And I'm sure people will show.

I would not be surprised, I'll say, if people just don't show up hoping to catch a glimpse or just be there, be there as part of like the energy.

And so I think that even though it might not be open to the public, I think folks will show up.

And I would imagine that some family members, friends of the teams will show up.

I mean, I'm just guessing that, right?

But it goes to unintended, unplanned for things that may be and that we should probably plan for.

Yeah.

Thank you, Councilmember, and absolutely agree.

I think, in a way, we can anticipate the unanticipated in this because we know World Cup fans are, I'll say, passionate.

Ole, ole.

Yeah, once we...

I know our teams will get a little bit more information, too, on kind of how they operate and how their fan bases operate, but I absolutely agree is that there'll be much that will pop up.

And I also want to say, too, we're committed as we go along, you know, we are obviously planning and being as thorough as we can.

Each of these things that we're talking about, it's an amazing opportunity, but we want to make sure we do it really right, and that means making sure it's safe, it's secure, It's fun.

It's a benefit for the people of Seattle.

But as we are going through operations day of, we know things will pop up and we're going to have our daily operations center stood up.

So as things happen, we can hopefully rapidly respond to them in real time.

Thank you for saying that, Dan.

That's really important to be able to rapidly response on site because we just can't plan for everything.

And I want to say, I should have said, I am very excited about FIFA World Cup for many reasons, but just as a way to positively energize our city.

And also just, it is an event where everyone can, in one way or another, in one form or another, feel a part of.

And it is a good economic opportunity for our city as well.

And I want to acknowledge the fact that folks say, oh, everyone's getting about FIFA.

But what about, you know, when FIFA isn't around?

And I just I want to say that.

And I want to say that these opportunities are an opportunity to put our city in a positive focus and that they are economically good.

for cities, any cities that host it.

And that sounds like you're doing a robust job in mitigating for unintended consequences because we want both.

And it doesn't mean that we don't do the everyday job every day.

That's why I called out the metro issues that happen and the sound transit issues.

We're not just preparing for FIFA and now we're giving special focus and we don't care about the other days of the of the year.

Yes, we do.

And that's why I'm raising that.

I don't want to see these positive things being activated just for FIFA.

We want to make sure they're happening every day.

And because I always it's not or it's and and we're also excited about an opportunity to shine the light on Seattle in a positive way and make sure that we're raising money for our city.

Let's be honest.

So yeah, thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you, council president.

All right, you're welcome everybody.

So just in closing, I want to thank you very much for this presentation.

I did get a briefing the other day and as I conveyed in my meeting with you, I think Kylie and Dylan, I will be dedicating some time in my committee over the summer just to be able to dive deeper into some of these issues that issues sounds like there are problems, but some of the topics that are top of mind to me, of course, as has already been noted, how do small businesses benefit?

And is there anything that they can start doing now to prepare?

But also, I'm really focused on how we can showcase our local talent.

especially our musicians and our other performing artists.

I have gotten the music commission leaders together with Leo Floor, and so I know that there's some synergy going on there, some conversations, but those are two examples of things that I'm looking at.

Mostly I'm interested in knowing how all these different responsible government agencies and jurisdictions are looking at the experience from an end user perspective, like getting off the plane, what do they see when they get off the flight, to ultimately getting a seat at the game if they're lucky enough to get a ticket.

And so that's what I'm kind of looking at from looking at the visitor's perspective and how are we integrating that into the planning, because it seems like there's a lot we have to do for all these other things and think about, how they are experiencing not just the games, but also our city.

And a lot does depend, I recognize, on which teams come, in which neighborhoods might be of interest for people to visit, depending on the teams that come and the fans that come, et cetera.

So lots to talk about going forward.

This is just the first time we're discussing it in public here with everybody, but there will be more opportunities later to dig deeper into some of these things.

All right, if nobody else has anything to say or ask, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

I can't, it's also, this is just a thought.

Has any host city ever written a what not to do?

I'm sure everybody's talking to other city planners.

What'd you say?

Lots of lessons learned.

Yes.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to item five on our agenda.

Council Member Rink has a proclamation for signature today proclaiming March 31st, 2025 to be International Transgender Day of Visibility in Seattle.

Council Member Rink, please lead the discussion on the proclamation for any additional feedback before I request signatures to be affixed to it.

Thank you, Council President.

So today, March 31st, marks International Transgender Day of Visibility.

This day of significance was established in 2009 by Rachel Crandall Crocker to honor the contributions, brilliance, and beauty of transgender, gender non-binary, and two-spirit people across the world.

As we all are aware at the federal level, there have been attempts to silence this community and deny their very existence.

However, here at home, the city of Seattle recognizes the cultural and historical significance and celebrates the joy and resilience of our transgender community by elevating those voices and lived experiences.

And in the spirit of joy and honoring our local community, I wanna highlight a few local leaders.

Certainly not an entirely inclusive list, just want to highlight a couple of folks here in Seattle.

Marcia Botzer, who has been working in the transgender rights movement since the 1970s.

Danny Aschini, co-founder and executive director of the Gender Justice League, who helped to establish Seattle's first Trans Pride community event.

Taffy Johnson, founder and executive director of United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance, otherwise known as Utopia Washington, as most folks know them.

Montserrat Padilla, who has unapologetically focused on the intersection of trans and immigrant rights.

And Jalen Scott, the executive director of Lavender Rights Project, which was founded in 2016 as a legal aid group supporting low income LGBTQ and trans folks.

For all these reasons, I urge my colleagues today on the dais to sign today's proclamation.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for that.

Are there any questions or comments?

All right.

Well, I will take this opportunity to offer my gratitude to you, Council Member Rink, for bringing this forward.

Thank you very much.

I think it's fitting that we have this proclamation on the same day that the mayor signed the shield law that I sponsored in the governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee and that Council Members Moore and Rivera co-sponsored.

In case people forgot, that was a couple weeks ago.

That bill protects individuals seeking gender-affirming care and is deeply rooted in our shared Seattle values to lift up the most vulnerable communities, particularly when they're under attack, as we see with the Trump administration.

And I saw a quote this morning regarding Trans Visibility Day from Tory Cooper with the human rights campaign that resonated with me.

It says, quote, it's an opportunity for us to present the world the truth about trans people, which is that we're as normal and as boring as everyone else, and also as exciting and not boring as other people.

So the reason that resonates with me is because the trans community in Seattle are everyday people and they're everybody around us, including our neighbors, friends, family, our teachers, our community leaders, and so many more who on a daily basis uplift the lives of other people and simply wanna live their lives without harassment and violence.

And so that is why I'm very appreciative of you bringing this forward today so that we can honor them with this proclamation.

So thank you very much.

Seeing no other hands raised here, will the clerk please call the roll on who would like to have their signatures affixed to the proclamation?

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Aye.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

And council president Nelson.

Aye.

Eight signatures will be affixed.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Moving on to the preview of city council actions, council and regional committees.

The roll call this, uh, today starts with council member kettle.

So I will let you go forward with your, with your report.

Thank you, Council President.

Starting off, I'll try to be really quick, because I know we're running a little bit late, full agenda today.

Next Public Safety Committee meeting will be on 8 April, where we'll have our second reading of our after-hour establishments bill, which, given the events over the past weekend, shows how important this is.

And so we will be taking that up on the 8th of April.

This week, I already mentioned today Freeway Park, my walkabout with community members in Freeway Park and in some additional First Hill areas.

I want to thank them for their tour and to raise the issues in the neighborhood, specifically with Freeway Park, which is beautiful and really iconic and something that we should be treasuring and really building back up, which we will.

Tomorrow's council meeting, by the way, from the Public Safety Committee, as you noted in the consent, the referral, the resolution, which we'll go over tomorrow.

This week I also have the Regional Water Quality Committee meeting.

And on Thursday we have the Pike Place Market PDA.

The Pike Place, this stakeholder meeting, this comes out of the Seattle Transportation Plan.

When we pulled that out, the Pike Place, the street itself, And now we're at a point where we're going to have a great stakeholder meeting to go through the issues related to Pike Place itself and build consensus in terms of a way ahead.

So I'm looking forward to that on Thursday.

going to PacSci, the Pacific Science Center, which is really important.

A lot of different things are going on there, particularly when it relates to their relationship with Seattle Center, which in some ways too is tied to the FIFA World Cup.

Everything can be tied to FIFA World Cup these days.

But getting Seattle Center ready and integrating PacSci and then reforming and moving forward with PacSci is so important.

Next week, just a couple things.

I'm going to be doing an event at SPU regarding inspiring students to serve in local government.

So that's going to be interesting.

Again, mention Public Safety Committee on next Tuesday.

And then on next week, Friday, will be our next District 7 Neighborhood Council meeting, which we'll focus on Um, emergency preparedness and I'll just end there.

So to be quick, thank you very much.

Well, council member, I think it's rink.

Is it?

Hold on a second.

Let me look at my alphabet.

Council member.

Uh, okay.

Well, my roll call order says kettle rink Rivera.

Um, I think that more Cathy, are you still there?

Excuse me, council member.

All right, we're moving on to then we will...

I defer to your list.

Yeah, my list says Kettle Rink Rivera, so go ahead.

Okay, fabulous.

Thank you, Council President.

I will also be brief in the interest of time.

Just want to highlight a couple of ways that we were showing up in community last week.

Our team had the opportunity to tour at Pride Place.

This is a community roots housing project specifically for LGBTQ elders.

Really special place, kind of the first of its kind in our region, and downstairs it also has a specific community resource center for LGBTQ elders.

which is just really, it's a really lovely place.

If you haven't had an opportunity to visit, I would certainly encourage it.

We also had the opportunity to connect with United Way of King County.

I attended the Civic Poet inauguration as well.

We have a new Civic Poet.

Doogee, if you haven't had an opportunity to hear their poetry, they are just absolutely fantastic.

We held our immigration response coordination meeting with King County partners, as well as then I want to highlight the town hall that our office did alongside with Council Member Solomon and D2 at the Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church.

We had some solid turnout.

And folks were really engaged, and some folks even voiced that it was their first ever town hall, which I felt made it particularly special and want to thank again the Office of D2.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon, for joining me in that.

And lastly, I was able to speak with Rainier Scholars over the weekend around their civic engagement workshops.

talking about housing, so always really special to connect with young people.

As it relates to committee work, this week there's actually a special meeting of the Regional Policy Committee focused on King County Parks Levy.

This is a really important funding opportunity when we're looking at some of our cultural institutions within the city, namely the waterfront, Woodland Park Zoo and the Seattle Aquarium.

And so Councilmember Moore and I both sit on the Regional Policy Committee and we'll continue to keep you all apprised as the levee shapes up and we'll report back what comes out of the special meeting of this week.

We also will be holding the Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee this Friday.

We will be taking up the vote on the two easements that we didn't get to last time.

As a reminder, we moved the vote on these just to make time to make sure that all committee members were briefed on the Renewable Plus program, which will be coming before full council, hopefully once it goes out of committee.

And then lastly, I would name that we have the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes this Thursday.

Our focus of this session will be a panel discussion focused on housing, and we have partners from Enterprise Community Partners, King County Regional Homelessness Authority, Chief Seattle Club, among others, as well as DESC to be talking about the various elements of our housing system that may be at risk with some of these federal policy changes.

We will also be having a discussion on a draft resolution, not a vote, but rather just a discussion on a draft resolution my office has been working on alongside some community partners.

And with that, I will turn it over to Councilmember Rivera, unless there are any questions about my updates.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink.

All right.

Last week, I had my recurring meetings with both Chief Barnes and the North Precinct Captain George Davison.

I continue to have conversations, and we continue to partner on Magnuson Park.

and the public safety issues at the park and also in the University District and in Wedgwood.

I continue to ask for attention there.

I know that and I appreciate Chief Barnes and both Chief Barnes and Captain Davidson meeting with some constituents from View Ridge today to discuss some of these issues.

Really appreciate their partnership always at SPD.

Let's see, last week I also had a Libraries Education and Neighborhoods Committee meeting.

We had Deputy, excuse me, Director Ahamdi Muhammad from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs from Seattle come and present on the federal action updates on federal action related to immigration.

She spoke about the administration's ending the unaccompanied children's program, which provides legal assistance to minors in the United States seeking asylum.

Director Mohammed is talking to advocates to learn what that might mean for kids here in Seattle.

One of our key partners is KIND, a national non-governmental organization that provides to unaccompanied minors and they have an office in Seattle.

As I said, director Mohammed will be getting more information about the impacts to children in Seattle and I will share what she learns.

She also gave me a an update since our committee meeting that the administration also terminated funding that had previously been awarded for citizenship courses and programming.

And I'm getting more information from Director Muhammad on that.

And as I said earlier, we'll share what I learned on that particular program as well and its potential impacts or its actual impacts because we know it will have impacts Also last week, I talked to constituents about outages, power outages experienced by some of our neighbors in the district who have power lines underground that are aging.

This is aging infrastructure.

Councilmember Saka, you're frequently talking about aging infrastructure.

And this is one of those instances.

We talked to City Light about their plan.

They're going to be starting emergency maintenance plans for that area.

It's particularly challenging because some of these power lines went in in, I believe, the 70s when that technology was newer.

And it's not, newer technology has a box that they put underground and it makes it easier to do these repairs.

But for this, back then they just would lay power lines underground.

And so it makes it really hard to identify where in the segment it needs improvement.

So all this to say this is really challenging to repair, but they have started The repairs, I am ever so grateful to constituents for their patience as City Light works on these repairs because they've been dealing with power outages on and off.

Every time there is a weather issue or a tree that falls or branches, I mean, of a tree that falls, it causes these power outages.

And then I wanted to, I don't sit on the committee that oversees City Light.

Council Member Rink, I believe City Light sits under your committee.

So I'd be interested to know if you're going to have, if you've had conversations with City Light or if you intend to have briefings about this particular issue, because it can't just be in my district.

I'm sure it's throughout the city.

So would love to learn more about what you envision for your committee in terms of City Light in this particular issue.

Then this week I'll be meeting with, here at City Hall Wednesday at 5.30.

If you're around and you want to say hi, it's Cub Scouts Pack 177, excuse me, 144 from the Bryan area.

I'll be giving them a tour of City Hall and Chambers.

They're visiting as part of getting their My Community badge, and I'm happy to help them achieve that badge.

So if, like I said, if you're around and want to say hi to the kids, let me know.

And then I'll just say my last piece is I will be attending the PSRC Growth Management meeting, which I sit on this particular Thursday's or next meeting, where we're going to be looking at recommending certification of comprehensive plans for Mill Creek, Arlington, Kent, and SeaTac in Washington, and a couple of other cities from the state.

Anyone has any questions?

Or Council Member Renke, sorry, I don't think I gave you an opportunity to respond.

So if you wanted to, you can, or if not, We can talk offline either way.

Yeah, certainly happy to speak to that just very briefly.

Luckily, I had received some of the notification about this challenge happening in your district as well and had an opportunity, you know, actually to meet with City Light staff that day to ask, what is the communications plan?

How are we communicating back?

to partners around resolving this issue.

So immediately brought it to their attention and they had mentioned that they had had some communications going on.

We should certainly have our offices to connect to make sure that that comms is happening.

But it sounds like there's not an immediate resolution, which is, of course, an ongoing challenge.

We've been having a lot of discussions with City Light staff around the challenges in just our infrastructure and how we as a city are going to grapple with maintaining and having stronger infrastructure to deliver electricity to the entire city.

So it's a little bit of a two-parter.

Let's certainly connect to make sure you're getting the right communication from City Light as well.

And in committee, we're going to be having discussions this year around the maintenance challenges that have been ongoing and making sure that we are not having this continuous issue around blackouts happening around the city.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

It's the latter.

I've reached out to City Light.

They've reached out to constituents.

The communications is there on that part.

It's more on the ongoing issue and City Light's plan for that ongoing issue is what I'm wanting to get information about.

Yeah, certainly.

Thank you.

That's it.

Thank you.

All right, Council Member Saka.

All right, thank you, Madam Council President.

And I too will, I'll endeavor to make mine fairly brief at least.

So first and foremost, on the Transportation Committee front, colleagues, tomorrow we have our Transportation Committee meeting at 9.30 a.m.

Two important topics, a presentation from SDOT, briefing and presentation from SDOT and discussion on the deployment of automated traffic cameras in our city.

Next we'll have a briefing discussion and possible vote on a resolution to approve a sky bridge that interestingly crosses between district and connects districts three and district seven that we teed up for conversation and possible vote last time.

And as always, all are welcome.

All right.

Moving on, I'll just say, just wanna talk for a moment about something that happened in my district last night, which kinda ties to something that happened in our city in Rainier Beach a couple nights ago, Council Member Salomon's district, and all this ties together.

So last night, I had just put my three young kids to sleep.

I have three elementary school kids, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a 10-year-old.

Just put them to sleep, put them to bed.

My oldest daughter was still awake, as she usually is, and me and my wife were downstairs.

And then around 9 p.m., we heard uninterrupted gunfire in North Delridge, that was quite literally not just in my broader North Delridge community and neighborhood, but in the vicinity of my backyard.

And so around 9 p.m., we heard at least 100 uninterrupted gunshots.

And my daughter comes downstairs, scared necessarily so, 10-year-old, scared, traumatized, confused.

We didn't know what happened at the time, and I kept telling her, I think it was just fireworks, don't worry, sweetheart, just fireworks.

Later learned that it was actually, it wasn't fireworks, wasn't an innocent explanation, comparatively, like fireworks, it was indeed, And I later went to upstairs, so I had to try and comfort and console my young daughter.

And I still, my parent guilt setting in, I still haven't told her the truth now that I know what I know about what happened.

I'm scared to.

And right after I was rocking her to sleep and assuring her was gonna be okay, I went to go check on my two youngest boys who were sleeping at the time and thankfully didn't wake up.

And I had to wake them up for the sole purpose of making sure that they were safe.

Later learned that a few of my neighbors' homes were essentially turned into Swiss cheese, gunshot holes, riddled some buildings and structures, an RV camper, and a few vehicles.

And my neighbors in Delbridge are fed up My family is damn sure fed up and people across the West Seattle community and our entire city are fed up.

But this is something that happened that literally hit as close to home as you can get.

And I'm told that what had happened last night was it was community members gathering, started off peaceful.

to commemorate and start a vigil for the deceased, at least one of the deceased from a after hours nightclub homicide the night before.

Late in the evening on Saturday night or early hours on Sunday morning, there was two homicides and after hours, night venue establishment where two people tragically lost their lives.

And so what happened last night in Delridge, apparently I'm told, was community members honoring, seeking to honor that life loss, apparently through gunfire and 21 gun salute with multiple people shooting off live rounds into people's homes.

What happened last night and what happened that preceded it in the night before was unacceptable and it's entirely preventable.

Like I said, people are fed up.

We know this and I know it firsthand.

That's why I am personally, that's why I go so hard in the paint on anything, especially anything and everything public safety related because my neighborhood and my family's safety and security, their lives literally depend on it.

and I'm accountable for the outcome here.

No one in Seattle should be exposed to this kind of thing.

The sense of safety and peace in our own homes and neighborhoods is really a fundamental right.

And what occurred last night and the night before is simply unacceptable.

So I wanna assure my constituents that I'm working closely with the Seattle Police Department and the mayor's office, as they investigate the incident.

And I stand ready to support them in the course of their investigation to the full extent possible.

And I'm truly grateful for the swift response and professionalism of Seattle police officers.

It's clear that we need to do more as a city.

Again, my constituents are fed up with this.

So is my own family.

It's unfortunate that certain communities, in this case, Delridge, continue to bear the brunt of our rising crime and gun violence challenges across our city.

But for me, What happened last night really underscores the urgent need for us to continue and intensify our efforts to address gun violence and enhance public safety across our city.

And it really ties to two pieces of proposed legislation that we're actively considering right now.

One is the after hours regulation bill and public safety chair Kettle's committee.

And the other is the public safety resolution that we're expected to vote on tomorrow.

That among other things, calls out and highlights the importance of all of our first responders, not just police.

And I'll have more fulsome conversation and discussion comments tomorrow about the nexus between what happened the last few days and those pieces of legislation.

But I just want, to make clear that my focus has always been and will always be on supporting communities, working collaboratively, supporting, uplifting, and amplifying the efforts and work of our first responders, all of them, local stakeholders, city leaders, including you all colleagues, to ensure that we find and advance truly meaningful solutions that work for all and better prevent and address this kind of thing.

So this ain't an academic, this is not a hypothetical thing for me and my family and my community.

This is real life, everyday experiences and trauma that people are having.

So I normally float around here and I'm like, generally have smiles on my face and...

And today's just not one of those days, because communities are not okay.

We need to do better.

Been in touch with the police chief Barnes, chief public safety officer Walton, the mayor's office, and about this.

And I appreciate their efforts and their partnership.

I look forward to supporting them as they implement changes to their current crime safety plan and make other tweaks to the implement.

I know we're in the implementation phase, it sounds like, of SPD's overall crime plan, but I look forward to supporting them in their work, and I appreciate the professionalism and the courage of the officers who responded last night to hundreds of gunshots.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Salomon.

President, can I say something before?

Yes, please do.

Thank you, Councilmember Salomon.

I just, Councilmember Saka, first, as a parent whose kids were involved in a school shooting at Ingram High School, I am so sorry that your family has personally been touched by gun violence and guns in this city.

As a parent, I'm having trouble articulating how difficult this is.

We are protective of our children as parents, and we don't ever want them to be in danger and dangerous situations.

And then these things are happening.

And of course, not just to me and your children, but to children across Seattle.

And so this isn't to take away also from all the kids that are experiencing this across the city.

This is the latest incident and it happened to you in your home.

And so I am really sorry for that.

That really breaks my heart for you and your family.

that it hit this close to home.

And this isn't to be self-serving colleagues, but these things that are happening in our city are happening to us as well.

And I know that we've had conversations about this, Councilmember Saka, and many of you colleagues about how the public safety issues that are happening in the city, we're not immune, no one, not us, and not any of our constituents.

And it's why I fight so hard, and I know you do too, Councilmember Saka, and many of you colleagues on this public safety issues across the city.

So I am really sorry to hear it.

I continue to be a strong partner with you on taking care of these issues in this city.

This is of paramount importance to me.

I know it is to you and it should be to all of us.

And we will continue to fight to make sure that we are addressing this issue across the cities so that our kids can feel safe in this city that they live in and they call home.

It is completely unacceptable.

It is unacceptable that any child in Seattle should not feel safe and that you're worried to tell your child.

And I get that, I understand that because we don't, you have young children, mine were teenagers, it doesn't matter how young or old they are, they're kids and they should be able to feel safe in their city.

And that's just the bottom line.

And so I just wanted to underscore that.

And thank you for sharing your story because oftentimes when we sit up here, I know I have some trepidation because then people automatically look at us as, oh, well, you're just saying that because you, you know, but no, we share it because it's important to let our constituents know and all of us know colleagues how important these issues are and that it touches everybody in the city.

And that's why we fight so hard to do the work that we're doing and pass these public safety legislation.

pieces of legislation that we're doing in partnership with you Councilmember Kettle is chair of the Public Safety Committee.

So thank you Council President for letting me say those words and thank you Councilmember Saka for sharing and again I'm so sorry.

Before passing it on while we're on this topic I do want to say thank you very much Councilmember Rivera for stating that because I too appreciate.

We have to talk about it publicly and not shy away and not treat it as, oh, that's just something that happens in headlines.

Gun violence was the topic of the Office of the City Auditor's latest report that was presented in my committee last Thursday.

I was gonna talk about it at the end, but since we're on topic and then we can move on.

You have moved on to a different committee, but this was an audit that I requested to follow up on, an audit that was paused that the Mayor and I requested to look at our various crime prevention strategies.

Long story short, if you weren't there, colleagues, or have not read the report, I encourage you to do so because its conclusions are at the same time disheartening, but also offer some hope.

But the hope depends on us taking action.

In essence, there's so much more that the city could be doing to reduce and prevent gun violence.

This is highlighted in the audit.

And many of the steps that we should take have been recommended in previous audits, not just about gun violence, but more more generally approaches to gathering information, to working with other departments.

And we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

We don't have to reinvent the wheel.

But the city should, but it starts with admitting that we can do more and we can do better.

And the audit represents a lot of resources that other cities are doing to reduce their gun violence by double digits.

And the point of the discussion to me was, why aren't we doing that, basically?

And no disrespect to the representatives of the mayor's office who were at the table.

The fact is that everybody recognizes, so SPD has great data, for example.

It's a question of how can we more productively put that data about who's getting shot, where are the shootings happening, what are the trends we're seeing, how can the SPD better share the data that is not completely private and part of an investigation with other departments, for example, HSD, to inform their grants that they're letting out to community-based organizations for violence prevention work.

I mean, that's just one of the recommendations, but the point is that now is not the time to talk about what we're already doing on gun violence especially, but it's the time for humility, and it's the time to...

to use the resources that we have, in this case a report, to find out what else we should be doing.

Because we either trust these experts and the models that they're putting forward that are having positive results in other cities or we don't.

And the experts that I'm talking about are the DOJ and the Police Executive Research Forum, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the DEA's high intensity drug trafficking area offices.

They have a lot of resources to help local governments and these are free resources and again, We have nothing to lose by, in my opinion, availing ourselves of other resources and digging into precisely the experience.

not necessarily taking a different approach, but recognizing that there are other things that we can do because we owe the lives of our constituents to do the very best we can.

And that sometimes means looking laterally.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.

Okay, Council Member Solomon, unless anybody else wants to add on.

Quickly.

Yes.

Thank you, Council President.

Just quickly, Councilmember Sok and I spoke about this before.

Obviously, we collaborate closely as my vice chair in public safety working on all these issues, and the two bills that he was talking about are part of, you know, our action in the Public Safety Committee, and they're part of the overall strategic framework plan where we're driving to really change the dynamic in our city, the permissiveness.

There's a permissiveness that allows this gun violence to occur, and we're working these in different ways.

And our after-hours establishment bill is a clear example of that.

And I just wanted to commit to not just to my vice chair and other members of the council, but to the city of Seattle, that we will continue this work in public safety committee where we are...

really driving on this front, working the community safety piece, working the entire architecture, as I mentioned earlier during the OER briefing.

And so that remains my and our commitment to the city as it relates to gun violence.

Thank you, council president.

Council Member Sullivan.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll also try to be brief.

Coming up with the Land Use Committee on Wednesday, we hope to address United Forestry Commission appointments, Seattle Design Commission appointments, street level use legislation, building permit extension legislation, and have a briefing on ADU legislation responsive to the state requirements of, I believe it's 1337. So it's going to be a full meeting on Wednesday, and we intend to get quite a bit done.

This past week, I did attend the Public Safety Committee meeting.

Thank you, Chair Kettle, for allowing me to invade your space.

I also had meetings with the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, Human Services Department, where we were discussing the Star Center, Navigation Center, and services around folks who are in need.

I've met also with neighbors from the Brighton neighborhood to talk about generational wealth building opportunities in community.

I met with Seattle Indian Services Commission Executive Director Colleen Echo Hawk to talk about the Pearl Warren building, what's going to be happening there at the old Navigation Center and their plans for moving forward.

Attended the Growth Management Planning Council meeting on Wednesday.

Met with the interim CDA and CID resident advocates on Thursday to talk about the comprehensive plan.

As mentioned, Councilmember Rankin and I did a town hall at Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, which was really cool.

This morning I had a meeting with Chief Barnes, and also this morning attended the Shield Law signing at the LGBTQ Center.

Coming up this week, I do have constituents basically doing office hours specifically for the Mount Baker community, which are supposed to start in 38 minutes.

We'll see if I make it in time.

But we will be there tonight, meeting with my Baker residents.

I'll be meeting with the Cascade Bicycle Club tomorrow.

I'm gonna be attending the Kameon Night at the Filipino Community Center on Wednesday evening from 6 to 8. We'll be attending the Regional Planning Council on Thursday, as well as the Affordable Housing Committee.

I'll be substituting for Council Member Moore.

It may be late for your select committee as a result of that, but I intend to be there.

And Thursday evening I will be attending a community impact event for the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund.

To follow up on the comments that Councilmember Saka made and others have made, I noticed, you know, we both know what it's like to be in environments where there's a lot of shots fired because, you know, hey, we're combat vets.

It's another thing to have to comfort your children, you know, when that's going.

I have not had to do that, and I'm grateful I haven't had to do that.

So, brother, my heart goes out to you.

I've had shots, you know, fired near my home.

I've actually been shot at.

But the double homicide that happened yesterday morning at 3 something in the morning at that club in Rainier Beach was preventable.

And that's not the first time we've had an incident there.

The early morning of February 8th.

we had a shooting there where I've mentioned it on the dais over a hundred shell casings were recovered from that one shooting.

I am anxious to get this legislation regarding regulating after hour clubs across the finish line.

We got to do it.

If we held the vote tomorrow, I'm all in.

Okay.

So I can't wait to vote for this.

Um, So I would say I will leave it there, but I can't, because that wasn't the only shooting that happened the other night.

There was another shooting on South Beacon Hill, same night.

We do have to do better as a city, and it's not just city government, it's not just the police department, it's not first responders or second responders.

It's us as a community.

What are we doing?

What are we doing when it comes to all the violence that's happening?

So again, I could go on, but thank you for the time.

And again, My heart to you and your family, Rob, and let's get this bill passed.

Thank you.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes, thank you, council president.

I'll be brief because I know it's 426 parks, utilities, technology committee.

We'll be going on Wednesday, April 9th.

We're going to be discussing Council Bill 120960. That's going to be up for a vote, and I will talk to the committee members.

It's about authorizing Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, to participate in the Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup.

And that we had an executive session.

We also had an intro into the committee meetings.

and now we'll be having a vote.

So we'll connect with you all, committee members, and make sure everybody's comfortable, but hopefully we feel like we had enough information and then we're given enough information in that executive session.

We also have the Regional Water Quality Committee with Councilmember Kettle that's this week.

The things that we're gonna be hitting home for for City of Seattle to King County is being predictable about rates.

affordable about rates and also making sure that we're keeping our rates affordable with our growing infrastructure and aging infrastructure that we need, but ensuring that we can be able to plan correctly and we are spending people's money wisely.

I will not update everyone on my everyday activities, but you can go to my Instagram or my newsletter that I will be blasting out for you all to see all the wonderful community people that I connect with daily.

Thank you so much, and it's all yours, Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I'll also be brief.

The next meeting of the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee will be on Thursday, April 10th, and we're still finalizing our agenda, but we'll have continued discussion and a possible vote on Council Bill 120957. concerning the democracy voucher program.

I'll just mention two things that are happening or will.

Earlier today, I joined council members Hollingsworth and Solomon at the mayor's shield law signing at the LGBTQ center on Capitol Hill.

And we heard from leaders from the LGBTQ commission, the LGBTQ center and Seattle pride.

And note to everyone, the theme of this year's Pride is louder, and I heard loud and clear today from community that we're not going to stand for the attacks on the LGBTQ community, and that by passing legislation like S.H.I.E.L.D., we can combat the Trump administration's attack on this vulnerable community in particular.

and ensure that Seattle remains a safe and welcoming place for all.

And then one note, you might not have heard about this, but this week my staff and I will be visiting the Paramount Pictures Production Office in the M5 Creative Building.

This is on the corner of Seattle Center where KCTS9 and Cascade Public Media used to be located on Mercer and Fifth, I believe.

Let's see, the Office of Economic Development has been leasing space in the M5 building for the last year to help creatives and particularly the film industry have space to gather and work.

Why does that matter?

Because when production companies are scouting cities for locations, it's not only about where do they actually film, they also need access to office space and to get the work done, to edit the film, cast extras, perform a whole host of administrative tasks, et cetera.

So OED's been leveraging the space at M5 for those purposes.

And while I can't say too much, I'm excited for the opportunities that this has had for attracting more films to Seattle, and I look forward to reporting back to update you all on the work and progress that certain production companies and OED have been making in the city.

All right, that's pretty much it.

This Saturday, there will be an opening of, I will be attending an opening of the SARS Super Saver Foods Grand Opening Celebration in District 5. For those who don't know, SARS is and will continue to be a cornerstone of the community.

That's all I've got.

And if there's no question about what I just said, um, we'll move into the executive session and hearing no further business.

Now as I would like to be excused.

Oh, is that tomorrow that I have to ask?

No, go ahead.

I do an excuse from the April 15th full council meeting.

Okay.

Uh, council president, uh, along those lines, uh, Easter Monday and Tuesday, uh, would like to be excused.

I'll be out of town.

Excellent.

All right.

Um, whatever those name numbers are, um, Monday council briefing, Tuesday, um, council meeting after Easter.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

Let the record show that.

Um, Absences excused.

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

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

The executive session is an opportunity for council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law and a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 5.30.

And if it is to be extended beyond that point, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.

And at the conclusion of this executive session, council briefing meeting will automatically adjourn.

And the next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is April 7th, 2025 at 2 p.m.

All right.

The council is now in executive session.

Thank you.