Seattle City Council Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District Funding 7/17/20

The July 17, 2020 Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District Funding will come to order.

I'm Alex Peterson, Chair of the Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District Funding.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Chair Peterson.

Here.

Four, present.

This is Council Member Sawant.

I'm here.

Five, present.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

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

There is an amendment that will be walked on from Councilmember Morales.

So hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

At this time, we'll open the remote public comment period.

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We have about 14 people signed up right now.

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The public comment period is now open, and we'll begin with the first two speakers on the list.

So we'd like to start with Megan Murphy, followed by Brittany Belay.

Please go ahead, Megan Murphy.

Hi, thanks for letting me speak.

I'm really disappointed because Ms. Gata skipped over me on Wednesday.

I don't know if it was deliberate.

I was handing out flyers for the Socialist Party to elect a community review board for the police.

As far as transportation goes, and she knows I supported John Grant instead of her, and the police force, I'm sorry, the transportation, I heard that they were going to cut 300,000 trips a day to 75,000.

And we need to be cleaning the infrastructure and increasing public transit, given global warming and not austerity towards people who use that.

If I would have spoken on Wednesday, I believe in increasing housing choice vouchers permanent for people who need it and invest in the property, because I feel like The housing in Cherry Hill would have been segregated.

Megan, we need you to keep your comments to the transportation measure, please.

Oh, yeah.

So I couldn't find your agenda online easier, so you need to make it easier for people to find your transportation agenda.

And I did feel the need because Muscata, I think, deliberately cut me off.

But yeah, I think you need to make the agenda easier and follow New York City's measures when they're keeping their their transportation even more sparkly clean because of COVID.

I think, you know, invest more in public transportation.

And Suwant is the one who pointed out the meeting agenda where you were going to cut down the trips to 75,000 and to the 300,000.

And also keep the workforce at Metro harassment free.

I'm going to be protesting with owls.

on Monday because some of the workers for King County Metro feel really harassed there because of race or gender and that needs to stop now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker will be Brittany Bollet followed by Alice Lockhart.

Go ahead Brittany.

Good morning council.

Thank you for being here.

My name is Brittany Bush Bollet.

I'm the chair of Sierra Club Seattle Group.

We obviously fully fully fully and passionately support the STV renewal.

I just have a couple of comments I'd like to add.

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken our city and we are in a moment that calls for bold urgent change.

We cannot come out of this crisis with the same flawed priorities that we entered it with.

And so the renewal of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District is an urgent moment where we can ensure that our city emerges from this crisis prepared to not only resume our ridership growth but to base our city's transportation system more fully on transit.

STBD renewal should focus on restoring as much transit service as possible.

And we understand the financial constraints that are being faced by the city, but there are some specific steps we think the city can take to improve its proposal.

Raising more revenue with a larger tax rate and shifting funding in the spending plan out of road maintenance and upgrades and into transit operations wherever possible.

We urge the city to choose a 0.2% increase in the sales tax option for generating the revenue for this STBD proposal.

While we are uncomfortable with once again returning to a regressive stack source to fund vital infrastructure, we must utilize the only tool we have available to us at the moment and in turn provide benefits to communities who are transit dependent, lower income, and communities of color in a targeted manner.

We also call on the city to restructure the spending plan to focus on transit.

Road maintenance and upgrades can be funded out of revenue sources that under current law can't be spent on transit.

Finally, we support our partner's call for a four-year measure.

Even at a .2% tax rate, this package generates far less revenue and delivers substantially less service than the original SDVD.

So it's prudent to shorten the duration of the measure and allow voters to revisit the issue at a time when there's more clarity around transit service needs.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Brittany.

Next, we'll have Alice Lockhart followed by Katie Wilson.

Good morning, Alice.

Hi.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Alice Lockhart with 350 Seattle.

We believe that STBD is a necessary stopgap to prevent really great harm to our transit system.

But of course, we need progressive revenue.

We support all the amendments except for number two, which would fund personal trips at the expense of basic transit.

We'd like to see a new amendment that would restrict spending to transit only, not road maintenance.

We particularly support the new Morales Amendment to tax at a rate more commensurate with the need.

I'd like to move out to a slightly larger picture, but still tightly related.

We are deeply dismayed by the number of cuts to transit, bikes, walking, and rolling in the mayor's budget rebalancing package.

And we would appreciate it if council members could right now check your email for a letter from us suggesting several amendments which would help fix misprioritization in that package and help support Seattle's most pressing mobility needs at this time.

If we don't fix the rebalancing package, it's going to be hard to suggest that Seattleites tax ourselves in November.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alice.

Next, we have Katie Wilson, followed by Arthur Bacchus.

Go ahead, Katie.

Hi, council members.

Katie speaking for the Transit Riders Union.

Thank you for taking action to renew this critical funding source for public transit.

We support shortening this measure to four years.

We see this measure as bridging a gap and saving our transit system as much as possible from cuts until as soon as possible, there can be a comprehensive countywide measure funded with progressive revenue.

And we'll be fighting at the state and county level to make that happen.

In the meantime we're extremely worried that cuts this fall and next year will be happening at a time when people are trying to return to public transit at the same time as the continued need for social distancing limits the number of riders per coach.

This will create a situation where service is grossly insufficient to the need.

Anyone who can drive a car instead will choose to do so and people who don't have that option will be left stranded.

This will impact low income and disabled riders and black and brown communities the most.

Therefore, we believe that over the next few years, the highest imperative should be to prevent service cuts.

In that spirit, we support several actions to increase the funds available for transit service.

We support shifting funds from capital to service.

We support the council taking action in the future to increase the vehicle license fee, to fund transit service, and to implement developer impact fees for infrastructure and or service.

Finally, after much discussion, we decided that we support raising the sales tax in this measure to 0.2%.

In fact, that is probably the highest impact action you can take today to save our transit system.

This was not an easy decision for us as an organization of working and poor people that has been going to bat for progressive taxation since we began.

But today we believe this is the right decision to make, and we support Councilmember Morales' amendment to make that change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Arthur Vacas, followed by Rizwan Rizwi.

Go ahead, Arthur.

Yes, good morning, Councilmembers.

Yeah my name is Arthur Bacchus.

I'm going to try to keep this short.

I am a Seattle resident and I rely 100 percent on transit.

I don't have a car and I work a night shift job that pays my rent and my bills.

So even with recent cuts to service hours because of COVID my commutes have already become less reliable and are a little bit more stressful.

I I would imagine any further cuts to transit service will would greatly impact my mobility.

I can only imagine you know with just recent changes the the difficulty that Seattleites with lower incomes must face.

And so I you know I would really like to request that the council increase funding as much as possible including the 0.2 percent sales tax as well as dedicating some emergency funding for service in 2021. I would like to request that we focus funding on improving transit service and that we structure transit service to better serve the needs of people who are transit dependent, myself included.

So we must do the best that we can as a city to maintain transit service hours and service quality.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Rizwan Rizwi followed by Joe Riley.

Go ahead, Rizwan.

Hi good morning.

My name is Rizvan Rizvi.

I'm the Executive Director of Muslim Housing Services in Seattle.

I'm here today as the co-chair of Seattle Department of Transportation's Equity Work Group and we broadly support the the STBD proposal for extending and continuing the sales tax.

Even though it's viewed as by a lot of our group as a progressive tax Given the changes that are taking place potentially with the car tabs not being able to collect additional funds, we feel this is a proactive planning which is needed before we get to a point where the budget is significantly, has a significant shortfall which we'll not be able to make up in a very quick way.

I know that this, the amount of funds which will come from discontinuing at the existing level will not bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

But we feel that this is a good balance given the current situation.

Even though the tax rate is of sales tax we view as very against equity for the larger community and our Committee is is largely representing marginalized communities.

So we feel that we can support an increase even though this initial initiative was for an existing continuation of the 0.1 percent rate given that Seattle is behind other cities which are surrounding on the total tax rate like Lynwood and Shoreline which have higher tax rates.

Thank you, Rizwan.

Next, we've got Joe Riley, followed by Joe Kunzler.

Go ahead, Joe Riley.

Hey, everybody.

Thank you so much for letting me come in today.

My name is Joe Riley.

I'm the Development Director at Seattle Subway.

And there are just a few things that our organization feels is really prudent and important for the Transit Benefit District to really deliver on.

And these things are as follows.

Firstly, we are hoping that we can increase the funding as much as possible with both a 2% sales or 0.2% rather sales tax and emergency 2021 funding.

Second, we're hoping that the council does focus on and prioritize spending on transit service, as opposed to capital improvement, which many of the things could be covered with the move Seattle funds.

And thirdly, we are hoping that the council does remember to prioritize transit service to better serve the needs of people who really are transit dependent.

That actually does include myself as someone who just recently sold their car.

And that's pretty much it.

I do appreciate your time and hope you consider these things in making your decisions today.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, Joe Riley.

Next, we've got Joe Kunzler followed by Alex Hudson.

Go ahead, Joe Kunzler.

Wow, thank you.

That was a great speech to follow and I'm sure the next one's going to be an even harder act to proceed.

So I will be brief.

I really support Seattle Transit Benefit District that will get more buses on the road because transit should be the first choice of everyone to get around.

It's important to listen to groups like Seattle Subway and Transportation Choices Coalition.

We also need bus lanes around Seattle.

I cannot stress this enough.

We need bus lanes.

We need buses not to be stuck in traffic.

You can also use bus lanes as bike lanes.

Maryland did the same.

This would solve the needs of the cycling lobby at the same time.

But we should also name these lanes after heroes of transit, like Heidi Wills, Shefali Ragnafafan, and some of our other heroes who normally would not be recognized.

That's important to me as well.

And for me to be enthusiastic about this campaign, that is vital, absolutely vital, that we remember our heroes like Heidi Wills and we get this done.

Otherwise, I'm just going to give 25 bucks to the campaign and call it good.

With that, I really hope that this is a four-year measure.

That's what the partners down there are calling for.

And it's really important that we have a four-year measure because this will put pressure on King County government to come to a table.

Thank you.

And be serious.

They need to understand that transit, you're welcome.

we are going to move on to the next item.

Next up is Alex Hudson followed by Ryan Packer.

If Alex is there.

Councilmember, we don't see an Alex Hudson in the caller list.

Thank you.

My name is Ryan Packer.

I support all the amendments except for the amendment two, which would invest in inexpensive hub ride hail like alternatives.

It would be a great irony for days after the city council who just voted to invest heavily in the Green New Deal to then decide that they were not going to fully invest in Seattle's transit network.

Between 2008 and 2016, the greatest reduction per capita in greenhouse gas emissions in Seattle was not improved energy efficiency for electric vehicles or residential heating.

It was actually reduced vehicle trips.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

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We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

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We need to go bigger.

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We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need to go bigger.

We need Thank you, Ryan.

Next is Anthony D'Amico, followed by Karen Taylor.

Go ahead, Anthony.

Hi, Anthony D'Amico here.

I'm speaking as a member of Transit Riders Union and a teacher with SPS.

I've been really impressed by so many of these calls so far, so I'll try to make this as quick as possible.

I support the proposal and all amendments aside from number two, and especially CM Morales' amendment.

We need to expand our transit services for those who cannot afford a car, and for those who decided to give up their cars in order to reduce their carbon footprint, and in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the city in general.

I despise sales tax increases such as these, as they're regressive and impact low-income households significantly more than high-income earners.

However, this is necessary and our only option to fund the services we desperately need.

Not only does this impact low-income residents, our SPS students and workers in the city, but this also, like I said before, affects our carbon footprint.

We need progressive revenue to fund these, but unfortunately, we have the chair of this committee who opposes doing just that.

Thank you, Anthony.

Next up, we've got Karen Taylor followed by Kayla Sargent.

Go ahead, Karen.

Hi, my name's Karen Taylor.

I testified for some activists up in front of y'all because it's for racial equity and stuff.

But considering this stuff is a matter of survival for me, I'm disabled, and I don't have a driver's license, and I ride exclusively transit to doctor's appointments, among other things.

So I just specifically wanted to say that I support Tammy Morales's amendment to double the size of the measure because I really hate regressive taxes.

But again, I ride only transit.

And I think the need for transit is so important that the damage of the tax to working folks is less than the damage of not having a transit.

That's it.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Kayla Sargent, followed by Alex Hudson.

Go ahead, Kayla.

Hi, my name is Kayla Sargent, and I'm calling in.

I support increasing the funding as much as possible to keep public transit service service available to people here in Seattle.

Public transit is such an important part of the foundation of the city and we need to recognize how interconnected it is to so many other issues.

And when it falls apart it creates a cascade of negative effects that impacts everyone in the city.

And it's really regrettable that the funding is falling on a regressive sales tax.

So in general also please try and change Seattle's regressive tax code.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kayla.

Our last speaker is Alex Hudson.

Go ahead, Alex.

Hello, thank you.

I'm Alex Hudson.

I'm the Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition.

We are fully supportive of renewal of the STBD.

It is clear and obvious that there is a need for transit service now and will be in the future.

We think that the STBD renewal can be improved by adoption of Amendment 1, which assures for service and creates a clear pathway to getting us back to a vehicle license fee.

Amendment 3, which shortens the duration and gets us to a time when we can have more clarity to get us to a countywide measure with progressive revenue.

Amendment 5, thank you to Council Member and Chair Peterson for guaranteeing that most of this money goes to service.

Supportive of Amendment 7, which assures that the evaluation of this funding goes with a racial equity lens bolstered by King County Mobility's Mobility Framework ensures that there's institutional guardrails to drive service where need is most.

On the issue of Point 2, it is a sad reality that regressive sales taxes are a limited option available to us.

Transit service is vital and increasing to Point 2 would prevent over 100,000 hours of transit service cuts at a time when people are in need most.

We are following the lead of BIPOC community leaders and organizations in the conversation around advancing our regressive tax.

And thank you for bringing this important issue to the public's conversation.

Thank you.

That is the conclusion of our speaker list, and I do want to announce that Council Members Sawant, Lewis, and Morales have joined us.

Thank you very much.

So next on the agenda is our item of business, and then I'll have some introductory remarks after we introduce this.

So will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item 1, Council Bill 119833 relating to a sales tax and use tax providing for the submission to qualified electors of the city at an election to be held on November 3rd, 2020. A proposition to collect a sales and use tax to fund transit and related transportation programs in Seattle for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you clerk and Councilmember Herbold has joined us as well.

Councilmember Lisa Herbold is on as well.

Thank you.

And I know they were here earlier and I just missed them here in the panel.

So thank you for letting me know.

So, Real quick, for the benefit of the general public, as we know, Council President Gonzalez established this temporary committee of all nine council members so we can put in front of voters the opportunity to renew the funding that's expiring for our successful Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

a benefit district is a key tool Washington state law provides to cities to raise money for transportation needs.

And Seattle's consistently focused our benefit district on supplementing bus service, providing free transit passes to those in need and providing other transit solutions.

Today, our mission is to amend the bill and vote it out of this committee to keep it on schedule to consider it at our full city council meeting on Monday, July 27. The deadline is August 4 to put this funding source onto the November ballot for voters to consider.

Now that we've heard public comment, we're going to give the co-chairs of our city's official transportation advisory board an opportunity to provide brief input.

Our central staff transportation expert Calvin Chow will then explain each amendment individually We will vote on each one in the order on the agenda.

Items 6A and 6B relate to a similar topic of developer fees, so we'll talk about those as a group.

And we do have an amendment that is being walked on by Council Member Morales about the level of the sales tax that's proposed.

And so our colleagues from the executive are also here to answer questions.

I imagine colleagues will probably direct most of your questions to Calvin Chow.

I really want to thank those who took the time to read and comment on this transportation legislation, the meeting in previous week, and over the past week.

And I'd like to thank those who've been advocating for transit for years, whose expertise and energy is vital in moving this important transit measure forward.

This includes Transportation Choices Coalition, the Transit Riders Union, labor unions, many more.

The bill transmitted to us by the executive provided a solid foundation and it's a natural part of the legislative process that we as council members would hear from the public and amend the legislation.

One of the key themes of the amendments is that we heard the call to increase the emphasis on transit service even more.

For example, amendment number one, which we'll talk about soon, would reallocate substantial resources from capital projects amendment number three would protect transit service over the life of the measure.

other amendments seek to respond to those advocating for more transit.

thank you for getting your amendments in.

we are going to move on to council bill 119833. let's go ahead and have some introductory remarks from Calvin chow of central staff if he has any and then we will hear from the transit advisory board briefly and then we will dive into each amendment separately.

Okay, great.

So I want to let everybody know Elliot Helmbrecht from the mayor's offices here.

We've got two folks from SDOT here.

Elliot, do you want to introduce the Transit Advisory Board members for us so we can just hear from them as our official advisory board on transit?

Of course, yeah.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm especially excited to be here this morning to talk to you and introduce these two fine folks, our coaches from the Transit Advisory Board.

They can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think both of them have been there for the entirety of the six-year term.

And if not, they've been around for a very long time and instrumental in the success of SDBD over the last few years, helping us through some investment decisions and where to prioritize our resources.

I'd like to introduce Jen Malley Crawford and Aaron Teague, the co-chairs of our Transit Advisory Board for a few comments this morning.

Thanks, Elliot.

Good morning, honorable members of the Seattle City Council.

I'm going to be reading, so that might sound a little strange.

My name is Jen Malley Crawford, co-chair of the Seattle Transit Advisory Board and resident of District 2. I'm joined by my fellow co-chair, Aaron Teague, a resident of District 7. Our vice-chair, Andrew Martin, who's a resident of District 4, is listening in as well.

The two of us are here today representing the Seattle Transit Advisory Board, a group of 12 residents who provide public oversight on Seattle Transportation Benefit District expenditures and advise the city on matters related to transit.

We are delighted to be here before you today to extend our support for the Seattle Transportation Benefit District six-year renewal measure that has been put forward by Mayor Durkin, as well as to suggest a few improvements to the measure.

But first, let me pause to say that these are unprecedented times.

Prior to the devastating impact of COVID-19 on our community and on communities across the world, I personally could not have imagined all the ways my life, my work, and my daily travel choices have changed in the last four months.

I could not have imagined the devastating impact to our economy or to our transit system that COVID-19 has wrought.

Prior to this public health crisis, I could not have imagined the city deciding not to pursue renewing this incredibly successful transit measure.

Yet in the first few months of the COVID pandemic, I actually thought we might not get the chance to stand before you to endorse this important renewal measure.

The Seattle Transit Advisory Board members believe that a frequent transit network will play a critical component in our region's recovery for residents of all demographics, and we know that it provides a vital lifeline for low-income residents right now.

Pursuing the renewal of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District is the right decision for our community because Seattle needs additional public transportation to recover from COVID and to meet its climate and environmental justice goals.

We therefore strongly support this renewal effort.

We support the inclusion of low income ORCA programs and believe that their continuation is essential to enable those area residents hit hardest by this pandemic.

We also support the use of STBD funds to improve transit frequency and reliability and passenger amenities.

And we think this program should continue focusing on projects that make transit flow better throughout the city.

Policies that concentrate capital investments on transit dense corridors with bus only lanes and signal timing improvements will give us the best bang for our buck, and they let us move more riders with fewer service hours.

Meera, go ahead.

In addition to this strong support, we have a few improvements we would like to suggest.

One item that we think is missing from the proposed unamended measure is a floor on the revenue that is dedicated to purchasing transit service.

We believe that the core of this measure should be transit service itself, the direct purchase of transit hours from King County Metro and regional partners.

without a strong frequent transit network, a free ORCA card isn't very useful.

Again, we support funding transit access and capital to ensure the additional service Seattle buys is reliable and equitable.

In prior years, we especially needed additional spending options because quite honestly, Metro could not sell us the amount of bus service that we wanted to buy.

Going forward, this will sadly no longer be a problem.

We cannot let flexibility of the measure detract from the core of the measure.

For this reason, it is essential that this measure have a guarantee on the amount of bus service that it will purchase.

The Transit Advisory Board asks you to implement a position that actually at least two-thirds of the yearly sales tax revenue collected go towards the purchase of transit service.

These transit service hours could be part of the emerging needs of West Seattle and other neighborhoods, or as part of our more general service purchase.

But we need to stay focused on the core of STBD, providing useful, frequent transit service for Seattle residents.

We would also be remiss not to mention one background backbone of our transit system link light rail.

It is a key piece of the frequent transit network and it connects many Seattle neighborhoods together.

Any measure placed on the ballot needs to be able to fund this vital infrastructure as a less frequent link degrades the usefulness of the entire bus network that surrounds it.

Again we just want to reiterate that we strongly support a six-year STBD renewal measure.

We hope you will consider our suggestions for improving it and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have for us.

Thank you.

Thank you members of the transit advisory board.

My staff went to your meeting this past week and thank you for your input today.

I appreciate it.

move the bill and then we'll get into the amendments and we can, Calvin, Chow, we'll walk through each one individually, we'll vote on them and move through it.

So council members, I'm gonna move council bill 119833 to have it before us.

So I move that the committee recommends passage of council bill 119833. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Now that the bill is before us, we're going to address each amendment individually based on the order of today's agenda, with central staff providing a summary of the amendment before we discuss, before we vote on each one.

The exception is amendment 6A and 6B, which both address the issue of real estate developer impact fees.

So let's see, amendment number one.

Would you like me to briefly summarize?

Yes, let's go ahead and move that amendment.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to move that amendment?

Oh, you're on mute.

Thank you.

I move amendment number one.

Thank you.

Second.

Great.

We've got a second.

Thank you.

Um, so it's been moved and seconded amendment number one as a co-sponsor of this amendment.

Um, I'd like to, uh, well, let's hear from Calvin and then, and then council members can, we can pontificate after we get the substance from Calvin.

Thank you council members.

I will keep my comments short and to briefly summarize the amendment.

Amendment one is co-sponsored by council member Peterson and council member Herbold.

It adds a whereas clause, which describes the city's vehicle license fee authority if I-976 were to be overturned.

And it revises section 2D to put restrictions on spending on capital.

It allows up to $9 million of funding for capital spending in 2021 only, and then for every year thereafter, it reduces that to $3 million per year.

Thank you, Calvin.

So this, this amendment is very important because we heard loud and clear that there was a concern that the measure that was transmitted had, that there wasn't, people wanted a bigger emphasis on transit.

So this measure is saying that we heard you, we are moving a substantial portion of those dollars We are moving it out of the capital bucket, which is subsection 2D, and we're moving it out of there, which would then go into transit service hours.

So it's a significant movement from $9 million.

It's a $6 million movement toward transit service hours and a significant increase.

we have a lot of people who have pointed that out after they digested the bill and gave us their strong feedback to emphasize transit in this measure, and that's what this amendment does.

Councilmember Herbold, did you want to speak to it?

I think you've covered it very well, and, yeah, I appreciate working with you to bring forward this amendment to ensure that this measure is focused on transit service.

Okay, so we can go ahead and vote on this.

Last call for questions on this one.

Thank you.

Council Member Swann.

You're on mute still.

Thank you.

On the one hand, I'm sorry.

I will hold off.

I think I'm mixing up the amendments.

That's okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well, amendment one has been moved in second and we've spoken to it.

Um, we've talked about comments.

So will the clerk call the roll on adoption of amendment number one?

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Let's continue with the next amendment, amendment number two.

I'll go ahead and move the amendment, and we'll get a second, and we'll hear from...

Actually, go ahead, Cal, why don't you go first?

I'll stick to the script and have you go first.

Amendment two, please.

Amendment two is sponsored by Council Member Peterson.

It would add a whereas clause that describes the city's previous investments in first mile, last mile programs, which include the VIA and Ride Two pilot programs, and would revise section 2E to include first, last mile connections in the emerging needs category of spending.

Thank you, Calvin.

So amendment number two, this, as we know, one of the challenges is getting people out of their cars, getting them to transit, getting them to light rail.

And there are some programs that King County and Seattle have experimented with, and the VIA program in South Seattle, the Ride 2 in West Seattle, this amendment, puts a whereas clause in to recognize that we've done this work.

And then what it does is it puts in subsection 2E, it mentions first, last mile transit connections to within that category of emerging mobility needs.

It just puts that in there as an authorized use of funds.

It does not assign a dollar amount to it.

It doesn't detract from anything else.

it just puts that notion of first last mile transit connections as an option for the future.

So I why don't I amend this or why don't I move this amendment and then we'll we'll hear from everybody if they have questions.

So I move to amend Council Bill 119833 as presented on Amendment 2.

Second.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

So it's been moved and seconded, and we've already heard from central staff and heard from me as the sponsor.

Happy to answer any questions about amendment two.

Council Member Herbold.

Not so much a question, but more of a statement.

I just want to recognize that it is true that there has been low ridership in the past.

But I think that that was because of some limited accessibility issues in some of the neighborhoods where services were offered.

There was some low ridership in southeast west Seattle and that the app did not work as well as it could have, but I think the fact that this recital does not require the use of funds for this purpose, it merely includes it as a potential use.

I think it's an important inclusion because I do believe services.

I think that these last mile services are really important, and I think that sdot and metro can work together to ensure that some of the glitches that people experienced in the past can be addressed.

I do support the flexibility to allow this.

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2?

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Thank you.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Chair Peterson?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Calvin, if you could please continue with the next amendment, amendment number three, and then we'll hear from the sponsors.

Councilmembers, amendment number three is sponsored by Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Gonzalez.

It revises sections one, two, and five to reduce the term of the measure from six years to four years.

Okay, so Councilmember Morales, would you like to speak to this amendment, please?

Sure, thank you, Chair Peterson.

I think we all understand that we are in quite a predicament now because of the COVID crisis.

This amendment would address some of that problem.

Let me back up, sorry.

We know that reducing service hours from 300,000 to 80,000, which is what we are being asked to do with this package, is a draconian response.

And we know that communities of color will bear the burden of these cuts.

And so this amendment is intended to shorten the length of the proposal, mostly because we don't want to box ourselves into a six-year service cut when we could be coming out of the financial crisis before the end of that term.

Hopefully before the end of even the four year term.

And so this is really an attempt to to acknowledge that we have we have a proposal before us.

We need to make sure that we are ensuring some degree of service.

But because of the nature of the the drastic cuts that we're making, we wanna shorten the time as much as possible.

And so we are moving this amendment to reduce the term of the initiative from six years to four years.

And I wanna thank Council President Gonzalez for her co-sponsorship of this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Ralles.

Council Member Lewis, did you have a comment?

I am proud to support this amendment today.

I think it is a good reflection that, you know, even though the transit benefit district is an essential and critical investment, just acknowledging that, you know, our tools are limited, the economy is shaky right now, and that hopefully the picture in four years we will be one of recovery and be one of more progressive options to stand up the future of this essential service and to buy these essential service hours.

So I completely endorse the different timeline and we will be voting for this amendment.

I have a question for Cal.

I'm wondering if we kept the language as is, but instead included language that said that we did not intend to collect funds.

In five, in six, if there was a regional measure, is that something that we could do?

And the reason why I ask is, you know, we kind of went through this situation last year.

when we were, there were some council members that were very, very interested in putting forward a regional measure and some that were not.

And last year we really had to scramble, or this year we've had to scramble because we were waiting on the county.

I was on the regional transit committee last year, and it was really challenging for those King County council members who wanted to move forward.

King County had a related issue of road funding, which was not easy to separate and will not be easy to separate in the future.

and so I just don't want us here in Seattle to be left in the position we were in in 2014 when we had to vote on a quickly developed measure while being clear that Seattle supports a countywide measure.

And I'm just wondering if we could have a little flexibility here.

Council Member, the ballot measure would give the city the authorization to impose a sales tax, but it doesn't require it.

It's not the actual imposition of it itself.

So a future council could take action to not collect the tax in the future.

I could imagine if the county were to put a ballot measure, propose a ballot measure, I think it would be possible for council to pass an ordinance that said that conditional on the passage of that measure, the city would not collect something in the future.

So I think you could do that.

I think it would, if you were intending to include language like that in this, legislation I would suggest as a whereas clause to explain the intents because that really is a future council action that would be involved.

Thank you, Cal.

I'd like to- Mr. Chair?

Yes, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

I apologize.

I meant to try to text you quickly, but I agree with Council Member Herbold.

I agree that there's a way to look at the fourth year to hold out on years five and six.

Now, if we're estimating, and this is a question for Cal, we know that we're looking at 20 to 30 million annually, as you know, to plug a lot of, including West Seattle, a lot of transportation budget holes.

And maybe Calvin can address the issue of I-976 and what that variable means.

And Chair, I think you and I discussed this before about how that would change this this picture as it stands today.

Is there some analysis about that, even just looking forward?

Calvin, I know that you mentioned it in your memo, in your fiscal note and memo.

That's why I bring it up.

Sure.

The vehicle license fee is prohibited by initiative I-976, and the city is part of a lawsuit that's challenging that.

I believe it's in Washington Supreme Court currently.

and we don't have a timetable for when that decision will be decided, but if we are successful in overturning I-976, we would have that revenue source available to us.

There are two elements of vehicle license fee authorization in state law, one that is councilmanic and does not require voter approval.

We currently have a $20 vehicle license fee that the that the Seattle Transportation Benefit District has imposed.

The council could increase that if I-976 is overturned to $40 as soon as the court case is resolved.

And then after two years of having a $40 fee in place, the law allows the council to increase that to $50.

Separately, there is also a voter approved authority for vehicle license fees that could go up to $100, which would require a vote of the people.

And again, it's subject to initiative I-976.

Vehicle license fee authority is shared by other overlapping benefit districts.

So if the King County Benefit District decided to pursue vehicle license fees, those limits are jointly shared.

I should add that the vehicle license fee for the current STB transit spending that we're collecting now, we did get an injunction, a temporary injunction from the courts to continue to collect, but we are holding money in reserve in case we have to refund those collections back to last year's election.

The funding last year was a $60 VLF.

that generated approximately half of the money we were collecting.

So depending on the size, you can imagine more or less doubling the amount of spending that's considered here.

Okay, thank you.

I'd like to put out on the table I think some of the rationale for the six-year proposal that was transmitted to us.

I know that there was a lot of thought that went into it and four years was considered by the executive and then they decided on the six years.

And just to sort of lay that out on the table for the public that may not be following it as closely.

So the reason six years was chosen is that, you know, They believe in the measure, and we believe in it.

We want to have it out there for longer.

The four years, if we have it for just four years, and that's when King County wants to do a regional measure in four years, because a regional measure would probably do better in a presidential election.

So if King County is targeting a regional measure four years from now, and ours expires in four years, it creates a cliff where We have no leverage with King County in terms of the control of the extra dollars that we'd be paying for.

And so if we can't negotiate with King County, our measure expires, and then that's a problem.

I think that if ours is six years, nothing precludes us from doing a regional measure with King County two years from now, four years from now.

We can do that at any time.

We can go up to 0.2% sales tax even in King County if we wanted to at that time.

So I think that that's a concern, is that we would have less certainty in these dollars to Seattle if we shorten the time.

Another issue is that the move Seattle levy expires in four years, so creating a situation where it's very high stakes in terms of transportation dollars, where everything's happening at once.

and we don't know what the environment will be at that time.

So the six years provides a couple years of cushion, where as Council Member Herbold was alluding to, we can choose not to collect the tax at that time.

We can wind down the measure.

It also gives us leverage with King County.

I think that covers sort of the rationale of the six years, just to put that out there for everybody who might be trying to decide what to do here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

That's very helpful.

Thank you.

I was going to ask maybe Council Member Morales, if she might be able to remind us again about the rationale for four, just so that I can hear them back to back.

That's helpful.

Yeah, I think so.

I appreciate the comments.

I think what we're really looking at is the drastic nature of the cuts that we're talking about here.

And while I acknowledge that if this, if we do a four year, then it would come, the renewal would come at the same time as a county measure.

I think that is kind of the point is that we really want to be moving toward a regional solution anyway.

And we really want to make sure that we're not locking ourselves into a proposal and a package that is, you know, risking, potentially, depending on which of these amendments, past hundreds of thousands of hours of service for longer periods of time, particularly for communities that are going to be disproportionately impacted by these cuts.

Council Member Esqueda, is that helpful?

Thank you very much.

Quick question for Calvin and then Council Member Strauss and then Council Member Herbold.

Calvin, is there, in this measure as it stands, are there commitments to regionalism baked into the measure already?

I believe there's a number of statements about regionalism.

Did you have a specific commitment that you had in mind?

No, no.

I just believe there was language in there committing us to work with King County to do a regional measure in the future.

So the legislation does have some intent behind that.

We can get back to that in a minute.

And I think we've got Council Members Strauss and Herbold.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

I think that we are all in agreement that the regional approach to this is, again, the best way forward.

And we are all trying to find a way that we can put our measure forward in a way that provides the most amount of service possible at this time.

We are trying to predict the future in incredibly uncertain times.

I am still also torn between four years and six years because there really are benefits to both.

And those benefits are The weight of each of those benefits is unknown right now, because we don't know how long the recession will take.

We won't really understand voter appetite for two levies at once, and also the amount of regional transportation change that will happen when Redmond light rail opens.

So all of these uncertainties make this decision very difficult, especially in the tight timeline that we have been meeting to review this measure in addition to all of the other things that council is putting forward.

So all that to say is explaining why I am having a hard time making this decision.

Thank you, council member.

Council member.

Oh, yes.

If I if I may, just the second to last whereas clause does describe the intent to it highlights the importance of the regional public transit network throughout King County and supports the future efforts to craft a regional wide package.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I know the Transit Advisory Board members also mentioned the rationale for six years if I left something out, but first, Council Member Herbold, did you have comments?

Yeah, that was just my question, as I'd be interested.

I know that the Transit Advisory Board expressed the rationale for the six-year term.

I'm just wondering, I don't know if they've had a chance to opine on this amendment or if, in fact, their explanation of the rationale for a six-year term was in in response to their knowledge of this amendment being out there.

So just am interested to know specifically what their position would be on this amendment, as opposed to just hearing why they proposed a six-year term.

Okay, and we'll give Council Member Morales the last word on this as the sponsor of the amendment.

And Council Member Sawant, please.

Thank you.

I will be voting yes on this amendment.

This tax is too small and too regressive.

I mean, it's bad in every way in the sense that it's a regressive tax.

It's a continuation of a regressive tax.

And might I point out how strange and stunning it is that We're putting a ballot measure for regressive tax after about a week and a half of having voted on a very progressive tax and a historic measure, the Amazon tax, so it's really strange to be sitting here talking about this.

It's both regressive and it's an austerity measure because there's a cut involved, and I agree with Council Member Morales characterizing it as a draconian cut.

And so the sooner we can have a chance to correct these things, the better.

And ultimately, I would say, of course, ultimately, it really is not a question of four years or six years.

It's a question of whether we have a fighting movement to get organized and win something progressive and win a full funding of public transit and actually go towards the goals that transit advocates and environmental activists in our communities have been talking about and that science indicates that we should go towards.

So really, ultimately, it's a question of the movement.

But I do think that having this amendment points in the right direction.

And also, I would say that the amendment from my office, which is coming later in the discussion, 6A, is very much consistent with this, because it's pointing towards progressive revenues.

So both this one and 6A point towards progressive revenues.

And obviously, that's not enough to point towards it.

This council and future councils have to act on it and really fight for progressive revenues.

And last but not least, I would just say, Council Member Peterson said, we believe in this measure.

So I just wanted to say, that's not speaking for my position.

I don't believe in a deeply regressive measure.

And on top of that, a measure that's actually, potentially has austerity written into it.

And what we need to believe in is progressive measures and full funding of public resources.

Thank you.

Councilmember Silva?

Councilmember Silva?

It's not actually strange that we're having a conversation about sending this to the voters.

I think the big difference between this and what we just voted on last week was a large progressive tax on corporations does not tax individuals and does not tax jobs.

As I know, I think this council has said unanimously and I really appreciate that clarification we keep sending out.

The reason that this goes to the voters is because this is a tax on individuals and I think it's rightfully asking them if they want to be taxed some more.

I would like to see this be shortened to the, I think, amendment that Councilmember Morales and Gonzalez have put out there.

But I think that as we do so, we recognize that we're doing this because we have so few tools in our toolbox.

The one tool that we did use last week was our ability to legally use the progressive tax on payroll, which many other cities do, including Portland and other cities in our region.

So I do think that that's the difference here.

And I think it makes a lot of sense to think about how this could dovetail to other regional and state issues, like I know we're trying to do on other strategies as well.

But I wanted to support this amendment and also, I think, offer that clarification, at least from my position, on why we are going down this route, but only because it's one of the very few tools in our toolbox as we continue to try to fight to create additional, more progressive tools.

Thank you.

do we want to give the, um, I'm thinking that if the transportation advisory board is still here and they want, you know, 30 seconds, one minute to talk about the rationale, and then we've got council member Sawant and we'll, we'll let council member Morales have the last word.

So, um, Aaron, if you're still there, um, you can speak to it.

I think we summarized it pretty well, but just wanted to give you one last comment.

I think that's a good point.

Thank you.

Councilmember Swamp will go next and then Councilmember Morales.

I want to toss out this idea, thinking outside the box on the fly here, what could possibly go wrong.

If Councilmember Morales would view a five-year measure as a friendly amendment, a quick no is fine.

councilmember Morales.

You can think about that or we can hear from councilmember Sawant, however you want to do it.

Councilmember Sawant and then councilmember Strauss might have something and then we can wrap it up with councilmember Morales as the sponsor.

Councilmember Sawant.

Yeah, I guess what I want to say is, as we all know, the future is a little uncertain.

We are in a financial crisis.

And at the same time, in four years, we will have several more light rail stations.

We will have an interest.

People will have been able to take advantage and see what good transit looks like.

I also want to say that we have had incredible ridership lately because of the investments that we've made.

And so, you know, I agree with Council Member Strauss that we have not had nearly enough time to really process this and to think carefully, to do the outreach that we need to do to make sure that we are hearing from our constituents.

And I think that kind of uncertainty is what is driving the interest in making sure that because this is a I think we have a huge cut and because we want to move toward more progressive options as soon as possible, I think I want to stick with the four years and give us an opportunity to really spend that time working on the strategy for making the kind of improvements that we would prefer to see and the kind of investments that we would prefer to see.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say in response to some of the discussion earlier that, I mean, legislatively speaking, yes, it is different that the Amazon tax was actually passed directly by the city council and absolutely, and I really appreciate the I think it is correct that the council is not making an accurate decision.

It is a combined effort of the council here to have made it crystal clear that that tax is no way a tax on jobs and not a tax on small businesses and not a tax on workers.

It is very important and historic that we passed that.

And that this is going to the voters.

In that sense, yes, it is correct that the council is not But at the same time, it's not true that we don't know where the voters stand on regressive taxation.

Absolutely.

And there's no mystery about this.

There are polls, but we don't even need polls.

Working people, the poor, the middle class are completely exhausted.

They're fed up and they're angry about the regressive taxation.

And that's both anger against the sales tax and car tax, which are deeply regressive and hit the poorest and the most low income the most, but also middle class people in Seattle are fed up with property taxes, and correctly so, because again, it's not exactly a progressive tax.

You can debate between sales tax and progressive taxes, the property taxes, but the property taxes hit middle class and working class homeowners disproportionately.

In fact, we are seeing the remaining vestiges of black homeownership in Seattle being hit hard in the central district, especially being hit really hard from property taxes.

over the years.

And so voters are completely tired of regressive taxation.

So I just wanted to make it clear from my standpoint I'm not speaking for anyone else on the council, but from my standpoint, I don't think it makes it okay just because we're sending it to the voters.

It is the council's obligation to fight for progressive revenues, and I don't agree that there aren't tools in the sense that, yes, immediately, right at this moment, yeah, it's clear we don't have any options.

But that's been said year after year by the council, by successive councils.

Not everybody of us was here on the previous councils, obviously.

And even before I got on the council, this has been happening where the city council and the city establishment has refused to push for progressive revenues.

And then again and again, we come back into this situation.

So I just wanted to make it clear that just because the voters will be voting on it, it won't be okay.

And what voters have shown in Seattle is that they care about the services.

So when they're left with no options but to tax themselves through regressive taxation, they will do it.

And what that speaks to is their commitment, is the commitment of ordinary people in Seattle to do the right thing.

But that doesn't absolve the city establishment of the responsibility of actually doing what we have the power to do, which is tax big business.

We have done this last week, and we should do more of it, and that's why amendment 6A is important because it points towards that.

Thank you, Council Member.

I think the Transit Advisory Board co-chair is available.

We'll give her 30 seconds.

Aaron, if you want to speak quickly here about the six-year rationale, and then we'll get to Council Member Strauss, if he still has a comment, and then end with Council Member Morales.

Go ahead, Aaron.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Um, I had just stepped away from my desk briefly.

Um, so the reason we support a six year measure is because 2024 is going to be very crowded with transit measures with the move Seattle levee oversight committee renewal, um, a possible King County transit measure.

And like council member Herbold alluded to with trying to decide between a city versus a County measure this year was, um, I think really, that we are going to be able to move forward.

And I think that is something that took up a lot of our time.

Especially with the possibility of a second transit measure, either Councilmatic or by voters for car tabs, I think that is what makes us comfortable with going for a six-year measure now, knowing there is a possibility of a second additional revenue stream in the future.

As per your request for a five-year compromise, I would be inclined not to support that simply because I think that it is important to keep these ballot measures on years where we have active voter participation for other races, so either four years or six years.

Again, it's very difficult to make these decisions with so many unknowns before us.

It has seemed each week this year, another level of crisis has unfolded.

And we're talking about four to six years from now.

I think that this is also in, this conversation should be held not inside of a vacuum, but in tandem with Council Member Morales' other amendments to increase the sales tax.

because these are both complimentary conversations, and they're both directly interconnected.

I am still leaning towards the six years because of the ability for the regional measure to be passed at four years, as per Erin's last comments.

But again, I'm pretty torn on this.

So I just wanted to let that feeling be reflected on the record.

Thank you.

Councilor Morales, you want to bring us home here and we'll vote on it?

Sure.

Well, um, I guess, uh, I guess I'm going to call the question and, uh, let us, let us see where we land and I'm going to urge my colleagues support for this, uh, so that we can move towards a more, more progressive option for our community.

Thank you.

I appreciate your patience as we talk through it.

I think it was important for those who are not following us closely to hear the debate between six and four years and the rationale.

I appreciate everyone's patience.

Before I vote I just want to state that I want to thank the transit advisory board and the hard work that they've done and I will be not voting for this because You know, it's six years.

It's 0.1 We haven't a second additional revenue stream coming in in four years, hopefully And I trust the voters will have the voter pamphlet with all the information and we'll make that decision.

So I will be voting no Thank you

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on amendment number three?

Juarez?

No.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Nay.

Chair Peterson?

No.

Five in favor, three opposed.

Okay, the motion carries and amendment number three is adopted.

Calvin, if you could continue with amendment number four.

Amendment number four is sponsored by Council Member Peterson.

It would add a new section three to require that a majority of the yearly expenditures be for transit services.

Thank you.

So this is a supplement to amendment number one that we passed.

So the idea with amendment number four is that, again, we heard the calls for more transit and to protect transit as part of this measure.

So what this does is it simply says that a majority of the yearly expenditures must be for transit.

And that sections 2A and 2B of the measure are the two big transit pieces.

So again, hearing the call, we need to have a majority of the money go toward transit because the buckets, you know, say up to this amount, up to that amount, up to this amount, if you add them all up, there'd be nothing left for transit.

So we have to create this guardrail, this floor of at least a majority of the money going toward transit.

Happy to answer any questions about Amendment 4. Great.

Um, not seeing any comments or questions on amendment four.

Will the clerk please call a roll?

War is I Lewis.

I Morales.

Hi.

Mosqueda.

Hi.

So want I Strauss.

Hi.

Herbold.

Hi.

Chair Peterson.

I'm going to call the roll on this motion.

Councilmember Williams?

Aye.

Eight in favor.

None opposed.

Great.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Let's go to amendment number five.

Councilmember, I just wanted to check to make sure that that motion was moved and seconded.

Did we follow all the procedures for that?

The clerk can call me on that if

There was no objection raised at the same time.

So would you like me to move and have it seconded and then we revote?

Or are we OK with Amendment 4?

Because the fact that there is no objection at this point, I recommend that we just move forward to the next amendment.

But for the next amendment, I'd also recommend that we do move each amendment before the date begins.

Great.

Thank you, clerk.

So, amendment number five, I move to amend council bill 119833 as presented on amendment five.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, and this is, go ahead, Calvin, and then we'll hear from the sponsor, Council Member Herbold.

Amendment number five is sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

It adds a whereas clause that identifies SDOT's transit usage goal for West Seattle that is necessary to manage congestion related to the West Seattle bridge closure.

It also revises section 2A to include metro routes serving historically low-income communities in Seattle as eligible for STB spending.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

So as Cal described, this amendment both identifies the mode transit goal shift that SDOT has for West Seattle.

There are to move out of single occupancy vehicles into transit.

for West Seattle is from 17% currently, or pre-COVID-19 rates, to 30%.

The other part of this amendment, Section 2A, I've heard a lot of frustration from communities in District 1 that have the lowest incomes and are and on the border of the city, those neighborhoods include South Park, South Delridge, Highland Park.

Routes currently that serve these neighborhoods don't meet the criteria in part because they are so close to the border of the city and in part to routing decisions made by King County Metro.

People in these neighborhoods have regularly expressed discontent that they aren't well served by the transportation benefit district.

They're very aware of it.

Every time a service modification comes up, it's clear that they are unlikely to get additional service because of not meeting this threshold of 65 stops in Seattle.

And I think it's really important to recognize this discontent when we're discussing a ballot measure that has to be approved by voters.

And so the I asked for information about what routes don't meet the 65% criteria that we're also in historically.

that would meet the criteria.

There are two routes that would meet the criteria.

In addition to three routes in Highland Park, one route in South Park, there are also two routes, the route 312 and the 330 in Lake City that would meet this criteria.

to be able to create an option for the city to fund these additional routes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Any comments or questions on amendment number five?

Okay.

Seeing no comments or

whereas I Louis I Morales I must get a I so I so I I Strauss I purple I chair Peterson I Eight in favor, none opposed.

All right, the motion carries, and the amendment is adopted.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes, Chair, and this is a question for the clerk.

As I stated very clearly on Amendment 3, I was a bit torn.

Do I still have the ability to call for a re-vote at the next meeting?

I'm having trouble remembering what the technical term is.

Councilmember Strauss, can you please clarify your intent if you're trying to reconsider the vote for the actual amendment?

Yes, being my vote on amendment three, being on the presiding side.

In the committees, the council rules do not provide the opportunity for committees to reconsider a vote, but the same amendment can be considered at a city council meeting if it fails.

So you can present the same amendment at the city council meeting, where the vote can be in a different direction.

So my option, if I wanted to vote in favor or against Amendment 3 to make this a six-year term, I would need to bring an amendment at full council on the 27th, stating six years.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Thank you.

Apologies for the confusion.

A lot's going on in real time.

Thank You councilmember Strauss so next brings us to amendments 6a and 6b and what we're gonna do is have Why don't we go ahead and we're gonna have Calvin speak to both of those and then we're gonna go ahead and Discuss 6a first or vote on 6a first Calvin, but if you could talk about both of them and appreciate it

Councilmembers, amendment number 6A and number 6B both describe the potential for transportation impact fees to be implemented in the future as a potential source of revenue.

Item 6A is sponsored by Councilmember Sawant and would add six whereas clauses to describe this intent.

Item 6B is sponsored by Councilmembers Peterson and Herbold and would add one whereas clause to describe this intent.

Okay.

Councilmember Swant, would you like to move your amendment 6A?

I move amendment 6A to Council Bill 119833.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Madam Clerk, if there's no second, what happens?

Or did you hear a second?

I have not heard a second at this point.

Without a second, the motion does not continue.

Therefore, we move on to the next amendment.

I'm sorry.

Chair Peterson, I had to step away.

I intended to second the motion.

Okay, all right.

So Council Member Sawant, go ahead and please speak to your amendment 6A, and then we can have questions and then vote on it.

And then because Calvin did, I'd ask Council Member to sort of keep in mind that 6B is available to you.

Go ahead, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

And I don't know that I necessarily see them as mutually exclusive, but I'll explain what 6A does differently than 6B.

As many have said today and also in the past in public testimonials and in other forums, we are faced with a false choice yet again.

the city of Toronto.

The city of Toronto does not have an unfortunate choice between regressive taxes or budget cuts.

However, there is no reason why any given city Council at any given moment cannot do something better like implementing the city has to amend the comprehensive plan or another transit plan and before you do that you need to carry out analysis which can be appealed to the hearing examiner.

This is what they will do.

They will try to jam up the process at every step of the way.

And so that is an anticipated occurrence.

And so that happened.

And last fall, the hearing examiner unfortunately ruled out, sorry, ruled that the council needed to do more work on the SEPA.

and unfortunately this year the transportation committee has not carried out the further work that would be needed on transportation impact fees.

Central staff has explained to my office that at this point and also this was relayed at the budget committee last week that at this point the earliest we could implement However, to make that actually happen at that time, I think the city council needs to make a very clear statement today in what gets voted on that we need to, that we intend to do that work and pass real developer impact fees.

And just to make it clear, that will be a tax, I mean, a fee on corporate developers.

This amendment, 6A, adds whereas clauses to make that commitment.

I just wanted to quickly read out the whereas clauses to let members of the public know what this 6A stands for.

The whereas clauses that my office is proposing to add are as follows.

Whereas sales tax and vehicle license fees are regressive taxes that disproportionately burden poor and working class people, especially communities of color, and whereas public transit like Metro is an essential component of the Green New Deal, and whereas developer impact fees could be established as early as 2021 to increase funding to buy bus service hours for metro and whereas developer impact fees are a progressive funding source paid for by large the city council is committed to enacting developer impact fees in 2021 to raise no less than $44 million which would allow Seattle to increase funding for metro bus hours.

I think we are driving towards similar things but not exactly.

Just to quickly summarize the differences, 6A explains the progressive and regressive taxes.

6B does not.

6A acknowledges the cut to transit.

6B does not.

Importantly, 6A says that the council commits to enact impact fees.

While 6B only says that the and importantly, 6A commits to at least $44 million to reverse the cuts while 6B does not make that commitment.

So just to clarify, those are the differences.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Herbold, and feel free to speak to 6B as well if that's helpful.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I actually have a question with Councilmember Sawant's version of the amendment, particularly as it relates to the last recital.

It suggests that the funding associated with developer impact fees could be used to increase funding for services, and developer impact fees developed under the Growth Management Act through a comp plan amendment are restricted to to capital costs, not for operation costs.

But mostly I'm interested in the $44 million number.

I, too, worked with Councilmember O'Brien on the transportation impact fee a proposal that he was working on, along with a lot of community stakeholders such as the Sierra Club on developing a proposal that was appealed last year.

And there was a, there's a project list developed and a fee level developed.

And we're in conversations with council member, I'm sorry, with Central Staffer Keto Freeman to talk about how to resurrect that project list and update it so we can begin the process again.

But I don't know that that $44 million number corresponds with the fee rate.

and estimates on what those fees could raise in that work that has already been done.

So I don't want to undo that work because, again, it's got a project list and a fee rate that corresponds to the cost associated with that project rate.

Council Member, if I may just interject a little bit.

There are two different authorities for imposing transportation impact fees.

There is the growth management act authority, which you are describing, which is limited to capital that would support capacity needs to support that development.

That is the link to the growth management act.

So under that scenario, you couldn't spend the growth management act.

transportation impact fees on operations.

There is separate authority to transportation benefit districts to impose impact fees.

Those are less, appear less restricted.

We're not aware of anyone in the state of Washington that has imposed, has used this authority, but it appears that it could be used more broadly for transportation purposes.

But it would, again, have to tie back to the development, to the charge of the fee.

But there's less precedent about exactly what that means.

And I was assuming that this amendment is was focused on the growth management act framework for passing developer impact fees because of the recital.

regarding to SEPA analysis.

So Seattle City Council intends to compete complete in 2020 any required SEPA analysis to enable developer impact fees.

So I'm assuming that this this amendment refers to the GMA process not the Transportation Benefit District process.

I think it may speak to both, because we don't really have precedent to follow in terms of what the transportation benefit authority would look like, I think our central staff's interpretation, I think we expect that it's likely to follow a lot of the same procedures, including environmental review.

I see.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

I will pass it over to Calvin.

and I think for the benefit of the public watching as well.

First, my understanding is that the GMA impact fees are fairly constrained, not only on capital expenses, but also on enhancing capacity.

So you couldn't use it to come in and like I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

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I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

we have to pursue the same sort of voter approval path that we're pursuing now for the sales tax, or could we approve those fees councilmatically, or would it require a supplemental vote for the impact fees?

So those are my two questions.

So on the first, maybe I'll take it in reverse order.

Neither translation benefit impact fees under either authority do not require voter approval, so they would be councilmatically imposed.

I think we have clear case law and clarity in the Growth Management Act that Those would have to be capacity improvements.

They would have to serve the increased capacity and can't be used to deal with pre-existing maintenance problems or pre-existing conditions, essentially.

The new transportation impact fee under the Growth Management Act has to serve the new capacity.

Under the Transportation Benefit District, it's less clear.

It can be used for transportation purposes.

We think that not necessarily requires to be tied to capacity.

Transportation benefit districts have been used to fund roads, high-capacity transit, public transportation, transportation demand management programs, operations, and maintenance.

So we think that it is still used for those resources.

I don't know if you have a follow-up.

Is it safe to say that anything we could use the sales tax that we are levying here under the transportation benefit district, we could use the impact fee money for the same purposes?

Is that what you are saying based on our current understanding?

There are requirements that the fees have to kind of tie back to the folks who are paying the fees.

So there's a certain amount of connection we would want to understand about the specific spending, about how it ties back to serving the folks who are paying the fees.

But it appears to be more expansive.

So if there are services or facilities that more broadly I think we could spend them on, but I think that is part of what our environmental work and all the background, the staff work that would be necessary to back up that proposal would have to be done.

Right, but it would just be those like Nexus factors as the limiting principle.

Is that the only thing that differentiates it from the sales tax?

I'm not as familiar with how the benefit impact fee case law goes, but that's my interpretation of it, that it is the authority included as one of several that are allowed to transportation benefit districts.

And so for the purposes of the transportation benefit spending, those are laid out in the state law.

And I think our question is more tied to the other restrictions on fees and how those have to be interpreted.

and again, we don't have any other, we don't have any precedent to sort of evaluate what that means, but in terms of what's on the books, we think that we can spend it on the same things that transportation benefit districts can spend in general.

All right, thank you so much.

Council Member Morales, and then we can end with Council Member Sawant.

May I, Council Member Sawant, is it okay if I call on Council Member Morales now?

Sure, but maybe it'll help if I just clarify some things and then, I think that is all I have.

Just to, yeah, I mean, I think Calvin provided very good clarification of everything, but I just wanted to quickly sort of put it in, I feel like somewhat straightforward terms.

I mean, there's obviously two types of impact fees that you can do, there's transportation benefit district or based on the Growth Management Act.

And to clarify, as Calvin did, the amendment is not meant to be prescriptive of which legal type of impact fees is considered for all the reasons that Calvin said.

I mean, this is our...

this is our understanding that similar process will have to be used.

And of course, as was clarified, the transportation benefit district funds can go directly to transit.

The Growth Management Act funds need to be used for capital as was clarified, but then there's nothing stopping the council from bringing up the equivalent amount from other funds for transit.

So there's no legal issue here at all.

It's just a question of transit hours.

The city uses many types of transit funds for new capacity and those funds can be used for transit.

As far as the concern that may be of undoing previous work, the previous work that was done for the analysis which has hit the roadblock and so on.

that was used.

But my understanding is that that could be adjusted easily without undoing any of that work.

So when we put this amendment forward in my office, we weren't, we clarified that that would not be undoing any of the previous work.

And just to explain why $44 million, $44 million is the minimum that needs to be raised to reverse the current austerity that is posed in front of us.

Thank you for answering my question from before.

Council Member Morales, you still have a comment or question?

Well, maybe I'm being dense here, but I just want to make sure I'm understanding.

I just need a little clarity in the language itself.

It does say impact fees in 2021 to raise not less than $44 million.

Does that mean that the intent is only to raise that 2021 as a kind of a stopgap or is the intent that this that would be ongoing?

I'm just not sure I'm reading this quite the right way.

Ongoing that's the intent that's why it's the it's like the floor that's the minimum that needs to be raised and then yes and then ongoing.

Yes the intent is ongoing.

Okay council member if I may just add um you know these are statements of intent I think the the actual One of the things that does differentiate transportation impact fees from sales tax is it follows the development cycle.

So a lot of those types of questions about how much money is available will change over the course of time.

That's just inherent in the type of source being contemplated.

Well, and it, sorry, just one more thing.

I mean, I appreciate that.

And it is a less reliable source because of that, although I, support it.

But I just do want to be clear about that.

Good to know that you support those.

We'll be talking to you later about that.

Thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

I'm sorry, I was muted.

I've got one last question, Calvin, because I am reviewing your memo again just to make sure while I have you here and we're having this discussion if there's any last thing.

I noticed in the chart comparing and contrasting the two different, the GMA and the Transportation Benefit District, There are some limits in the types of development where it can be levied.

There's three types for the benefit district, commercial development, industrial development, and then residential development with more than 19 units.

The GMA has no restrictions.

Is it possible legally to mix and match to go into both authorities?

impact fee authority that can go towards the broader scope of the GMA for those capacity improvements, but then also levy transportation benefit districts impact fees that can be broader applied, but only to a narrower the city attorney's office.

Is that a question we should ask the city attorney's office later?

Just curious what your take is.

Can we do a little bit in each authority based on the difference in scope of the tax?

my understanding is that there could be separate fees imposed, but that a developer would have to be credited against both fees for the charges that they paid.

So you couldn't, the developer that had to pay for the growth impact fee, that same charge would transportation benefit district fee.

It is somewhat shared authority in terms of our boundaries.

I'm not really the expert on the transportation back fee.

I think Ketel may have more information about that.

And of course the city attorney would be the best source for that as well.

I know this isn't necessarily the issue in front of us right now, but I just want to get it out for, you know, because I know Councilmember Peterson and central staff are thinking about this.

If we were to impose both, you could cast the bigger net on making sure that you're not just relying on that narrower transit benefit district authority.

So that seems like a conversation we'll need to have too.

I think we can call the question, if you want a final word.

Councilmember Herbold, did you have a final?

for council members who might believe that there's one version that's better than the other.

I want to vote for both because I want to make sure that one of them passes, but I do not believe that these are mutually exclusive.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Musqueda, and then we'll close it out with Council Member Siwan.

Just I wanted to alert my colleagues, I'm in the same position that Council Member Herbold is as well, supportive of A and B.

Thank you.

Kasparov Sawant, take us home.

Councilmember Herbold?

Councilmember Herbold?

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

So will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 6A?

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

DeWant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Chair Peterson.

No.

Seven in favor, one opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment 6A is adopted.

Regarding 6B, we already heard from central staff.

Let me just move that amendment 6B and then Council Members Herbold and I can address that.

I move to amend Council Bill 119833 as presented on amendment 6B.

Second.

Thank you.

6B.

exploring this source of revenue for real estate developer impact fees, and these are just recitals in the measure, but they're signaling an intent and an interest in this.

There are other fees that real estate developers pay.

There's the mandatory housing affordability fees that they pay, and I know there's an interest in looking at what the levels are that are charged to developers for MHA fees.

We have this authority under the state law under two different sections of the RCW, one for transportation benefit district impact fees and then other for the growth management act impact fees.

They have different pros and cons and limitations and transportation impact fees.

It is not a transportation impact fee.

So we definitely want to explore this.

The reason we drafted 6B the way it is, is it does cite specifically those two different authorities.

And says that we intend to consider imposing transportation impact fees.

Which could fund necessary capital and other transportation please add to this in a more eloquent fashion hopefully.

I'm definitely not more eloquent but just an additional fine point is I think this amendment is very explicit about the two different types of developer impact fees and would address any lack of clarity in the previous amendment about which developer impact fees for transportation purposes we're talking about.

This one very clearly identifies the authorizing I think that's probably the benefit of including this along with the previously approved amendment.

I'll just also note, while I'll be voting yes on this, I still have some concerns about the overall concept, but given that this is advisory and whereas clauses are in the recitals, I'll be voting yes today, but I wanted to signal that as the conversation moves forward, I'll have some significant questions about policy and impact that we'll be looking forward to talking with you all about.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Just wanted to echo the comments just made.

I think that impact fees are important, and they also need to be right-sized with our neighboring jurisdictions.

When we're looking at overall amounts of fees in general, I do believe that this is an option.

And these are whereas clauses, which is why I'm voting in favor of these amendments and just putting on the record that I do believe that these need to be right-sized.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Okay, if there are no further comments or questions on Amendment 6B, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 6B?

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

DeWant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

I move that we move amendment 6B.

I move the amendment.

Great.

All right, the amendment seven to amend Council Bill 119833 has been moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second it.

I think that is a good point.

Thank you.

Councilmember Calvin, you want to give us a summary and the sponsor can talk about it.

Absolutely.

Amendment number seven is sponsored by Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Peterson.

It describes the city's intent to conduct race and social justice analysis to inform spending decisions as we move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Calvin.

I don't think there's a whole lot more to say about this except that we always want to make sure that we're centering racial equity.

And this amendment and the whereas clause does clarify that SDOT intends to use the race and social justice analysis.

And I do want to also mention that this is in keeping with the King County mobility equity framework so that we are making sure that there is that kind of analysis done.

when we are looking at how the funds get spent.

So we make sure those, somebody said earlier, institutional guardrails are in place and that we protect as much service as possible to our communities of color.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Thanks for enabling me to co-sponsor this with you.

Are there any comments or questions about Amendment 7?

Okay.

Seeing no comments or questions on Amendment 7, Will the clerk please call the roll?

Torres?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

DeWant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Chair Peterson?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

great, the motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

And so those are the amendments that we had on the agenda and Council Member Morales has walked on an amendment number eight to Council Bill 119833. This is a big one.

So Calvin Chow is sharing his screen with everybody because this has been walked on so everybody can see what it does.

Council Member Morales, would you like to move to amend council bill 119833 as presented on amendment eight.

So moved.

Okay is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded, so let's hear from Calvin, and then we can hear from the sponsor.

And it is 1153, and I know this is a really big amendment, so I just ask council members to be patient as we talk through this amendment, and then we can potentially vote our measure out of committee today.

Mr. Chair, just very briefly, if I might, was this amendment sent to us?

I just want to see if I can also follow along.

in our computers.

Maybe that's a question for the chair.

Sponsor.

I do not know the answer to that.

We sent it to the chair, but I am happy to send it right now to the rest of the folks, and I apologize.

Thank you for doing that.

I will summarize the amendment.

It is pretty concise.

It would change the sales tax rate from 1 10th of 1% and raise it to two-tenths of 1%.

It makes the changes in section one, shown here, and it makes the changes in the ballot title in section five, shown here.

It's quite to the point.

Okay, Council Member Morales, would you like to speak to this amendment?

I'm having trouble seeing everybody's faces now.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Calvin.

The first thing I need to do is acknowledge that this was sent to I asked Calvin to draft this at, I think, eight o'clock this morning.

And so I want to apologize to everyone for the very late notice.

I think it is.

It is an indicator of how much I think all of us have probably been struggling with this measure.

I want to acknowledge the very strong preference that this council has demonstrated for progressive options for how we provide service to our community.

I think we've all been struggling with how to address the service cuts.

And I really only asked for this amendment after discussion, many discussions over the last couple of weeks with advocates, with transportation planners, transit planners, and with admittedly a few of our communities of color organizations representing communities of color, not nearly as many as I would have liked.

You know, part of the challenge here is that our state officials advise us to use our local options first when we are addressing transportation issues.

But we know that the regressivity is baked in to the options that we have available to local jurisdictions.

And that's part of what we're struggling with here.

I also want to acknowledge the need for racial equity.

We are in a position of balancing the impact on household budgets with the very real threat of service reductions for the very people who need it most.

And so very candidly, that is why this amendment came in so late, because I just couldn't, I couldn't, I think we're all struggling with what to do with this.

I do want to say that the very short timeline for getting this passed, as Council Member Strauss has already referenced a couple times, has really created a barrier, has created a challenge for us as a council.

It's created a barrier for communities of color.

The kind of rapid policy decision-making like this really reflects structural racism within our institutions.

The advocacy groups that represent communities of color are accountable to their community members.

That means that it takes them time to reach out, to have meaningful conversations with them, to really understand what the impact on communities will be.

And because we got this so quickly and were asked to make a decision so quickly, we simply didn't have the kind of time to do the real effective outreach we would have liked.

Um, that said, uh, as I mentioned, you know, I've spoken with several organizations, um, and we know that, uh, in my district, Chinatown international district, um, is the most impacted neighborhood because there are so many different transit projects that come through that community.

Um, and decreasing service, uh, for that community is deeply problematic.

So that said, this amendment is intended to try to buy back as many hours as possible.

If we raise the rate, we'd be able to buy over 100,000 hours for transit, and that prevents the kind of enormous cuts that we're looking at.

I will say it also helps meet some of our climate goals by facilitating a move away from cars and really makes sure that we have We have a little more ability to support communities of color who might be coming in from a little further south than Seattle.

But I really think that we need to do this as hard as it is, especially as Council Member Sawant said, given the determination we've had in the last few weeks to pass progressive revenue, we have to do everything we can to maintain the roots to support low-wage workers and to preserve as much transit as possible, and that is why I'm offering this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Council Member Morales, for bringing this forward.

I don't think, I mean, as you just said in your comments, I don't think there's any better example of showing like the rock and the hard place that we are between in this really painful discussion where we have this massive fall off and cut to the services of the Transportation Benefit District, compounded by restrictions on our car tab authority, further compounded by a recession that is that we have seen fall off a cliff because consuming is down and the economy is down, you know, I would be, I wouldn't be being open with everyone here if I said I wasn't conflicted about this.

This is one of the few tools that we have.

that can restore the inequity of the massive cuts that we're going to see in the benefit district.

I am still going to vote no on this today because in balancing the inequity of the transit cuts and balancing the inequity of I am not a big fan of the idea of increasing what would represent an increase in an already regressive sales tax.

I err on the side of wanting to keep the sales tax where it is. to have more power to reduce sales tax and to have a system where we can increase the progressive taxes.

I'm talking about a capital gains tax, and then we had the jumpstart tax earlier.

To use those taxes to pay down property taxes and sales taxes, I think should be a long-term goal of this council.

I just can't, given the moment we're in, increase the sales tax.

I'm hopeful, and the reason I voted for the four-year limit earlier, is that we will be in a position where when we get through a difficult four years, or even sooner, we will have progressive tools, we'll have resolved the litigation with the car tabs, we will potentially even have a position to get more revenue from the car tab portion, although I acknowledge and concede that car tabs are also a regressive way of raising revenue.

But I just think that given the pressure that we're facing and given the massive regressivity of our system, I can't I'm not going to vote to increase sales taxes at this time.

Should this amendment pass, I will still vigorously campaign for the transportation benefit district renewal, and I will, you know, put those concerns aside if that's the decision this council makes, but my preference would be to keep it at .1, full well knowing that either way on this vote, there are regressive

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

I too am going to not support this amendment.

I can't in good conscience increase our most regressive tax during a recession.

Just a little bit of background from our previous recession.

We did have a ballot measure on the ballot in 2008. It was Parks' ballot measure.

And in the council's wisdom at that point, they actually when you factored in inflation, that ballot measure was a little bit smaller than the one it was renewing in 2000 out of recognition of the uncertain economic climate that the city and the country was in at the time that measure passed.

And I just, I don't want to do anything at all that risks the passage of this bill.

We are lucky that we have a lot of transit use here in Seattle, but there are a lot of people who don't use Metro.

And those folks vote, and I'm just really concerned that if we double the size of the sales tax on this measure, we could end up regretting it.

So, thank you.

councilmember Herbold.

I want to associate myself with councilmember Herbold's comments.

I share those concerns about doubling a sales tax during a recession and I'm concerned that it would imperil the measure ultimately.

I want to restate my commitment that if we overturn I-976, we have to figure out what the right size is for those so we can apply those dollars to transit and other transit associated needs.

So this is a big deal to try to double it at this time.

And I will be voting no on the amendment.

It's hard when, Council Member Morales, I know that you really were struggling with whether or not to bring this forward and the timing of it, so I think it's hard for us to potentially make a vote on this today.

I'm going to be abstaining on this today, mostly because I want to do additional stakeholder input or get additional feedback if I can, Council Member Morales, perhaps between now and Monday when the bill comes back, if this is going to be voted on, Mr. Chair, on Monday, is that correct?

It will be voted on Monday, July 27 as the current schedule because we have the August 4 deadline.

Okay, great.

So I'll do additional work on my end to get additional feedback.

I think it is, as Council Member Lewis said, very hard to know I mean, it's hard to be torn on this because of the regressive tools in our tool belt.

We know that it is asking a lot of people, but as was stated earlier today, this is exactly the time when we need people to be able to have the transit services and reductions in transit services and creating multimodal options so that people don't have to take their cars.

One of the people who testified this morning said exactly at the moment when we need people to be able to safely distance, we're going to be reducing potential routes and creating more congested routes if we cut back on transit services.

So I'm keeping that in mind as well.

How do we make sure that we have the amount of funding needed, especially in this time when we're asking people to safely distance.

So today I will be abstaining and I'll be seeking additional feedback in the meantime.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I'll ask the bill sponsor.

I also feel that I will likely be abstaining from this vote.

And I wonder if you'd like to hold this conversation until the next committee, until we meet at full council, because my reason for needing to abstain today is because this is moving.

As you said, you drafted it just this morning.

I only heard about it verbally until you we were able to receive it by email just a couple of minutes ago.

This is a large-scale change, and I just need a little bit more time.

As per my comments about the four-year or six-year, and I'll let the committee know, I have been advised by Amelia that I can reconsider Amendment 3, and so I'll be discussing that in just a minute.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

As Councilmember Morales mentioned, and as we've said before, sales taxes are terribly regressive taxes and puts the burden of funding transit on poor and working class people, leaving big business and the super rich relatively untaxed.

But we have, this Council has taken a position, a majority position on the taxes, Amazon taxes on big businesses.

And so we know it can be done.

We know there is tremendous support in the community for progressive measures and that people are tired of regressive measures.

But we are facing a choice here between increasing a deeply regressive tax, which hits communities of color and working people and the immigrant community, I think it is important for us to make sure that we are doing the right thing for the most between that and having actual cuts and deep cuts to bus hours and that is not a real choice, it is a false choice because working class people lose either way.

Not to mention how hard the cuts, if we allow the cuts to happen, will hit transit workers The transit workers are being some of the most courageous workers actually during this pandemic, among the essential workers, some of whom have actually given up their lives because they are providing this service and they're so dedicated in their work.

Clearly, what's at stake is really bad outcomes for our community and different sections of the working class community.

And we don't want the different sections of the working class to be pitted against each other.

We want the services, we want the taxes to be progressive, and we want all the transit jobs.

to be preserved.

In fact, we want public services to be expanded and public sector jobs to be expanded.

Legally, it's not true.

As I said, the sales taxes are the only option of funding transit.

Yes, STBDs are a legal construct that have certain identified funding sources.

I would like to make a point of clarification.

There is nothing in the law that would prevent the Council from passing some other progressive general fund tax and using those funds to pay for bus service.

For example, the City Council could pass an ordinance to increase the tax would be sufficient to raise the funds to eliminate the transit budget cuts without any sales tax at all.

The question is, between now and Monday, would council members agree to support that?

That's an actual viable option.

That's a legal option.

There's nothing illegal about increasing the tax rate that we just passed.

Another example is the city could put on the ballot a 0.2% increase in B&O taxes.

And while that does hit small businesses as well, and unfortunately what we also need really is a change in the B&O tax so that it's progressive and that it hits big business and not small businesses.

But yet it is less regressive than the sales tax and in fact, it's much more progressive than the sales tax.

Of course, my preference would be to increase the Amazon tax rate enough so that we are able to avert all the cuts in the budget.

And I did bring an amendment forward, which didn't go through, but this is the real situation now we're facing.

And so if council members were to support either of those progressive options, rather than the regressive sales taxes, then I would be happy.

to work on that and bring that forward.

But failing that, of course, I don't know what other options we have.

And I share the tussle that Council Member Morales expressed on this.

So for now, I will be abstaining on it because there are actual progressive options that the council could take.

And I just wanted to publicly state my serious willingness to work on them if there was any support on the council to bring that forward by Monday.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

And I'll recognize Council Member Morales, just one moment, just want to alert the clerk, who's obviously paying close attention.

We'll have some questions for you about this amendment, as well as getting back to Council Member Strauss's potential motion to reconsider a previous amendment.

But just anticipating Council Member Morales here.

Go ahead, Council Member Morales.

Sure, well, I want to I want to again, thank my colleagues for the opportunity to have this conversation.

I do think it's important for us to to consider.

and how else we might be able to raise the revenue to buy additional service hours for our community.

With that in mind, and given the number of people who have said they were abstaining, I do think I want to withdraw the amendment and give us all a little bit more time to have a conversation and to try to understand what the best next step is.

And so I will move to withdraw the amendment.

Or whatever.

Motion.

Conversation.

And that's the question for the clerk.

It's been, could you tell us the procedure?

Because I believe it's been moved and seconded.

So what's, what's the appropriate procedure and is it possible also to vote on it today and to have a discussion on the 27th about this topic?

Council Member Peterson, this is Emilia Sanchez.

So, Council Member Morales has put forward a motion to withdraw her motion, which is proper, and the motion can take the form of a formal vote or by unanimous consent.

In addition, if you would prefer to vote on it, and if it were to fail, it can be reconsidered again at the City Council meeting.

Okay, so her motion to withdraw supersedes the original motion to introduce

At this point, the motion before us is to withdraw the motion, and once we vote on that motion, if it succeeds, if we receive a majority in favor, then at that point, you can, if it doesn't succeed, excuse me, if you do not receive a majority in favor of the motion to withdraw, then the motion is still before you.

Okay.

Oh, Council Member Mosqueda.

process question, Mr. Chair, because a similar question came up in a committee previously.

If there's no objection to the motion to remove or for the motion to withdraw the amendment, just by sheer fact that there was no objection, is that unanimous consent?

At this point the motion has been made and it has not we have not asked for objections.

So once the chair moves to speak if there's objections and if there's no objections then yes we can move forward.

Thank you.

Good question.

Thank you clerk for clarifying.

And I, you know, to me, the 0.2% has always been an option.

I mean, it's, it's what the law allows.

And I believe that was in briefings from S dot, you know, that potentiality to go up to 0.2% from central staff to go up to 0.2%.

And, um, I'm interested in potentially voting on it now, and then seeing what happens if Council Member Morales, the clerk can guide us through how to, Council Member Morales, to have that discussion again.

But I think it's important for us to state here our feelings on this amendment that was brought to us, and then see what the options are for continued discussion.

councilmember lewis you have a question or comment well i mean we're discussing the the motion then right because are you so concerned are you objecting to the motion to withdraw that's right yes yeah I would just speak in favor of the motion to withdraw in the sense that I don't know if we are going to get a good reflection of where we stand on this.

I think that three of the eight members here are going to abstain on this vote.

I think it would be worth deferring the conversation.

And so I just, I guess I'm just speaking in favor of, I will support Council Member Morales' motion to withdraw, just given that, you know, I don't know that, I don't know that this vote will actually truly reflect I think it is important to understand that.

I think a third of the total membership is going to stay at this point.

Unless they change their minds.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Councilmember Esqueda, is that your understanding of how it would

You know, Mr. Chair, I also defer to you in terms of the process that you'd like to see today.

I think that in terms of the conversation that will ensue, it would be the same thing one way or the other, as Councilmember Lewis has sort of articulated there.

If three people are abstaining and it does not appear that the motion would pass today, potentially, Councilmember Morales, perhaps your assessment is different, but perhaps that's why you were suggesting removing it today.

Then I think the effect is the same.

We would still then have an entire week to really hear back from stakeholders, to have a chance to potentially hear more from central staff in the department.

the effect is the same if you withdraw it or if it gets voted down today, because it could still come back up as the clerk has noted for the Monday meeting following next Monday.

Thank you, Council Member Espinoza.

Chair, if I may?

Yes.

Yes, Council Member Juarez.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm inclined to agree, and I would like to give deference to Council Member Morales in that she would like to withdraw her motion.

I think we should honor that.

A word to the wise, this is why it's difficult when you walk things on at the last moment where we just got a copy of this 15 minutes ago.

It's a major shift in the legislation to double the tax.

I don't think you can have it both ways sometimes.

You don't want a tax for six years, you want it for four years because it's a sales tax and it's regressive.

Oh, but by the way, I want to double it.

And now we just got it.

I really think that we need to honor Council Member Morales' position to now pull back her amendment.

However, I should add as well that we've been discussing the Seattle Transportation Benefit Districts before our last meeting on June 10th.

This is pretty major, doubling the tax.

And so I agree with Council Member Mosqueda.

When it's something, this isn't in the whereas clause, This goes right to the text of the matter to the meat of the matter to the substantive portion of the taxing that we're going to put out to the Seattle voters.

So I'm a bit dismayed that it was walked on so late because of its import.

But again I just want to emphasize that I would have to abstain as well because I think this deserves a full conversation and as Council Member Mosqueda pointed out and you too Chair as well and a few other colleagues We need to go back and talk to some folks.

And also, I really appreciate that you gave an opportunity for the Transit Advisory Board folks to kind of weigh in on Amendment 3 when we reduce the tax from six years to four years.

And I'd like to know what their thoughts are on this.

So I'm going to say this is the old lady, the old auntie in the group.

There's a reason we have rules.

There's a reason why we have deadlines for this very reason.

So we've now spent 40 minutes on a matter that, had we had this even yesterday, we could have actually voted on it.

So with that, I would be abstaining on this as well.

OK, thank you.

So to restart the motion, hearing no objection to the motion to withdraw, the amendment 8 will be withdrawn.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you.

So those are the end of our amendments, and I think Council Member Strauss may want to be recognized here.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I do, as per Amelia's email, Chief or Deputy Clerk Sanchez, excuse me, has emailed me letting me know that I can reconsider amendment three or bring that for a vote for about six years and four years.

I'm going to let my colleagues know at this time I am not going to bring that for reconsideration because we are talking about the rates and the rates discussion is still ongoing.

I think that duration and amount of rate, those are two conversations that are very interconnected, and I think that that conversation needs to be held in tandem and not separately.

So I may bring amendments for full council to address the intersection of rates and duration, but for both items, I just need a little bit more time to think on these matters because we are addressing some really large issues that have lasting impact at a time of immense uncertainty.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Those are the end of our amendments.

And so we're ready to vote on the bill as amended.

Are there any final comments or questions?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to congratulate you, Chair Peterson, for your work with shepherding us through.

This is a really critical endeavor and having just been on council for almost six or seven months now and having us be, for the majority of that, remote.

This is a challenging conversation to steward through and you have done it in relatively quick speed and I think made sure that folks had a chance to really provide tremendous input and get feedback from stakeholders.

So I just want to say Thank you for your work to move this effort along, and per our conversations that we will have in the near future at the full council committee on any additional votes, regardless of what happens, you are moving forward to make sure that more people can access transit, that it will be reliable, and that it will be accessible.

The option to not do something is just not an option for us, and you've made sure that we are moving forward and making sure that transit is available for folks.

I look forward to the Monday conversation that will come in a week and a half here.

But I just really want to thank you for your work to shepherd us through this, and in such trying times, do it with such grace.

So appreciate you, and thanks for making this possible.

Thank you, Council Member.

So if there are no further comments or questions on this council bill as amended, we are ready to move it out of committee.

I think we need a motion for that.

I move to move this bill out of committee as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Any comments or questions?

Last chance until the 27th.

Councilmember Strauss, vice chair.

Thank you, chair.

Great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the bill as amended?

Corris.

Aye.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

DeWant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Chair Peterson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Great, the bill has passed the committee and we will be hearing it at full council on Monday, July 27th.

Please do get any amendments or perhaps no amendments to Calvin as soon as you can so that we can start to have a discussion and reach out to folks.

Really appreciate everybody's time and patience because this was yet another committee that we added to our packed agendas.

and I want to thank Council President Gonzalez as well for setting this up and making it possible to do this.

Thank you, Vice Chair Strauss and everybody else for your engagement on this issue because we want to give voters an opportunity to continue this important transit measure of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

So thank you, everybody.

If there's no other comments, our meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Well done.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.