Select Committee on Homelessness & Housing Affordability 12/12/19

Good morning everybody.

Thank you for being here for our select committee on homelessness and housing affordability We're joined by council members Juarez Gonzalez and Peterson and myself comes President Harrell a little bit of the lay the land in terms of a process this morning First we're going to take public comment At the beginning as opposed to on the end of the agenda, so I may make a motion to accept that placement If there are people who have come in late and still want to speak after because it was really drafted there, we'd be somewhat flexible there because it was published to have public comment at the end.

And then, because we did have some conflicts in the schedule, there's a possibility I don't want to say likely, but a possibility we may do a short recess before we dive into the agenda items.

So, let's get through public comment and see where my head count is based on some conflicts.

And so, that's sort of what the plan is.

And so, I'll move to change the agenda and put public comment at the beginning before agenda item one.

Is there a second?

Can I vote on this?

Do I have to?

Can I vote on this?

Okay, the reason I thought is, I didn't have five here.

Okay, so although, so I'm gonna wait for Mike.

See, he's gonna have a leap of faith.

He's gonna vote on the motion that he didn't even hear.

All those in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Council Member O'Brien took a leap of faith.

So Council Member O'Brien, we just moved public comment at the beginning.

So do we have anyone to sign up for public comment?

And I'll take the sheet.

I know.

It gets early, so.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Okay.

We're going to go two minutes for each person.

We have six people sign up.

David Haynes, you are first, followed by the Reverend Bill Kirkland-Hackett, and then Tiffany McCoy.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is David Haynes.

Is the regional authority going to be propping up more rundown commercial real estate owned by big bank donors?

Is this another extension of allhome.com's name change from King County Committee to End Homelessness, who use tax dollars to hire out-of-town startup to put them in the regional authority?

Distracting with new racist data to collect an overwhelmed government aloof about the reality of what innocent poor have to deal with when social welfare dare to work less than 9 to 5 Monday through Friday.

Resulting in oppressive crisis insane contractors getting a raise never scrutinized.

If you're going to set a CEO up as the fall guy in a regional authority to be the person to blame when contractors who help you get elected guarantee a status quo abusive half-hearted effort presently in the fourth year of emergency crisis used by the industry for raises, you have to reconsider your hiring and firing power structure to allow for real progress.

Now, a moratorium on evictions is a great idea.

What comparable are you gonna do for the homeless coming up on another winter?

Offering regional authority won't do anything for the homeless in the cold, wet, brutal conditions.

Let's say you put me in the regional authority and I advise you that you have to take a minimum of 10% or more of the city, county, $122 million regional authority budget because you're late starting this regional authority and do a nicety and have like a comparable nicety to the renters.

You allow rapid rehousing till March for those houseless who still care, who've been missed by outreach that aren't self-destructive repeat offenders, but are like still motivated to get a job or start business, but keep having housing crisis and personal items stolen while a lack of proper offering of service trip them up.

I know I would benefit.

Perhaps the regional authority could demand an end to treasonous policies that implode our society.

And there's a few other things, but we need a legislative collective within y'all's group to write a law that demands that the great American housing throughout this country could take place by encouraging the capital markets to finance the job creation, the building tools, materials, and the expertise for the vocational education.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Reverend Bill Kirkland Hackett, and then followed by Tiffany McCoy.

Thank you, Councilmember Harrell, and thank you for all your years on Council, now that you get to go home and stay there, or do greater other things.

Reverend Bill Kerlin, Hackett Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness.

I'm here to say please approve the ILA for the RHA.

That said, yes, this has been politicized, yes, it got turned on its head last week from the PDA effort that we originally sent to you as a community of homeless advocates and the coordinating board.

But the rest of the working structure remains.

It still requires best practices and evidence-based work, which varies depending on populations, but that's what will be in place.

It still focuses on the unsheltered.

Subregional plans will integrate with the whole.

And down in South King County, there are already best practice responses being formed through SCIP.

EHAC will guide the East King.

NUSHA will guide North King.

We've got plenty of folks already on the ground ready to start putting these sub-regional plans together.

LEAD's expansion will still occur.

It's even outside Seattle now.

The Implementation Advisory Continuum of Care Coordinating Board, as we know it currently, and lived experience boards will occur and will guide with the experts.

My last word is please do it ASAP.

I am not a fan of having politicians at the top.

Too much turnover, too much politicizing, but we had a governing board once before and Now that we're going to have another one, I think we can work around it because the plan underneath it is better.

So I hope you will approve this with this council rather than waiting for newbies to get informed, which would happen at all levels, by the way.

Apparently, any change you make, even in one word, sends it all back to the RPC.

So I hope you will approve this so that we can all get moving and be better organized.

All home needs help.

Thank you for your testimony.

Tiffany McCoy will be followed by Sheila.

Bab Anderson.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Tiffany McCoy.

I'm the lead organizer with Real Change.

I'm coming to you this morning with concerns about the last-minute changes to the structure of the regional authority.

Our first concern is the switch in the governing board.

Originally, the board in charge of setting policy, managing the budget, and hiring the executive director was going to be made up of subject matter experts on homelessness.

Now the board in charge of those decisions will be elected officials.

What that means to us is that politics and political careers will be the guiding factor for this new authority, not best practices, harm reduction, and evidence-based solutions.

That's our second concern, that evidence-based practices aren't enshrined in governing documents for this new authority.

You have a decision to make as elected officials.

There is no question that we have to tackle this issue as a region.

But is this new entity, which also has no mechanism to raise much needed funds, going to have the tools and the mandate to do that?

Yesterday at the King County Council, there was a lot of mentions of, this is exactly what we wanted, but it's better than nothing.

And we'll figure out more details after we get this off the ground.

We fundamentally disagree with that.

We do need to get this structure correct from its inception and not base this new approach on perceived best intentions and hopes that we will get it right in the future.

Subject matter experts need to be directing this new agency, not elected officials.

Since yesterday, you all received 65 emails from community members urging just that.

Please don't feel pressured by an arbitrary timeline to commit to something.

Real change vendors and all of our neighbors sleeping outside deserve a new regional authority that will hit the ground running knowing what has worked, not spending time educating elected officials who are not subject matter experts.

Please take the time needed to get this done right from the beginning.

Thank you, Tiffany.

Good morning.

Thank you to the select committee for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the support and work under consideration.

My name is Sheila Babb Anderson, and I'm the Homelessness Program Director for the Campion Advocacy Fund, and a member of the State Advisory Council on Homelessness.

As one of the philanthropic partners working closely with the city on this issue, I appreciate the leadership of the mayor, council members, and the county working to address homelessness.

Our community needs to act quickly and we know that the status quo is not doing enough.

The Campion Advocacy Fund fully supports a regional approach for our response to homelessness through the regional authorities ILA.

And we support one that centers racial equity and the experience of those who have struggled to navigate our response systems for too long.

The philanthropic and business community are aligned in recognition that we need a new approach and one that is led by experts but accountable to the public.

And we've been working closely with our government partners for two years to make this a reality.

This is not about Burien, Renton, Auburn or Seattle.

It's about all of us and all of the communities that make up our region.

Homelessness recognizes no borders, and if we don't collaborate on solutions together, we will continue to fall short of solving the problem.

We recognize that this is not just the government's responsibility, that ensuring that everyone has a safe, stable place to live will take a broader community effort.

That's why philanthropy is supporting the creation of a plan that will take diverse, a plan that will, the community-informed plan that will take a diverse coalition to make a reality.

Philanthropy will continue to be at the table, but we need to take this critical first step and we need to do it now.

Thank you for all of your work on this.

The process hasn't been easy or smooth for sure.

But the problems we are trying to solve are challenging.

The latest version is a product of months of negotiations that looks at the whole regional picture and takes into consideration the various needs of different communities.

We want to ensure that the city and people with lived experiences interests are maintained and we believe this proposal has a path to do that.

This is an important first step, but it is just the first step.

Now we need to put this regional authority together, put aside the politics and our differences, and get to work on this immense challenge.

We stand ready to work with you.

Thank you.

The last two speakers I have signed up are Jane Brown Davidson and Kristen Mowry.

Hi, good morning, Council, and just for the record, it's Jane Broome Davidson.

Sorry, it's probably my handwriting.

I'll be short and sweet today.

I am representing Microsoft.

I am a senior director in Microsoft Philanthropies, and I am also a very proud resident of the city of Seattle.

We have been very active in this work for the last year, essentially since our announcement of the 500 million commitment to affordable housing, which does include a $25 million commitment to homelessness, primarily here in the Seattle area.

We've been sitting alongside the experts, the people with lived experience, the service providers for the last year in working through this and watching it.

We are very excited about the progress that has been made and the collaboration that's happened between the county and the cities in our region.

So I just wanted to be here this morning to say that we, on behalf of Microsoft, we fully support this work.

We thank you for the work that you all have done.

We know it's not perfect for everybody, but right now we think we support this idea of moving forward as a region.

We do urge you to take action this year.

We find there's urgency.

We've got great progress.

We don't want to go back.

So please just know that you've got the Davidson family on Capitol Hill fully supporting you and the software company on the other side of the lake.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And Jane, I do know you and who you are, but I did get validation that you spelled your name looked like Brown for my colleagues.

You know what?

It's the typing.

about penmanship again.

And our last speaker I have signed up is Christian.

Okay, is this, does this work?

Okay, great.

Thank you for letting me speak.

My name is Christian Mowry and I'm a constituent of District 4 of your district, sir.

And my story is that I was homeless and now I live in transitional subsidized housing in Magnuson Park.

And I can only beg of you, sir, to please keep me in mind when you consider that I am vastly more of a societal drain, far more of a problem for you, your constituents, and the city, because I don't disappear if you take away what I need.

And I doubt you care about me.

I doubt you care about anybody who's like me.

I would be very surprised.

But I can only argue that make yourself look good because I am much, it's more convenient to put me in some place where I'm not causing problems.

And yet another dangerous element creating havoc and blocking the third avenue entrance of the King County Courthouse, I am a cheaper problem.

Thank you.

Thank you, Christian.

Is there any other folks who would like to give public comment that didn't have an opportunity to sign up?

Okay, what I think we'll do, just for probably a very brief time, is just by way of context, we have three co-chairs on this committee.

I'm not one of them.

We have council members, Mesquita, Sawant, and Bagshaw, and they all have conflicts or Leave issues this morning.

This is very important, but I like to do is wait for about five I think five or ten minutes for one of the chairs to be here So I believe should be here about five minutes, so we'll go into unless there's objection.

We're going to a short recess and by that I mean five or ten about ten minutes and I If Council Member Baggio is not here in approximately 10 minutes, we probably will proceed, but we want to give her at least 10 minutes from our commitment.

So the room will stay open until we'll just ask for a short recess, okay?

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

And welcome back, everybody.

I appreciate your coming.

Thank you for taking the break so that I could get here.

I was chairing another meeting, so I'm delighted to be here with our Special Committee on Housing and Homelessness.

I'm Sally Bagshaw, chairing this today.

I think we're ready to go, because we've done public comment already.

Thank you.

So if you would please kindly, Emily, read item one into the record, and then I'm going to turn it over to Tracy and to Jeff.

And I just want to say, I'll tell you probably 10 times in the next five days how much I've appreciated all the work.

I mean, you two have been stellar.

So thank you.

This is Council Bill 119724, an ordinance relating to services for people experiencing homelessness.

Very good, thank you.

All right, well, would you like to do official introductions and then lead us through?

Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

Tracy Ratzliff, Council of Central Staff.

Thank you.

Okay.

Jeff.

So as this committee is aware, last week the King County Regional Policy Committee passed a bill that would adopt the interlocal agreement.

We then had a subsequent, the day after, select committee meeting in which numerous items were identified.

And I believe all of you have in front of you the memo back from December 9th.

We did not create a new one because many of those issues we felt were still relevant to the conversation based off of what had been presented.

However, I will note that as we walk through this amendment and the things that have been changed in the substitute draft, there is also a substitute for both the ordinance and the attachment.

And essentially what you see is that what was added to the interlocal agreement and introduced earlier this week is now predominantly moved into the ordinance.

Very good.

Thank you.

And maybe you could just describe a little bit further about what has transpired since we had our meeting last Thursday, and Councilmember Gonzalez and Councilmember Herbold in particular wanted to make sure that words such as evidence-based and the national best practices and emerging best practices were incorporated.

If you could talk a little bit about that and where they're included in the current ILA.

but then also how we have addressed that in the ordinance.

Sure, for clarity, we have not introduced the substitute amendment yet, correct?

The substitute draft?

She just read in the...

Okay, yeah, it's just the record, okay.

So, sure, I'll start off with the interlocal agreement, the adopting ordinance.

We have a...

I believe there will be a substitute amendment or a substitute draft proposed for both the ordinance and the ILA compared to what was introduced.

But beginning with where we're at, If you look at, would you like me to go line by line or just in general?

Just generally speaking, just the overview.

I want to make sure that everybody's clear what has been going on in so many months of negotiations and discussions with King County and with Sound Cities.

This body, a special committee last Thursday made some recommendations that we would like to have incorporated.

The RPC has subsequently voted And King County has adopted what the Regional Policy Committee had recommended last week.

No further amendments were brought forward from King County.

So we're trying to make sure that we're consistent with King County, but also to be very clear about what our expectations are on the city side.

So if you could just bring us up to speed.

Certainly.

So using the draft that, as you just mentioned, was yesterday passed by the King County Council as the base, there were multiple changes made.

The first and notable one was to change the threshold required for amending budgets and plans.

This is, to be clear, this is the attachment A to the ordinance that is before you.

It was what was introduced to the council and at this point has not yet been amended.

So the amendments were based off of last week's select committee meeting and the changes that were requested at that time.

That included first requiring a minimum of eight votes, not based on quorum requirements, just a minimum of eight votes in order to amend budgets, policies, and plans and remove the chief executive officer.

That'd be different from the two-thirds majority based on those having a quorum for the meeting, which is in the draft that would have been the base that was passed by the King County Council.

Second, there was the addition of language specifying evidence-based practices in the guiding principles and that they apply to both the sub-regional plans, but also how funds would be expended by the agency or by the authority.

And making those changes had to be made in two or three different locations in order to have consistency.

Then there was also changes made to the role of the Ombud's office.

So they would include reporting on any customer feedback that had been provided about the implementing board and adding that a presentation would be made to the governing committee as well as the implementing board to ensure both of those bodies would be aware of what the Ombud's work was covering.

And lastly, there are two technical amendments that were identified by our city attorney's office.

One related to a King County amendment that the governing board, sorry, the implementing board reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of the county, adding the word strive to.

would loosen that a little bit.

And the second, in clarifying what was understood, but just making sure it was abundantly clear, that the implementing board could, with a two-thirds majority, propose to the county and city councils making some amendments to the interlocal agreement.

Those are all, all those items that I just covered are reflected in what was introduced at the previous council, our previous council meeting, and is actually what came to us as the attachment A to the ordinance that is before us currently.

Okay, so I also want to clarify and make sure that people understand we are not changing the underlying ILA, the interlocal agreement that passed out of the RPC.

What we are talking about today is in our ordinance, and these are intentions and statements of what the city is looking for.

So Council Member, to be really clear, what we introduced and what is before you now is an ordinance that has no proposed amendments.

It was as we introduced on Monday.

And then the attachment actually does incorporate the changes that Jeff just described to you.

So if you wanted to go back to the ILA as it was approved by the RPC and the King County Council, you would then move your proposed amendment to attachment A to make that change.

Likewise, if you wanted to move that mandatory language that was in our base attachment A that we introduced this Monday to the ordinance, you would need to move the substitute ordinance that you also have and that your colleagues have as well.

Well, I think we're scrambling some eggs here.

What we're trying to get back to, to be as clear as we possibly can, is the interlocal agreement that has been passed out of the RPC and was adopted by King County.

And then this is, these are our options for tonight.

and that if we are to be able to move forward this year accepting that underlying interlocal agreement, and we'll have to do that by amendment as you've described, but that is the objective of today.

For some.

Okay.

Council Member Gonzales.

I just said for some.

Right.

Did you want to speak to that?

Sure.

I mean, I think I appreciate the ongoing efforts in this space to ensure that, in particular, the concerns that I have been raising and speaking about from the dais are adequately addressed.

And Jeff, thank you for running through those particular changes that exist in the current version before us for consideration by the committee, unless there are enough votes here to substitute that version for the previous version, which would not include the proposed amendments around requiring evidence-based requirements for the sub-regional plans.

It would also eliminate, a substitute version would eliminate the requirement that would obligate the authority to spend in alignment with the regional authority's guiding principles, which would incorporate those evidence-based strategies and commitments to those evidence-based strategies.

Adopting a substitute version in place of the version that's in front of us now would also modify the voting requirements, which in our amended and introduced version require a higher threshold for governing committee changes.

to the implementation board recommendations and for the removal of the CEO.

The other issues that would be removed by a substitute would include the additional reporting requirements from the ombuds, not just to the implementation board, but also to the governing board, and then, of course, the annual performance reporting.

language.

The other two changes are being characterized by Council Central staff as technical changes in nature, but I see those other five changes as substantive and certainly the first three as significant substantive changes to the ILA as initially considered adopted and passed by the RPC and subsequently the King County Council yesterday.

So I have ongoing concerns about The three first issues that I've highlighted related to evidence-based requirements, both in the subregional plans and in how the regional authority makes determinations about spending that are in alignment with the guiding principles.

And I also continue to have concerns about the lower threshold that exists, which would, in some instances, if attendance is low, only require up to 50% of the full governing committee to make pretty significant decisions to amend the budget, to change policies in the five-year strategy as it relates to the regional approach to addressing the issues of homelessness.

to the removal of the CEO.

So I at this juncture continue to have those concerns and it's unfortunate that these issues were not taken up and adopted by the RPC or subsequently by the King County Council.

I am still interested in identifying ways that we can address and have a meaningful commitment from the county that these issues will be addressed in the initial convening meetings of the governing committee.

And I have not yet received those assurances in writing yet.

But if I do, then I think there might be a path forward too.

to allow me to support the ILA, but if the substitute version is introduced, I intend to vote no.

Okay.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Bagshaw.

So, I would like to move, for purposes of this committee, to the full council, make a motion to move the version that is basically what the King County Council passed, and then I'd like to speak to that if there's a second.

Very good.

You certainly have my second.

Okay.

Thank you.

So big picture, I believe we all share the common ground on this, that we need a regional response to this regional crisis and the status quo has not worked as well as we had hoped.

And the suffering on our streets continues as we sit here.

And after personally knocking on the doors of residents of every block in my district over the past year, homelessness was by far the number one concern from a lot of compassionate residents from East Lake to Wallingford to Wedgwood.

And so I really want to start by thanking everyone who's worked hard over the past two years on this, including input from the general public and the collaboration among a broad coalition of participants, King County Council, the Regional Policy Committee, the King County Executive, the Mayor's Office, our own council members here.

I think we're honoring the research and wisdom and advice of experts to create a regional authority now, to end the fragmentation, to unify our region, and renew the fight to reduce homelessness with a holistic and aligned approach to get better results.

And I'm really grateful for the work of Council President Harrell and Council Member Juarez last week for strengthening those guiding principles of the interlocal agreement, getting back in there and removing that strive to language that had weakened the guiding principles.

So now section three, subsection seven states, the authority shall adopt an evidence-based housing first orientation.

And those guiding principles are overarching the whole plan.

And to the points raised earlier, I mean, I agree.

The city government's making a significant contribution to the funding, so the details matter.

And I'm happy to see the Implementation Board, it's composed of 13 experts, including individuals with lived experience.

And these experts on homelessness, the Implementation Committee, they will originate these evidence-based plans per the guiding principles of the Interlocal Agreement.

Whereas the governing committee, it's also comprised of people with lived experience as well as elected officials appointed by Seattle and King County.

But this governing committee would need a two-thirds supermajority to make any changes to what the experts come up with, and a three-fourths majority to remove the executive director of the regional authority.

And to me, this strikes a sensible balance.

between our shared desire to have experts driving the evidence-based policy with government officials who are ultimately held accountable for results by the general public and taxpayers.

So I believe we, and I believe that people are going to show up to these meetings and there will be 12 people there.

So that means eight people would be required to change something.

So I think it's time we've studied this issue a long time.

We've worked carefully, you've worked carefully on this structure.

It's time for concrete action.

Again, the status quo is not working.

People are still suffering.

I think we should approve the regional authority as approved by the King County Council so we can get this new collaborative regional organization of experts and officials to work.

Thank You councilmember Peterson any other comments at this point because I'm going to move an amendment that The amendment number one which is in front of you, which takes us back to what King County had approved Yesterday or the day before that that amendment number one to council bill one one nine seven two four Be adopted.

Do I have a second?

I thought Councilmember Peterson already did that.

Okay.

So, I just want to make sure that we're back to amendment number one.

Great.

Okay.

Is the substitute legislation that piece then that we have in front of us?

Correct.

The Councilmember Peterson's motion introduced a substitute amendment.

Okay.

Sorry.

I thought you were just bringing it forward as originally in front of us.

Thanks for the clarification.

So, the substitute and it's been seconded.

So, any further discussion on that?

On the substitute.

Council President Harrell?

No.

Council Member O'Brien.

Are we at the point where we're almost wrapped up?

We're getting darn close.

Okay, so...

We have to vote on the amendment first.

Well, we have a substitute bill before us.

So I'll step back a little bit.

There is, of course, as council members are obviously aware of this, but there is the ordinance 119724 that you do have also in the packets that you're provided a potential substitute amendment to that.

That has not been introduced or voted on at this point.

There is an Attachment A to that ordinance, which I briefly went through how that Attachment A, as it currently reads, differs, and was introduced to our Council, differs from what was passed yesterday by the King County Council.

The motion before you, introduced by Councilmember Peterson, and I believe being discussed and debated at this time, would substitute attachment A from what was introduced to our council on Monday and restore it to being the version that was passed by the Regional Policy Committee and the King County Council yesterday.

And that's the motion that is currently before you.

Just to be clear, attachment A is the draft of the ILA?

Correct.

Okay.

And the substitute ordinance amendment number one is, this is what has been handed to me here.

And it should say version D2 at the top left of your.

Very good.

That helps to actually orient you to what documents you're looking at.

Right.

And what this particular ordinance is intended to do under section one is that the mayor is authorized to execute the interlocal agreement.

But then it also says that it is the intent of city council that in carrying out the terms of the interlocal agreement that the following expectations and intent will be met.

And this is where I think the language brings forward what our intentions are very clearly, and then that will build on what Councilmember Gonzalez is bringing forward in terms of an additional letter.

But the amendments to the authority's goals, polities, plans, and the authority's annual budget shall be based upon an affirmative vote of at least eight governing committee members.

These are our intentions.

We cannot unilaterally change the ILA, but it will be our responsibility to make sure 12 people show up, that 12 people on the governing board are people who will intend to deeply participate in this.

We don't want people joining the governing board who are doing it simply because it is a trophy for them.

It is something we want people that will attend that are deeply committed to it.

So that's really the first thing that we outline.

in a in b that the authority's funds shall be consistent with evidence-based practices and the authority's guiding guiding principles outlined in article four c is the authority's five-year plan and subsequent plans shall be aligned with evidence-based practices we still will have authority it is our intention to to make sure that these come to city council Ultimately, we have budgeting authority that we will decide for our city that if we're putting $73 million into the new authority that the plan is in place and that it's consistent with those plans.

We're also asking in D that sub-regional plans will form the basis of the development of subsequent five-year plans.

And that was consistent with the language that we had talked about last Thursday.

So that E says that the appointing entities for the implementation board will strive to appoint members who reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of King County residents.

We know that's something that's critically important both with people with lived experience, but we want to have the perspectives broadly of people that may be in marginalized demographic populations or have that experience.

in their background.

And then as Councilmember Gonzalez has already specified that we want an annual performance report to the City Council and the King County Council and lastly that the Office of the Ombuds shall provide an annual report to the governing committee at least once a year with feedback.

So as we have been really trying to achieve this balance in the implementation board with people who are either have boots on the ground right now or have the kind of lived experience with the governing board, those are primary elected officials with the oversight and the responsibility back to their constituents to make sure that this is working.

So that's what we're trying to accomplish in the substitute ordinance amendment number one.

And just to be clear, I believe the motion currently was only to amend the interlocal agreement that is attached to the ordinance.

It does not make the changes that you just introduced that would have to be introduced as a subsequent amendment.

Did I misunderstand the phrasing of your motion?

What motion that I made was to adopt what the King County Council adopted in terms of the interlocal agreement.

However, what Council Member Bagshaw is proposing is to put forward what she just read, which is fine, which is consistent.

We just have to do them separately.

There are two different motions, right?

And I'm not sure that you have to take them in any order.

You know, it can be the attachment first and then the substitute ordinance.

I'm not sure it matters.

I'm sorry.

What you do first.

Council Member Warris has a question here.

I was just wondering maybe for, as Council Member Gonzalez said, maybe we should do the ILA first, Council Member.

I believe that is actually the motion that was put forward is to only first make the changes to the ILA that was introduced to the city council so that it will align with what was passed by the King County Council yesterday.

That's the current motion that is here and I think that that's the vote that we need to take first and then can make a second motion that would change the underlying ordinance that would pass the ILA.

So, go ahead, Council Member West.

So, when would be a good time for me to make comments on the ILA first, which Council Member Gonzales also outlined.

That is actually the attachment A.

Good.

Would this be the time?

Go ahead and do it right now.

Okay.

First of all, I want to thank Council Member Gonzales and Council Member Herboldt, who made some incredible changes that now will be showing up in the ordinance, particularly in the area of, I won't speak completely to that, but in the area that the chairwoman just outlined on the section of what is the intent of Seattle City Council and the seven conditions or requirements that were laid out.

But just more on a participatory note, since I am a part of the Regional Policy Council and have been working on this and thanking Council President Harrell for helping me with the amendments last week, I want to kind of go along some of the same lines that Councilmember Peterson and Councilmember Gonzalez stated, but mine is a little bit different perspective on the ILA.

As you know, we've been working on this for months, and I think one of the concerns that we had, and certainly I had representing the city of Seattle, isn't so much we're putting in $73 million, therefore we should control everything, but that is an important fact.

What I was concerned about is what I wanted to promote is that we continue with the regional response, that we don't have this silo effect to addressing homelessness, which is a citywide countywide issue.

I also sit on Sound Transit.

So a lot of us wear different hats on Sound Transit representing three counties.

You want this incredible transportation spine.

You want it to be rich.

You want it to be able to move people and goods, cut down on fossil fuel.

It's almost kind of an analogy with the housing.

on a regional approach, not just the city of Seattle.

All of the people that live in the city, all of the people that live outside of the city, we're all here together.

And so I wanted that regional approach.

But what I was concerned about from sitting on this, on the Regional Policy Council for four years almost, is this tendency to suggest that all the homelessness and all the problems, whether it's addiction, mental health, poverty, crime, that somehow all of that is contained to the city limits of Seattle.

And that's what I was concerned about.

I was concerned when I watched some of these outlining cities pass ordinances against safe injection sites.

That concerned me.

Because opiate addiction, overdose, and deaths do not know a jurisdictional, a county line, a city line.

So if we really care about sheltering the unsheltered, I believe that we have to go forward with the ILA.

I am not completely happy, though I don't need to be happy, with how this kind of played out.

But the greater good here is that we have a concerted King County approach to sheltering the unsheltered, that we provide the funds, that we work with all the cities within King County, and I don't know, how many cities are in King County, 39?

39 cities.

And everybody comes from somewhere.

And I wanted to recognize that.

And I just want to, on one more note, I want to again thank Council Member Gonzalez and Herbold because some of the issues that they raised go exactly to some of the principles and policies that this city has pushed and has also brought other cities along.

And we wanted to keep moving that forward with the right moral compass.

that we want to shelter the unsheltered.

And if this is the vehicle to do that, and if we have an ordinance that says, when that first ILA meets, these are the things that the city of Seattle expects, particularly the reporting requirements, then I'm good with that.

So for that reason, I would be supporting the ILA today and hopefully work with our King County brothers and sisters across the street in the next few years.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there any further questions or comments on the substitute ordinance amendment one?

Okay.

We are not considering the ordinance.

We are only considering attachment A, which is the ILA.

At this minute, we are considering the amendment.

I just want us to stay procedurally.

for the sake of sanity, stay focused on the thing that we are actually talking about, which is the proposed amendments to the amended ILA that came out of the Select Committee last Thursday.

Correct.

Is that correct?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

So, I have some additional questions and some comments.

Please, go ahead.

Okay.

Unless Council Member O'Brien, you wanted to go first.

No.

Okay.

So I just want to be really clear that there's been some conversation around this concept of how the version that passed out of the RPC that was then subsequently approved by King County Council includes a supermajority requirement.

Let's just be really clear that that's of those who show up to the meeting.

I don't want the public to walk away with the impression that there is a categorical supermajority for all decisions in order for those decisions to be approved.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

The quorum requirement is nine, and so if you only had nine members attending that particular meeting, the passage by six votes, which would actually only be 50% of the total membership, would prevail.

And I want to be clear that as in the ILA passed by the King County Council, removal of the CEO does still require nine votes, and that is not subject to quorum requirements or any other kind of movement.

It is an absolute minimum of nine.

And that is the only decision that would require an absolute supermajority of nine members of the governing committee voting in the affirmative to remove the CEO.

That's correct.

Okay.

But decisions related to modifying the budget or the five-year strategic plan or any other decision recommended by the implementation board that goes to the governing committee would be at a minimum it would only require a majority of the quorum of nine, which in a worst-case scenario would be only 50% of the governing committee.

Yes, I believe you meant to say supermajority of the nine.

Supermajority of the nine.

Yes, and that would be for both approving without amendment and amending the budgets, plans, and policies.

Okay.

So, you know, this issue to me is, again, I think I've been consistent in my position on this, that that really, while I agree that a regional authority is important, and I think that we are hearing from the city council that creation of a regional authority is an important way to move forward.

And colleagues, I'm not backing away from my commitment to wanting to see a regional authority come to fruition and I believe that we are in the precipice of that occurring.

I agree that there are meaningful reforms that have been included in the ILA as approved by the Regional Policy Committee and subsequently approved just yesterday by King County Council.

I will not argue that there are not meaningful reforms included in there.

I think there are some important items that were included in the underlying ILA that are important to continuing to move forward on this issue to meaningfully address.

the experience that individuals are unfortunately having with homelessness.

That being said, I also believe that there are a few areas, a handful of areas, of the dozens and dozens of policy decisions that have already been made by the RPC and by the King County Council, I'm literally focusing on three.

I feel that that's a reasonable thing for me to do as somebody who is also accountable to my constituents, to ask questions and to frankly advocate for the three additional things that I think would really not make this perfect.

but make this a better structure and a better opportunity for us to work together with the county on issues, on this issue of great importance.

So I have already articulated what those three issues are, and I do think that they are not technical in nature.

I disagree with the legal evaluation that somehow because we have an errant reference to evidence-based somewhere else in the ILA that somehow that means evidence-based strategies are required as part of the guiding principles and are required as part of sub-regional planning and are required before you get funding from these shared resources that we're pulling together with King County.

I am also concerned that this ordinance is being sold to the public as though it is completely binding to the county.

Let's not play cute with what the impact of this ordinance is.

This ordinance binds us as the city of Seattle, but it is not binding on King County.

Is my assessment of that accurate?

Could you clarify what you mean by not binding to King County?

Does King County have to follow the parameters of this ordinance as being considered?

No, the ordinance would only be binding for this council.

Okay.

So there are multiple parties to this regional authority.

It is us and it is the King and it is King County.

So unless King County has passed a similar ordinance saying that their intentions are similar to ours, then I believe we haven't received assurances and that we are only providing one sided assurances about commitment to work on these issues.

And so from my perspective, I think it is important for us.

And King County had an opportunity yesterday to pass a similar motion and decided to defer that to a different committee for a different day on their intentions to continue to work with us on some of these outlying issues.

That concerns me.

So I have asked the executive to provide me with some bilateral written assurance that these issues will be meaningfully considered, debated, and addressed, and that there is a commitment to achieving these policy goals, not just an intent to talk about them.

And until I receive that assurance, I am not comfortable with the proposal as it is.

Not because it's not perfect, because it'll never be perfect, but because I believe that these Three issues that remain are critically important to this ultimate long-term success of the effort that we are embarking upon as it relates to doing this work in a regional manner that will produce meaningful outcomes for the people we are trying to help.

So I don't need to articulate it or I don't want to, you know.

unduly debate that particular issue, because I think I've described exactly what my concerns are in prior meetings.

But I feel very strongly that these three remaining issues, we need to have some level of bilateral written agreement and assurance that they will be addressed.

Thank you, Council Member Gonzalez, and you have been consistent, and I appreciate that.

And I concur with you that we need to get these issues agreed to bilaterally, but actually trilaterally too, because we need the county.

Ultimately, we're gonna need our sister cities to work with us as well.

That said, I believe that we have worked this and massaged it so it's really clear what it is that we want to do.

And I'm going to request a vote here in just a moment on the substitute ordinance, also amendment one here in just a moment.

But I do want to come back to the safe injection sites and to say to my My cities, the other 38 cities, the City of Seattle is not asking anybody to site safe injection sites.

It's an issue that we have to work through around opiate addiction, but more we're looking at a public health model and evidence-based strategies and getting people inside and making sure that case management is there and that they get whatever medical attention that they need.

So in case anybody heard that and is thinking that that is a commitment that we are asking for, that is not.

Safe injection sites are not at issue here.

Any further comments on amendment number one?

It's the ordinance here in front of us.

It is not the ordinance.

May I clarify what the vote will be then?

This would be a vote then amending the interlocal agreement, it is attachment A to the ordinance, to, and if you vote yes for this motion, you will be amending the interlocal agreement to match, and in its entirety, what was passed by the King County Council yesterday.

And the issues that have been raised by Councilmember Gonzalez would no longer be, those changes would no longer be reflected in the interlocal agreement.

So, I'm sorry, I'm confusing things here.

I thought we were going to do the amendment first and then the attachment second, but we're doing...

The motion before us is to substitute attachment A by removing the amendments that came out of select committee last Thursday, which were proposed by myself and Councilmember Herbold.

And it is version three, attachment A, version three on your left-hand screen, so everybody knows what's in front of them there.

Council President Harrell, did you have some wisdom here?

So we are now looking at this document.

My silence is my wisdom.

Very nice, okay.

So we have a motion, and it's been seconded, and we have discussed it thoroughly.

So, in front of us now is Attachment A, Version 3 of the Interlocal Agreement for the Establishment of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

All those in favor of this motion, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nay.

Okay, so we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

So the attachment has been replaced.

What is now before the council is an ordinance, and the attachment to that ordinance is an interlocal agreement that matches what King County Council passed yesterday.

I believe there is a further amendment that has been discussed so far, but that has not been moved yet.

Okay, I will move the substitute The substitute ordinance amendment, I guess it's amendment one, it's D2 in front of us.

Correct.

That is correct.

Can I have a second?

Second.

Okay.

It's been moved and seconded that this ordinance, amendment one, identified as D2, be adopted.

Do we have any further discussion on this amendment?

Would you like me to go through and describe some of those changes to make sure that we're clear?

Absolutely.

If anybody needs any further I think it would be good for the public to understand the context.

These are the changes that you spoke to a second ago.

Correct.

That's correct, yes.

So we're just reinforcing what we've gone through.

So as the council just moved, the interlocal agreement that is currently attached to the ordinance entirely matches what was passed by the King County Council yesterday.

A variety of issues had been raised by this committee, and the amendment before you now would amend the ordinance that would approve signing of the interlocal agreement.

to include provisions that the intention of the city of Seattle is that a minimum of eight votes would be required in order to amend or adopt budgets, policies, and plans.

Also, the intention of the City of Seattle, according to this ordinance, is that evidence-based practices and the guiding principles that are articulated in Article 4, Section 3, would guide the funding decisions of the authority, as well as sub-regional plans and five-year plans and any subsequent planning documents.

It amends, as was discussed already, aspects of the Office of the Ombud.

and reporting requirements on the annual performance report, and also articulates that the City of Seattle would support some technical changes to how to interpret what the attached or interlocal agreement has.

These, as Councilmember Gonzalez pointed out previously, because this is an ordinance by the City of Seattle, it is not binding to the King County Council, so outside of the city's jurisdiction.

However, it does articulate the intent of the City of Seattle, and there is language in it that clarifies the intention of the City of Seattle that action by the authority that reflects these values and these principles, as would be articulated, if the authority was not doing that, that would affect the City's decision to continue providing funding to the regional authority.

Also, there was one provision that has not been discussed in what this amendment would do to the ordinance, requesting or adding a requirement that the transition plan for employees that are currently in the Human Services Department, the Human Services Department and the Department of Human Resources would provide a report for council approval that would outline a variety of aspects on how those employees are affected, including the positions that are affected and to be abrogated parallel positions in the authority, transition plans, incentive packages, and benefits that are available to employees, so that plan would be presented to the council before that transition of employees would occur.

Those are all the changes.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any further comments?

Councilmember Gonzales.

Thank you.

So I would with regard to the ordinance that is now before us the I think that there are many things in here that I obviously agree with in terms of wanting to see addressed and really appreciate Councilmember Bagshaw your efforts to memorialize those in an ordinance that would bind this City Council and the City of Seattle to these intentions, and while it's my preference to see that be a bilateral commitment, I certainly appreciate the goal here, which is to make really clear what this city council's intent and hopes will be.

So I'm always a fan of showing our cards and showing them early to make sure that we're managing expectations with our partners in areas as important as this.

So I certainly appreciate the spirit and the intent of the ordinance.

I also just wanna note that based on my reading and understanding of how this would work, I think the biggest sort of carrot stick approach here is that it cues up the potential of a opportunity for this city council to withhold funding from the authority.

Is that accurate?

That's correct.

Okay.

And so we're faced with a situation of in, sometime next year, eight months from now, nine months from now, being put in the position of having the new city council have to take a vote to decline participating with our dollars in the regional governance authority.

If we are unsuccessful in executing upon the intent as described in this ordinance.

That of course would be subject to the council taking action indicating that they did not feel what is articulated in this amendment had been achieved.

But yes, that would be a decision that could come to the council.

Okay, so I would describe that as a nuclear option of this city council suddenly deciding because these issues aren't resolved that we are going to withhold $73 million from the regional authority.

I don't think that that's a...

I don't think that's a realistic scenario and I don't think it would come to fruition.

So I just want to be really clear that because of that, I continue to believe that we need to have some level of bilateral commitment to making sure that these issues are actually going to be meaningfully addressed as opposed to just having it come from us at the city.

So I'm going to ultimately abstain on voting on this ordinance in the hope that there is still a window of opportunity to receive that written assurance from the county and from the mayor.

that, who are voting members on the governing committee, that there will be that meaningful commitment in place to see these intentions across the finish line.

So I'm going to abstain on the ordinance for now to allow it to come out of committee, although, you know, I probably don't have the votes anyway.

So, but I will hopefully be able to resolve this in ongoing conversations with our other partners between now and the time we are asked to take a final vote on this in full council on Monday.

Very good.

Thank you for that.

And I do want to acknowledge your hard work on it.

And the way the governing structure is going to be set up, we will have the mayor and two members.

I assume that you will be working with your new colleagues to identify two council members that will be very active in working on the governing board.

And I look forward to hearing how that goes forward.

Okay, any further comments on this ordinance?

Please, Council Member O'Brien.

I have some comments, but I was planning to make them after we vote on the amending the ordinance, and we have the final thing before us, but I could speak now.

Let's go ahead and vote on this ordinance then that has been moved and seconded.

All those in favor.

We're voting on the amendment.

Just on the amendment.

On the amendment.

We're amending the ordinance to add the language that was discussed by both of you.

Just the amendment right now.

Those in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Okay, one abstention.

All right, so the amendment passes.

So now we have an amended ordinance before us, which references attachment one, which is also amended to reflect the county, what the county passed.

Instead of the ILA having the language that this council previously had suggested, we have undone that and instead have language in the ordinance that says we, it's the city's intent to actually implement the intent of these in the future in some way.

And Council Member Gonzalez, if I understand correctly, the hope is that between now and Monday we will get some more written assurances.

Those are not the same as a binding contract, but that gives us some clarity that we think we're working toward the same thing.

And, you know, just to be clear, there has been a lot of politics played on this issue already, and so that lowers my level of confidence, absent some written assurance that there is a true and meaningful commitment to address some of these issues through other vehicles, such as the bylaws or the master is it a master agreement, Tess?

I keep getting that phrase wrong and the master agreement.

So I have had good conversations.

I've had a good conversation with Mayor Durkan on her commitment.

But again, I think it's important for us to receive that level of assurance and commitment from our county partners as well.

If this is to be a true partnership, those commitments should, I believe, come to us and, you know, I'm looking for a little bit more assurance than just a head nod or a verbal conversation.

So I want to just thank everyone for a lot of work that's gone into this to date.

I really appreciate the conversations we've had today and leading up to today about the thoughtfulness about trying to get the specifics of how these decisions will be made.

That is really important for us to understand as we move forward.

And even once we get the language that I think everyone on this dais wants somehow memorialized, there is still a lot of work to be done beyond the few items we're talking about for this to ultimately deliver the benefits that we're all hoping this new entity can to address the crisis, the region-wide crisis around homelessness.

And so I want to speak for a second of what I hope happens and the roles that I believe that this council next year will play and what could happen there.

My understanding is if we successfully get to a point where there's an executed interlocal agreement between the city and the county, hopefully sometime relatively soon, that that entity will have the budget dollars that we put in this budget, not the 73 million, but I forget how much we put in, to help them start organizing and doing their work.

And we will, in the meantime, the city will continue to follow our budget guidance that we passed and make our investments in homelessness just like we have for past years.

But a transition will have begun.

And, sorry, a plan to transition will be begun.

That plan, you know, we're still waiting on the plans that come out of this entity and where the funding goes.

And we will get a proposal back to the city at some point next year, hopefully in advance of our budget, saying, I'm guessing for 2021, this entity would like the city council or the city of Seattle to fund it at a certain level to do a certain set of things.

And I think a lot of the language in the ILA, the interlocal agreement, talks about those types of things, but the specifics around that is what we will be hearing and will be really important.

And at that point, the council will have the decision to decide if and how they want to fund that.

We've laid out our intent here, and I think the idea is if it's consistent with all these things, we intend to fund it.

But there's a big difference between what's in this document today and the very specific set of investments that we'll be asked to do at some point next year.

And if the council does not feel that it met the intent, regardless of how many people on the governing body voted in what way or another way, this city council still retains full authority to vote yes or no on a budget item or amend our budget item on how much money we're going to send to this entity, to restrict how those dollars can be used, or direct that those dollars only be used for certain things that we want to see done.

None of that authority changes.

And I think that's really important for me, even though I won't be on the council at that moment to do it, but to know that the city still retains its full authority for how those things get invested.

The hope for me is that because we are doing really good regional governance work, that by the time a recommendation comes to the council, the work will have been done to make sure that the people at the city, including council members, fully understand what that is and are supportive of it, so that we don't execute what Council Member Gonzalez referred to as the nuclear option and say, we're not going to fund this because we want to do something different.

If that were to happen, that would be a grave failure of the work of that body.

And again, that is independent of how many votes it takes of the governing body to approve or amend things.

They still have to do the work to get the buy-in of the city council members and the county council members who are responsible for funding this.

And if perhaps, hopefully, next year or in the future.

Other cities and other jurisdictions may also be contributing funding for it and they will need to get their buy-in at their local bodies to make sure they fund it too.

And so this is a really big deal that we're doing right now.

I think it's a commitment to work together regionally and I think I'm hoping that we can get the last little language details worked out.

partly by Monday and partly in the near future, but I still think that we still retain that authority if things do fall apart.

But my hope is that we work collaboratively so that is not the answer.

I don't talk about this as some sort of threat, but just this is a reality we retain, but hopefully we can have regional coordination in the next number of months so that we are ready to make a set of investments and we're really excited about that.

With that, I am prepared to support the ordinance as amended with the attachment as amended today and And I hope that we get the assurances that councilmember Gonzalez has has asked for by Monday that will certainly help me feel better about voting for The the ordinance on Monday at the full council.

Thank you any further comments?

Okay, Council President.

Brief comment.

I Continue to think that as we look at the governing board I sort of described them as quadrants and Council, King County Council, the Seattle City Council, Sound Cities Association, people with lived experience.

Well, city, county, including the mayor and executive, people with lived experience in Sound Cities Association.

Better?

And they're not gelling.

They're not.

We don't have a proven track record of really working on this particular issue.

I think to the satisfaction that we'd all like to see.

And I think I fully understand Councilmember Gonzalez and Councilmember Herbold's concern going into this.

I think we're going in with, as I said down at the county, showing our commitment with real dollars, a significant investment.

I also think that, based on my experience in talking to a lot of members that represent smaller cities, that the level of maturity or the level of experience and the in-depth knowledge that we have isn't quite shared there yet.

I think that we have looked at best practices.

We've hired many consultants.

We've looked at what's happening in other cities and how they've coped with this, and that we have a certain level of almost matured in experience in this area, because Seattle has been hit so hard by homelessness, people experiencing homelessness.

So my hope in supporting this legislation is that when we work together and we gel together, that we lead by showing all of the knowledge and all of the experience that we have.

Because I think ours is more significant.

So that's why I go into this with the best of intentions and the best of faith.

I also will tell you that I had some experiences recently in the last couple of days with people who sort of speak for those with lived experience.

having some of the same concerns about who can roll over whom and how the power dynamics shift and whether there are too many politicians in play making strategic decisions.

I should have defended the politicians, by the way.

But in all seriousness, I sort of get the growing pains, if you will, when we're just coming out of the gate.

So I'm going to support the legislation.

monitor it.

I'm sure the council and the mayor will be fully capable of monitoring it, but I'm very proud.

I think we have the beginning of something great here, and I want to keep the momentum going.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any further comments?

All right.

Well, we have an amended version in front of us, so those in favor of the committee recommending passage of Council Bill 119724 as amended, vote aye.

Any nays?

And abstentions?

Okay.

Thank you very much for that.

So, the motion passes, and I have a couple of thank yous.

First, Tess Colby, Anthony, thank you very much for hanging in here with us.

Jeff and Tracy, as I mentioned earlier, you have both been stellar, and I do want to acknowledge Councilmember Jeannie Cole-Wells and Councilmember Rod Dombowski.

from King County that have worked on this and negotiated and really tried to bring this across the finish line.

And also Shannon and April from the executive's office and Dow Constantine himself.

These people have worked really hard.

And then beyond all of that with our sound cities, I'm looking forward to those of you who are going to be here to continue to work with Mayor-elect Angela Bernie and Bill Pelosi from Auburn and Nancy Bacchus.

wonderful cooperation.

I believe that they have set the framework.

I know that John Stokes from Bellevue is somebody that Council Member Juarez has been connecting with, and it really matters.

So I want to acknowledge my belief that it has been massaged to the point where we are ready to go.

We are all waiting for the regional action plan.

Mark Jones, if he's listening, I want to say thanks because he's made a huge difference to bring national best practices to us.

We know there's much more to do, but we'll have the comp plan efforts in the next year or two that is going to make us a region upon which we can build on this good work.

So I'm going to say thank you to all, and the meeting's adjourned.

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