Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District 7/6/2026

Ready?

All right.

Good morning.

The July 6th, 2026 meeting of the Select Committee on the Seattle Transportation Benefit District will come to order.

It is 11.03 AM.

I am Rob Saka, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Foster.

Here.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Chair Sacca.

Here.

Chair, there are six members present.

All right, thank you.

Let the record reflect that Councilmember Juarez is excused and Council President Hollingsworth, Councilmember Strauss are excused until they arrived.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

And noting that Council President has joined us in person, is here present and accounted for, welcome.

So the agenda's adopted.

Good morning, everyone.

Colleagues, members of the public, thank you for joining us today.

on an exciting FIFA match, round of 16, Team USA going head to head against Belgium right here in the city of Seattle.

And I'm wearing my own swag and I know colleagues, I saw a few of you and your respective teammates in your offices wearing Team USA swag.

You could have chose to be anywhere in the world today, but you chose to be with us right here in council chambers.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

but an exciting day today because today marks an important milestone in our work together on the Seattle Transit Measure.

This is the point in the legislative process where ideas are tested, assumptions are challenged, and good proposals have the opportunity to become even better.

I want to begin by thanking each council member and your respective staff for the tremendous amount of work that went into preparing the amendments before us today.

We have 23, 23 proposed amendments.

That level of engagement is truly remarkable.

For historical context, the original 2020, the original 2014, rather, Seattle Transit Measure proposal received five proposed amendments.

By comparison, the 2020 renewal received eight.

The number before us today, 23, reflects not disagreement for its own sake, but the seriousness with which each member of this committee is approaching our shared responsibility.

That should give the public confidence in this process.

and strengthen the overall integrity of the final adopted proposal that will go before voters.

Now, my goal as chair is pretty straightforward.

It's to ensure we have a thoughtful, transparent and well organized process that gives every amendment a fair hearing and every council member an opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

Now, as I've shared before, Transit for me personally has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Growing up, my family often depended on it.

Today, I continue to ride transit regularly, whether commuting or traveling to major events around our great city.

That experience reminds me that transportation, and transit more specifically, is never just about moving people from one place to another.

It is about expanding opportunity.

It is about affordability.

It is about safety.

It is about accessibility.

It is about reliability and predictability.

And it is about all of those things and more.

Building a safe, reliable and effective transportation system that people trust enough that they choose to use it every day.

That broader perspective should guide our work today, colleagues.

The amendment process exists for a reason.

It allows us to test public ideas in public, refine proposals and identify unintended consequences to improve legislation before it reaches voters.

It is one of the most important responsibilities entrusted to us as a legislative body and co-equal branch of government.

And it should always be carried out with openness, respect and a willingness to listen.

I also want to briefly address one aspect of today's amendments.

As chair, I believe that this legislation should establish the policy framework, high level priorities and resources that will guide future transit investments.

It should not.

Attempt to prescriptively defined individual transit routes.

or specific neighborhood service decisions through the amendment process.

I've taken this principal position as chair for two main reasons.

First, I believe that type of granular level route by route detail and specificity is best managed and addressed during the implementation phase should voters approve this measure.

The implementation phase is where operational planners and experts will be best positioned to effectively evaluate feasibility across the entire regional system.

Subject, of course, to council review and oversight.

Second, it's important that we maintain appropriate expectations for our operational partners at King County Metro.

Metro alone retains exclusive financial responsibility to plan, expand and restore service in specific areas to pre pandemic levels and beyond based on regional demand and system wide constraints.

Simply put, we must let Metro do its job and we should not let them off the hook financially for expanding service in Seattle while balancing the needs of the entire regional system.

These points are bolstered by the fact that neither of the two prior Seattle transit measure proposals reflected that level of operational detail.

Again, 2014, 2020. Colleagues, again, our role is to establish clear policy direction while respecting the expertise of those charged with implementation.

Again, subject to our oversight responsibility.

Finally, I'd like to briefly level set expectation for today's conversation.

Today's discussion is not about winning or losing individual amendments.

It's about collectively building the strongest possible measure for the people of Seattle.

I encourage each of us to approach today's conversation with curiosity, humility, grace, and a shared willingness to improve not only our own ideas, but each other's as well.

When this committee's work is complete, I hope Seattle residents will be able to look back and say something simple.

Their elected representatives took this responsibility seriously, worked collaboratively together in public, and left the proposal stronger than when they found it.

Thank you.

Let's get to work.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we currently have 14 in-person speakers and there are 12 remote speakers for a total of 26 speakers.

All right.

Thank you.

Just under the 30 speaker threshold.

So each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

And we will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers.

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

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Greg Woodfill.

After Greg, we'll hear from Kirk Hovenkotter.

Good morning, Chair Osaka and distinguished council members.

My name is Greg Woodfill, president of ATU 587. I'm here representing 5,000 transit workers, mostly from King County, who moved this city and region.

We respect the City Council's authority to shape this legislation and appreciate the Seattle City Council and Seattle residents' long and firm commitment to investments in public transit.

On the 22 proposed amendments, our union wants to respect the council's authority and only speak to one amendment that we strongly support, Amendment 1, and one that we strongly oppose, Amendment 13. Yesterday's shooting incident on a bus in the Soto district is just another in a long line of examples of why we need to keep our focus on transit safety, which we believe is addressed in amendment number one.

On amendment 13, the public is clear that they want more transit, not less.

Our union asked for the council to pass this amendment with a full taxing authority.

Our union has a long history of supporting and working with Seattle council members, including the current council.

All we ask for is your commitment to public transit and labor in general.

The decisions you make on this legislation will demonstrate if you back up your words with actions.

Investment in public transit benefits all more so than most investments.

please make this bold and needed investment in transit without placing restrictions that will lessen or inhibit the ability for increased transit service, which is what the public needs, wants, and demands.

Thank you.

Thank you, President Woodfield.

Let the record reflect that Councilmember Strauss has joined us in person.

Welcome, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kirk Hoffencarter.

After Kirk, we'll hear from Mark Brunson.

Chair Saka, Councilmembers, I'm Kirk Hoven-Cotter, Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition.

Thank you for the work the committee has done on these thoughtful amendments.

Today, I want to focus on two amendments, reducing the funding rate from 0.3 to 0.2, and shortening the term of the measure.

We urge the Council to keep the measure at 0.3% sales tax and a full 10-year term.

A shorter term and a lower rate mean less service, less predictability for riders, and a harder conversation with voters down the road about renewing this measure around the time of the Seattle transportation levy.

Over this past month, Seattle has shown up on the world stage.

The growing investments in transit has made that possible.

During the World Cup, our transit system moved over a million riders just across the first two matches.

And it broke all-time ridership records twice in one week.

That's what this system can do when it has the funding it needs.

A full 0.3 10-year commitment investment keeps that momentum going.

In contrast, we can look three hours south to Portland, a city without a sales tax and without a local transit funding source that just this weekend had to announce severe cuts in its bus service and cutting its operators.

Business owners and residents want to invest in a city with a great public transit system, and voters have shown they want a city that is bold in its vision of what it wants to be, that isn't satisfied with what it has today.

Transit service is key to what makes our city work.

It's an economic driver, it eases congestion for everyone on the road, and lowers the cost of living in our city.

Even for residents who have never set foot on a bus or a train, transit investment means fewer cars and less congestion.

We look forward to further conversations with you all and the committee as your amendments move forward, but we hope to see this measure continue with a 0.3% sales tax rate and a 10-year term.

Let's go Salmon Bay, let's go Team USA.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Kirk.

And also, let's go West Seattle Roadies FC and the Junction FC.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Mark Brunson, followed by Jack Wisner.

Good morning.

My name is Mark Brunson.

I live in Capitol Hill and have navigated Seattle by transit during each iteration of the Seattle transit measure, as well as the years that preceded them.

The first transportation benefit district was a

Mark, can you speak directly into the mic?

Almost gotta eat it.

The first transportation benefit district was a hopeful time for mobility in Seattle.

This measure expanded service to the point that 70% of Seattle households could walk to a frequent bus line.

As a result, Seattle was the only major city in the country, increasing its transit ridership during these service expansions.

Today, I live near the G line, and this high frequency route has made me more connected to First Hill and the Central Library.

Everyone should be able to walk to a frequent bus like the G.

but most of my destinations are not along the G.

A citywide frequent transit network is important to everyone because we do not always get to choose where our destinations are.

Sometimes our friends move across the city, our only local pharmacy closes, or we want to support a local business in another neighborhood.

I strongly urge you to pass this plan to fund the amount of bus service in the mayor's proposal.

I also support amendments 10 and 29 to expand upon that service level.

Please reject Amendment 13 that represents a cut to today's transit service.

When people apply to jobs and sign leases, they need to know that their mobility is not subject to the whims of future council members.

Our service levels should be guided by a consistent vision.

The frequent transit network was developed in the transit element of the Seattle Transportation Plan, which was unanimously passed by this body and currently many people currently serving on it.

Please reject Amendment 4 and leave the specific details to the expertise of our planners who are charged with implementing the plan that the Council has already approved.

Thank you for your time, and let's have a great time at our final World Cup game.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Jack Wisner, followed by Riley Avron.

Good morning, Chair Sacca, members of the board.

I want to second the remarks of President Woodfill.

Please adopt the measure.

But I want to color outside the lines a little bit and suggest two amendments that are not on the list today.

I've written several notes on these topics.

Shersaka remarked that the bus routes are the purview of metro transit.

But there is one mode that's the purview of Seattle, which is the Seattle streetcar.

And there are two lines.

The South Lake Union line began in 2005, and the first line was funded by ST2.

I think it's time that we stop funding the service subsidy for the South Lake Union line.

Shersaka brought this up during the 2024 budget process.

It's not very cost effective.

It is duplicated by several very good bus routes, the 40, the 62, the 70, and the C line.

Ridership is very low.

The streetcars are a boutique service.

They cost a lot more.

I've shared that with you in email.

$400 an hour for every streetcar.

$250 for every bus hour.

So for every streetcar hour you fund, you can buy 1.6 bus hours.

And the hours you spend on South Lake Union do not help any of your objectives, because the streetcar in South Lake Union duplicates good bus service, and the bus hours you spend outside downtown are where waits are longer and riders need it more.

The second amendment I have suggested is that you go ask the voters about the latent authority for the $50 vehicle license fee and target those funds for pavement management.

We know we're in a deep deficit for pavement management, bridges, and sidewalks.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Wisner.

Next, we have Riley Avron who will be followed by Clinton Attaway.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Riley from West Seattle.

I want to first recognize that this form of public comment is profoundly unrepresentative and biased towards people like me who are able to spend their weekday morning here with you.

In particular, the people most likely to benefit from this measure are least likely to be able to be here in part because our transit system is so time consuming.

That said, I urge you to pass the Seattle transit measure and to reject the amendments from Council Members Kettle and SACA weakening that measure.

Like many residents, I rely on public transit to get around, but many routes are infrequent or non-existent.

The bus I take to the airport runs every 20 or 30 minutes later in the evening, and the trip takes an hour compared to 20 minutes by car.

The bus I take to visit friends in South Seattle is the same.

For you Council Members who don't use transit, imagine if there was a gate at the end of your driveway that only opened twice every hour.

Please reject amendments four and five from my council member Sacco.

Most critically, please reject amendment 13 from council member Kettle, which would cut the purchase bus service in half.

This measure improves connectivity, reduces emissions and absolutely increases equity.

Please pass it rather than undermine it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Clinton Attaway followed by Cecilia Black.

Good afternoon, counsel.

Thank you all for meeting today.

Chair Saka, I would like to read from words that I guarantee the chairman is going to respect.

As you know, I'm not a traffic engineer.

Last time I intervened or meddled specific design solutions, it didn't go well for anybody.

I'm not going to dictate or tell the department specific solutions they should implement.

I'll absolutely pass along the feedback.

This statement represents a profound amount of humility and understanding of where this committee's capabilities lie and where they need to be empowering other people with specific abilities to give us a 21st century metro solution.

So I asked the council to vote against amendments 13 and 4 and push forward on amendments 10 and 29. And let's look back and say something simple, that we didn't meddle.

We enabled the people who know what they're doing to do what they should be.

Thank you.

Thank you, Clinton.

Next, we have Cecilia Black and then Jonathan Gonzalez.

Good morning.

My name is Cecilia Black and I am an activist and advocate with Non-Drivers Alliance and a wheelchair user.

I just want to first say thank you to Council for considering this transit measure.

People with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to not be able to drive and also live in households that do not have access to a car.

meaning that transit access is disability access.

People with disabilities are twice as likely to not leave their house in a day than non-disabled peers in the same age bracket.

This means that people are isolated, that they're not accessing jobs, that they're not accessing all of the opportunities that everybody else has who has access to a car.

and I just wanna say that I am incredibly privileged.

I can't put my own gas.

It's very difficult to get my wheelchair in and out of a car and it's really hard to find safe parking in Seattle, but I can afford to live on the frequent transit network which means I can get almost everywhere in the city that I need to go.

But most people with disabilities are in a lower income bracket.

They do not have access to living in the frequent transit network.

And this transit measure will just give people so much more opportunity.

And so I just want to really emphasize that we need to expand our transit funding and we need to make sure it's reliable so we can plan for the future and make an accessible city.

So please, please, please keep this transit measure at a 0.3% and dedicate that to more transit on the frequent transit network and make sure that it is predictable.

And that means keeping this transit measure again at the 10 year funding timeline and doing everything we can to ensure Metro has all the tools to plan and expand our frequent transit network.

Our next speaker will be Jonathan Gonzalez followed by Hendrick Delcock.

Hello, my name is Jonathan Gonzalez.

I'm an organizer with Save Ballard Rail and a volunteer with Ballard Fremont Green Streets.

I guess I wanted to start off with, I was just in LA this past weekend, or last weekend with my husband, and something that really struck me was how much better our transit is here in Seattle.

I think LA is supposed to be like a bigger, like cooler city, but my husband and I tried to go around by train, by bus, and it just it was striking just how different it is.

And I think what we see is that Seattle really likes to take public transit and with the World Cup we're also seeing that Seattle's really just like shining everywhere online.

Everyone's talking about how beautiful the city is, how accessible our stadium is, and how easy it is to get around.

Even City Nerd said that our stadium is S tier, which I thought was really cool.

And to that end, I think it's very important that we continue to fund transit.

And that means funding the full 0.3%.

We need to continue expanding and make it accessible to everyone in the city.

I appreciate Council Member Strauss's amendment to call out connecting regional centers.

I think that's very important.

I also think it's important that Council Member Lynn and Rink called out amendments for looking for progressive revenue in ways for a local and state level revenue increases can be done and how that might help with the sales tax.

I know that sales tax is regressive, but this is important.

I worry about limiting the measure to six months, or six years.

I know that that might tie in with the transportation levy, and that just seems like a disaster.

And yeah, I hope that you end up passing the full 0.3% in the full 10 years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Next, we have Hendrick Delcock, followed by Nick Sattel.

Hello.

I'm a resident of Capitol Hill, and I've been using transit almost exclusively.

I'm a non-driver since essentially the beginning of the first Seattle transit measure since its implementation.

And so I'm here to both strongly support its renewal and, in particular, to recommend against adopting Amendments 13 and Amendment 5 for various reasons, the first of all being that Amendment 13 Cutting down the tax measure will significantly hamper the amount of transit that the city is able to fund.

And it's really being able to fund a lot of very frequent transit that really grants people like me the freedom to be able to go where they want to go, where they need to go, whether it's for work, for leisure, to see friends, to go to a doctor, what have you.

And at the end of the day, the measure as proposed is going to cost the median satellite under $30 per year.

And so I don't think cutting that extra third really does much versus the amount of extra transit service we can buy.

As for Amendment 5, I recommend against shortening the term, particularly because that would mean in order to do a renewal, the city would have to shell out the money for an extra special election, something which they would not have to do under the 10-year term.

And as such, it does lead to more unnecessary spending down the line, particularly since the measure would likely get renewed regardless.

Thank you, Hendrick.

Next up is Nick Sattell, who will be followed by Harper Nally.

Hello, council members.

My name is Nick.

I help Collette fix the late.

And I want to thank everyone here for writing all your amendments, for getting so far along in this process.

I know it's not very easy, but I wanted to to call out some amendments to vote against.

First off, amendment number four would force annual council approvals of the service investments, which is just going to end up pitting all of our districts against each other.

We've seen this process play out at Sound Transit, and it's not very good when we have all these different regions fighting against each other for the same resources when we have a data-driven approach already that's run by SDOT.

I urge you to vote no on amendment number five, which would force the renewal of this measure on a special election or force it on the same general election as the move Seattle levy, which is certainly going problems for both of them.

But more importantly, I urge you to vote No One Amendment number 13, which will reduce the Seattle Transit measure by one third.

That would cut service funded by the city of Seattle, and that would also halt the service expansion that we have planned.

Throughout the years, this council has talked the talk on a number of different goals, like climate change, the Seattle Transportation Plan, Vision Zero, the Frequent Transit Network we all voted for and approved is what's going to get funded by the Seattle Transit measure.

And I want to call out that we have a lot of problems in the city, and they're not going to get solved with less transit.

Downtown has a 40% vacancy right now.

We're not going to make a dent on that with less transit.

It's not going to be easier to run a business in the city if we have less transit.

It's not going to be easier to find a job or get to work if we have less transit.

And it's not going to be a more affordable city if we have less transit and more people have to drive, pay for some of the most expensive Ubers in the country, pay for expensive gas and parking.

But more importantly, I think we've seen this in the past couple weeks, that we're not going to be a fun city or an enjoyable city if we don't have transit like we've seen with the World Cup.

We have a night network of buses that allow people to go out and have a night on the town to work a later shift at the bar.

And that night network is overwhelmingly funded by the Seattle Transit measure, not by Metro itself.

And by prioritizing service expansion here and by keeping the measure at 0.3 in 10 years, that allows us to make these investments and make the city better for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nick.

Our next speaker is Harper Nally followed by Carlo Alcantara.

Okay.

Mom, stop texting me.

Okay.

Hello, my name is Harper Nally.

I'm with Seattle Transit Riders Union.

I'm a member of District 3. I'm a transit writer and I'm a student.

This tax increase in improved service it would fund will save me money, even though I don't have a car to give up and save money on.

This improved bus service will reduce our contributions to climate change, something that everyone on this council at least says they understand is an existential threat.

It is a well-established fact that improved transit service boosts the economy by putting more money into the pockets of riders and transit operators.

Are you a council that only believes climate change, affordability, and in the economy when talking to voters and cuts transit service and puts barriers in the way of its success while in the chamber?

Or are you a council that actually follows through on its talk?

Because I have more time, really briefly.

I, last weekend, went to Mt. Tsai to go for a hike on a bus that is half-funded by the Seattle Transportation Measure.

I do not have access to that if that bus doesn't exist.

And that is really important.

A lot of people I know, if they had better access to bus service, to things like their job, to various places that are not downtown, and further out into our mountains would be more willing to give up their car.

We know that transit service boosts our economy.

We know that our transit service makes our city greener and more equitable.

Please, when the voters are asking for these things to improve, please do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Harper.

And a friendly reminder, folks, when you hear that chime, that means you have 10 seconds left, so you don't have to necessarily abruptly end your comments.

You have 10 seconds left.

Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Carlo Alcantara.

After that, Joseph Bolden.

Good morning, counsel.

My name is Carlo.

I help lead Aurora Reimagined Coalition.

I also live in D5.

I just want to highlight there's a bunch of good amendments that are up today for vote.

So to highlight a couple, First one is Amendment 16 that would expand night bus service.

Amendment 11 to find new progressive revenue sources, 10 to increase transit to regional centers, which I also want to mention, Councilmember Strauss, I don't need the bus to go to Ballard to downtown, but to get across to Northgate and then to Ballard.

That's how I to access it, and I love this amendment because it gets me to the Ballard Farmers Market more often every weekend.

Let's see, 20 to increase accessibility and access to transit.

There's a bunch more, but my ask here is that you pass some of those, but reconsider and do not pass Amendment 13 to cut bus service that would also cut jobs for metro drivers.

Don't pass Amendment 4. We don't need to micromanage the funding we've already set aside to purchase more bus hours.

And please don't pass Amendment 5 to shorten this measure or the term of this measure to, I think it was six years, nine months.

That would also potentially trigger an expensive special election.

I do want to say, too, that I've had a great time using transit to get around during the World Cup.

I think we've demonstrated how good Seattle does transit and that we can do even better.

And this transit measure will do that and make us an even more connected city than we already are.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carlo.

Our next speaker is Joseph Bolden, who will be followed by L.

Harrison Jerome.

Hello, council members.

I'm Chair Saka.

I'm Joseph Bolden with the Seattle Building Trades.

The Seattle Building Trades Council and our affiliates are in support of Amendment 3. We believe that these funds to help capital projects will contribute to good paying jobs for workers around the community and help ADA construction projects.

These capital projects also provide apprenticeship pathways so people can build a career within the place that they live and work.

These projects also provide priority hiring for people within the area, the zip code, so that they continue to live and work in Seattle and around King County.

So please support Amendment 3 for the community workforce.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have L.

Harrison Jerome, who will be followed by Brandon Derblatter.

Hello, council members.

My name is Leonard Harrison Jerome.

The city and the country are not saying that the government is being too bold right now.

The city is not asking for us to pare back transit measure.

I'm here to speak in favor of keeping the transit tax at 0.3% and keeping it at 10 years, rather than six years and nine months.

Yep, I'm Gen Z. I get the joke.

It's very funny.

I don't think we should be trying to sell transit budget cuts by making it a funny number.

We need the longer time because having pro-transit council members is not a guarantee.

It's seeming increasingly likely that we could have austerity Democrats in both local and state government who won't necessarily call for extra transit investment.

we need to go as far as we can while it's politically possible to do so.

On the subject of the sales tax, there's no arguments for me that it's a regressive tax, but even still, using that money to invest in transit is the best bang for buck way to create affordability, especially since it's the only tax the state allows us to levy for transportation.

which is why we need people, we need state legislators who will give us more options in the future for better taxation.

But that's certainly not guaranteed either.

I'll leave with this.

After the Iraq War, when I was just three years old, government promised at every level that we would have irresistibly good transit and wean ourselves off foreign oil.

Frankly, oil period.

But we didn't.

We gave more subsidies for oil.

Now we find ourselves in another oil war.

They had the same conversations at the time about public transportation, whether we should invest in it.

Let's not go so bold.

Are we sure we wanna raise taxes?

We should pare it back.

Don't make the same mistake.

Thank you.

Thank you, Leonard.

Our final in-person speaker will be Brandon Der Blatter.

After Brandon, we'll go to our remote speakers, starting with David Hill.

I strongly urge the council to reject Councilmember Kettle's amendment to reduce funding available to Mayor Wilson's proposed Seattle transit measure.

Yes, sales tax is regressive, but it's one of the few levers the city has to improve transit service.

The disadvantages of this tax to more vulnerable residents will be greatly offset by the benefits of increased bus service.

Over one in five people in the city don't even own a car, and many more primarily use modes other than a car, keeping a car only so they can reach faraway locations that don't have enough transit or bike infrastructure.

I also support Councilmember Rink's amendment supporting increased night service.

I have previously walked from Soto to Capitol Hill, and I have previously biked from Kenmore to Belltown before, both of those after midnight because transit service ended too early.

Transit funding also supports Vision Zero goals by allowing more people to get around without a car.

Please make this transit measure as strong as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brandon.

Dope shirt by the way, really love it.

Still waiting on somebody to give me my courtesy copy.

Love it, thank you.

Switching to our remote callers, our first caller will be David Hill.

Following David we'll have Amy Storm.

David please hit star six to begin speaking.

David Hill, please hit star 6 to begin speaking.

Good morning, council members.

My name is David Hill.

I'm a car-free resident of the Roosevelt neighborhood and a member of the Transit Riders Union.

I'm here today to urge the council to protect the integrity and long-term vision of the Seattle transit measure.

I want to be entirely clear.

I strongly oppose amendments 4, 5, and 13. First, Amendment 13 cuts the sales tax rate to 0.2%, stripping over $460 million from our transit system and gutting 1.1 million service hours.

It completely eliminates the infrastructure maintenance category, operating on the flawed assumption that the 2024 transportation levy can absorb all capital transit needs.

Transit capital demands consistently outpace available funding.

Stripping this category prevents us from building the dedicated bus lanes and speed and reliability spot improvements that make transit functional and efficient.

Second, Amendment 4, which requires annual council approval for service hour purchases and routes served, is entirely unworkable.

Voters pass transit measures to establish stable, long-term networks managed by transit professionals not to hand over route logistics to a yearly political tug-of-war on the council floor.

Micromanaging route alignments annually, treats a core public utility like a discretionary political chip tripping away the exact operational predictability King County Metro needs to function.

Finally, I strongly oppose Amendment 5. Shortening the measure's duration introduces deep operational instability when we desperately need certainty.

If the Council wants oversight, look to Amendment 6 for a data-driven midterm evaluation.

But if the goal of these amendments is to dilute the measure into milquetoast centrism, I urge you to look at the recent election results.

Seattle voters just replaced a centrist mayor with a transit organizer.

Our city wants old, dependable, well-funded public utilities, not watered-down micromanaged compromises.

Please reject the cuts, the micromanagement, and the instability of amendments 4, 5, and 13, and focus on robust midterm accountability instead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next remote caller will be Amy Storm.

Following Amy, we will go to Wes Mills.

Amy, please hit star six to speak.

Hi, Seattle City Council.

My name is Amy Storm.

I'm addressing the Seattle transit measure, as you might imagine.

I've been a West Seattle homeowner since 2011, and I want better bus service and would happily pay more than the estimated $29 a year that Mayor Wilson's unamended proposal would cost my household to get it.

Let me take you on a little bus adventure.

The closest grocery store to my house is almost exactly a mile away, which would be a reasonable walk except it's straight down one of the steepest hills in West Seattle, making walking home with a full load of groceries untenable.

I would happily take the bus instead of drive, but my choices are a bus stop half a mile away where the bus comes once an hour or a bus stop two blocks away that's supposed to come every 15 minutes and requires a transfer bus that comes every 20 minutes.

If I take the bus that comes once an hour and finish my shopping in 20 minutes, then I have to wait at least another 20 to 40 minutes with melting groceries to get home.

If I take the bus route with the transfer and one of the two buses is delayed, which happens constantly since our buses share red space with cars, then I'm stuck waiting 15 to 20 minutes for the next bus.

If I drive, it takes me five minutes.

Guess how I get my groceries.

The most important metric that gets people to take public transit is frequency of service.

If I reliably know a bus will be at the stop within no more than 10 minutes of my arrival at the stop, I will take the bus.

Amendment 13 by Bobcattle and Amendment 4 and 5 by Rob Saka are the kind of thing that makes me assume they want to deliberately sabotage our bus service to force reliance on cars.

It's a favorite strategy of conservatives to slash funding to public services, making those services harder to use and then pointing at the reduction in use to justify flashing those services even more.

Reject these amendments and instead support amendments 10, 11, 17 and 29. Our climate goals can't afford worse bus service and neither can our groceries.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Amy.

Our next remote caller will be Wes Mills.

After Wes, we'll go to Billy Hetherington.

Wes, please hit star six to speak.

Good morning Chair Saka and council members.

My name is Wes Mills and my wife and I live in Northgate.

We are full-time pedestrians without a car who do not drive and this means we rely on transit for everything as we have since 2018 when the first Seattle Transportation Benefit District measure was really hitting its stride.

And I remember the amazing days of the first STPD.

Local buses and not just rapid rides were so frequent that we rarely checked the schedule.

We saved the overnight best network and worked with Metro to revamp and expand it into something more useful than the spaghetti of what was before.

And Seattle was the only area of the country to see increases in bus ridership because Seattle invested in buses.

Trains are great but they can't go everywhere and buses are vital.

Affordability and access are important and there's little more we can do for affordability than relieve the burden of owning a car by increasing buses across the city.

Some of us do need to drive but a lot of us do not need to drive or cannot or do not drive.

Buses are how we access transit including light rail and the streetcars.

Seattle likes to go big on transit and we should go big on transit here.

The state lets us have 10 years.

We should use those years.

The state lets us have a higher level of tax revenue.

We should use that tax revenue.

Seattle's transit measures have always been about more buses in more places and more often.

Buses or people cannot ride buses that don't exist.

And more people on transit makes for safer, robust and popular transit.

And those are good things that we should spend big on, particularly considering amendments like Amendment 24 that would increase the threshold and the amount of service hours.

Personally, I need these buses.

My family needs these buses.

My friends need these buses.

Please vote to go big on buses.

And thank you very much.

Thank you, Wes.

Our next speaker is Billy Hetherington.

After Billy, we'll go to Alexandra Johnson.

Billy, please hit star six to speak.

Good morning Chair Saka and Council Members.

My name is Billy Heatherington.

I represent Lionel Local 242 and the men and women who build and maintain the infrastructure our community depends on every day.

I'm here today in support of Council Member Saka's Amendment 3 and against Amendment 13. If this major's goal is to expand transit service, then the City has the responsibility to ensure expanded service is truly accessible to everyone.

Under Title II of the Americans with Disability Act in the 2010 ADA standards local governments are expected to maintain an ADA transition plan and identify barriers that lays out a strategy to remove them.

As we invest in more transit hours we should also invest in infrastructure that allows every Seattle resident to actually use this service.

Roughly one in four adults in Seattle identify as living with a disability.

Time and time again transit accessibility is identified as one of their highest priorities.

More buses and more service hours don't mean Much of riders can't safely reach a stop, navigate sidewalks, access curb ramps, or move through the public right-of-ways with confidence.

And on the first couple years as a laborer working in the City of Seattle, I did a lot on ADA compliance and ripping out corners of street corners and replacing them with ADA compliant curb ramps.

I know all about this work.

Councilmember Saka's amendment provides a practical solution by allowing unused transit operating funds to be directed towards ADA and accessibility capital improvements.

We ensure that the available dollars continue advancing the goals voters expect rather than sitting idle.

It creates flexibility while keeping the focus on delivery and transportation systems and that serves everybody.

These investments also produce good paying family wage careers, expand apprenticeship opportunities and support local hire pathways for workers who are looking for a chance to build a better future while improving the communities they live in.

Accessibility isn't an optional feature of a successful transit system.

Is it a fundamental part of its success?

I refuse to support Amendment 3. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hetherington.

Our next speaker will be Alexandra Johnson, followed by Maya Ayala-Marshall.

Alexandra, please hit star six to begin speaking.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can hear you, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Alexandra Johnson and I'm a policy analyst with the Duwamish River Community Coalition representing South Park and Georgetown in the Duwamish Valley.

I'm here to urge your support for Amendment 2 prioritizing electric bus deployment in the Duwamish Valley in South Seattle.

And big thank you to Chair Sacca for creating this amendment out of direct feedback from very hard to reach community members in South Seattle.

Our communities carry Seattle's heaviest environmental burden.

South Park and Georgetown sit at the intersection of industrial corridors, freight routes, and Highway 99. And both census tracts rank among the highest in the state for cumulative environmental health disparities.

Diesel bus exhaust and diesel drive truck exhaust adds to a pollution load our residents already breathe every day.

As the region electrifies its bus fleet, where that transition happens first matters just as much as it happening at all.

Prioritizing electrification in overburdened communities means the benefits, cleaner air, less noise, lower emissions, breach the people who've carried the greatest impact rather than being distributed evenly regardless of need.

This amendment gets that right by grounding prioritization in the environmental health disparities map in EJ's dream, same tools the state already uses to direct equitable investment, and we're really glad to see the city apply that same standard here.

Electrifying transit in our neighborhoods is a direct measurable way to reduce the pollution burden our residents face every day and we ask you to adopt this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alexandra.

Our next caller will be Maya Ayala-Marshall followed by Andrew Crow.

Mia, sorry.

Mia, please hit star six.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello Chair Salka and Honorable Council members.

My name is Mia Ayala Marshall and I'm the Clean Air Program Manager at the Duwamish River Community Coalition, an environmental justice nonprofit based in South Seattle's Duwamish Valley.

I'm here to urge you to support Amendment 2, prioritizing electric buses bus deployment in the Duwamish Valley in South Seattle.

In my work, I listen to community members' priorities and uplift their voices in spaces like these to improve their health and well-being and the environment.

Over the past two years, I have continuously heard that the Duwamish Valley transit must be improved.

As you just heard from my colleague, the Duwamish Valley is home to one of Seattle's busiest transportation corridors, I-5, Highway 509, and Highway 99, which supports residents, freight, and industry.

However, this proximity also leads to significant environmental and air pollution burdens.

Additionally, in the Duwamish Valley, only 2% of community members live and work in the valley and the Duwamish Valley is one of the only neighborhoods in Seattle not covered by equitable public transportation defined by SDOT as a 10 minute or better all day service within a 10 minute walk.

Our community and those entering it for work significantly rely on public transportation and it must be improved.

Investments in the Duwamish Valley public transit system is critical, especially those that will help support cleaner air and better health outcomes for community members.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment.

And again, I urge you to support Amendment 2 as a great first step in improving the Duwamish Valley's public transportation.

Thank you, Mia.

Next up is Andrew Crow.

Andrew will be followed by Jason Lee.

Andrew, please hit star six.

Hello, my name is Andrew Crow.

I live in the upper Queen Anne area of Seattle.

I have a car, and I gotta say, I'm frankly a little embarrassed by some of the amendments today.

At the time of gas rising costs and international claim in part due to our public transit system, why are we trying to reduce our bus system?

we need to reject Amendment 4, 5, and 13. My parents are getting older, they have to take the bus to get downtown.

I don't have the time or freedom to take them to their appointments, but you know what gives them the freedom?

You know what gives them independence?

It's the bus system of Seattle.

It's our transit system.

I love that stuff.

And right now, no one talks and says, wow, I really wish I had fewer buses.

I love being in traffic.

I love having to take my parents to the for the doctor's appointment and taking a day off from work and using my vacation time for that.

We need to reject those amendments and we need to support our bus system.

I would gladly pay the additional of one tank of gas in order to expand our bus system further.

is a shining star of Seattle.

We're going to get more tourism from all the people that came and loved going and visiting Pike Place and everywhere around Seattle and who used our bus system to do that.

Please reject 4, 5, and 13. Support any amendment that improves our bus system.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Crowe.

Our next caller is Jason Lee.

Jason will be followed by Rafi Ronquillo.

Jason, please hit star six.

I'm actually here in person if that's okay.

Yeah, sorry about the confusion.

I had a work meeting that I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it here in time.

But yeah, my name is Jason Lee.

I'm a resident of Capitol Hill, speaking here in favor of the Seattle Transit measure and against amendments 5 and 13. I apologize if I sound like a broken record here, but in 2024, Seattle added 13,000 drivers to its road in just one year.

That's before Amazon's RTO.

That's before Microsoft's RTO.

That's before The largest employers in our region started their RTO mandates and are continuing to do so today.

We added 13,000 drivers.

If we pass Amendment 13 and maintain the status quo bus service, we will continue that trend.

If we pass Amendment 5, even with the shorter term, by the end of those seven years, we will have added nearly 100,000 drivers to our roads.

The last World Cup match in Seattle is today, but if we pass Amendment 13, that traffic will be permanent.

Tomorrow, construction resumes on Seattle streets, and our visitors will leave, but we keep adding drivers to our roads, and we need to reverse that trend with a larger and more bold transit measure.

And to be clear, those 100,000 people is more than the capacity of the field previously known as Lumen.

We will have more traffic by the end of the shortened measure than we have today if we don't pass a really large and innovative one.

And for the shortened measure, we need to make sure that once we start improving our transit, we need to keep that momentum going for as long as possible.

I kind of want to highlight, too, the fact that I wasn't sure if I was going to make it here in person.

I think the people who would be most in support of transit are the working class.

But those are the ones that, for this time period, are going to have the most difficulty making it here, either calling in or being here in person.

But I don't think I've heard a single person in favor of Amendment 5 or 13, even with that in mind.

So I just want you to keep that in mind, too, and just realize how popular transit is in Seattle and how badly the city needs it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Go back to remote.

Back to remote callers.

Our first one will be Rafi Ronquillo.

After that, we'll hear from David Haynes.

Mr. Ronquillo, please hit star six to begin speaking.

Hi there.

Good morning, everyone.

This is Rafi Ronquillo down in the Brighton neighborhood of Seattle.

I'm just calling in to voice my support for amendments 10, 11, 17, and 29. And I would ask the council to reject amendments four or five, and I strongly urge the council to reject amendment 13. We can't afford to reduce investment in our transit network.

These dollars are incredibly well spent and an incredibly great deal for the residents of Seattle.

So with that, I will yield my time.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Rafi.

We will now go to David Haynes.

After David Haynes, we'll hear from Robert Cruickshank.

Mr. Haynes, please hit star six.

Hi, David Haynes.

Katie Wilson is the mayor and Mayor Wilson is the executive who's taking the lead on solving the crisis of all the people who are public transportation bound and alleviating the oppressive frustrations and the dangers of waiting for the bus too long or missing a transfer or not being allowed to go from the Westlake tunnel to the rapid ride because the private security refuses to look around the corner and see and say what they see to work with the cops.

Yet some people want to persecute poverty who's not bothering anybody and then a trafficker who pays his ticket on the Linklite rail gets to transport a woman to a rape house in U District because the police chief wants the virtue signal with bad policies.

If the city council wants to improve public safety, come up with better legislation based on the root cause of predatory drug pushers and pimps and customs violators instead of waiting for the feds to approach the police chief to ask help shutting them down.

because you're just sweeping them and pushing them into elsewhere places.

And if you want to improve legislation for public safety on the buses, you still have to have a resolution that demands that the bus drivers, the union, speaks up when they see all these evil predatory pieces of crap who are doing drugs in and around the transit-oriented infrastructure.

But persecuting innocent people is unacceptable.

But you also allow the mayor to take the lead and stop browbeating and bullying and jive talking with these bogus amendments that should be withdrawn and rejected because you all didn't say or do anything about the bad policies that Bruce Harrell implemented into the budget that you all signed up on for the rest of this year that we're still waiting to play out, that you all are still competing with other bad policies that need to be fixed in the transportation department and the comprehensive plan with the restrictions.

It's revolting.

Let the mayor- Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Our next caller is Robert Cruikshank.

After Robert, we'll hear from Alberto Alvarez.

Mr. Cruikshank, please hit star six to begin speaking.

Hi, my name is Robert Cruikshank.

I'm a homeowner.

We own two cars and I've been a Seattle resident for 25 years.

In 2014, I helped create and pass the first of the Seattle transit measures which funded the great bus service we enjoyed today.

Two of my kids now rely on metro buses to get to and from school.

Seattle Public Schools does not offer bus service to kids in middle and high school.

The buses are often delayed.

They don't run as frequently as they should.

Our kids would save a lot of time and have fewer tardies with the proposals in this transit measure.

We would all save a lot of money by driving less.

This proposal will only cost households about $29 a year.

That's a really good deal.

So please don't undermine that good deal.

Please reject Amendment 13, also known as the Defund the Bus Amendment.

This defund the bus amendment would save households only a couple of dollars a year in sales tax, but would gut the bus service as a measure of funds.

If the council adopts Amendment 13, you will actually make it more expensive to live in the city by increasing transportation costs with less bus service.

Amendment 13 will also probably make it less likely voters would approve the measure since you'd be getting left for our money.

I'd also ask to reject Amendment 5. We don't need a shorter time frame.

We do need to fund transit for years to come.

Thank you and let's make sure we get more bus service for our great city.

Thank you, Robert.

Our next caller will be Alberto Alvarez followed by Daniel Heppner.

Mr. Alvarez, please hit star six.

Thank you.

I would support amendments that lower the tax hike and shift taxes to car usage and parking.

Better funding through car tabs and parking fees.

We need people out of their cars and into public transit.

A responsible funding mechanism should address all these things.

It's not just about building it and they will come.

Ridership will remain low because the cost of driving a car is better than taking two bus routes to the places people need to travel to.

A tax on car usage itself would be a more equitable way to fund our transit system.

Wealthy households own multiple cars.

Drivers from the suburbs can be taxed when parking on our streets and commercial lots.

There are better ways to tackle the issues of low ridership and unreliable bus service.

We are stuck with regressive taxes, casting the wide net of sales tax for limited improvements to bus routes.

Responsible spending should place the burden of taxes on the things we want less of, and that means less cars on the road.

Thank you all, and have a good day.

Thank you, Mr. Alvarez.

Our next speaker will be Daniel Heppner.

After Daniel Heppner, we'll hear from Scott Nelson.

Mr. Heppner, please hit star six.

Hi, I'm Daniel.

I live in Capitol Hill and I oppose amendments four, five and 13, which would reduce transit funding by reducing the sales tax and reducing the length of the transit measure itself.

So first of all, the 0.1% reduction in sales tax will have a barely perceptible effect on the affordability of Seattle for the average person in terms of taxation, but a huge impact on affordability of Seattle in terms of transit and transportation.

My partner and I decided to get rid of our cars a few years ago, just during COVID actually, and every day we save more money by not having cars than we would pay in sales tax with that 0.1% per year.

Second, as a volunteer, I'm sick and tired of having to campaign for transit every few years because we insist on passing short funding measures instead of just committing to our future and committing to the vision that Seattle has had with the frequent transit network goals.

So let's use the maximum allowed amount and length for the Seattle transit measure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

We're down to our final three callers.

First we'll hear from Scott Nelson, who looks like we lost him and then he came back.

Then we'll hear from Joseph Smith.

And then we're gonna hear from a caller who I believe is Charlie Nguyen, but it isn't identified on the screen.

So first we'll hear from Mr. Nelson.

Please hit star six.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Scott Nelson and I'm a co-chair of the Seattle Disability Commission as well as a carless renter of District 2 in the Chinatown International District neighborhood.

I'm calling in today to speak to the Seattle Transit measure as a vehicle, no pun intended, for the access and security of folks with disabilities, whether they're invisible or visible, mobility, sensory, cognitive, or developmental.

Council Member Juarez has submitted Amendment 20 to provide clarifying language that includes and names disability as a fundamental consideration and category, and there is no portion of this bill that does not have wide-ranging implications for Seattleites with disabilities.

Increased service means that working folks who can't drive can get to their jobs on time.

More reliable transit helps folks access Seattle's world-class hospital.

Play finding improvements can provide folks who experience confusion or anxiety to engage more fully in public spaces.

I'd like to name that in conversation with fellow commissioners, the first thing that came up and remains difficult is the funding mechanism of a sales tax.

Low income families who already have less access to disability support, like modified automobiles or private shuttles, are disproportionately impacted by increases in sales tax.

It's important as a city and important to the Seattle Disability Commission to explore progressive funding mechanisms as vigorously as possible to prevent this disproportionate burden from falling on the shoulders of the vulnerable.

To my colleagues in disability advocacy, I encourage everyone to be aware of how these funds are being spent, what impacts there are on folks with disabilities, and engage in this conversation to the fullest.

Council, I want to thank you for inviting the Seattle Disability Commission to learn and engage with this bill.

and to live and embody the expression, nothing about us without us.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Nelson.

Next, we'll hear from Joseph Smith.

After Joseph, it appears we'll hear from Charlie Nguyen.

Joseph, please hit star six.

Joseph Smith, please hit star six.

Hello, can you hear me now?

Yes.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Joseph Smith.

I'm a lifelong Seattle resident.

I live in Queen Anne currently.

I want to say that I am a huge fan of our transit system, our buses, our trains, everything.

It's great.

I think it's one of the things that makes us a great city, and I'm opposed to Amendments 4, 5, and 13 for that, especially a little bit and my council member Kettle, just as this is not something I want to see, you know, we're basically downtown, we need to be funding transit.

The thing is, Seattle is a very expensive city.

It's a hard place to get by for a lot of people, and transit is one of the ways that we can make it affordable.

If you can live without a car, that's tens of thousands of dollars that you don't need to spend.

Thousands of dollars every year, that's way outshines, you know, the $30 a year that we're talking about here.

and it's popular.

Transit is really popular with people that you wouldn't even expect.

I've talked to all sorts of people that don't regularly ride the bus and they're excited for the connection to Bellevue.

They're excited for these improvements and they do ride them.

They become transit riders.

Really the thing is, I have to say, are we a real city?

Because real cities fund transit and other places don't.

But I think we want to be a real city and I hope that we are.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

All right, we'll go to our final caller.

I don't have the name on the screen here, but it appears that this is Charlie Nguyen.

Whoever's on the line, if you could please hit star six and just confirm your name, then I'll start your time.

Hello, council members.

Yes, this is Charlie.

Apologies for any issue with the caller ID.

I'm a resident of District 3, and I'm a transit rider.

I speak today in overall support of the council bill before you today, and I fully support the bill's intent to ensure transit needs continue to be funded in the city.

With this being said, and as another member of the Seattle Disability Commission, I speak today in particular support of Amendment 20 to the bill on the agenda today, which would add language to the bill to clarify that the transit measures work be done with recognition towards disability needs and accessibility.

This is an important amendment to ensure Seattle continues to be an accessible city to all in all aspects, including transit.

There are people who cannot drive because of disabilities and thus rely on transit.

Ensuring transit is accessible for individuals with disabilities should always be acknowledged in important proposed transit measure, transit ordinances like this one.

I also understand there are some differing views among council members regarding how the measure should specifically allocate its spending, including with respect to transit service versus transit infrastructure.

There are trade-offs between the two, but both categories of transit service and transit infrastructure can help people with disabilities.

The exact spending allocations should be carefully considered by this committee to ensure it is appropriate for meeting the needs of Seattle's disability community.

Thank you.

Chair, that was our final public commenter.

All right.

Thank you.

And no more last-minute in-person testifiers.

Just confirm.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for your public feedback today.

We will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the committee clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, briefing and discussion on Council Bill 121226, an ordinance relating to a sales and use tax providing for the submission to qualified electors of the city at an election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, a proposition to collect a sales and use tax to fund transit and related transportation programs in Seattle and ratify and confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you.

It looks like our presenters have joined us at the table.

Welcome.

In just a moment, please do introduce yourselves, begin your presentation.

Colleagues, a couple quick housekeeping items.

First, just kind of framing how this will go today.

We'll get our presentation overview from our central staff experts.

We'll then walk through the the individual 23 amendments starting first with the central staff kind of brief description overview and then turning it over to the amendment author to chime in and clarify from their perspective and speak to their own amendments.

And also want to remind colleagues that this is your opportunity to provide feedback on these various proposed amendments.

One of our goals in fact today is to assemble a chair's package for consideration at our July 16th meeting where we'll be voting on these to help streamline the administrative process so we don't have to vote on 16 individual amendments.

So doing so will allow us putting that chair's package together with mostly consensus items.

allow us to spend more time at that meeting deliberating on individual amendments that warrant more robust conversation or where alignment or consensus may not be as strong.

So one indicator of whether an amendment will be appropriate for a potential chairs package will be how many council members vocalize their support for a particular amendment, just briefly.

Another potential factor would be how many council members volunteer today to co-sponsor an amendment.

So colleagues, please do share your support for particular amendments or otherwise express your willingness to co-sponsor any of these amendments as they are discussed.

In this open meeting format, there is no limit to how many council members may choose to co-sponsor a particular amendment.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Welcome again, presenters.

Please do introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Amanda Allen, central staff.

Anne Gorman, council central staff.

Okay, council members, why are we here today?

Ann and I are going to be presenting the amendments that you all proposed.

This is an opportunity to make those amendments public, and as the chair said, we'll turn it over to you all to do the main show.

We have three purposes in this legislation.

The first one is to set the maximum amount of sales and use tax that can be collected, that would be allowed to be collected.

The legislation before you includes a 0.3% sales and use tax, and that's the maximum allowed under the Transportation Benefit District.

Also to set the total number of years for the collection.

10 years is what's proposed in the current legislation and that again is the maximum allowed for collection of this type of sales tax.

And then lastly, to establish the broad categories of eligible uses of the STM, the Seattle Transit Measure Revenues.

I'll just note that specific allocations to fund the specific bus lines and other investments is something that is currently held with Seattle Department of Transportation, SDOT and King County Metro.

That being said, I would like the council members to understand that any of the proposed amendments and the final legislation can be changed by future council action and legislation as it relates to the size of the tax and the term of the tax collections.

because of the up to language, the up to 0.3% and up to 10-year term, the tax rate could be adjusted downward and the term could be adjusted downward in future legislation.

and as it relates to the allowable uses, again, council may in the future amend aspects of those allowable uses in future legislation.

So you're not boxed in today necessarily if future priorities pop up.

So I'm going to start sharing my screen.

Okay, so what do we have?

We had...

A variety of amendments, 23 amendments.

Then we grouped them together in similar categories.

The amendments are not ordered in any sort of, the amendment numbers do not indicate any sort of priority on our behalf.

They are probably closer to when we received them and we entered them into our tracking spreadsheet than anything.

So it's simply organization strategy has no commentary on the value of the amendments.

There were amendments proposed, four different amendments proposed to change recitals in the legislation.

There were two other amendments that changed either the duration of the ordinance or the tax rate.

We also had amendments related to clarifying the uses of the funds.

which didn't substantially, it didn't expand the eligible uses, but just made very explicit how they could be used.

There were also amendments that added language to address some new or newly expanded revenue sources and how the city might address those introductions were they to happen.

There's also increasing in oversight requirements and reporting requirements.

We had about eight different amendments that touched on that.

And the most popular category was adding eligible uses for the transit measures.

So we had amendments offered to identify priorities for the allocation of revenues Other amendments that added additional possible populations who could be served by this revenue source.

And lastly, adjustments to the percentage of revenue for transit service.

So when we start this presentation off, we're gonna first start with the chair's amendments and then we'll just review the rest of amendments grouped together by some of these categories.

Okay.

Amendment 1 was sponsored by Councilmember Sacco with a co-sponsorship from Councilmember Kettle.

This is an amendment that would add recitals and amend sections to the bill regarding the shared responsibility of local jurisdictions in King County Metro and providing safe and secure transit services.

It would also add new permissible uses to support the implementation of King County Regional Transit Task Force recommendations.

And lastly, it would add a clause regarding additional purposes of safety and security investments and prohibit supplementation of those resources if similar services were already being provided by King County Metro.

And I'll turn it over to the chair.

Thank you, Amanda, Ann for being here today.

And also colleagues, I wanna thank you again for you and your respective offices for your thoughtful engagements in putting together 23 proposed amendments.

Again, really shows a strong commitment to this work and making this package even better.

So thank you again.

And I also especially wanna thank our own central staff experts, Anne, Amanda, Cal, Lish, others involved as well, It's truly a Herculean effort to put together this many amendments of this level of complexity in such a short amount of time.

So really applaud and appreciate that effort from our central staff.

Thank you.

On the amendment number one.

So colleagues, Transit safety and security is one of my highest priorities as chair of the council committee that oversees transportation policy, including transit.

It has been since I took office and it certainly has been throughout the entire process of working collaboratively with the mayor's office to develop the executive proposal and working with our own central staff to develop my amendments.

Last night, as ATU President Woodfill noted in his public comments, last night, a 39-year-old man suffered three gunshot wounds while sitting in the back of a Metro bus in Seattle.

Now, according to witnesses, the incident began when the suspect on the bus accused someone riding the bus of stealing his personal property.

The suspect exited the bus in the 500 block of South Lander Street, which is in my district in Soto, the stadium district, and then fired multiple rounds at the back of the bus, ultimately striking the victim.

Seattle police detectives are working with King County Metro to review any video that may have been recorded in the bus.

If anyone has any information that could lead to an arrest, please call the tip line at 206-233-5000.

Colleagues, this is real.

I hope we can work together to truly prioritize transit safety and security.

By now, we should not unfortunately be too surprised that things like this are an issue and remain a recurring issue in Seattle and for our entire region because transit safety and security as my amendment specifically notes because the King County Regional Transit Safety and Security Task Force ultimately came together and noted this fact as well.

Improving transit safety and security is a shared responsibility.

Accountability is shared for that important mission by all jurisdictions.

It's not just a responsibility borne by an individual transit agency like King County Metro or Sound Transit.

All governments, including the City of Seattle, bear a responsibility in improving that.

And so do individuals too, riding the bus.

See something, you say something.

This also, colleagues as we know, last night's, you can't make this stuff up.

On the eve of the day that my office is going to present a transformative transit safety and security amendment, someone is shot while riding a bus.

And I called ATU president earlier this morning to to check on him and his members.

I think it's so fresh they are still working their way through this themselves.

But this is a real issue impacting transit riders and operators and also comes on the heels of what happened in December, on December 18th, 2024, when King County Metro operator Sean Yim was tragically struck down, killed, murdered, while doing his job.

Driving a bus, riding a bus that was going through the city of Seattle.

Went to work that day thinking it was probably gonna be an ordinary day.

Fortunately, he never came home.

And incidents like that are entirely preventable We cannot let the service and ultimately the sacrifice of people like Sean Yim be forgotten.

Let us never forget.

Never forget is what this patch says.

And sadly, we continue to experience unsafe conditions for riders, as in the case of last night and operators, as any operator will tell you if you chat with them and learn about their experiences.

And there's been some significant upgrades made and I wanna specifically applaud King County Metro for their initial work and rapid work, frankly, in making these critical upgrades, installing protective barriers, making other improvements but more work needs to be done.

And in full recognition that this is a Service First based Seattle Transit measure proposed package, that's why my amendment in line with the Service First authorizes more service, specifically security service, services and personnel to boost our transit safety and security posture.

This would be through the work of behavioral health specialists, metro transit police officers, transit security officers, metro ambassadors, contracted security officers, fair enforcement officers and the like.

Just additional service that we can do and provide on top of what King County Metro should already be providing, which is why my proposed amendment also includes an express and explicit Non-subplantation clause, serving to ensure that these funds will be allocated for safety and security services in this measure and that we're not relieving anyone else of their responsibility to provide baseline levels of service for transit safety and security.

Can do more.

We must do more.

And this is our opportunity to do exactly that, to improve transit safety and security.

on our transit system.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments, feel free after the amendments.

Go ahead.

Before we...

Looks like Councilmember Rivera is first.

I just have a thank you chair.

I just have a quick question about the I'm not familiar with all of the recommendations from the King County Transit Safety Task Force.

So is this amendment saying that we're going to take all of the recommendations from the task force and move those forward with the investment with the funding from this investment?

Yeah.

Thank you.

From my perspective, I welcome if central staff has any comments on this as well, but I am not familiar with each and every one of their recommendations of the task force as well.

I am aware that there are a number of recommendations in their initial report, and I think My understanding is that this task force is intended to, the work is intended to keep going and provide periodic reporting and recommendations and updates over time.

And so this would allow us as a city to do our part and implementing those recommendations that fall within our purview or shared purview between local jurisdictions, in this case the city, and a transit agency like King County Metro.

Yes, it's a fair question, council member.

The task force currently has, I wanna say it's like 40 different recommendations that span all sorts of jurisdictions.

There's only one recommendation in the current report that impacts SDOT particularly, and it was related to the creation and development of a workforce development program for youth to be exposed to transit oriented professions.

And that's something that SDOT has already begun.

And so currently there are no outstanding recommendations that we haven't been able to achieve.

and as the chair mentioned, this is an ongoing group that plans to continue to meet.

So there might be something in the future that they make a recommendation on that impacts specifically SDOT.

Chair, may I do a follow-up?

So I suppose the way I'm reading this, the way it is written, I'm reading it to say if there are any implementations that the task force brings up, we're going to fund it.

And I'm not sure that that was the intent of the sponsor.

So I just want to make sure that we are, since this is going to be an ongoing thing, we would have the we should be reviewing what the recommendations are and then implementing accordingly.

So I just want to make sure that the language that is contained there in here is more of that nature rather than we're just going to implement all of the, you know, the recommendations from the task force, especially if there's going to be ongoing ones in the future we're not, might not be familiar with now or that are unknown today, I mean.

So I'm hearing from the council member just clarity on either the current language or a potential amendment that you might work with the chair on about reviewing, that the council would be able to review the recommendations and consider them before committing to funding something.

Correct.

Chair, do you have thoughts on it?

I don't know if that was your intent or not.

My intent is to provide a funding path for the city to implement recommendations from the King County Regional Transit Safety Task Force and recognizing that there are some that are solely within various jurisdictions control, whether that be King County Metro, Sound Transit, Any transit agencies, we own and manage two transit agencies here within the city of Seattle.

So the Seattle streetcar and the monorail.

So it's not just the responsibility of the transit agencies.

There are 40 plus amendments as central staff noted and rather than sort of dive deep into the particulars of, you know, which ones should be of those initial batch of 40, should the city play a role in or not?

Like this amendment just says plainly at a high level, we bear responsibility in ensuring that those recommendations are ultimately implemented, especially those within the city of Seattle.

I'll just follow up with chair afterwards since we're not voting today because I do think this needs further clarity that way.

But thank you so much for addressing it.

I'll just follow up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I also want to thank my amendment co-sponsor, Chair of the Public Safety Committee, Councilmember Kettle.

Appreciate your leadership in co-sponsoring this with me, which leads me to my next point.

You are recognized.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to note how important transit safety and security is, and most immediately by your comments.

I had a call this morning with Chief Barnes discussing the incident, and it's tragic, and it just underlines, as you said, the challenges that we have.

It plays out in so many ways from ridership, but most importantly, it goes to the health and safety of the people who are on board the buses, the riders and the drivers.

and if Mr. Woodfill is still in the chambers, I will say to him that my priority, along with yours, is to ensure that the members of his union, the drivers, and those who are on the bus are safe.

And so last night's tragic incident just underlines the need for transit safety and security, so thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Foster, you are recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair Saka.

Um, I wanted to just ask a question to central staff as I'm looking at this amendment.

It's my understanding that when we purchase our service from King County Metro that the purchase of those service hours already includes the safety and security measures that Metro provides.

Um, is that correct?

And can you speak to how this amendment would alter that if at all?

Council member, that is correct.

So as part of our base rate with Metro King County, they do charge us for safety and security services and that rate has increased and has been influenced by the recommendations of the safety task force.

So we are paying for it in that way.

Additionally, this purpose of this amendment is if there are new recommendations by the task force that are specific to us to SDOT that this would allow us a pathway to make those specific investments.

Okay, and just a follow-up question there.

Is there a reason to, because again, my understanding is the task force recommendations are currently being implemented.

So the response that I heard from central staff to a previous question was, at this point in time, there are no recommendations from the task force that are not being implemented.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

And then my last question on this one is just the supplantation component.

And I just want to make sure I understand this because as I read it, it says, there's no supplanting of existing funds for safety and security services.

So does that mean that as we continue to purchase service hours and safety and security will continue to be included in those service hours.

If Metro were to work in additional recommendations for safety and security into those service hours, that wouldn't count because of this no-supplantation component.

The goal of the no supplementation clause is really to help us protect any specific and discreet investments that we make in safety security.

It would not impact the base investments in safety and security.

Okay, so the goal is that if we have additional money coming from our Seattle transit measure that's purchasing safety and security, that that could not be supplanted?

That's the intention there?

Correct.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Appreciate your thoughtful questions there and allow me to pile on directly from my perspective as the amendment author.

So we do So already included in our baseline levels of service with King County Metro is a, again, for clarity, a baseline level of transit safety and security services.

The executive has reported in one of their earlier presentations that that today is approximately 9% of the total purchase price includes specific transit safety and security services from Metro.

What this would do, the intent of this amendment would be to allow us as a city to go above baseline levels of transit safety and security services.

Here's an analogy is that our current levels of with the nexus of routes and then through the City of Seattle.

Today's levels of baseline service, of transit service, are insufficient.

So just as that principle is true, this would allow us to provide extra transit safety and security on top of Metro's baseline level of services and that they offer specifically for transit safety and security that's included in the purchase price.

It's a recognition that the baseline levels in Seattle are insufficient.

Here's one example of how that played out real world.

Within the last couple of years, this council, during our budget, annual budget process in the fall, we've authorized $2 million specifically for behavioral health specialists, King County Metro Transit Police, King County Transit Security Officers, and ambassadors.

It might have been up to $4 million, but my point is we leveraged the measure and funding the measure as a funding source to allow the purchase of extra service, in this case transit safety and security, on top of baseline levels.

Again, companion parallel recognition that the baseline levels of service included or offered are insufficient.

Thank you.

All right, Vice Chair Rink.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

I'm going to build on this topic, understanding that when we're purchasing our service hours, there's a component that's going towards security.

I'm wondering if central staff can further place this amendment in the context of our city investments into transit and security.

thinking about our current Seattle transit measure beyond just the investments that are embedded within purchasing service hours, but also in the transportation levy.

So I'm wondering if we can just level set and ground place this amendment in the context of our broader city investments in this area.

I'm tracking you.

Are you curious about...

I can rephrase.

Where else are we spending in the city on transit safety and security, from the current transit measure or the transportation levy?

I'm not sure if we spend anything out of the transportation levy.

I would have to double check on that.

I do know that the amount contributed by the existing STM has tripled in the last three years.

I have been informed that there is 9 million in the transportation levy for transit safety and security.

Certainly.

Um, thank you for highlighting that.

I just wanted to place this amendment in the context of our broader city investments and, um, colleagues.

I know we haven't had an opportunity to have King County Metro at the table during our deliberations on the Seattle transit measure, but I wanted to read into the record, um, a portion of the letter that they sent to full council this morning, uh, that speaks to some of the transit safety and security investments.

So just to read this in, Metro has more than doubled annual spending on safety and security in the past few years to support these key efforts, growing presence to include 89 Metro transit police officers and 275 transit security officers to make our system safer for customers, launching and expanding Metro's behavioral health specialists and ambassador programs to provide non-officer presence in the system, expanding Metro's internal capacity to administer a comprehensive safety and security program to help keep Metro's employees and customers safe including a safety emphasis manager to provide comprehensive assistance and solutions across Metro's divisions and as a part of Metro's safety emphasis program conducted additional coordination and key emphasis areas including additional monitoring temporary additional law enforcement presence and clarifying protocols for considering bus stop closures.

So I wanted to just read that into the record to help aid in this discussion on this amendment and just provide some further background information as this is being considered.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

Just in terms of safety, I just wonder in terms of that baseline, whether I mean through the Regional Safety Task Force what efforts we have if we feel like safety that baseline is not high enough how much does it make sense for us to push to increase that baseline sort of across the system so you know if it's we're paying 9% do we pay more versus sort of spending kind of outside of that baseline I'm not sure if that question makes sense

Definitely the estimated 9% that we are spending is based on Metro's comprehensive view of how they deem most appropriate to approach safety and security investments for the whole system, not just for Seattle.

So I'm not sure I have a recommendation as far as if Seattle deemed that that was insufficient how we might size a future investment.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I guess part of it is just, I mean, I think safety is just sort of, you know, it's like, you know, if the bus, if you get on and the chairs are broken, it's just sort of like a baseline.

I mean, and I know there's different levels of safety, so we can all, you know, debate like how safe is safe.

but it just seems like it's an essential part of the service and it should be included in it and so I'm just not sure whether, you know, the best way to advocate for it is to, you know, through advocacy say, hey, we think you need to do more versus implementing these sort of, in a sense, potentially outside of that baseline.

But I'll just say, last question, this amendment doesn't require any level of spending, it just authorizes that level of spending, is that correct?

That's correct, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

All right, looks like there are no further questions from my colleagues.

Let's press to the next amendment.

If I may, before I describe Amendment 2, I just want to make sure everyone understands that the committee clerk has the ability to put any amendment up on the screen so that if there is an interest in focusing on specific bill language, we have the ability to do that.

If that's not necessary, we'll just keep going with the presentation like this.

Amendment 2 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Chair Saka and its subject is electric bus usage in the Duwamish Valley and South Seattle.

The amendment would add a new recital to the bill stating the city's intent to work with King County Metro to prioritize the use of electric buses in the Duwamish Valley and South Seattle communities guided by tools that identify environmental health disparities and potential environmental vulnerabilities.

Each of those tools works at a census tract level.

The amendment would also permit the use of Seattle transit measure revenues to plan for and deploy the increased use of electric buses, as I just described.

All right, thank you.

And I'll just pile on as amendment author.

This amendment is in direct response to specific feedback that I received from my constituents, in this case in the Duwamish Valley and South Park.

in particular meeting with the DRCC who express concern and frustration and some fair amount of confusion as well while we have certain Electric, 100% electric buses, not one of them goes through climate, very climate burdened and polluted neighborhoods like South Park.

And so this would authorize that as a possibility and encourage that.

And specific neighborhoods in the Duwamish Valley and South Seattle that have been identified on the Washington environmental health disparity map as being highly impacted by air pollution, Again, many of these do not currently receive electric bus service.

So again, very frustrating, confusing experience for impacted communities, especially for their close proximity, in this case to Metro's Takula Base, which has a dedicated charging facility for electric buses.

This amendment is intended to achieve environmental equity for several historically underserved areas of Seattle, and it's also intended to boost and build climate resilience.

Thank you.

Any questions, comments on this amendment, or shall we move on?

Councilmember Land, is that an old hand?

Yes, that's an old hand, thank you.

Okay, cool.

Councilmember Foster, floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Chair, and appreciate the intent behind this amendment.

Having done work in the Duwamish Valley on air pollution, I think there's a lot of work for us to do there, and we know that there's a significant life expectancy difference for residents in South Park and Georgetown compared to our highest-income neighborhoods in the city.

I want to say the last I looked at was 13 years difference between South Park and Georgetown and Laurelhurst.

And I haven't looked in a few years, so that number might not be correct.

But my question is, I just wanted to ask around, obviously we're, you know, through the Seattle Transit measure, we're purchasing from of King County.

And I just wanted to ask, in terms of the language here, how does this sort of help us ensure that the buses that Metro sort of deploys on those routes end up being electric buses?

I'm familiar with the process that Metro uses to determine and prioritize where they're deploying electric buses.

So it's more of a mechanism question, if you can just help us understand that a little bit more.

From my perspective, this amendment doesn't really get to the mechanism level.

This amendment provides flexibility to plan for and to deploy these buses.

I'd be happy to follow up with some information about what that process looks like or what it could look like in this specific instance.

I will do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

All right.

Vice Chair Rink, floor is yours.

Thank you.

This is a clarifying question just on intent by the amendment author.

So I'm wondering if there's a reason that we're not including Charlie electric buses that are on use, we are already using today on top of battery electric buses.

if there is a reason that we're not reflecting what?

Yes, a question about whether we want to have a U.S. amendment sponsor want to have just a focus on battery electric buses or are open to expanding to allow for trolley electric buses.

Yeah, I'd be open to expansion of trolley electric buses, provided that the specific neighborhoods and then the objective criteria for the Washington, whatever it says, health index, that map, environmental health disparities map, and E-S-E-G-E-J screen demographic index, as long as those continue to be called out, which would better ensure communities like the Duwamish Valley would benefit from those.

I'm not sure if...

100% trolley electric service or the capability would exist in those neighborhoods, but I would be open to that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

All right.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Quick question.

Do we know what percentage of the fleet is electric, regardless of whether it's battery or trolley?

I don't have that information off the top of my head.

I will follow up.

Great and it'd be great also to know what Metro's plan is for electrification because obviously in general electrification is where we want to be going in general across the city so to readily acknowledge the Duwamish Valley and the Chair's intent here.

So don't want to ignore that part, but also want to acknowledge that's where we should be going across the city.

So this goes back to Metro's plan for electrification of the fleet.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember, I do know that Metro is on that path and has been starting to use and deploy electric buses.

Having the infrastructure to charge the buses is important and building that up is important.

It's one of the reasons why they're not yet in Georgetown and South Park.

The air quality there is of great concern.

Yes.

different from everywhere else in the city.

So the path forward for them to build that infrastructure, I don't know enough about.

I do also know that they have had trouble purchasing electric buses from the vendor.

There was issues with supply chains.

So they are aligned with the thinking that electric buses are a good path forward, and we can find out more information.

And also, Chair, obviously we'd have to partner with City Light because if we need the infrastructure in the Duwamish Valley, we obviously need the partnership Metro does and we do with our own City Light.

So want to call that out too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Let's see.

Looks like there are no further comments, questions on that amendment.

Let's move on to the next one.

Amendment 3 to Council Bill 121226 is also sponsored by Chair Saka and the context for this amendment is the Seattle Transit Measure Spending Plan, the categories in that spending plan.

This amendment would require on an annual basis that any unexpended transit service funding is redirected to the transit and accessibility infrastructure category.

The amendment further requires that any such funding is prioritized for infrastructure projects that support increased or enhanced accessibility.

Thank you and colleagues just to pile on directly from my perspective as the amendment author.

This amendment would clarify what would happen if there are leftover funds and for the transit service amounts.

And this is a contingency measure.

I think it would also incentivize the executive to actually ensure that those funds are spent on transit service as well.

But if not, the money here would roll over automatically to transit accessibility and ensuring that transit remains accessible and we have safe connections to transit as well.

Frankly, there are open questions today that exist on whether King County Metro could even deliver a 47% expansion of transit service that they currently provide the City of Seattle, and certainly do so overnight if this measure were to pass.

47% increase in transit service in the City of Seattle.

It's a huge ask, it's a heavy lift, it's a non-trivial amount of expansion.

and Metro has stated that it may take a year or two for them to be able to deliver the full amount of transit service this proposal specifically contemplates.

So we need a plan.

Again, under my amendment, unused funds will be used for transit accessibility capital investments and enhanced transit access and more specifically support safe access to transit for pedestrians.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Rink for yours.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

I'm wondering if just for the purposes of understanding this amendment in practice, I know I've been through one budget process before, it's always a blur.

I'm wondering if you can walk through again how historically we have regarded underspend in the budget process when it relates to underspend in STM, how we regard it during the traditional budget process.

I'm wondering also Chair Strauss, sorry, pardon me, Councilmember Strauss, pardon me, Chair Saka, or if Councilmember Strauss as budget chair would like to speak to that too.

Yes, are you asking through me, to direct a question towards Council Member Strauss and his capacity as budget chair.

Yes, if so, Council Member Strauss, you are recognized.

Happy to share.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

As with all levies, with all levies that we have before voters, et cetera, so this is Department of Education Early Learning, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Sorry, you're catching me a little off guard.

But what I will say is that there is underspend across all departments.

And last year even Jasmine Marwaha found some underspend from a levy that we no longer have anymore.

Good work, Jasmine.

and so every year we are able to find dollars that maybe were not spent, but with in particular the Seattle Transit measure throughout the course of the pandemic when Metro was unable to sell us the hours that we were trying to purchase, we started funding other things like concrete.

I personally put forward an amendment about ambassadors and worked with Chair Saka on security.

These are important things that we put to make sure that transit is accessible for everyone.

So in the course of the last number of years, when Metro couldn't purchase all of the hours that we were trying to purchase, we started spending on other related but not transit hour things.

And then even as more recently as this last year, Pilot programs like Golden Gardens Direct were funded with underspend from the transit measure.

So it is not unlike any other department and it happens every year.

You'll hear from me later.

I just, I wish we were in a place that we could buy as many hours as possible from Metro because I think we'd be having a very different conversation.

And from everything that I can tell, they're in that upswing.

But that's how the budget has worked with this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Vice Chair, any other comments?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for affording me that opportunity to get that input from our budget chair.

And I'm wondering if central staff would have anything to add on to this point.

The thing that I'm trying to parse, too, is with this amendment, how does that change our options when we come to budget this year?

Sure, Vice Chair, so the revenue generated by the transit measure goes into its own fund.

I think of it as a checking account.

It's dedicated to support the types of investments that are identified in this ordinance.

Investments that we make in capital that are backed by STM that are unspent automatically carry forward within that project into future years.

Investments in transit are on the operations side and so they do not automatically carry forward and they lapse back to the fund.

So they stay dedicated within this STM fund.

And I guess one other thing to share as I understood from SDOT, the money that was invested in the Golden Gardens line was taken from other service, not from a unspent fund balance.

Let me jump in here.

First off, thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Vice Chair, do you have any other comments or questions?

Happy to turn it over.

Thank you.

Okay.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

Just digging into this a little bit more, you have received new information from SDOT that this is taken from transit service, not other underspend?

Correct.

And this was received when?

Over the course of this ordinance development.

So this is new information since last budget session where these decisions were made?

If this is new to you, then yes, it is new.

So then this is a change of information from last November?

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

And it looks like Councilmember Foster.

The floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And I just want to make sure, again, just digging into the amendment, that I've got a full understanding.

So we already, as is, require an annual report to the public around service.

And so I think the sort of first portion of this outlines the details of a separate annual report.

but I might come back to that, but I wanna turn our attention to section seven, which I read to be that council approval of transit service purchases is required by service hours and routes served annually.

So does that mean that as we think about sort of the balance between, and I know we heard some comment about this earlier, the role that the department has in digging into and proposing work and figuring out where we're going to buy our service.

If I read this part correctly, it means that we would then be required to approve those purchases prior to those decisions being made on an annual basis.

Is that correct?

That's one scenario that could apply if this amendment were passed with the bill.

The amendment could also reference the budget process during which Council approves SDOT's spending plan, including what is described here.

Thank you for that.

And I guess I'm trying to, what I'm trying to get at here too is just an understanding, and I think this was part of Council Member Rink's question, if I understood it as well, of just the sort of difference between as-is process, because Council already has decisions that we have to make on an annual basis, and whether or not this amendment is changing that process, our existing process, or adding an additional one onto it.

So that's what feels unclear to me, and I appreciate that, your response to that first question, but it sort of doubles down on that because I heard you say, that's one interpretation, this could be another, and I wanna make sure we understand the future that we are agreeing to if this amendment passes.

To me, the key phrase is hours and service hours and routes.

I'm not recalling that from memory.

There is currently no requirement that that information be provided to the council prior to the council's adoption of a budget.

That's the nuance.

The same year process is also new.

This amendment states by December 31st of each year, SDOT shall report to the Council the anticipated amount of unspent appropriations for transit service in that year.

Currently SDOT reconciles this spending in the next year.

So SDOT has not been required to state by December 31st of a given year what funding has not been expended for that year.

It is reconciled a year later.

So this amendment would move that timeline up.

Okay, sorry, I have that as amendment five.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

We're discussing Amendment 3, I believe.

I'm sorry.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Okay.

Yes.

Anticipated amount of unspent appropriations for transit service in that year.

And, Anne, I apologize.

I think I also got ahead of myself.

I think I introduced Amendment 4, so I think I get where you're...

I'm sort of looking at all of them together, so I sent us down that wrong road, Anne.

Apologies.

I went down at dumbly.

Okay.

Thank you, Ann.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll come back when we get to Amendment 5.

All right.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

In terms of service and aren't we anticipating that costs kind of will go up over time?

And I just wonder about sort of, is there a plan for that?

I mean, I guess I could see some benefit to having unspent appropriations early in the 10 year levy so that if we anticipate including things like security costs might go up.

Could you talk about that and how unspent appropriations could be used to plan for future increases?

Or is that part of the plan?

I don't know the specific math of reserving some early year revenue to plan for unexpended costs later in a levy.

I do know that levy planners often use this tactic because costs can increase at a higher rate than was initially planned for.

I don't have that specific information here.

I'd be happy to follow up.

Oh, Amanda's got something to add here.

So the spend plan that came through from the executive side does include a reserve for exactly the reason that you've discussed.

We anticipate that labor costs are going to go up.

We anticipate that other costs will increase.

And so we are saving money on the front end in this reserve to spend in later years.

That being said, So that is part of the plan.

And this amendment would not change that plan.

What this amendment is saying is when we depart from the spend plan, when we have more underspend than what we anticipated, then we would move that money.

And you're right.

If there are additional unknown things that come up in the future, spending that money early would, make it more difficult to absorb future changes that are currently unforeseen.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you, Council Member Land.

Council Member Foster, is that a new hand or are you just waiting on, I think, what we'll be discussing next, Amendment 4?

Just ready.

All right, all right, you're ready, anxious, all right.

Let's move on to the next amendment.

Amendment 4 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Chair Saka.

This amendment will require annual reporting and annual approval of all transit service purchases by service hours and routes.

The amendment would require annual reporting by King County on various dimensions of service hours purchased with Seattle Transit Measure funding.

Those dimensions are fare compliance, the fare recovery ratio, transit reliability, and on-time performance.

The amendment would also add a requirement related to the City's purchase of transit service hours with this funding.

It would require the Council's annual approval by ordinance of such purchases by service hours and routes served.

The Council currently approves annual appropriations for transit service as a total sum through the budget adoption ordinance.

Thank you.

And piling on from my perspective, colleagues, this amendment is principally an accountability and oversight and transparency amendment.

It is...

It is about boosting those things which are needed now more than ever.

The executive proposal would double the rate of sales tax.

And so this would help strengthen oversight of implementation for this proposal.

One of the most important features of this, I think, is the fair recovery ratio.

and colleagues, as you know, members of the public, operating transit is not about making our money back.

Successful transit does not make money or appear revenue neutral at the end of the day on the balance sheet.

The taxpayer is intentionally making a decision to subsidize the cost of transit, still charging a rate for it, but intentionally making that decision because the net benefits of boosting and improving our environment, promoting climate resilience, getting people out of our cars, which has impacts on climate and also the overall state of our pavement conditions, so much more.

It's not intended to make money from fares alone.

That said, Metro's current fare recovery ratio is roughly 10%.

Pre-pandemic, they were closer to 30 plus percent, which I think is more along the lines of national average for transit, 30 to 40% range.

I don't think we can and should in good faith put a measure before voters that would essentially double the tax without insisting on stronger accountability oversight, including what's our plan?

How are we gonna improve on the fair recovery ratio?

Getting it to a more normal state.

So additional sales tax is not solely funding or responsible for solely funding and subsidizing this.

Eight and a half percent was the fair recovery ratio for Metro in 2025. So again, this proposal strengthens oversight, accountability, and transparency, critically needed now more than ever, especially when we're referring to a proposal that would double the sales tax, a regressive tax on everyday people.

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments?

I'm gonna first see if Council Member Foster, there's a hand, go ahead.

The floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And apologies to central staff for getting us mixed up earlier.

I appreciate you.

Okay, so I'm gonna ask the same question now that I've not mixed up our amendments, but I really appreciate hearing from the Chair about your intent and the fair recovery here.

So thank you for that as well.

So now I'm gonna say where I was looking before.

So section seven, which is the Council Approval of Transit Service Purchases.

And so this is saying that we're purchasing, we're approving all transit service purchases by service hours and routes served annually through future ordinance.

So as I understand it, this gives us the responsibility to approve this, as I think you said this at the beginning, not just in the budget, but we would be signing off on the service routes.

So can you just talk about the difference between the as is and then the as would be with this amendment, particularly in regards to Section 7.

I'm going to let Amanda talk a little bit about the as-is aspect of that question.

And I just want to say again, apologies for getting bollocksed up previously.

The new language here is by service hours and routes served annually.

Through future ordinance, this amendment is not specific about whether that's ordinance is the budget ordinance that in the future will include more information, that is to say service hours and routes served, or whether it is a separate ordinance.

What's described in this amendment is a significantly new wrinkle for the city, for SDOT and King County Metro, and I think the implementation of the requirements of this amendment would take some conversation between the city and the county just to make sure that the intent of the amendment is being met and there is a legislatively possible solution.

So currently the City Council does not do, follow any sort of review or approval process for the investments that are made in transit service hours.

Neither does King County Metro Council approve changes in, investments in bus routes.

The County Council does happen to approve when a bus stop is changed more than a quarter of a mile.

They also approve when a route is being proposed to be changed by more than 20% of whatever its original state was, and they do approve whether or not new routes are added.

So this would be a completely new process as Ann discussed and the timing for that would be something we would have to determine currently.

SDOT works with King County Metro on an ongoing basis.

SDOT staff meets with Metro on a weekly basis on the ongoing operations.

They're always making tweaks and changes.

They make two changes, two formal changes throughout the year to service based on needs and changes that they're seeing to ridership and Requiring an annual approval process would obviously change that cadence of how quickly they could make additional changes throughout the year.

We would then be curtailing that to once a year.

Thank you.

And so just, and I don't want to belabor the point here, but I really just want to, again, make sure I'm understanding it.

So if they, if there was a plan by Metro to make a change in a route, uh, mid year with the language of this ordinance, either they would have, well, this has annually.

So, you know, it's sort of unclear to me, they would have to come back and get council approval, or they would have to forego making that change twice in a year.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And then my final question, are we aware of any other municipalities, and again, well, cities or counties, because counties, as we know, cover bus service, da, da, da, da, da, who have this level of decision making requirement for service hours and routes?

You know, given the compressed time schedule to work on these amendments, I researched that question in a very cursory manner and I did not find any.

Now that I have some more time, I will follow up and I will get back to council members and let them know if there are any comparator counties.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Rink, Vice Chair, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair.

Just for the purposes of my clarification, if approved, does this amendment essentially intend to give Council the authority to select which routes get levels of service?

I believe that is the intent.

Understood.

And how does that jive?

I mean, that seems in contradiction to SDOT's equity-centered prioritization methodology that's rooted in our frequent transit network.

So I'm just noting that on the top, my concerns on that point.

And in terms of implementation, I appreciate the discussion on just how something like this would be implemented and that as currently written the amendment is not specific about whether the ordinance would be as a part of the budget or a separate standalone ordinance.

I am curious if I may ask the sponsor if you have an intended pathway there just so I'm clear if you had a pathway in mind.

Yeah, intended pathway regarding what specifically?

The matter related to this amendment speaks of having a ordinance process where council shall approve all transit service purchases by service hours and routes served annually.

And as central staff noted, it is not specific as to whether the budget process would count as that ordinance or if we'd have a standalone ordinance.

And I'd like to understand your intent.

Yeah, so as author of this, the intent is making sure that we have full transparency.

Council members in this council as a body is able to provide effective oversight and control of this spending and not essentially writing the executive a blank check every year.

So it's an opportunity.

I think it is a great opportunity.

There may be, I'm open to other ways to substantially achieved the same sort of shared goals in terms of making sure that council members can provide directional control on the yearly kind of spending, how these funds are spent to boost lines of service in their district.

I think this is an effective way, but it may not be the only way in terms of whether this would be for a future ordinance would best be, you know, during the annual budget process or some other sort of mid-year.

I'm open to, you know, whatever's the most workable in practice, but the basic idea is making sure, again, that council members have, well, the council has stronger directional say and how the service lines are spent rather than calling out specific expansion in this framework level, getting a stronger say in the implementation level on a year-by-year basis.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Looks like none, let's press.

We have 20 or so other amendments to get through.

And I'll note that Seattle is King County Metro's largest, most strategic customer number one in terms of purchase of additional transit service on top of, baseline levels and so there may or may not.

I'm also curious, it's a great question, also curious whether other jurisdictions provide this level of oversight and accountability, but I know no other jurisdiction purchases service to the level that we do in the city of Seattle.

So it's more compelling and it's more of a rational approach that we as a city might want to have that kind of level of oversight from my perspective.

But also curious to hear, you know, where the facts take us on that answer.

Let's move on to the next amendment, please.

Amendment 5 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Councilmember Saka.

This amendment would reduce the measure's duration from a 10-year duration to a six-year and nine-month term.

the intent would allow this timing to continue collections of sales tax in anticipation of a future ballot measure that might occur at a special election or a primary election date in 20, sorry, 2033.

Thank you.

First off, before I get into my comments, can you please help clarify when the Seattle transportation levy would be up for renewal and how this amendment might impact that.

Sure.

So the transportation levy is set to expire the year prior.

So this would be putting to the voters in assuming a renewals desired in the following year.

following year, which is why the additional nine-month flexibility.

The idea there is that it could be put on a ballot in a February election.

I suppose it could be a special election of some sort.

That's not the intent when there's a February option available.

And it could allow for a potential renewal to be placed on the August primary election ballot the following year with that nine months.

Is that correct?

I was just missed the very last part of what you just said.

With the six years and nine months.

Yes.

The nine month duration, I suppose, would allow a potential renewal, if this were to pass, to be placed on the August primary election of the following year.

Yes, yes.

So the timing of when an election would be identified would in part be influenced by the components of a future renewal.

If a VLF, a vehicle license fee was part of a future renewal, then that requires us to have more lead time to notify the state of implementation of the VLF.

So that if a VLF is included in a future renewal, that would require the earlier timeframe.

Otherwise, if it's similar to what we're reviewing today and it's just looking at sales tax, then that would allow for the primary election timeline.

Got it.

Thank you.

And colleagues, I think this amendment is pretty straightforward.

It would just restore the duration to historical levels.

It's historically been a six-year term.

And so this would essentially restore that.

The reason why it's not a full six-year is because that could potentially conflict with the prospective renewal of the transportation levy.

So this would allow greater flexibility.

So that does not happen.

and again, this just puts the measure in line with historical durations, especially when paired against, in the context of some of the other amendments calling for additional revenue sources and state reform at the state level.

If and when those changes are likely to be made, it's likely to happen in the next six years.

You know, making the timeframe, restoring it in line with a traditional six-year term would allow us to revisit what is the best and most appropriate use of our taxation authority that were granted by the state to substantially fulfill the same goals we're seeking to fulfill with this proposed renewal of the transit measure, which is to expand transit service in the city of Seattle.

for those reasons.

Yeah, thank you.

Any questions, comments?

Hearing and seeing one, Council Member Foster.

I'm really on the mic today.

Thank you so much, Chair Saka.

Just a question, because I believe the levy allows us to go up to 0.3% over the 10-year term.

However, my understanding is that Council has the ability at any point in time to make a reduction in that rate if and as needed.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay, so we could make that reduction at the year six point without requiring it to go back to voters.

Correct, the rate or the term.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

All right, looks like we can press to the next amendment.

Amendment 13 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Council Member Kettle and amends the sales and use tax to a 0.2 rate.

I'm gonna move this forward.

The amendment would reduce the sales tax from the proposed 0.3 down to 0.2.

A 0.2 sales tax would generate approximately $921 million over 10 years as compared to 460 million less than in the proposed legislation.

The amendment would remove funding allocated for infrastructure and maintenance and capital improvements.

So the current 5 million would be zeroed out and it would change the language for the ballot.

The funding for transit access program participation for the city's sound transit staffing for the streetcar would remain as originally proposed.

The 10-year term would also remain unchanged.

This amendment would reduce the total transit service hours purchased from King County Metro by about 1.1 million relative to the transmittal and would provide about 2.6 million hours over 10 years.

Those are based on my best estimates and have not been verified with the department.

The 0.2 measure may allow approximately 106 million transit hours to be delivered.

And by removing a category of infrastructure spending, potential projects that might've been provided for through the STM would need to be funded by other sources, such as the 2024 transportation levy.

Reducing sales and use tax would preserve 0.1 sales and use tax authority that council could decide to levy via separate legislation.

That 0.1% is councilmanic.

So it's under the authority of this council to allocate and would not require a vote of the people.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Kettle is author of the proposed Amendment 13. You are recognized to share your thoughts on your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

And I also want to thank Ms. Allen and Ms. Gorman of Central Staff for being here.

And I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to my amendment and public transit.

but also affordability and good governance.

As I noted, a healthy transit and transportation system is absolutely essential for Seattle.

As both a strong supporter and believer in public transit, I know how vital these connections are to our daily lives, as we've been noting in public comment.

However, we must spend our public dollars strategically rather than raising the sales tax simply because we can.

Every day I hear from neighbors about how living in Seattle is becoming less and less affordable.

My alternative offers a pragmatic increase in transit funding for bus service and ORCA cards while preserving the flexibility we need for emergency transit investments.

Mayor Wilson's current vision of the transit measure was released on the 3rd, as you know, and doubles the sales tax that supports the transit from 0.15 to 0.3%.

and as you've heard, the expected increases in terms of dollars and also the transit and also assumes major increases in transit ridership.

As of 2024, post-pandemic bus ridership has recovered to about 70% of the 2019 team members and 50% of today's riders are commuters compared to 60% in 2019 and this amendment acknowledges the 100,000 transit service hour increase anticipated to be made by King County Metro in 2028 which will help support Seattle services and it would be aided and added to by the 0.05% that is there you know I make that point because there's is what is just noted, what is, you know, compared to.

It is building on what is being added by King County Metro and increased by .05.

But also importantly, the alternative reserves the .1 sales tax to be used by emergency, emergent transportation needs.

And this goes to the point that has been brought up.

and so that we can be adding.

And this amendment reduces duplicate funding for capital spending as voters approved with the transportation levy in 24 and sets aside $151 million for transit corridor spending.

And additionally, it maintains the TAP, the Transit Accessibility Program, giving out 22,000 free ORCA passes to further reduce the regressive impact of the sales tax.

I note this because this sales tax measure cannot be just seen in isolation.

It needs to be seen in the context of what the county and the state are doing.

We've had various tax bills in Olympia by the state done over the last number of years, sometimes with tax pieces being rescinded or corrected the next year.

We've had levies passed that are justified in and of themselves, but also add to the collective amount.

We've had sales tax measures across the board, to include most recently by the county, which is something that we had to engage on, that has increased already high regressive sales taxes.

And in addition, we've had ever increasing rates for Puget Sound Energy, Seattle City Light, and Seattle Public Utilities.

Each property tax, sales tax, and rate increases are done in isolation.

and each one could be argued.

But who looks out for the collective impact?

Who looks at the cumulative impact?

Is it just our state treasurer, Mike Pellicciotti?

I don't know.

Is it our central staff?

Who looks at the collective?

Who looks at the cumulative impact of all these various pieces?

This is something I think that we need to do.

Unaffordability.

We recently had a briefing on affordability and finance budget.

I spoke to, like everybody else, the affordability issues for our residents.

The burdens are immense.

I also spoke to the affordability impacts on businesses, which are also immense too, and could also lead to other affordability issues like having the property tax burdens being shifted from commercial to residential.

The last affordability point I made is that we as a government, this is when we in that last committee meeting, that we as a government also across state, county and local levels have an impact on affordability by what we do.

And again, in that collective sense.

And this goes to why my amendment has been submitted.

We have to have this discussion on affordability.

We have to have this discussion on the collective impact of what we do at the state, county and the local area here in Seattle.

On good governance, I also wanted to note that we also have to ask a hard question on what is King County Metro's capacity?

Not really spoken to is what is the capacity for King County Metro to provide these services?

This is something that we can't just wish away or just hope for.

We need to understand.

and tied to this and good governance and to that point is the fact, and sadly it's not really mentioned a lot in articles and even public comment, and it's been kind of spoken to different points with the public comment, is that, and as just noted too, that we do have the reserve, the 0.1% that we can councilmatically add to it after we've ensured that King County Metro has that capacity.

As we've looked at affordability issues and really raised the questions in terms of what is the cumulative impact on our residents, on the people of Seattle.

And I bring this up because Recently, as you know, I'm from New York, and Mayor Mamdani in New York, who was speaking from a DSA perspective, said that the fact that working people are fed up, and when we look at this country, we know that the only majority that really exists is that of working class.

And for too long, that hasn't been reflected in our politics.

For too long, our politics has felt as if irrelevant to the struggles of the working person trying to pay the rent or for going to the grocery store or thinking about having a kid.

he further added that you know there's a belief that working people have to return back to the heart of politics this is not just a DSA point I think this is a point for us as well I believe the majority of us grew up working class and we have to have this kind of understanding again each of these measures that we do is looked at individually but where's the public's policy review in terms of what is that cumulative what is that combining effect have on our residents, particularly when we look at this as a regressive tax measure.

And so for that reason, colleagues, I raise this up, and again, not often noted, and we do have the ability to add to 0.1 after doing the good governance measures and having a very strong discussion in terms of affordability and our role as government officials, particularly in partnership with our county and state colleagues.

and with that, Chair, is my submission of Amendment 13. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll try to be quick.

I know we've got a lot of amendments.

I'll just thank my colleague, Councilmember Kettle, for his attention to the affordability piece.

I, too, very much care about affordability, particularly when it comes to the most regressive kind of sales tax, excuse me, which is the sales tax.

I would say that The one piece I'm, so I appreciate you Councilmember Kerrell for bringing this forward.

I often will say that, you know, we're taxing poor people to help poor people and that's why the sales tax increases such, it does distress me in terms of the affordability piece for our working folks in town.

I will say that in terms of this particular measure, we've had the sales tax for a while.

The point 2 doesn't get to the inflationary piece.

So it was a 0.15%.

And my understanding is accounting for inflation that would turn into today, it being a 2 point, excuse me, a 1, sorry, a 0.223% increase would cover the 0.15 plus inflation.

And that way it would keep our service levels to what it's been.

It just wouldn't add to it.

But it is important, I think, to preserve our service levels.

So I do think that the inflationary piece is important here as a friendly piece, Councilmember Kettle.

But I do appreciate and also am very concerned about the sales tax piece.

That's all I'll say for now.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Strauss, you are recognized.

Thank you chair and thank you councilmember Kettle for bringing this amendment forward it's an important discussion as we've noted here we are doubling the tax for fewer transit hours than in the past and that's an experience from the pandemic where we were not able to purchase as many hours as we desired and we started using those dollars for other purposes again I had It was up until August of 2021 that my entire life until August of 2021, I could walk to a bus and I've not been able to do that since.

that's where these alternative uses of the Seattle Transit measure came in and in my opinion, Seattle Transit measures should be focused on transit hours.

If Metro could provide as many hours as we could buy, I would be adding a VLF to this proposal and using a similar approach as Council Member Kettle is speaking about getting voter approval for a higher level and giving us some room to have councilmatic authority in the future.

and I say that because this type of approach of getting voter approval for a higher level than we are actually spending is something that we've done in the past with the Metropolitan Parks District and it's a good tool and I think that we should be looking at in this next year and the years coming If we are collecting more revenue than Metro is able to spend on transit hours, I think we should really come back and look at this, have this conversation again, because at this time, I'm in favor of setting us up to buy as many hours from Metro as possible.

And Council Member Kettle is right.

The affordability issues are real.

it's taken me six plus years to get a change on the utility discount program just with the eligibility but also ensuring the eligible users are signing up and this is a tool that we don't have a lot of tools within our toolbox to address affordability directly as a relief and I'm really excited that we're able to get this utility discount program that we are able to increase the eligibility as well as increase sign-up.

And, you know, I really appreciate the amendments later on from Council Member Juarez, Council President Hollingsworth, and Council Member Rank that link these programs together with transit access program.

So I think that this is a really good and important conversation.

I think that we need to be monitoring Metro to see how many hours they are able to buy from us or we are able to buy from them.

and we really need to make sure that this transit measure is focused on transit, not concrete.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Foster, you are recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair, and I apologize.

My computer just did an automatic reset, so I cannot see the amendment.

But, Council Central Staff, I just want to ask a question to you.

First, I want to say thank you so much, Council Member Kettle.

I totally understand the heart and the intent behind this amendment.

I am concerned around our ability to actually make sure that we are delivering sufficient service, both from a climate perspective and to make sure that we are providing sufficient service for our residents who are low income, may not own cars, and may not have other means to travel.

But here, I guess, can you just speak to get the affordability component sort of locked in a little bit?

I know we had the average cost, the cost for an average Seattle household at 0.3%.

And unfortunately, I no longer have it pulled up in front of me, but that was presented to us previously.

So if you can remind us of that, and then tell us what the average cost per household is at 0.2%.

I just want to understand the difference between the two.

And if you have it as a bonus, because I appreciate Councilmember Rivera's question of not losing service hours, and there's the, you talked to us about this previously, the 0.2%.

is 0.223%.

So what I would really love is to understand that difference, and again, if you can do it by average and by low-income household.

I know we've had both of those numbers presented to us previously.

Yes, thank you, council member.

So the median income, a median income two-person household, so 121,000 a year, the annual cost of the proposed STM at 0.3 would be $58 and at 0.2 would be almost $39, we'll say 38.67, we could round up.

for the low-income two-person household making $38,000 a year, the 0.3 cost is about $35 and the 0.2 cost is about $23.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you.

It looks like there are no further comments, questions.

Oh, one more from Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to underscore, though, that those numbers were always given those for one particular item, but that is additive to the other sales tax and property tax conversation and other levies that we do around here.

So I want to put that in perspective and underscore that.

as we get these figures.

All these things are additive, and that's important.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

Just to close, I really appreciate the comments that I received from everybody.

And by the way, I apologize for not being there in person.

I'm away and I also don't have my glasses on as I was reading my comments.

But I wanted to note that, yes, you know, councilmanically we can go to point one.

I'm aware of the point two to three in terms of the inflationary piece.

and this is the start the conversation colleagues to look at what we're doing here in terms of public transit which I 110% support but also drive the affordability conversation and the good governance question.

So I'm willing to work with all of you on this to talk to these issues and I think it's really important to have this conversation and I again really appreciate the comments from you and really to have this affordability and good governance conversation between now and the 16th.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

And I'll close out by sharing what you said.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Kettle for your proposed amendment.

I appreciate the intent and the spirit there addressing affordability.

There are a number of amendments that sort of speak to affordability, including one of my own, the last one we discussed to shorten the term.

I didn't even mention that, but one of the drivers of that is affordability.

It's more affordable over a six-year term, six years and nine months over a 10-year term.

But there are a number of amendments that speak to affordability.

This is clear, from my perspective at least, your amendment 13 speaks most directly to that concern, so I appreciate the spirit and intent.

with that regard.

So in any event, thank you.

Let us move on to the next proposed amendment.

Amendment 16 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Council Member Rink, Vice Chair Rink.

And this amendment would clarify the eligible use of Seattle transit measure revenues that they may be used to support transit services at night.

Currently the STM does allow for night time transit service hours to be purchased, and this amendment just makes that explicit.

Thank you.

Council Member Rink, you are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, this amendment is fairly straightforward.

I will note that King County Metro has been ramping up their night service as rider trends change with new needs.

This is an important service to offer, and I believe it's worthy enough to make it explicit and signal our support for it.

Now, in my experience, I've missed my bus and I've had to wait in the dark for 30 minutes after getting off a shift to wait tables at 1 a.m.

So the alternative to waiting in the dark and feeling unsafe or paying for a $40 Lyft ride.

And I know there are many workers in nightlife who I'm sure would be much happier to pay $3 or for some $1 to be able to get home on time and get some rest for the next day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rank, and I'll just share that from my perspective, appreciate you for bringing this forward.

This is already an authorized expense under today's proposal, but there are many valid policy reasons for specifically uplifting, enumerating, expressing, making explicit what is already authorized today, so appreciate you from that perspective.

Councilmember Rivera, final comment on this amendment?

Uh, well, this is a new one, right?

The 16. I haven't commented on this one yet, but thank you, Chair.

I just want to thank Council Member Ring for bringing this forward.

There are a lot of workers actually that work overnight and they rely on, on the night service.

So that's really important.

My only point of, uh, I just want to clarify because the way it is written, it makes it sound like it's prioritized within the framework.

So does that mean prioritized within other service hours?

I don't think that, well, I can ask the chair whether, I mean the chair, the sponsor, whether that was the intent, but just making sure that that is not the case necessarily.

Vice Chair, go ahead, you recognize.

No, it is not.

Thank you for the question and thank you for your support for this.

And no, that is not the intent.

This is just to make it explicit.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

All right.

Any final comments, questions before we move on to the next?

Hearing see none, let us move on to the next proposed amendment.

Moving on to a new category here, impacts of potential new or expanded revenue sources.

We have two amendments in this category and I'll be presenting both of them.

First is amendment 11 to council bill 121226. It is sponsored by council member Lynn.

This amendment would add a recital to the bill stating the city's intent to collaborate with King County and other regional partners to advocate for state authorization of new progressive revenue sources available to transit benefit districts.

It would also allow the council in the future to amend the Seattle transit measure tax rate and or eligible uses of funding if the state authorizes new progressive revenue sources.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Lin.

As the author of Amendment Number 11, you're recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

And part of this is clarifying what I believe is already the case if this moves forward, which is that if this tax is approved by Council and then is approved by voters, it gives us the authority to collect up to 0.3, but it doesn't require us to collect up to 0.3.

and it would give us that authority as currently proposed for up to 10 years.

But again, if the idea behind this is that if we come up with a different funding source or a better funding source, if the state gives us different authority, 10 years is a long time.

And, you know, there's, I think, a lot of interest in working on how we fund transit, not just, you know, here locally, but regionally.

It's a big issue.

and so this would just kind of signal that this should be a priority for us as council to work with our regional partners, to work with our state partners, to explore different ways to fund to fund transit.

I believe in terms of affordability, there's both how we tax and then what we spend it on.

And what we spend it on in terms of spending on transit, I can't imagine something more important in terms of affordability.

We know that transit is one of the top costs for households.

We also know that as we are Looking at our long-term comprehensive plan, making sure that we have a dedicated source for transit that we can rely upon I think is critical for us as we plan for the future.

I also think it's critical for us to make sure that we are again committing to this level of spending on transit as we think about the climate change.

There are estimates that switching to public transit from driving for an individual can reduce your climate impact by up to 4,600 pounds, equivalent to about 100 trees per year.

So as we think about, we have this difficult debate about trees and housing, really we need to be focusing on transit.

And so again, this commitment to transit I think is important, but that doesn't mean that we should not be looking at our tax structure and finding ways to better fund all of our central needs, transit being one of them.

So with that, happy to answer any questions if folks have any.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Rank, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair Sacca.

No questions on this point, but I wanted to ask if I could be a, I guess I am asking a question, ask if I could be a co-sponsor.

I realize we haven't done that yet in this meeting, but that is part of our task for today.

So I'd like to ask to be a co-sponsor.

Yes.

Thank you.

Let the record reflect.

Council Member Rink would like to co-sponsor this.

All right.

Looks like there are no further questions.

I'm looking over at our colleague.

It has technical difficulties.

None right here.

All right.

So let us move on to the next amendment, which is similar in many regards, but also a little different.

Amendment 17 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Vice Chair Rink.

This amendment would amend a recital in the bill and add two new recitals, which collectively named the City's ongoing collaboration with King County, both to enact a future countywide transit funding measure and to identify new local progressive revenue options to fund such a measure's investments with the intent that that new revenue replace Seattle transit measure funding.

This amendment would also allow the Council in the future to amend the Seattle transit measure tax rate and or eligible uses of funding if new or expanded progressive revenue is authorized by the City.

All right, and Vice Chair Rink, you are authorized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you Chair Saka.

Colleagues, I've mentioned previously how during the last state legislative session I met with legislators in an effort to see about expanding opportunities for localities to have of expanded authority on funding our transportation benefit districts, particularly to have more progressive options to help move us away from sales tax.

Unfortunately, that effort was overshadowed by a number of other important issues that the state was working on, but of course that allows us, and that has put us in the position we are right now.

This amendment focuses on our local efforts that we can take to be able to have more progressive ways to fund our transportation services.

And so this amendment includes explicit references, not just to new local progressive revenue, but also to congestion pricing or commercial parking tax.

And so this in many ways complements the previous amendment that we just provided an overview on.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you.

Colleagues, any comments or questions?

Council Member Lin.

just would like to co-sponsor.

All right.

You have that noted?

Awesome.

Thank you.

Looks like there are no other comments, questions from our colleagues.

So I question from my perspective to central staff on this one.

They're substantially similar in many material respects.

Key difference here as was noted, this one calls out specific things like congestion pricing and commercial parking tax.

Can you help me better understand how many jurisdictions in the US currently have congestion pricing?

As of right now, only New York City has a congestion pricing program in effect.

It started on January 1st of 2025.

Got it, got it.

Thank you.

So under the New York City congestion pricing model, just curious, because this amendment specifically contemplates the expansion of transit service for any new prospective congested pricing, shall one be implemented one day in the city of Seattle.

Can you help me better understand, just based off of the current model for congested pricing that we have in the US, namely New York City model, approximately how much of those revenues are generated for congested pricing in New York, specifically fund capital?

I have some high-level information here that I'm happy to share.

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm happy to follow up later if more information is needed.

The revenues from the New York City Congestion Pricing Program, 80% of those revenues fund New York City transit.

10% go to the Long Island Railroad, and permissible uses of those funds are track expansions, station renovations, and commuter line infrastructure.

So to me, that sounds like capital.

Another 10% goes to the Metro North Railroad, station improvements, power system upgrades, and line reliability.

The total revenues collected in the first year for congestion pricing were $562 million, after offsetting operating expenses.

So about $56 million each for the Long Island Railroad and the Metro North Railroad.

OK, thank you.

So about 20% for capital 80% purely for transit service?

Is that correct?

Of those total revenue?

Transit service, subways, buses, and Staten Island Railways.

Subways, buses, like purchasing the subways themselves and the buses themselves.

Because if that's true, I would consider that to be a capital expenditure.

Excuse me, transit service.

Transit service, so service hours for those things, not the underlying purchase of trains, subway trains, buses.

I hesitate to get too apples to apples about it because I'm not familiar with the specific language in the New York City authorizing legislation, but I will follow up.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

And what is the total amount you said?

562 million was collected in the first year.

Got it.

Thank you.

All right.

No further questions from my perspective on that.

Looks like there's no others.

So let us press to the next amendment.

Next amendment, we move to a new category, amendments that concern oversight and reporting related to the Seattle Transit measure.

For those who are looking at Amendment 6 in the agenda packet, There is a formatting error in this amendment.

All of the proposed new bill language should be in red and underlined.

Council members have a revised version of the amendment and will be working to update the amendment packet.

Just to be clear, this amendment does propose some new bill language.

This amendment to Council Bill 121226 was sponsored by Council Member Foster and it would add a new section directing the Seattle Department of Transportation to provide the City Council with a midterm evaluation.

There are eight dimensions that are requested to be reported on.

They are financial reporting, transit service outcomes, transit service equity outcomes, the utilization and performance of transit access programs, capital and infrastructure outcomes, sound transit three coordination outcomes, an evaluation of the program's administrative cost efficiency and any policy recommendations regarding the tax rate.

Thank you.

Councilmember Foster is author of the amendment.

You are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you so much, Chair, and happy to report I got my computer to work again.

Thank you for that update, central staff.

So, colleagues, I've heard several folks today sort of speak to questions around oversight, accountability, and affordability, and much of that is what is at the heart of this amendment, the goal of which is to allow us a sort of formal place as a council to evaluate the impact of the Seattle Transit measure.

From my perspective, a worthy time to do that would be at the midpoint of the 10-year measure, which gives us something closer to what our typical timeline is when we take a look at this, when it's been up for renewal every six years.

So the idea here is to provide a number of key components, which you'll see listed out in the alphabetical enumeration that we are looking at here.

So the financial reporting, transit service outcomes, transit access, capital, so that we can take a look at it holistically and make a determination about whether or not we want to make any structural changes to the way that we are thinking about the program, including a request for policy recommendations from the Department on whether or not to maintain the rate of the sales tax adopted by the ordinance and whether adjustments to program spending priorities are warranted.

So as we've discussed earlier in committee today, these are things that Council has the ability to do on our own, we have the ability to adopt this at 0.3% and make a change at any point during the lifetime of the levy.

However, this gives us a marker to do that collectively as a council.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Colleagues, any questions, comments from your perspective?

Looks like Vice Chair Rink, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

I'd like to be added as a co-sponsor.

All right, making sure that is noted by our central staff experts.

Looks like yes.

All right.

Okay.

If there are no other comments, questions, colleagues, let us move on to the next proposed amendment.

Amendment 14 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Councilmember Kettle and it requests a report on Metro's use of smaller buses and on the feasibility of increasing their use.

So this would be a joint request to Seattle Department of Transportation and working with King County Metro to provide this report on the sizing of buses and opportunities that there might be to use smaller buses, like what we have been using as part of the waterfront shuttle.

and I think the interest in this area is that smaller buses would have less impact on the city's infrastructure.

Large buses have great impacts on our streets and bridges.

Got it.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle is the amendment author.

You are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Is he on the call?

Is he on the call anymore?

Council Member Kettle.

You're still, still shows it's being online.

Let us take a moment.

Let's come back to that one.

Keep pressing to the very next amendment.

Okay.

In this bundle, we'll revert back.

The next amendment is Amendment 21 to Council Bill 12126. It's sponsored by Councilmember Rivera.

It would also request a report on the performance outcomes of the bus routes number 62 and 65. This would also be a joint report between SDOT and King County Metro and would focus in on these two particular routes.

and would help to inform additional service delivery to these routes.

All right.

Council Member Rivera is the amendment author.

You are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

It's fairly straightforward.

These are two routes I've heard a lot about from the district.

They service a middle school and high school, and it gets overcrowded with the folks that are also using the bus service to get to either work downtown or to other parts of the city, like into the Fremont neighborhoods, et cetera, Wedgwood.

And it also goes, it services Sandpoint, and I have a population at Sandpoint that very much relies on bus at transit.

So it's really just to study how well and how much it is utilized, and it just helps inform future, potential future.

service delivery.

As per the Chair's comments earlier in terms of our at a later point in time saying this is where we need our constituents need service.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone has any.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Any other comments, questions, colleagues from your perspective?

Hearing and seeing none, let us press to the next amendment, knowing that we're about approximately halfway through, and so we control our own destiny here, colleagues, in terms of getting out of here.

Hopefully that the back half of these will be a little more...

slightly more expedited than the first half, but these are some really important...

you guys are also raising some really important comments and questions, the purpose of this meeting.

So let us keep pressing and hopefully we can be a little more expeditious in some of this too.

Let us go to the next one.

Amendment 22 to Council Bill 121226 is also sponsored by Councilmember Kettle.

This amendment would request that the Seattle Department of Transportation, in partnership with King County Metro, provide a report on the outcomes of King County Metro's waterfront shuttle pilot program, including opportunities for its improvement or expansion.

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, are you with us now to speak to your proposed amendment?

Your amendment, more specifically, the...

Was that the...

You said 14?

Are we going back to 14?

22.

23. Okay.

Wrong slide.

22. 22.

22. Council Member Kettle.

Yes.

Central staff just oriented us on your proposed amendment number 22. Let's speak to that, have a discussion on that, and then we're going to revert back to your earlier amendment that appears before in this next sequence, Amendment 14. But you're recognized to speak to Amendment 21, or excuse me, 22.

Okay.

All right.

Looking at the slides, okay, so we jumped to 22, now back to 21. We're on 22. Okay, my slides, or at least the online, that was on the next slide, so.

Yes.

Basically, one of the things that we've been looking at working with community is neighborhoods, different organizations, residents, constituents, is the fact that we do not have anything in terms of transit service west of Third Avenue.

and looking to highlight this in a bigger picture, not talking specific bus routes or anything.

And that's what's behind Amendment 22 is the fact that we need to ensure that the waterfront, Laskan Way and so forth, have that coverage in First Avenue because it's really, really important.

As seen right now, FIFA will come up the number of people that are there and also the linking between the Stadium District and Seattle Center.

So this amendment is to raise the profile and highlight the need, generally, because things have been kind of not set, particularly with First Avenue, but also with the waterfront.

And so that's the focus and the background related to this amendment, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Colleagues, any comments, questions on Councilmember Kettle's proposed Amendment 22?

Hearing and seeing none.

Appreciate the amendment.

Let us return to amendment, your other amendment, Council Member Kettle 14. If Central Staff wouldn't mind rebriefing this one briefly, and then Council Member Kettle, you can speak to it.

Yes, Amendment 14 is requesting a report from Metro on the use of their current use of smaller buses and on the potential of increasing that use.

It would be a joint report between SDOT and Metro.

I'll leave it to you, Council Member Kettle.

This amendment, like the other amendments, is really to raise the issues, to raise the discussion on the various topics, particularly due to the unique circumstances of downtown and the spacing and the sizing of these.

We're not a suburban jurisdiction.

We do not have, and by the way, this is not related to rapid rides and the like, but it's to our more dense downtown.

And what's happened is it's just like what we see on Aurora Bridge, but downtown where basically the buses don't fit.

And as I mentioned in the earlier meeting that we had, we have a lot of 777s, but sometimes we need some 737s, and this goes to District 7. and are downtown.

When you go down Third Avenue and you see buses taking up two lanes, it's because they don't fit.

Or if you see them on First Avenue, they don't serve First Avenue, but they use First Avenue as a turnaround for East-West routes.

Again, this creates a big challenge for what's happening in downtown.

And this is something that's come up again and again in discussions with residents and communities.

And this is to highlight the issue and to kind of drive that opportunity to get basically buses, transit that's right-sized for the area.

Again, this is not looking at more broadly.

This is unique in terms of some of these denser areas that we have and basically right-sizing the service due to those circumstances.

And that's really what this amendment is all about.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Colleagues, any other comments, questions on this proposed amendment number 14?

Hearing and seeing none, let us press to the next amendment.

Which I think is amendment number 23.

Amendment 23 to Council Bill 121226 is also sponsored by Council Member Kettle.

This amendment would request that SDOT and King County Metro provide a report on Metro's policies regarding bus stop spacing and report on the efficiency of transit service delivery and balanced against increasing access to bus routes.

The report would request analysis on how closely Metro follows its current policies on bus stop spacing and request where they might identify opportunities to refine bus stops placement in order to enhance the efficiency of transit service delivery.

All right.

Councilmember Kettle, you're recognized as an amendment author to speak on your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

This is another example, and it kind of reflects that District 7, and again, the downtown, greater downtown, is such a dense, you know, where public transit is so important.

And it needs to be as efficient as it can.

We've heard from residents in terms of, and maybe even other council members, in terms of how the spacing impacts the efficiency of the route.

We need to look at all the opportunities that we could, you know, further the effectiveness, the timeliness of our public transit, our transit system, particularly in the downtown area.

This is the reason why I supported the change for the Route 8 from Queen Avenue north to 2nd north in terms of flip-flopping the lanes from 3 to 2 to 2 to 3 in terms of north-south and providing for that east-west West East, I should say, bus lane to support the Route 8. All these little things in terms of the pieces to these routes are important for the efficiency of the system overall.

And it goes to some of the public commenters in terms of having that bus show up on time and then do it in a way where It might have made sense at one point, but it may be impacting again, the implementation.

And this is, you know, feedback that we've received, uh, from, uh, again, you know, riders, the bus riders and, you know, the residents here in district seven.

So thank you, chair.

Thank you.

Council member Kettle colleagues.

Any questions, comments from your perspective on the proposed amendment number 23?

Uh, council member Foster for George.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I'm trying to be judicious with time.

I wanted to ask this question, and I think it applies across a couple of the amendments that we're discussing, certainly 22 and 23. But Central Staff, can you just speak to, given that these are reports that we are asking SDOT to request for Metro, just the mechanism of that, and then can we clarify, are we expecting that these are There's sort of three questions here.

So the mechanism from our department requesting this from the county.

A second is the cost.

Are we expecting to spend STM dollars here?

And then the third is...

action, I don't know, how to action them.

And so in particular, knowing that my understanding is bus stop spacing is a metro determination and something that the King County Council has the ability to weigh in on.

I just want to make sure I understand if we're asking our department staff to spend their time and possibly STM dollars for this information, what will our options be to action those when we have that information back?

So three points to those questions.

Let's see, starting at your first question about how to go about this.

SDOT has two staff members that are constantly working with King County Metro to adjust, provide, amend service.

We have many staff people who are, it's not just those two staff members, we have many people within SDOT who work on policy programming related to King County Metro service.

So we're in constant communication with King County Metro and we would work through the existing channels in order to work with them to develop this report in any of the circumstances.

As far as the costs, I think at the moment I haven't talked with the executive side to find out if they think there is an additional cost.

My expectation is that they would absorb this within existing staff capacity, just as we would expect any other department to report out on their service delivery and their program outcomes.

and how to action the items.

I would say again, to the extent that King County Metro and SDOT are making adjustments to service delivery twice a year currently.

And this would be information.

If we found information in this report, if they agreed that it was important to act on, then I would imagine that they would make recommendations to make changes.

at one of those two times during the year.

Thank you.

And then that would be a change for this one in particular, that would go to the King County Council for the bus stop spacing.

The request for any of these reports is that they would come back to this council.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle, floor is yours.

Thank you.

I want to thank Councilmember Foster for her question.

And again, the intent here is for SDOT to basically, on behalf of the City and behalf of us as a Council, to engage on these various questions that we have with these amendments that I've just been speaking on.

And the reason why there are amendments is that I've been asking SDOT on a repeated basis over the last couple of years regarding, you know, bus transit service on First Avenue West.

Questions about, hey, what are we doing on the waterfront?

You know, how do we connect Belltown?

This whole section of Belltown has no transit service.

You know, all these questions.

And here in, you know, in the middle of this year, we're kind of still where we are two years ago.

And so these measures are really to highlight some of these challenges that we have in areas such as Belltown and in the waterfront.

and to ensure these important areas are covered by bus transit service.

And so the intent is for, as Ms. Allen was saying, is that SDOT and their normal work with King County Metro will be raising these issues and highlighting these issues and then to really get some type of movement forward with King County Metro in terms of bus transit service west of Third Avenue.

So again, thank you for the question, and thank you, Ms. Allen.

All right.

Thank you.

Looks like there are no other comments, questions on this particular amendment, so I'll close with my question.

In this amendment, this question applies to a few similar amendments with the the same March 30th, 2027 requested report date.

So just curious from that sort of transcend, you know, amendment authors or a few authors with a similar date.

So just curious to hear from a central staff perspective, you know, why might this specific date be chosen?

Yeah, that's a good question, Chair.

We picked a date that was ending in the first quarter.

I think how many of these amendments move forward, we might need to revisit that date.

We have not talked to the executive side to test the feasibility of having all of these reports due on the same date.

It might be possible that that would be something that we would need to adjust.

and the goal was to provide information in advance enough that would help to inform any future actions that you might wanna take, whether it be the budget process or any other separate process.

Got it, thank you.

All right, let us move on to the next proposed amendment.

Amendment 25 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Council Member Rivera.

This amendment would require an annual reporting by King County on various dimensions of service hours purchased with Seattle Transit measure funding.

Specifically, the report would include dimensions such as King County Metro's fare recovery effectiveness and bus transit on time performance and reliability.

All right.

Councilmember Rivera, you are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Amanda.

It's pretty straightforward.

I mean, the fare recovery piece is really important, colleagues, as you all know, because our ability to continue to operate transit relies on the funding to do so.

And if folks are not paying their fares, it's going to have a huge impact on the ability to provide the service.

And so we want to make sure.

And plus, I think Just last week, there was an article that came out about the low percentage of fare recovery that Metro was doing on transit service.

So we just want to make sure that we understand the fare box recovery ratio or the percentage of the King County Metro operating costs that was funded by the fares.

so we have a complete picture of what is going on.

And then also making sure that we understand because our inability to collect the fares also will have an impact on revenue performance.

So this just has that level of specificity as to the information that we're requesting and the why.

and then our ability to perform, like I said earlier, based on what we're able to recover because it goes to why we're, you know, if we're unable to meet the transit need, it is directly related to the fare recovery since that is what the money goes back into the service.

So anyway, happy to answer any questions.

And also it goes to, if we need to, if Metro needs to cancel trips, et cetera, because of this fair recovery piece, we should know all this as part of the equation.

And we need to get this information from Metro and it should be more than just on a occasional piece or we shouldn't be getting this information from the news.

We should be getting it from Metro.

So making sure that SDOT is partnering with Metro to make sure we get this information and it goes to may be something that we might do in the future, colleagues.

Anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Any other comments, questions, colleagues?

Hearing, seeing none, I'll just pile on from my perspective.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera, for putting this forth.

I think you were referring to the Seattle Times editorial board piece a few weeks back that was very thought-provoking, and I too pulled together some insights from that piece to put together, you know, a similar kind of oversight and accountability proposed amendment with respect to transit fare recovery ratio.

So I just want to thank you for this amendment.

All right, let us press to the next proposed amendment.

Amendment 28 to Council Bill 121226 is sponsored by Council President Hollingsworth.

This amendment would request that SDOT in partnership with King County Metro provide a report on the possible pathways for the City of Seattle to expand the transit access program.

So this is the program that we use currently to give free ORCA cards to low income populations and other student populations.

including but not limited to providing support to participants of city run income verified programs such as the utility discount program, Seattle preschool program, early childhood education and assistance programs or others.

All right, thank you.

Council President Hollingsworth is the amendment author of 28. You are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Awesome, thank you, Chair.

And if it's with your permission, I would love if I could speak about Amendment 26 as well, because they're both connected as well.

One's about a report, the other one is about expanding the transit access program, with your permission.