missing title

All right.

Good afternoon.

Today is March 9th, 2026. The council briefing will come to order.

It is 2.02 PM.

I am council member Rob Saka serving as council president pro tem.

I note that council member Rivera and council president Hollingsworth are excused.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Juarez.

Here.

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Strauss.

Here.

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

And President Pro Tem Saka.

Here.

Six present.

All right.

If there is no objection, the minutes of March 2nd, 2026 will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the minutes are hereby adopted.

On to the president's report.

or in this case, President Pro Tem.

We have our OIR presentation today on tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda.

We have seven items on the introductory and referral calendar, bills and minutes for reappointments to the Arts Commission, an ordinance relating to the Seattle City Light and Skagit River Hydroelectric Power Project, ordinance relating to SDOT's shared streets, adding a new chapter to the Seattle Municipal Code.

There is one executive session tomorrow as well.

Also on tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, we have eight items on the consent calendar.

bills and minutes to ordinances from the Parks and City Light Committee accepting easements for electrical distribution rights in King County for reappointments from the Parks and City Light Committee to the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.

A Women's History Month proclamation presented last week will have a roll call update to reflect a small technical change.

Also on tomorrow's council agenda, we have one item for a vote, CB121174, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, adopting a moratorium on the filing, acceptance, processing, or approval of applications for the establishment expansion or change of use for detention centers.

Sponsor council member Rink on that particular piece of legislation.

There is another executive session again on tomorrow's agenda.

So that said, moving on to, I guess, our first substantive item of business, a presentation from OIR.

Looks like our partner's- Thank you, Council President.

Oh, can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Looks like our partners at OIR have joined us remotely.

So yeah, feel free.

Get started.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Pro Tem Saka and Council members.

I'm Meena Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by my colleagues from our state relations team, Ana Johnson and Sameer Janejo, who you'll hear from momentarily.

Thank you for having us.

We are in the final week of the state legislative session, and there are just three full days left.

Friday marked the last major policy deadline of the session, the opposite house floor cutoff.

and to remain in play, bills needed to pass out of the opposite chamber from where they were introduced.

Now it's a rush to the finish line known as sine die this Thursday, March 12th, and lawmakers are focused on passing budget and revenue bills and addressing changes made to legislation in the other chamber.

As a reminder, the legislature entered this short 60-day session with a significant budget shortfall and a requirement to have a balanced budget over the biennium.

Both proposed supplemental operating budgets are about $1.5 billion larger than what was forecast last session, and the increased costs are mostly a result of higher caseloads, lawsuit settlements, and federal impacts.

Both of the proposed budgets also use more than $750 million from the state's rainy day fund and propose administrative cuts to most state agencies to balance the budget.

The final budgets are being negotiated and will be revealed sometime this week before the adjournment.

With that, I'll turn it over to Samir and Ana to get into more details.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

So first we'll go over an update on where various Seattle priorities are in the process.

These are bills that we've talked about in the past.

And so I'll start with highlighting a few bills.

House Bill 1687 regarding social housing was just signed by the governor today and passed into law.

House Bill 2266, related to permanent supportive housing, was passed by the Senate and now heads to the House for a concurrence vote House Bill 2294, which relates to restrictive covenants on grocery stores, was passed by both chambers and is heading to the governor's office House Bill 2495, related to the removal of vehicles obstructing the streetcar tracks, also has passed both chambers and now heads to the governor's desk and then 5156 which relates to elevator standards has passed the House and now goes to the Senate for a concurrence vote And then Senate Bill 6309 related to high capacity transit permits, permitting for sound transit, also passed the House with some changes, moved to the Senate for a concurrence vote.

And then lastly, I'll highlight Senate Bill 6346, which is the tax on millionaires, a new version proposed by the House is going to be voted on today, makes a few changes.

I'll highlight that it removes funding related to public defense for counties and cities from the bill.

and then also provides that 5% of all revenues would go to the Fair Start for Kids account, which funds early learning and childcare mostly.

Also, it expands some eligibility for working families tax credit.

And so more changes might happen before the end of session.

Like I said, that bill will be voted on by the full House and then likely back to the Senate for a concurrence vote.

I'll highlight from this list House Bill 1128. This bill establishes Child Care Workforce Standards Board.

This one passed the Senate last week, 28 to 19, so it should be heading to the governor's desk.

Also House Bill 2165, this deals with false identification of a peace officer.

This passed the Senate also last week, 30 to 18. And then House Bill 2320 prohibits the manufacturing of firearm and firearm components through 3D printers, as well as computer numerical controlled milling machines.

And this passed the Senate 29 to 18. And then finally, last Friday, Senate Bill 5880 concerning toxicology testing through accredited labs passed the House 96 to 0. And we'll head to the governor's desk as well.

Now we'll move into our recap of Weeks 7 and 8, starting with the House and Senate proposed budgets.

As Mina mentioned, this year the state was facing a budget deficit, and so this year they will be proposing and coming to a final supplemental budget, which means they're amending and adding additional funding or removing funding based on their biennial budget that they passed last session.

So I wanted to highlight some of the operating budget highlights from the House and Senate here on the slide and as it relates to some of the priorities that we had in our city's legislative agenda.

So both the House and Senate reinstate the 25% local match or local funding for sending new law enforcement officers to the Basic Law Enforcement Academy.

The House includes a 20% reduction to law enforcement assisted diversion or LEAD and a 10% reduction to Recovery Navigator Program, while the Senate includes just the 10% reduction to the Recovery Navigator Program.

Both the House and the Senate add $15 million for grants for permanent supportive housing providers for operation and maintenance.

operation and maintenance.

This is due to the HUD COC funding situation that the state may find themselves in.

Both the House and Senate include $10.5 million for 9-1-1 program and support and technology.

This could help the Seattle Care Department.

And both the House and Senate removes Governor Ferguson's proposal to cap the Working Connections Child Care Program enrollment.

In the capital budget, just some small ads here related to EV charging and clean energy in the House funded by CCA, as well as a $164 million addition to the Housing Trust Fund.

And then in the Senate, they did add $128 million to the Housing Trust Fund for various purposes.

The transportation budget, both the House and Senate budget provided funding to King County Metro and the city for provide I-5 traffic congestion impacts.

The House budgeted at $12 million, the Senate at $10 million.

The Senate budget also included $30 million for EV charging infrastructure grants and also a $1 million to the government grant program for illuminated crosswalks.

Specifically funding for the City of Seattle, both the House and Senate provided $1.5 million to the city for women's softball fields.

Both House and Senate provided $7 million for Lake City Community Center's housing development.

The House also provided $2 million for Seattle Center's Fisher Pavilion decarbonization and $5.7 million for FAS's fleet hydrogen fueling pilot program.

And the Senate provided $6 million for Montlake Homes.

Moving on to some bill updates, starting with budget and revenue.

House Bill 2610 passed the legislature this past week, which ensures non-profit housing providers qualify for the property tax exemption when the property is temporarily used for purposes other than affordable housing.

And House Bill 1408, which establishes funding for community preservation and development authorities by way of diverting sales tax from state sales tax from the two stadiums, that bill also passed the Senate and goes to the House for concurrence vote.

A few climate and environment bills.

House Bill 2296 deals with expanding the use of distributed energy resources, specifically allows energy conservation and efficiency programs in rental housing at the meter and is able to have tenants recover those costs through billing.

That passed the Senate 45 to 3. And then Senate Bill 6355 has a similar purpose of the bill that you all might have saw earlier in session that did not make it past its original chamber.

A bill was introduced late in session and labeled NTIB so this is a new bill and it establishes the Washington Electric Transmission Authority among other components in the bill and executive action was taken in the House Appropriations Committee this morning so this bill is still moving along

Between the General Government, I'll highlight House Bill 2034, which takes surplus funding from Plan 1 of the Law Enforcement Officers and Firefighters pension account.

This is an account that has been closed to new members since the late 1970s, and it takes some surplus funding from that pension account and moves it to an account that the legislature would be able to use for general fund purposes next session.

Housing and Homelessness, Senate Bill 5937, which regulates the use of smart access systems for tenants by way of subjecting them to privacy policies and requiring landlords to offer alternative keys if requested.

and Senate Bill 6026 concerning residential development in commercial and mixed use zones and particularly relates to prohibition on ground floor commercial requirements.

This bill as it stands now as it passed the House would exempt station areas and historic districts.

So cities would still be allowed to have ground floor commercial requirements in those areas.

In addition, the city would be allowed to have ground floor commercial requirements in 40% of commercial and mixed use areas.

Moving on to labor and commerce, House Bill 2334 which adjusts the price of cash transactions to eliminate the need for pennies and does this by allowing sellers to round up or round down the price of a cash transaction to the nearest five cent increment.

And House Bill 2355 establishes labor protections for domestic workers.

This bill has passed both chambers and now moves to the governor's desk where it will be signed.

One bill within the Native Communities and Tribal Government section I wanted to highlight was House Bill 2496. This concerns tribal consultation conducted by the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or also known as FSEC.

This bill provides a PRA exemption through the open public meeting process for tribal consultation, as well as makes other improvements to the process.

And then one bill under Public Safety and Criminal Justice I wanted to highlight is Senate Bill 5925. This is concerning the general powers and duties of the Attorney General's office.

This bill allows the AG's office to issue civil investigative demands for possible violations of the United States Constitution, the Washington State Constitution, enforce the Keep Washington Working Act, our wage and discrimination laws, as well as City and County Jails Act.

And then under social programs and education, I want to highlight this bill that I haven't been able to share about yet, this process, which is 5963. This bill automatically qualifies former foster youth and unaccompanied homeless youth students for the Washington College grant.

This reduces paperwork and helps provide eligible students that are missing out on financial aid.

In transportation, I'll highlight House Bill 1980, which allows private employer transportation shuttles to use certain bus lanes, and this bill applies only to King County, and it passed both House and Senate and moved to the governor's desk.

And as Mina mentioned earlier, this week will be final budgets will be released and various other revenue decisions, including the tax on millionaires.

And then Thursday, March 12th is Sani Dai, the last day of session.

And with that, happy to answer any questions.

All right, thank you to our OIR team.

I'll take any questions, comments from any of my colleagues, if you have any.

First and foremost, I wanna know, Council Member Rink has joined us in person, welcome.

Please let the record reflect, she is here.

Colleagues, any questions, comments?

Looks like Council Member Rink, go ahead, floor is yours.

Thank you, Pro Tem, and thank you, OIR.

I know that it's down to the wire for a state legislative session, and so I just want to thank you for your hard work.

I know this is crunch time, so I wanted to touch on just a couple of measures just for the purposes of clarification.

First on the Mosquito Fleet Act, I was curious, because I understand that this piece of legislation passed through the House pretty resoundingly, but there was a striker adopted in the Senate.

Curious about what's entailed in that striker, as much as you can speak to.

Yeah, there's a pretty long list of changes that were made that I can send to you, but I know essentially it creates various requirements for a particular ferry district, for local governments to use ferry districts, and I'd say changes to build pretty substantially, and so I can send you a list of all those changes because they're quite numerous.

Thank you for that, Samir.

I know I just caught the headline that a lot of changes were made in that Stryker, and it's my understanding the effect of those changes will make it really difficult to live up to the desire to get more passenger-only ferries up and around our region.

And I know I've been pretty clear on this point that it would be great to expand this as an option, especially further connecting Seattle to other cities across our region.

So I'll be curious to see the breakdown of the Stryker, and I wonder if there's any opportunities to try and remedy that because more passenger-only ferries would be great for our entire region.

And I also wanted to lift up this point about the measure for sound transit bonding.

It's my understanding that that did not go forward, and so I'm wondering if there's any status about the sound transit bonding effort.

So the bill was Senate Bill 6148, which did not move out of the House Transportation Committee.

However, the language of that bill was then added to House Bill 2711, which is various transportation revenue measures that the legislature has yet to vote on the Senate.

added that language into it, and so now it's subject to negotiation between the House and Senate whether that will be in the final language.

And so it's still up for consideration in House Bill 2711, but certainly we won't know until later this week.

Thank you.

Good to know that it's still up for consideration, so we'll stay tuned.

That concludes my questions.

Thank you, Pro Tem.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions, colleagues?

Councilmember Foster, floor is yours.

Thank you so much, and thank you OIR for the presentation, fantastic as usual.

I just wanted to quickly go back to the millionaire's tax and make sure I caught the updates on the spending there.

Is it correct that I heard you say that cities and counties are no longer going to receive the investments for indigent defense?

That's correct, yeah.

And is there any line items in there currently that are directed towards city and counties in its present form?

In the bill itself, there is some intent language in the bill that says that the legislature is aware that there will be local government impacts from the sales tax exemptions that are in the bill.

But we don't yet know if, you know, as of right now, there's nothing in the bill that would actually provide direct funding, though, to do that.

Got it.

And do we know, have we quantified, I suppose, the direct sales tax impacts to Seattle or to King County at this point in time?

Because the bill also kind of made some changes to the sales tax exemption, so adding diapers and over-the-counter drugs exemptions as well.

So I don't quite have numbers kind of for the budgetary impacts to the city on that yet.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Any final questions, comments, colleagues?

If none, I have a few quick questions of my own.

First off, on the millionaire's tax, good to see that progressive revenue proposal at this late stage of the game, likely passage in some form, which is great to see.

I read personally in public reporting, I think from the Seattle Times on Friday, that there was approximately $4 billion a year that was allocated of that new revenue that was allocated specifically for free school meals, breakfast, lunch, K through 12 across the state.

And if true, that would, obviously bring to life our cities, one of our key city priorities and initiatives that we've been working on for at least a couple years since I've been around to try and pass a free universal lunch breakfast program for all statewide.

And so can you clarify whether that is in the latest package that's gonna be considered this week, and would that $4 billion be for...

Would that provide all universal access to free school meals, or does that remain to be seen with that current level of investment?

Yeah, I think my understanding is that, you know, there's something that we can expect to see in the release, the budgets that are released, the budget that's released this week.

So since we haven't seen the exact number, hard to say whether that is, you know, fully encompassing the need.

But, you know, I understand that that is the intent.

And so we'll better be able to speak to that once we actually see the numbers in the budget.

Got it, thank you.

And also reported was roughly in the governor's endorsed millionaire's tax was 5% of the new revenue to be collected would be specifically earmarked for early childhood care and early learning investments, which I think is an excellent thing.

And if we're ever gonna truly bring to life a universal free preschool for all program in Seattle, we need heavy state investment and other government's investment as well, similar to how they did in New York City.

All I have to say is Anand and Samir really appreciate this.

during the final day, after the final day, there's a few items that our colleagues have kept close tabs on throughout, be helpful to have a summary after including the millionaire's tax where we finally land.

So if you all wouldn't mind sending out email on that one for all of our benefit would be greatly appreciated.

That is all from my perspective.

Unless any of my colleagues have any more, no.

Ana, Samir, thank you again for sharing your expert insights with us and tracking all this legislation from inception to here we are today.

And all you do, all the hard work, great work you do in between.

So thank you, Director Hashimi as well.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Thank you, council members.

All right.

Let's see.

We will now move on to the next item, which is signing of letters and proclamations.

I don't think there are any for today.

No?

Okay.

So, which means we're moving on to our preview of city council actions and council and regional committees.

That is our next discussion item.

We're gonna do it in roll call order with one minor exception.

Council Member Strauss has a hard stop.

He's gonna go first.

After that, it'll be Council Members Juarez, Kettle, Lynn, Rink, Foster.

All right, go ahead.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Saka.

Colleagues, last week we signed a proclamation for the Taproot Theater Company Theater, and I have to leave in three minutes to present it.

So I'll still be listening to the meeting for the next half an hour, and I'll be brief now.

the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee met last week looking at Seattle's levy capacity.

If you haven't received that briefing, highly suggest it.

Our next FNC Committee meeting will be Tuesday, March 17th at 9.30 a.m.

We will have a briefing on tribal and urban, that is not the right word to use because we stopped using that word, tribal engagement work that SPU is doing.

Don't worry, Council President Emeritus Juarez, I will get on them.

we don't use the words urban native any longer.

With that, for full council, I have no legislation coming to full council.

Council member Saka, you may know that the shared streets bill from a year ago got out of the legislature a year ago and still we are waiting for SDOT to stop being the roadblock and provide us the necessary implementation to pass this bill.

I've gone ahead and drafted that bill and I'd love to partner with you council member Saka on how we can move this forward because we had that statement of legislative intent this last year, but at this point we need to move forward.

So I know it's a shared priority for many of us on council and council member Saka would love to work with you on how we move that forward.

Any questions on that one?

Nope, seeing none.

Sound Transit, last Thursday I went on a West Seattle Link Extension and Ballard Link Extension corridor tours with fellow Sound Transit board members to help facilitate conversations around each station.

Colleagues, reminder, March 28th, this coming Saturday, March 28th, We are opening the Cross Lake connection and having the festivities at Sam Smith Park.

So here in the city, even though the majority of this project is in East King County sub area, we do have system expansion committee this week where we're talking about OMF South.

We do have finance and audit committee where we are looking over the internal audits at Sound Transit.

In district six, I was honored to attend the anniversary of the Fort Lawton takeover that led to the creation of Daybreak Star in Discovery Park.

It was an amazing celebration.

Larry Gossett was honored.

And I learned something new.

Daybreak Star is named because the folks waited until Daybreak to come up over the bluffs and just before our we have friends that went roller skating there and just before you got there to go roller skating but had a lot of great stories about sneaking in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches via the metro bus drivers and of all three places where There were takeovers in the 70s, Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, and Wounded Knee.

Fort Lawton was the only place where land was actually earned.

So it was a great celebration.

In addition, I hosted office hours at my district office last Thursday.

I'll be doing again so this Wednesday.

Folks can sign up.

I'll be having a town hall later this month.

And I did it within three minutes, Council President Pro Tem.

Any questions on any of that?

No?

Fantastic.

Thanks.

I will pass it over to Council President Emeritus Juarez.

Yes, thank you.

And I'll remain online.

Thanks, y'all.

See you, buddy.

Bye.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss and Mr. Pro Tem, Council Member Sokka.

So Parks and City Light, the next Parks and City Light Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, March 18th.

On the agenda is the first briefing of the Seattle City Lights re-licensing of the Skagit River hydroelectric project.

We learned this morning, or Friday and today, that we will have leadership from Upper Skagit, Swinomish, and Sauksuatl.

So after Seattle City Light does their presentation, tribal leadership will line up at the table.

So if you have questions of tribal leadership regarding the relicensing, and then on our second meeting, which I believe is April 1st, is when we will actually, if we're ready, vote on the relicensing of the Skagit River hydroelectric project, which then will be forwarded to FERC, which is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

All right, so items passed out of Parks and City Light Committee.

Last week will be on the consent agenda at tomorrow's meeting.

They're just basically two routine easement ordinances and four reappointments to the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.

Last week we met with Seattle Fire Department Chief, Chief Scoggins, and received updates on fire stations in District 5 and citywide.

So we're looking forward to the opening of the new Fire Station 31 in Quarter 2 of this year.

Our office attended the Community Police Commission meeting and the North Precinct Advisory Council meeting.

I attended the Arts Fun Spring event at the Seattle Art Museum.

Thank you, Michael Greer.

I was his guest and it was, I think I've been there a couple times before, I just couldn't remember.

But anyway, the Seattle Art Museum hosts the Seattle Arts Fun Spring event.

Our office also attended, I'm sure with other council members as well, the Aurora Commons event, Aurora Means Dawn.

And as you know, Aurora Commons is a dedicated D5 organization founded in 2008, serving homeless and neighbors on Aurora.

And we've been working with them since 2015. So this week, let's see.

What I got here?

Oh, this morning I met with representatives from the Seattle Torrent Professional Women's Hockey League.

Council Member Foster came by, because she was going to come see if she could catch up and fangirl, but they had already left.

Anyway, we got another opportunity to meet with Maddie McNaira, the Torrent Business Director, Ruby Dworkin, the Torrent Communications Manager, and Steph Hirsch, the Torrent Community Relations Manager.

basically not just talking about the game itself, but building the fan base in Seattle, working with community, including indigenous-led organizations and tribal governments.

And on the tribal government side, since tribes, Suquamish, Tulalip, Malkushoots, Noqualmie, and I forgot who else, They're big fans and supporters and sponsors of Seattle Rain, the Kraken, Mariners and the Seahawks.

So we were talking to them about investing in the community and tribal government side beyond sponsorship or free tickets and certainly well beyond land acknowledgments.

Unless of course you're going to give the land back, which they're not going to do, so I don't know why we do those.

Anyway, Friday I will be attending again, and this is an event we like to go to.

Thank you, Beth Knox and folks at the Sales Sports Commission.

We usually attend their awards dinner, and this year we are going to honor our friend who walked on, our sports legend, Lenny Wilkins.

We usually sit with coach and sadly he will not be with us this year, as you know.

Our coach has walked on and we're going to honor him Friday night.

And then Saturday, I'm really excited because I get to go to the United Negro College Fund as a guest with Dr. Chappelle, the Director of DEAL.

As you all know, this is a big event.

It's the, what they call Seeds of Hope Gala, an evening dedicated to empowering the next generation of leaders through education.

And as you know, and I think I shared with Council Member Foster, certainly working with Council President and Dr. Chappelle and some other folks about, and we certainly share this with the Mayor's Office.

It's a priority for us this year.

to look into.

We've been doing the research and working with Deal on HBCU slash PBI.

That's a predominantly black institution.

Hopefully discussions around the budget.

It's a priority for the council president and myself and other elected leaders.

We learned that Howard University is going to set up a satellite campus in San Francisco and we're hoping that we can explore the opportunity to have an HBCU or a predominantly black institution situated in the city of Seattle.

I think that is as upstream as you can get about making sure our young folks have an opportunity of hope to go to college and have folks there that have the same sensibilities and we have the scholars and the intellectuals and the leadership in our city for our children so we can not just focus on gun violence, but we can actually focus on taking care of our babies and making sure after high school that they have hope that they can go to a college for people and with people that have the same type of lived experience and can speak to their brilliance beyond just gun violence.

And I think we're all tired of being centered and uplifted.

At least I am.

Anyway, that's all I got.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, President Pro Tem Saka.

First, Public Safety Committee, we have our next meeting tomorrow, tomorrow morning, with two bills on the docket, one staging, and then respect to federal law enforcement, and second, an automatic license plate reader, 60-day pause piece, also related to federal law enforcement, so thank you everyone involved with that.

This week my team met with Housing Development Consortium with the Linn team this morning.

Some other meetings as well with transportation and fire and so forth.

Middle of the week, DSA State of the Downtown will be running.

Before that on Wednesday, I'll be doing an Elliott Bay Connections tour, seeing the work that's being done there, which is fantastic.

And also later that day, getting Convention Center update.

And also having discussions related to the shelter plans that are being made.

Thursday, it's Irish Heritage Week, and it's the 40th anniversary of the Seattle Galway Sister City Association, so the Irish delegation's in town, so I'll be meeting the mayor of Galway on Thursday and then the broader team to include sessions at Fisherman's Terminal related to, with Maritime Blue and the Maritime Innovation Center, so that would be great.

and then of course the luncheon on Friday and not to forget the St. Patrick's Day Parade on Saturday.

Next week I'll be meeting with the Friends of Athletic Fields on Monday, Horizon House on Tuesday related to their development but also Freeway Park.

the Sound Transit meeting, and then Wednesday we'll have office comp plan office hours on Wednesday, and that'll be at the Queen Anne Coffee Company.

Thursday of next week, the Seattle Police Foundation Award Ceremony will be held by, which is now being overseen by Mr. Germany, who's taken up that role with the foundation, head of the foundation.

And then Friday, the MOHAI, very important, plus also the Orion Center Tour Youth Care.

very important location.

I've not been to the center itself yet, so it'll be a great tour.

And just as a follow-up from last week, had a great meeting, very good meeting with the Coalition for Rights and Safety and also the LGBTQ Plus Commission, where I did speak about looking at the Sentinel review related to the Cal Anderson protest from last week.

We'll do that in committee and work with our accountability partners as part of that process.

last week also had additional com plan meetings last Wednesday first downtown as you know the downtown regional plans being looked at so I met with representative of the downtown community council and later that night the had a meeting with the Queen Anne Community Council.

And then lastly, I just wanted to say thank you for everyone involved with our public safety walk that I did with Councilmember Lynn.

It was great.

We started off in Beacon Hill, great discussion, and great, you know, to review and see the challenges that are being faced.

And then we did the walk, came into the CID, and just seeing the different pieces, because I've been a couple of the places, and it was good to hear from the representatives, also from community members, organizations, and individuals themselves.

And it was really helpful.

And finally, supporting local business with Council Member Lynn and I getting lunch down there.

So that was pretty much the highlights coming up this week, next week, and also a quick look back last week.

And again, Public Safety Committee meeting tomorrow morning.

Thank you, President Pro Tem.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, President Pro Tem.

Yeah, so thank you to Councilmember Kettle for that public safety walk.

Really appreciated your attention to that matter.

Obviously, a lot of public safety needs in Little Saigon, North Beacon, CID in general, and At the same time, there's a lot to celebrate.

There's a lot of good work going on there.

There's a lot of attention from SPD, from the mayor's office.

and from community in uplifting their needs, including on Saturday there was a CID Lunar New Year celebration, and thankfully the rain held up briefly and just people were out in force shopping, enjoying community together.

And so don't want to always paint a bleary picture of the CID because there is a lot of good going on there.

A few other things.

Attended some meetings down in the Rainier Beach area, including Rainier Beach Action Coalition, youth-led discussion around public safety.

Always great to hear the youth perspective and to see them stepping up and leading community meetings.

Also attended a Somali Independent Business Association community forum, connecting our immigrant communities, our Somali community with resources, with government resources, information, and Council Member Foster's office was there as well.

And it's not just the Somali community that they provide services to, there's other immigrant communities there, other small businesses.

who really take advantage of the resources that that group provides.

Really enjoyed the Aurora Commons dinner on Saturday evening with a number of colleagues and just so impressed with what they do to create community, to welcome people in, to see people for who they are.

And I've said this before, I said this there, that could really have an Aurora Commons in Southeast Seattle.

They do such good work and I would love to see that replicated.

No land use committee meetings this week, but next week we'll have land use back.

We'll probably bring the FEMA floodplains back.

We're continuing to have discussions about the repeal of the the SOTO bill due to the Growth Management Hearing Board order.

And we'll have our first select committee on the comprehensive plan next Thursday.

So excited to move that forward.

And that's all I have for now.

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Rink, floor is yours.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Colleagues, I'll be brief today and just highlight a couple of community events before going into some of the committee work.

I had the honor of speaking both at the Women's March as well as the Rally to Take Back Science over the weekend.

I want to applaud our community members who came out in the rain.

It was cold.

I was drenched.

but it can be easy to show up when it's sunny outside at the park.

It's hard to show up in that kind of weather.

So I want to commend folks who turned out for International Women's Day to be in community and to honor women's history.

And I also want to, again, recognize the many researchers and folks who work in STEM who came out to the Take Back Science rally at Seattle Center as well.

It was incredible to connect with a number of folks who work in a variety of different industries, but also really understand and grapple with some of the impacts that are happening to our public health landscape, our research landscape, healthcare landscape, and so on.

And so just wanted to elevate those two things.

It was a great opportunity and want to thank again all of our community members who came out to lift up their voices this weekend.

I had the opportunity to also visit the Real-Time Crime Center alongside Councilmember Lynn, Thank you to SPD for facilitating this visit.

It was illuminating to see.

I'll note I still have some concerns and have some follow-up questions and lines of inquiry that I want to make sure we follow up on, but was grateful for the opportunity to see the system working in real time.

Additionally, I was able to attend a Iftar event with the Muslim Association of Puget Sound Maps last Tuesday, which was really great to just be in community at the mosque in Belltown.

so I was in District 7 on Tuesday.

And I'm moving to some committee work.

I want to thank everyone for attending last week's Federal Select Committee.

We had all nine members in attendance for a critical conversation on how the city is responding to actions by the federal government.

I want to thank again Councilmember Foster for bringing forth her resolution reaffirming data and privacy protections, as well as a thank you to the Mayor's Office and the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for their federal response update and for the Seattle Police Department who came to the table to discuss their immigration response policy.

These are all topics that we know have been top of mind for our community and I want to thank everyone again for attending this meeting.

I look forward to council voting on the resolution and getting the executive to report on these data and privacy protections.

as well as getting to share the community grants and information from OIRA to the community.

And then lastly, looking forward to seeing the specific policy manual update to 6.020 as mentioned in committee as it relates to SPD and their interactions with federal law enforcement.

The Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee met on Friday last week, so we had back-to-back committees for my team, so special shout-out to my team for helping make those two committee meetings happen last week.

And during that meeting, we heard directly from King County Regional Homelessness Authority on the continuum of care situation.

I know we'll be expecting updates coming out of the courts early this week.

if not today, hopefully tomorrow.

I know we're all eagerly waiting to understand where we go next with Continuum of Care.

And I'll note there is no Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee meeting this week.

We have one scheduled for next Friday.

We are still finalizing the agenda and we'll be sure to share once we have that finalized.

And with that, that concludes my updates.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much President Pro Tem, I appreciate it.

I will start with updates.

I had some great meetings last week and community events over the weekend.

Yesterday I got to join the Church of Christ and the University District for an outreach packing event where we put together supplies that the church uses to do outreach and that was really fantastic.

the members that gave me just such a warm welcome and I really appreciated the time I spent with them.

It was really lovely.

I also got to be at the Aurora Commons dinner and I share what my colleagues have already said.

It was just an incredible event and a really beautiful organization and it was an honor to to hear the stories from some of the people who both work and visit and are neighbors and of the Commons.

That was really lovely.

Last week we had a ton of great meetings.

I was really pleased to have some of the folks from Cher and Wheel in the office talking about the work that they do to provide shelter and especially their leadership model and their community ownership and community run approach that they take there.

That was really fantastic.

We had a great meeting with some of the leaders from the Domestic Workers Standards Board to hear about their progress over the last few years and what they've seen with the implementation of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and other associated legislation.

We also had a great meeting with the National League of Cities, and I got to get an onboarding briefing from OIR, the fabulous team there, focused on tribal relations.

And lastly, we met with the folks from Lime to talk about micromobility, which was fantastic.

Talking a little bit about work in committee, we have housing committee this week.

We're gonna have two briefings in committee.

One is SDCI will be here to talk to us about their role in implementing renter protections, landlord-tenant law inspections, and the various things that SDCI does related to housing.

and one of the things that's really near and dear to my heart, OH will be in doing a briefing on their home ownership program.

So folks know that I own my home because of down payment assistance and there's a lot more to home ownership investments outside of that, so OH will be in talking about that, which I'm really excited to do.

Oh, I forgot to mention, last week I also, along with Council Member Lynn, sent letters in support of federal resources to get some more investments for safety provisions, focused on some of our upgrade light rail to make sure there's sufficient investments in pedestrian safety there.

We know that's an ongoing issue.

And colleagues, thank you for your support and federal committee on my data resolution.

We are looking forward to bringing that to full council next week.

I do have an amendment that you all will have received to the staging bill that's being heard in public safety tomorrow.

Thank you to Council Member Lynn for sponsoring that so that we can bring that amendment forward.

It is a small but meaningful change that essentially allows us to move from saying city owned and controlled to city owned or controlled with a few other changes.

And that change will allow us to actually include, we believe around 40 additional properties and places where people are seeking care and services from the city.

a small but really meaningful change that I'm excited to bring forward.

Our office is also continuing to collaborate with the mayor's office.

You heard Kelsey, excuse me, the deputy chief of staff speak to this briefly when they were at the table last week regarding ensuring that the resources that the city is putting forward, that we can also work collaboratively with philanthropy and some of our other regional partners to ensure that we are doubling down on those resources and ensuring that they reach the maximum number of people.

So those are my updates.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Last but not least, yours truly.

All right, colleagues, on the substantive committee front in our Safety, Transportation, Engineering Projects, Sports and Experiences Committee, we held our last meeting last Thursday and Exciting meeting, the name of the game of that particular committee meeting was FIFA readiness and FIFA planning.

But first we kicked things off with a substantive briefing to check in on the status of the big Memorial Stadium renovation project at Seattle Center.

TLDR there has learned we're generally on track and on budget, which is good.

After that, the second item of business was again, FIFA readiness.

This particular briefing from Seattle Center, our partners at Seattle Center focused on the fan experience and what that looks like.

Also with folks from the local organizing committee.

Third and finally, we talked more again about FIFA.

This time the focus was on transit planning and what the kind of thresholds of expanded transit service is gonna look like at least at a high level at this stage.

So great briefing.

I walked away from that briefing very confident and energized that we're gonna have a successful event and really showcase the best that Seattle has to offer.

Also last week, I had my monthly transportation levy oversight committee, where amongst other things, the group discussed the 2026 levy delivery plan.

in the community, had some wonderful community meetings and events.

For example, met with Dr. Monica Brown, who is the president of South Seattle College.

Dr. Brown has been enrolled now for just over 18 months, but has already had a huge impact on the college and our community where her college operates, specifically West Seattle and Georgetown.

So South Seattle College is highly regarded for its hands-on professional and technical career training, particularly in its Georgetown campus, and was proud to share with her there at the time that I'm a proud graduate of our community college system myself before getting a law degree and my undergrad degree.

I started my educational journey, so to speak, in our vibrant community colleges, first at Green River Community College, also got a bachelor's or an associate's degree from Community College of the Air Force before going on to the University of Washington and eventually University of California Hastings College of Law.

and I'll call it something else, I don't know offhand.

But great meeting with Dr. Brown.

Last week also had the pleasure in honor of joining Mayor Wilson at the Hope Factory for her presser to discuss Some big legislation that she's transmitted as you all no doubt are aware, the mayor's office has transmitted legislation last week to vastly expand tiny home village capacity across our city with the intent of bringing online roughly 1000 beds this year.

And so it was a bit of a full circle moment because last year, maybe it was the year before in any event within the last year and a half I was able to attend personally and tour the Hope Factory where I saw firsthand the impact of volunteerism and the sheer volume of tiny homes that they're able to build and produce there.

So look forward to, it was honored to be able to join the mayor in announcing this initiative.

Look forward to diving deeper alongside you all colleagues in the substantive legislation to ultimately help ensure we build more capacity and meets the needs of our unhoused neighbors.

Finally, I'll note that I, was truly honored to attend the memorial on Saturday for a legendary West Seattleite, Georgie Kunkel.

I attended the memorial of the late Georgie Kunkel.

Georgie was a very prominent West Seattleite who passed away last fall at the age, at the impressive age of 105. So Georgie, among other talents and things, tremendous contributions that she had to our community, she was often known and referred to as the Rosie the Riveter of West Seattle, because she literally helped, worked in Boeing factories during World War II to put together planes and assemble planes.

She did so much, so many other terrific things in her life.

She was an educator, an activist, an artist, and so much more.

She was also very active in the West Seattle Democratic Women and was a prolific writer as well, including a guest columnist in what used to be known as the West Seattle Herald.

what is now in a digital-only format called West Side Seattle.

So I was also honored to be able to present her family with an honorary proclamation on behalf of me, but Georgie will be sorely missed.

Good news is the legacy, the enduring legacy that our Rosie the Riveter of West Seattle lives on.

In any event, that is all I have colleagues.

I welcome any questions, comments, if any.

If none, we will close her out.

Is there any final business to come before us for the good of the order?

Hearing and seeing none, we are adjourned.

It is 2.58 PM.