Seattle City Council Briefing 11/2/2020

This morning, so colleagues, I'm going to go ahead and start the meeting.

So good morning, colleagues.

The November 2nd, 2020 council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.30 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Herbold?

Juarez?

Lewis?

Morales?

Here.

Mosquera.

Sorry.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

Strauss.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

And Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll for Council Member Herbold and Juarez one more time?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Eight present.

Nine present.

Is there eight or nine?

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

All right, colleagues, we are all accounted for this morning.

Thank you so much.

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe Halloween weekend.

We're going to move into approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of October 26, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, again, good morning, colleagues.

We have a long council briefing agenda today, so I will endeavor to keep my president's report short.

First, at this afternoon's full council meeting, we have a very long agenda.

We will consider the payment of the bills, the introduction and referral calendar, and 33 other items of business.

Most of those items of business on this afternoon's full council agenda are appointments for the council's consideration, so I expect that we'll be able to move through them rather efficiently.

We will also accept public comment this afternoon, and consistent with the published agenda, the public comment period will be no more than 20 minutes this afternoon.

Second, just wanted to acknowledge that in communities across the country, including here in Seattle, Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020, is the last day to vote in our local and federal elections.

So first of all, please remember to vote by no later than 8 o'clock p.m.

tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020. Please remember that ballots must be postmarked or deposited in official elections office drop boxes by 8 o'clock p.m.

this Tuesday.

The city of Seattle, like so many others, has a historic number of people turning out to vote, and election officials predict that in Washington state, we will see a 90% voter turnout rate, which is astonishing, impressive, and really inspiring.

I know that many of our constituents are nervous about the outcome of our presidential election in particular.

And I know that many people across the city of Seattle are worried about the reaction that our fellow neighbors will have to election night results either tomorrow night or in the ensuing days.

It is critical for our constituents to know that the city of Seattle is prepared and as always, local government will be here to serve the people of Seattle no matter the outcome of the election.

Last week, members on the council did receive a communication from the mayor's office that was dated Friday, October 30th, 2020. at 1030 a.m.

And in that communication, we were advised by the mayor's office that, quote, as of this writing, the Seattle Police Department and partner law enforcement agencies do not have any intelligence to indicate that there are any threats for election day or the days following.

Our partners at King County Elections have not reported any threats or security issues at any ballot boxes.

As such, the Seattle Police Department Seattle Fire Department and other law enforcement agencies have been planning for contingency purposes only in order to be prepared for a wide range of scenarios.

Again, colleagues, we all received that same communication on Friday, October 30th.

In the morning, I think it was 1030. AM.

And so really do encourage you all to take a look at that communication if you've not had an opportunity to do so.

I know we were all in the throes of Select Budget Committee on Friday and may have missed that particular email.

Again, for our constituents, I think it's just really important that folks know that no matter what happens tomorrow here at the City of Seattle, we remain ready and prepared to serve all of our constituents and to make sure that we are holding each other in community and hopefully in celebration of a strong Democratic showing for tomorrow's election day.

Again, just remember, please vote, please do so safely.

Make sure that if you're going to the ballot drop boxes that you're practicing social distancing and wearing a mask.

And again, those ballots have to be in by 8 p.m.

tomorrow in an official drop box or at an election office.

So with that being said, that does conclude my president's report and happy to move directly now into our first briefing item.

unless any of my colleagues have any opening remarks to make.

Hearing none, let's go ahead and dig into our first presentation for this morning.

This is a presentation of the State Legislative Lobbying Agenda.

This morning we are joined by the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

to discuss the City of Seattle's 2021 State Lobbying Agenda.

This initial discussion will be the first of two Council briefing presentations related to the development of the lobbying agenda.

Today, our Office of Intergovernmental Relations will begin, will, excuse me, will give us an overview of the process to develop the agenda, and then we'll begin discussing at a very high level the legislative priorities that the Council would like to have advanced by our Office of Intergovernmental Relations State Lobbying Team, who is joining us this morning.

So, following today's discussion, we will have a 2nd briefing in approximately 1 month to review the draft agenda.

And then we'll take final action to formally adopt the agenda at a city council meeting in December.

So that's just a quick overview of the general process, but is going to lead us through the particulars here.

including how we can engage with OIR.

I know that they've been having meetings with many of us already and are hard at work.

So let's go ahead and begin with a quick round of introductions from our state lobbying team.

And then I will hand it over to Director Wilson-Kodega to begin the presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President, Council Members.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, OIR Director.

Robin Kosky, OIR Deputy Director.

and Majewski, State Relations Director.

Hannah Smith, Government Relations Program Director.

And I wanted to just start with a quick apology.

There's some building maintenance happening in my building.

So if any loud noises happen, I apologize for that in advance.

And we are before you today with an update on the upcoming legislative session as we work through the process of drafting your 2021 legislative agenda.

I'd first like to thank, as Council President Gonzalez noted, I'd like to thank many of you for taking the time to meet with us individually to review your specific legislative priorities for the upcoming session.

And for those of you who we have not had the opportunity to hear from just yet, we will work to get something on the calendar very soon.

Hannah is going to provide a little bit of a more in-depth timeline in her report today, but once we have incorporated feedback from you all from today and our individual meetings, we will then be before you again with a draft of a legislative agenda with the goal of adopting that agenda before the holiday recess.

So this upcoming session will be like no session in the history of this state.

The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic are enormous given the volume of legislators.

I know you've all figured out meetings at the city level, but the legislature is still working through some profound challenges logistically as it relates to this upcoming session.

Robin is going to speak a little bit to that in her report today.

just in terms of how that will impact logistics, how you all engage, and then just the volume of bills that they will be able to move forward this year.

But most importantly, I'd first like to start, we have a very new state legislative advocacy team.

So I wanted to start with an introduction, starting with Robin Kosky.

Many of you know Robin from her time at the Office of Housing.

She then became our state relations director last year.

Many thanks to Robin and Emily Alvarado at the Office of Housing for supporting our work when we were looking to fill that role in a short time frame.

And now Robin has moved into our deputy director role given Cheryl Schwab's departure earlier this year.

Quinn Majewski, who has experience in both the Washington State Legislature SDOT and formerly as our state lobbyist has now moved into our state relations director role overseeing our state advocacy portfolio in its entirety.

A big welcome to Quinn.

And again, thank you to Quinn and Director Zimbabwe.

We're so glad to have Quinn heading up our state program at OIR.

And last but not least, many of you have worked with Hannah Smith, most recently managing our federal relations portfolio as our acting federal relations director while Sierra was out on maternity leave.

Now, Hana has graciously shifted over to join the state lobby team as our government affairs program manager.

So many changes.

That being said, you all know you can email any of us and we'll make sure it gets to the right person managing the right portfolio.

And just lastly, I wanted to recognize, given this moment in history, and the council's commitment to centering our work in racial justice.

Um, we are very appreciative of the time that members, uh, legislative leaders in the black caucus and members of color caucus, as well as Senator Jamie Peterson and representative Goodman have taken, um, a significant amount of time this interim to work through issue issues in the criminal justice and police reform portfolio, which Robin will review next.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

First, I thought I'd just take this opportunity to talk a little bit more about the general overview.

As Lily said, I think it's going to be a very different legislative session than we've ever seen before.

Hopefully that will make it easier for members of council to engage because it won't be necessary to go down to Olympia to testify or meet with legislators.

So I'm hoping that we can help you facilitate meetings much more easily during this session, especially when there are quite a few things that we really want to see happen this legislative session.

Lawmakers have been signaling that they're going to be very focused on a few issues in this session that will be almost entirely virtual.

Those three areas of focus are the budget, of course.

COVID-19 has caused quite some havoc on the state budget.

You are all grappling with the impacts of that on the local level, and the state has a similar situation.

Coronavirus relief, that will be another area of focus.

And of course, as Lily mentioned, police reform.

Those three issues will be the things that I think receive the most airtime and will be the most likely to be able to advance this year.

As far as the budget is concerned, the revenue forecast that came in a few weeks ago was quite a bit better than expected and quite a bit better than what was forecasted in June.

There was nearly a $9 billion shortfall projected through the biennium in 2023. and now that's been cut in half to only 4.2 billion.

While that is a significant improvement, of course, many things are quite tenuous with these budget forecasts because no one's quite dealt with situation like COVID and a pandemic affecting the economy.

So while it's more optimistic, there's still quite a few pressures on the budget.

And of course, the outcomes of the federal elections will influence potential stimulus funds received by the state and also impact the state budget.

Quinn will address progressive revenue later this morning, but we do know that lawmakers have said in terms of revenue that nothing is off the table at this point in time.

And they are looking at a range of options to raise progressive revenue for the state.

We understand that as far as the virtual session goes, the House will be fully remote and the Senate will be a hybrid of remote and in-person, but still mostly remote.

This slows the process down significantly.

Technological difficulties really present some issues.

Also, things of staffing, obviously not as many legislative staff can be in a room together or down at the Capitol.

So that just has some impacts.

During committee days in late September, there was only one hearing held at a time, which of course significantly reduces the number of things that can happen.

During a normal session, there's often four or five, six, seven, eight things going on at the same time.

I don't think they're entirely sure how everything is going to go, but I think we can just assume that the volume of what will happen is going to be much less than it would be in a normal year.

We're also being told that each legislative, each lawmaker will only, you know, they could, they're not essentially saying you can only introduce a number of bills, but they are saying that you should really focus on two or three different proposals that you want to see advance, you know, rather than the many, many that lawmakers often introduce in a regular long session.

And we're also hearing that in order to proceed, unless it's in one of these top three areas of coronavirus relief, budget, or police reform, that there will need to be substantial agreement on proposals for them to move forward because they're not going to want to waste a lot of time on the House or Senate floor to engage in controversial conversations in order to just get the normal business of the legislature done.

So all of those things add up to, you know, I think us as a city needing to be focused on what our priorities are so that we can hope to get things advanced this legislative session.

So if anybody, I'll pause for a moment and just see if anybody has any questions about sort of the procedure and the lay of the land for this year.

Colleagues, any questions?

It looks like there aren't any, Robin, so you can go ahead and proceed.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm going to move now into discussing police reform right now.

I just want everyone to know that, of course, you know, the process of the setting of the legislative agenda, we ask all of the departments and agencies to submit their legislative priorities to us.

That process has happened and we have incorporated all of their feedback into our legislative agenda.

So that means that we have the Community Police Commission, the Office of the Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability legislative agenda items incorporated into our police reform proposals.

We have heard that at the state level there are over 60 bills on police reform that have been introduced.

We also understand that there's an effort to kind of collect things into omnibus bills to move things forward more easily and just have less proposals on the floor.

So there's a focus on a number of different issue areas that I think, you know, we're supportive of at the city of Seattle, but many of these things we have already adopted.

So, you know, we're going to probably be looking into some other areas, but the issue areas are, that they're focusing on are tactics, which is things like prohibiting no-knock warrants, badge covering, banning the use of military equipment or purchase of military equipment, and then limiting less than lethal tactics of policing.

Training is another area of focus, and this includes things like de-escalation, implicit bias, and even some technology so that officers might be able to access training from their cell phones on a daily basis.

Investigations and prosecutions, of course, is emerging as something with independent investigations, establishing an independent investigation agency, potentially creating a special prosecutor's office, and performing post-investigation audits.

The police funding aspect of things at the state level is a little different than it is at the local level.

They're looking at adding funding for programs that provide alternatives to policing.

Of course, that's difficult in a budget year when we're just trying to keep existing services that the state offers.

But there are exploration of things like LEAD and the sequential intercept model as well as expanding funding for behavioral health and looking at 911 dispatch reform.

There's a lot of work on accountability and transparency, decertification, which includes, and also obligation to intervene, obligation to report, disciplinary action for lying on the stand or in a police report, and also mandating community accountability and public funding for a public-facing database on police reform.

So as I said, you know, as we are supportive of all of these efforts at the state level, we also recognize that many of you are very focused on arbitration reforms, as is the Community Police Commission, the Office of the Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability.

as well as advocates in the community.

So we do plan to work in coalition with other larger Washington cities and advocates to address this important issue and make sure that it is a significant point of conversation in Olympia.

I guess just to kind of close out police reform, I would say that we understand that the decertification proposal that's being led by Senator Jamie Peterson and Representative Goodman in the House is a significant area of focus for legislators.

And it's a very significant piece of legislation.

It's 41 pages long.

It goes through all sorts of things in the decertification process from changing the mission of the Criminal Justice Training Commission to expanding mandatory and discretionary revocation criteria, and even changes the proof in a hearing on disciplinary action from preponderance to preponderance of the evidence.

So some significant changes being looked at there for sure.

We're also hearing that qualified immunity, establishing a state We are waiting to see what the recommendations of the governor's task force will be.

proposals there.

And I'm also going to shift to housing, but I'll pause here to see if anyone has any questions on police reform, since this is such a significant issue for us this year.

Thank you, Robin, for that high level view of what you're hearing coming out of our state legislature.

Really appreciate it.

Colleagues, any comments or questions for Robin as it relates to the police reform aspects of her report?

Council Member Hurdle, please.

Thank you, and thank you, Robin.

As it relates specifically to reform to the arbitration process, you did mention that we will be working with other Washington cities to talk about how to advance that conversation.

Do you see that as being on a different timeline or a different track from the state legislative agenda?

I recall that I had heard that it was unlikely that items that had an intersection with labor negotiations were likely to be proposed during this legislative session.

You know, I think that I'm hearing from your colleagues and other colleagues in other larger Washington cities that there's definitely some movement to make sure that we discuss arbitration during this legislative session.

You know, as I said, I think, you know, many of the reforms that are being discussed have already been adopted in Seattle.

I mean, I think if you tick down that list, I don't know what the percentage would be, but I think it's quite high.

And I am hearing from the advocacy community as well as, you know, council members and mayors around the state that some changes to arbitration are, would be extremely helpful to making significant change in our policing.

So I do think that, you know, efforts will be made to pursue that during this legislative session.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments on the police reform aspects of Robin's report?

OK, hearing none, Robin, I know that you are having communications with many of my colleagues as you all are working on putting together your state legislative lobbying agenda.

I think many of the issues that you have highlighted in the area of police reform and accountability at the state level are critically important.

And as you've mentioned, Seattle has already implemented many of those proposals at the local level.

And so I do want to signal sort of a strong support and hope that those will become statewide standards, with the understanding that they're not perfect mechanisms and that to the extent that there could be some modification even at the state level from the standards that we've adopted, that that would, I think, be a wise exercise to do, to sort of have a lessons learned approach would would be, I think, a wise one.

And then secondly, as it relates to arbitration, I signaled, I communicated this to you all in our meeting that that is a top priority for me as somebody who's been working in the area of police reform and accountability for well over 15 years, first as a civil rights attorney and then now as a council member.

And so I the issues related to arbitration and whether it's binding or not binding and whether it's open or closed to the public and how much value is placed on precedent versus de novo review of issues is absolutely critically important to the issues related to public trust and confidence in our civilian-led accountability system.

And arbitration has systematically, I believe, undermined, in the context of police unions, has consistently undermined the public's confidence in accountability systems.

having the intended effect and outcome of actually holding officers accountable for behaving in a way that is out of policy.

And that to me is tragic, problematic, and will continue to be one of the root causes of why the public has lost confidence in our accountability systems.

And I think it's really, really important for us to be on the same page as it relates to what we want to see reformed in the arbitration process as it relates to police unions and why.

And so I'm willing to continue to work with you all on making sure that we are as aligned as we can be as a city, certainly from the city council's perspective on some of those important issues.

And I know those of us who sit on the Labor Relations Policy Committee have a lot of thoughts and ideas in this space and are continuing to explore that in that confidential setting.

But I'm always happy to continue to have conversations with you all in order to make this a significant and top priority for the city.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I do think we will be calling on you, possibly more than usual, for your support to move this, particularly arbitration, but other issues of police reform forward in Olympia.

So thank you very much.

All right, Robin.

Housing.

You want to dig into housing?

Housing, I think this will be fairly quick.

Of course, I know that you all know you have a strong housing advocate here after many, many years at the Office of Housing.

There are a number of proposals, and of course, I think that we will be called on to work to protect some funding in housing areas, just given the budget and what's happening.

But there will be a push, and this is included on our legislative agenda, to significantly increase the document recording fee that provides vital resources for homelessness.

An investment of $250 million in the housing trust fund, rental assistance to prevent people who have been impacted by COVID-19 from losing their homes, and also memorializing some of the eviction moratorium.

provisions to make sure that people don't lose their homes to eviction.

Then, of course, the Office of Housing has embarked on an ambitious proposal to create 600 units of permanent supportive housing, so looking to the state to provide some operations and maintenance resources to support that permanent supportive housing, and then also offer expansion to possibly do more in the future.

The good cause eviction proposal will also be on our legislative agenda to also, you know, support the statewide inaction of that, which we already have locally, but also to close some loopholes that exist in our local legislation.

Foreclosure prevention, and then, of course, the Housing Justice Act, which bans discrimination based on criminal records, just supporting that so that could be statewide.

And then finally, you know, just the overall budget protection, as I mentioned.

Thank you very much, everyone.

And if there are no questions on housing, then we will go to our state relations director, Quinn Majewski.

Any questions on housing?

I see Council Member Sawant.

And if anyone else has any questions, please do feel free to raise your hands.

Council Member Sawant, please.

Thank you.

First of all, I just wanted to say my office strongly supports the just cause eviction protections at the state level.

I think that is I wanted to ask a couple of questions related to housing.

One is, there has been a real call from renters and also now working class and middle class homeowners who may have had long-term income loss or even job losses.

uh, to understand what their fate is going to be once the moratoriums on the evictions expire.

So, uh, what conversations have there been at the state level, uh, among the, um, among the elected officials about canceling the rent mortgage and utility payments for all of this year?

To prevent what we know analysts nationwide have said, you know, if, if we don't do that, then there will be a massive wave of evictions, when the moratoriums expire it's not just a Seattle or Washington question so that's one question.

Let me go ahead and ask some of my other questions related to housing.

The other is the last biennium the state invested what I think is a pitiful hundred and $75 million in housing you know so over two years.

And so what is the conversation there about any potential increases in funding for affordable housing?

And I wanted to tie this to another thing that I'll go ahead and mention, which you haven't mentioned, unfortunately, which I think is the main issue that is looming over the horizon.

And so I feel like our state Legislature report should basically start with that, which is the $4.2 billion biennial shortfall in the state budget.

Primarily, what is the conversation?

And this is a larger question beyond housing.

What is the conversation about preventing these cuts, the shortfall from landing on ordinary people in the form of budget cuts, which are due to services and housing that is already chronically underfunded?

And then specifically on housing, what is the proposal to make this all add up when we are facing such a massive shortfall in the budget?

to prevent cuts to existing funds on housing, and then how is that going to be tied to what is actually needed, which is increases in the funds for housing.

Thank you, Council Member Swant.

I think I will answer those questions in the order that you asked them.

The governor has convened a work group of both property owners and tenants and advocates, and they have been having discussions about what to do to address the eviction moratorium ending.

And I think that it is widely recognized that this is a very large problem.

I don't think anyone has the answers quite yet.

And I also think that a lot of this also depends on, as I said, you know, the federal government and providing additional resources for rental assistance.

You know, we did think that there might be another stimulus package coming through this fall, that with the election tomorrow, that didn't happen.

And I think that, you know, everyone is kind of waiting to see the outcome of the election, to see how many resources will be available.

I think under any circumstance, there's likely to be some additional stimulus funds, but depending on the outcome, there's obviously wildly different scenarios of what might happen.

And so I think lawmakers at the state level are waiting to see what happens there before they make additional decisions.

So, You know, it is certainly on the minds of many in Olympia and is a significant issue, of course.

And I think that, you know, falls under the COVID-19 relief umbrella.

And if I didn't give that enough, you know, airtime, I apologize.

But it is absolutely something that's considered very important.

As far as the investment in housing, you know, advocates at the Housing Alliance, who we work very closely with, are suggesting that, or signaling at this moment, that their ask will be $250 million for the Housing Trust Fund, which is a little bit more than the $175 million.

I think that that would be, you know, one of the higher investments in the Housing Trust Fund at the state level.

And I will say that, You know, although of course we'd always like to see more and more investment in housing at the state level, when the governor made cuts, vetoed various line items in the budget in order to, you know, try and address the impacts that COVID was having on state revenue, he did not cut any housing or homelessness programs and almost no other area of the budget came out unscathed.

So that was, I think, a signal of how important housing and homelessness is considered by state lawmakers for sure.

And then, you know, finally, your last question.

Quinn is going to talk a little bit more about the progressive revenue on our legislative agenda.

And as I said, you know, lawmakers haven't really come out with what their plan is, but we've talked with leadership on all of the finance committees and appropriations committees.

And they've all assured us that there's really no proposal that's off the table at the moment and that they are discussing, you know, all sorts of different scenarios while they haven't shared exactly what their plan moving forward will be.

But Quinn will also talk about that a little bit more as part of his presentation coming up right now.

Thank you.

Marcella, any follow-up questions?

I think I do, but it might make sense for Quinn and others to speak and maybe later.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Robin, for those responses.

So it sounds like we're going to head over to Quinn now, since your name has been evoked a few times already.

So Quinn, welcome.

Thank you for being with us this morning and take it away.

Thank you so much for having us, Council Members and Council President Gonzalez.

So I'm gonna cover most of the remaining topics on the legislative agenda, just to give sort of a preview of what we're looking at.

By way of background, the legislative agenda is our guiding document down in Olympia, provides the framework for us as both as the values that we represent as a city, but also the issues that we are allowed to lobby on.

As such, it is a broad document that includes a wide range of issues.

going to try to touch on.

The highlights of those broad issues and a couple specifics, but from the outset, I'll just note that as we have been building this year's legislative agenda, we have used last year's as sort of a base.

So if there is an issue that you are passionate about and you feel is important, if it was in last year's legislative agenda, it is almost certainly in this year's.

The only reason that it wouldn't be is if it's no longer relevant.

For example, we removed automated enforcement after the bill passed last year.

With that, I will go ahead and jump in and I'll try to just hit all of these highlights as quickly as possible and then.

we can take what I'm sure will be a variety of questions.

Robin covered a few elements of COVID recovery, but we have added a new section, obviously, as the city and communities around the country and the world grapple with the public health crisis that is COVID.

The city supports rental and homeowner assistance to ensure that folks who are experiencing economic hardship are not driven out of their homes.

Similarly, the city supports utility assistance to ensure that heat and water access don't drag folks into poverty.

The city supports assistance for undocumented immigrants.

Most federal programs don't cover undocumented immigrants, unfortunately, and while the state recently announced a relief fund, more can be done and should be done.

And finally, in this category, the city supports ensuring that business interruption insurance covers COVID, possibly the most significant business interruption that any business has ever experienced.

And apparently there are some insurance plans that do not.

So working with the insurance commissioner to make sure that those are covered.

Moving on to progressive revenue, the city supports progressive state solutions that preserve critical programs while reforming our upside down tax structure.

Obviously, this has been an issue that the city has been supportive of for many years.

I think it is more acutely felt now than ever with COVID.

both the need for more progressive taxation and to reduce our reliance on regressive taxes, but also to ensure that funding for critical programs that serve our most needy populations and individuals that need the most support are preserved and expanded at the state level.

The city also supports maintaining and expanding local options for more progressive taxation, as well as continued support for lifting the 1% cap on growth and property tax receipts that artificially curtails the city's budget, allowing us to more adequately respond to the variety of issues that we have at the local level.

In education and early learning, the city supports full funding for public education.

That includes everything from pre-K to protecting and expanding on McCleary in K through 12, to financial aid and programmatic improvements to higher education, including free community and technical college.

The city supports expanding access and the availability of childcare, as well as increasing reimbursement rates for providers, many of whom are struggling during this crisis, as are many parents who need childcare now or will need it when we eventually return to work and want to make sure that those facilities and providers remain open throughout and after this crisis.

The next category is broadly economic justice and worker protections.

The city supports secure scheduling statewide, ending the misclassification of workers and portable benefits that move with workers between jobs.

The city supports extending important workplace protections through a statewide domestic workers bill of rights, broad protections for the rights programs and services for immigrants, regardless of documentation status.

and addressing regulatory hurdles for money transmitters, many of whom are immigrants and are experiencing issues in providing the service that they and their community need.

In criminal justice, the city supports easing the transition for previously incarcerated individuals and expanding diversion programs to direct low-level offenders to services and away from the carceral system.

The city also supports reforms to DWLS-3, driving while license suspended free, the less technical wonky term for it, which is delinking license suspensions from nonpayments of traffic citations, which forms a a vicious cycle for folks who are in poverty and become trapped in poverty.

The city supports increasing protections for domestic violence victims, full funding to process the sexual assault evidence kit testing backlog, vacating convictions for those engaged in sex work, while strengthening consequences for those who are profiting from that exploitation.

and the city supports reforms to the cannabis market system, including easing the barriers of entry for marijuana delivery, increasing the licenses available to Black-owned businesses and increasing the ownership of those businesses, and redistributing cannabis revenues to address the historical inequities caused by over-policing of marijuana offenses in BIPOC community.

In climate action and environmental justice, the city supports policies and programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions broadly.

The city supports preserving and expanding programs that ensure clean water, storm water management, toxic cleanup and regulation, and climate resiliency, especially for communities of color who have historically borne the brunt of environmental pollution.

The city supports encouraging growth in urban areas and expanding the availability of green space and vehicle and building electrification to help us meet our climate goals.

Lastly, in transportation, there is a new acute need since last year's legislative agenda.

So there's a new section that includes support for state funding for the West Seattle High Bridge repair or replacement that will reconnect West Seattle to Seattle and the region and also reconnect the Port of Seattle and the maritime industrial areas to businesses and industries across the state.

The city also supports state funding proposals that include major investment in maintenance and preservation, transit, active transportation, and green transportation, expanding local transportation revenue options, improving traffic safety, particularly for vulnerable users, and expanding the use of non-uniformed officers for traffic management and event management.

I'll pause there for questions.

I do wanna, Hana will in just a moment cover human services issues, but I'll stop there and see if there are any questions on sort of that wide ranging gamut of issues that we're expecting for our draft legislative agenda.

Thank you, Quinn.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

Appreciate it, Quinn.

Could you just talk a little bit more in detail about what the transportation funds related options might be for addressing the needs associated with the closure of the West Seattle Bridge?

And thank you very much for putting it within the context of not just the needs of residents of West Seattle and the surrounding neighborhoods, but also within a larger umbrella of regional needs associated with our economic fatality.

Absolutely.

That's a good point.

And I know a message that's important because it is not just an asset for the city, but for the region and the state.

Just to clarify, Council Member Herbold, did you want to hear more about the potential local transportation options or the options that the state is considering for a statewide transportation revenue package?

All.

Of course.

So last year, several members in transportation considered various forms of a statewide transportation revenue package.

Senator Steve Hobbs, who's the chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, put out a proposal.

that would have funded a wide variety of projects.

His proposal was predominantly but not exclusively funded by a carbon pricing system.

I think there's a lot of interest in that as a revenue option, at least as sort of the predominant option in addition to some of the more traditional vehicle weight fees and sort of supplementary options.

There was also in that proposal a statewide commercial impact fee, as well as a statewide TNC fee, neither of which would have preempted the city, although that is something that we are always on the lookout for and aware of.

Representative Jake Fye, who's the chair of the House Transportation Committee, has been holding a wide range of listening sessions this interim to develop a proposal that he's putting together.

Those have included meetings with a whole range of stakeholders.

The city of Seattle has participated in two of those, but they cover the range from labor to environmental activists to transit activists to Businesses and the business community, so they're really working to hear from everybody as they assemble their package.

And then I know a handful of other legislators are considering various forms or prioritized lists of projects.

Obviously, last year, the West Seattle Bridge was not yet the issue that we knew it to be.

So the proposals from last year don't include it, but we are engaging with legislators to ensure that that does wind up in the proposals.

And if something ultimately passes, that it is included.

At the local level, I think the most momentum does seem to be around expanding options that already exist for local governments.

predominantly through the Transportation Benefit District expanding the sales tax as well as providing some additional utility tax authority.

The one new proposal that does seem to have some momentum that was introduced last year and seems likely to move forward if a broader package moves forward is a local option gas tax.

There, you know, we're continuing to look at trying to push for some more progressive options, but those are the ones that are sort of most in play among legislators and other stakeholders.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Quinn?

Council Member Peterson, please, and then Council Member Solano.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, OIR team.

We appreciate this.

Very informative.

And thank you for taking the time to meet with some of us already.

Regarding state taxes, state tax laws, I had understood that if additional progressive revenue were introduced and we wanted to locally reduce the sales tax, There would be some limitation to doing that, or if we reduce it at the city level, the county can just scoop up the revenue from that so that the consumer is still paying the same sales tax.

But if we really wanted to reduce the sales tax for the end consumer and user of that, there would need to be a change to state law.

Could you talk about that a little bit?

I can talk briefly about that.

It's an issue that, and Council Member, I appreciate your office flagging this for us.

It's an issue that is a little arcane and that I'm frankly still delving into.

But yes, it does appear that there would need to be a change in state law.

Currently, cities and counties have almost a reciprocal sales tax authority.

If we reduced our sales tax, it would in effect be absorbed by King County by default.

So we would need to proceed with a change in state law to allow us to reduce our sales tax without it automatically being absorbed by the county.

And I know that's of interest to you and potentially other council members.

So that's something that we are digging into more and we'll continue to work with you on advancing that proposal.

Thank you.

And just to clarify, I would really like to see the state enact additional progressive revenue so that we have a net gain in revenue to the city of Seattle for our priorities.

It would also be nice to reduce some of the regressive taxes if we could.

Again, still ending up with a net gain in revenue, but softening the pain of the regressive sales tax would be helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Szilagyi.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

So sorry if I missed you mentioning this, Quinn.

So the question I had was, is there actual momentum for a significant tax or any tax on big business?

I know you said a few things, but I didn't quite catch if there was anything concrete happening at the state level to either increased taxes on big business or to have a closing of the existing corporate tax loopholes or taxes on wealthy households.

I mean, I know there's talk about it, but there's talk about it every year.

The question is, is there more momentum this year, given there is an even more increased suffering for working people and marginalized communities with both joblessness.

And even if the joblessness may have recovered a little bit, there's been significant income losses and also confronting the realities of the pandemic.

So that's one question.

And related to that, is there momentum for significant capital gains tax or any other kind of progressive taxes?

And then related to that is, what are we hearing more recently on any potential preemption of municipal big business taxes because we know earlier this year when we were pushing for the tax here, big business tax here, I know there was conversation there because our movement actually went there and confronted legislators face-to-face saying you can't do this.

This is just not conscionable.

And that was defeated because ordinary people fought back.

But now we've heard from the central budget office here in the city when they presented the mayor's proposed budget that there might be a danger that state lawmakers would again talk about preempting the tax that was passed in the city.

So I just wanted to hear what you've heard about that.

Thank you.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Apologies.

I got wrapped up in discussing the draft legislative agenda, and I apologize for not...

No need to apologize at all.

Thank you.

But yes, so I would say that there is more momentum this year for progressive taxation than in previous years.

To be frank, I think there is perhaps less momentum than there was in the summer when the budget gap was bigger.

Over the summer, the revenue forecast had the four-year budget outlook at almost $10 billion.

Obviously that is less now, and while I believe $4.6 billion is no small gap, I will say there is perhaps slightly less consensus.

That said, I do think that there is a possibility for more progressive revenue at the state level this year, not just from advocates but hearing from legislators and from from leaders in the budget committees.

They have made clear that all options are on the table, and I do think that you know, thinking about something like a capital gains tax or.

Uh, you know, a tax on excess excess compensation.

I do think that those are possibilities.

It is a difficult thing to to try to prognosticate, especially.

before we've gotten to the legislative session, but that is sort of my best guess, in my sense, from the conversations that we've had from legislators and stakeholders.

With regards to preemption, again, as Robin said, I think, you know, and with regards to progressive revenue as well, you know, while all options are on the table, I do think that budget leaders are, in some senses, holding their cards close to their chest.

I think that preemption is something we always need to be on the lookout for, not just on revenue, but in regulatory elements of the city.

Again, I know this is not the best answer, but it's the most truthful answer.

It is something that we have heard rumors about, but it is not something that there has been any sort of definitive movement on.

So while we remain vigilant on preemption, I don't know that we can say definitively that there's an effort to try to preempt the city's progressive revenue sources.

But yeah, please keep an eye on that.

And I know everybody in the council will be interested in learning about that.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Quinn.

Any other questions for Quinn?

Okay, hearing none, let's keep going through the presentation.

We unfortunately are running out of time here.

So we probably have about eight minutes or so since we got started a little later on this presentation.

So just doing a quick little time check here for purposes of the rest of the presentation.

Okay.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Members.

For the human services portfolio this session, we're going to be focused on preserving programs and fighting not to lose any ground and really focus on protecting the social safety net.

With such a big budget gap and so little of the state budget being flexible, we're hearing that human services programs are an area for potential cuts.

Some of the policies that passed last session, implementation was delayed in that first round of budget vetoes early on in the pandemic.

So we'll be fighting to get those implemented as well this year.

An example of that is the extension of Medicaid to 12 months postpartum, which was something many of you council members were interested in last session.

That will be back and we'll be working on that as well.

Some good news with the pandemic was that there's increased flexibility for some programs like telehealth and human service advocates will be looking to make some of those changes of flexibility more permanent through legislation.

One area we're watching closely that's a high priority for HSD is long-term care services.

Again, there's some threat to budget cuts there.

But as the pandemic continues, we know that providing care to the elderly and others in home versus a nursing home is even more important.

So we'll be working to protect funding for that.

Homelessness funding and support will be always fighting for additional funding for COVID safe shelter and day and hygiene centers and behavioral health.

There's been a lot of work being done by the behavioral health Recovery System Transformation Task Force.

That group includes legislators and staff.

They just completed and presented draft recommendations in the last week or so for consideration in 2021. We'll be watching those to see what really shakes out in legislation, but the recommendations include some state oversight and coordination, workforce enhancements to encourage people to enter the behavioral health field, developing additional physical infrastructure so there are options for more care settings, and many other items.

So we know that the human services safety net is one that people always rely on, and that is especially true now with increased economic struggles and health uncertainty.

So that's where we'll be watching and know in our conversations with some of you so far that HED, TANF, food and other programs are really important to continue protecting and also making sure that they can be accessed by undocumented and immigrant communities.

So that's my quick overview of what we expect in the human services portfolio.

If there are questions.

Colleagues, any questions or comments for Hannah?

It looks like I'm not seeing any hands being raised, so it looks like people understand that clearly.

I do want to thank you for emphasizing that last point around equal access to human service human services programs for immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status.

Really do appreciate the emphasis on that and appreciate the governor's recent announcement around a fund specifically for immigrants and immigrants who are undocumented and want to continue to be a good partner at the city on making sure that limited dollars at the state are not excluding some of our most vulnerable populations, which of course are the undocumented immigrant population, since they have zero access to any other type of federal relief in the COVID recovery packages.

So really appreciate our ongoing collaboration in that space.

So thank you for that.

Definitely.

Go ahead, Hannah.

With that, I was just going to close out with a little bit of next steps for the legislative agenda.

Sounds good.

Looks like we're ready for that.

Great.

So as the Council President mentioned, we will be back in front of you on November 30th.

Between now and then, we'll continue to get input from all of you, those of you who we haven't met yet, and also have a draft out to you shortly so you can look at the actual language and give us some feedback.

And then we will be here on November 30th for passage in early December, and then session starts January 11th, which is already feeling very soon for us.

And then heading into session, while there's still a lot of unknowns, we really hope that without Trips to Olympia, we can pull you into some advocacy easier than normal.

So we will definitely be asking for your help and support on many of your priority areas.

Thank you, Hannah.

Lily, anything else you want to add before I close this out?

No, I think that concludes our report today.

Thank you so much for having us and look forward to briefing you again.

And we'll make sure to get a draft agenda out as soon as we have an opportunity to meet with you all individually.

I know we still have a few meetings to schedule, so look forward to speaking with the rest of you, incorporating all your feedback, and then sending you a document review.

Great, thank you.

Well, colleagues, I hope you will join me in thanking the state lobbying team under the leadership of Director Wilson-Kodega.

I really do appreciate all your effort in bringing us this presentation this morning and in doing the research work in order to create a broad set of priorities for the city as we head into this very unique, historic, unlike any other legislative session and really do recognize that it's going to be even more extraordinary work and require even more extraordinary effort than usual and really appreciate the opportunity to continue to connect with you all to make sure that the City Council's priorities are baked into the state lobbying agenda.

And I know that many of us stand at the ready to make those calls and have those meetings with our state legislators to be helpful and accessible as we continue to make the case for why certain statewide legislative fixes are important, not just to Seattle, but the entire state of Washington.

So really appreciate your all's ongoing work.

Colleagues, this work will be happening during our budget session.

We will take final action on the draft legislative lobbying agenda in December, but much of the background development work will be occurring during our budget session.

So I just want you to be aware of the fact that that work is going to be happening and that it would be really helpful to The state lobbying team for you all to keep an eye out for those communications and to create a little bit of time in your schedule and in the schedule of your staff members to review the lobbying agenda and to provide our state lobbying team with some feedback in order to make sure that the lobbying agenda does reflect our priorities and that that is what will be presented in front of us in December.

That doesn't mean that there won't be an opportunity to make changes or proposed modifications to the state lobbying agenda when we consider it in December, but we do like to have as close to a final form by the time that we get to that juncture of considering the final lobbying agenda.

keep an eye out for communication from the good folks who are with us this morning to make sure that we are being responsive to their requests.

And I know that's hard because we're in the middle of budget, but do appreciate you all taking an extra step to monitoring your inboxes accordingly.

So thank you all to our state lobbying team.

Thank you for being with us.

And we look forward to hosting you back here in December.

Until then.

Thank you, Council President.

Okay, folks, we're going to move into our next section of the agenda, which is a discussion on the preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

I'll call on council members as established by the rotated roll call this morning, which is council member Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, and then I will conclude this portion of the agenda before we head into our executive sessions.

As a reminder, on today's agenda.

We do have two executive sessions scheduled.

So I do expect that we will go until about close to noon today.

So keep that in mind as we're all giving our reports.

So let's go ahead and dig into the preview of today's City Council Actions Council and Regional Committees.

We'll start with Council Member Herbold, and then we will hear from Council Member Juarez.

Thank you so much.

Just following up on some of the remarks that Council President Gonzalez made in the opening related to planning activities by SPD and other city agencies regarding the election.

I did speak with Interim Chief Diaz last week and he has indicated that the Seattle Police Department has engaged in a wide variety of planning regarding activities after the election.

As the most recent update from Council members received said, the Office of Emergency Management has been coordinating with agencies across Washington State to ensure that Election Day and potentially the days and weeks following proceeds as smoothly as possible.

The Office of Emergency Management and City Departments will be on standby should the need arise and are prepared for real-time coordination of any response with internal and external partners throughout the week of the election and beyond if needed.

The executive notes that they will provide real-time updates on election night and beyond should they become necessary.

My weekly update on the Seattle Fire Department's innovative COVID-19 testing shows that the administration of testing at their four sites is now nearly 310,000 tests delivered between June 5th and October 31st.

New case reports for the last week are as high as they have been since the start of the pandemic, and countywide there have been 1,150 new reported cases in the last four days.

Please continue to practice public health recommendations regarding social distancing and mask wearing.

Just as far as adding a little bit more about activities coming up this week, on Wednesday I have a regional policy committee meeting and last week attended the West Seattle We had this conversation with the mayor after review of the final cost-benefit analysis about whether to repair or replace the west Seattle bridge.

the council briefing meeting coming up next Monday.

So we'll have an opportunity to hear from SDOT, and I believe we're also going to be hearing from the council's independent consultant on this project.

And I think that's all I have.

No items on the full council agenda and no committee meeting coming up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any comments or questions for Council Member Herbold?

Okay, hearing none, we're gonna go ahead and hear now from Council Member Juarez, and then after Council Member Juarez will be Council Member Lewis.

Good morning.

I think Council Member Juarez is on mute.

Man, am I finally unmuted?

Yeah, we can hear you now.

Thank you.

I was talking away.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, everybody.

There are no items of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

I want to give you an update, though, on the Office of the Waterfront, Pier 58. Office of the Waterfront reports a successful operation to remove the center connection of the pier to isolate the south half and the north half.

This work was completed on October 28th.

And the next week, Office of the Waterfront anticipates that the timber deck and the piles adjacent to Pier 57 will be removed and that additional concrete elements adjacent to the seawall will be removed.

The contractor will also begin offloading and processing a full barge of removed materials at its base in Tacoma.

Week ahead, besides tomorrow, November 4th, I have a Sound Transit Rider Experience Operations Committee meeting.

As you know, I'm a member of the Sound Transit Board.

Last week, I participated in an event hosted by Town Hall Seattle and Seattle University and moderated by Joni Balter and Dr. Larry Hubbell, Professor of Seattle University's Institute of Public Policy with former Council President Bruce Harrell.

This marks the seventh year of the series and focuses on current issues faced by local governments, such as Seattle.

And the event was interestingly titled, Is Seattle Becoming Ungovernable?

Other than that, I have nothing else.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for that report.

Any comments or questions?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Lewis and then we will hear from Council Member Morales.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam President.

I similarly do not have a whole lot to report this morning.

There are no items sponsored by me or from the Homelessness Strategies and Investments Committee on the full council agenda this afternoon.

I will just be flagging for constituents that I will have a town hall meeting this Friday via Zoom, YouTube, all the virtual, platforms, and that is on Friday, November 6th at 3.30.

That town hall will be recorded for folks who can't make it and posted on my website per past town halls that my office has conducted.

It'll be my second town hall during the budget process, and I look forward to hearing about the priorities that folks in the district have.

getting some feedback here in the middle of our budget process.

I did just want to give a shout out to an email all of us received from Co-Lead regarding a collaboration of the Chinatown ID district called Just Care, which I think is illustrative of the approach Now that this council, the providers and the mayor's office have been moving toward over the last couple of weeks of having a provider centered outreach strategy that centers problem solving rather than a presumption of without collaboratively working to address people's needs, that project in the Pioneer Square in the U District, Just Care, is a collaboration between REACH, CoLEAD, the county, the city, a variety of other providers, including Asian Counseling and Referral Services, Chief Seattle Club, and a lot of other great providers in our community doing this impactful work.

the Just Care had a particularly good outreach session with a particularly problematic encampment that had been underneath I-5 and had been flagged by the West Precinct as an issue as far as being a hub of human trafficking and property crime, in addition to being a concern that had been flagged by businesses for a long time and having a colossal amount of people living in it, instead of doing what might've been done in the past in terms of signaling the area for a sweep, Just Care was able to work and do individualized assessments for 68 individuals living in the encampment.

People were able to be assisted with relocation assistance, hotelling, and a variety of other wraparound services through the myriad collaborating providers.

This offers a really good example of how this new system of doing outreach that is being developed by the city can work and be an effective replacement.

And I just look forward to seeing as this becomes more of a citywide strategy rather than a unique collaboration in the Chinatown ID through Just Care, the scalability of an approach like Just Care.

So with that, Madam President, I don't have any other updates.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis, for that report and that example that you just provided, really helpful.

Any comments or questions for Council Member Lewis?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning, everyone.

I don't have a lot this morning.

I do want to congratulate and thank constituents in the 37th district who are turning out in record numbers for this election, over 70% as of yesterday, and want to remind folks again to find your local ballot or voting center if you haven't already voted.

It's too late to mail.

So find a drop box or voting center to get it done.

On Friday, I will be co-hosting, finally, our first Front Yard Forum.

I'm looking forward to with constituents in the Rainier View area.

As folks may recall, the idea here is to have small-scale, outdoor, physically distant meetings where constituents in District 2 can talk directly with us.

about issues that they're having.

If anyone's interested in hosting or attending a Front Yard Forum, you can contact my aide, Devin Silvernail, or sign up via my newsletter.

Last week, I did meet with constituents in New Holly to discuss an encampment at John C. Little Senior Park and we'll be

Samara Morales.

Oh, there we go.

We lost you for a moment, but it looks like we got you back.

We lost you at John C. Little Park.

OK.

Trying again.

Yeah.

I'm going to turn off my video.

Let's see if that helps.

OK. the encampment at the park to speak with folks who are living there and to begin to see how we can come up with a plan together to address some of the concerns coming from the surrounding neighborhood.

We'll be going out with two outreach workers from REACH.

This week, I also plan to meet with several merchants in Georgetown, discuss proactive ways to address public safety concerns in the neighborhood, And we'll also be meeting with constituents from Seattle Greenways to discuss pedestrian safety issues on Rainier Avenue.

And that is all that I have this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Mosqueda, and then we will hear from Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues.

Good morning, Council President.

There are no items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's Full Council agenda.

This afternoon in Full Council, I would love to have your support on a proclamation that we are bringing forward.

The proclamation retroactively recognizes Affordable Housing Week, which was October 12th through 16th.

We celebrated and participated in a number of activities that week, but as we have done in the past years, every year that I've been here, we want to make sure that there's a proclamation to recognize the good work of housing organizations and advocates, make sure that we are recognizing the work that they are doing and what they are continuing to fight for, for deep policy changes to make them more inclusive.

equitable and affordable place to live in the city.

Recognizing this good work, we are interested in putting forward this proclamation for historical purposes.

Folks may know, we need to scale up our affordable housing investments to meet this need, which means according to the Affordable Housing Task Force, an estimated 156,000 more affordable homes and units for us to be able to house folks in this city and in this region by the year 2040 to ensure that no low-income family or working households are cost burdened in our region.

I also participated, as you may remember, in the kickoff event for that week with Richard Rothstein, the author of The Color of Law, very good book, and participated with Councilmember Bauducci, Colleen Echo-Hawk, and Michael Brown.

It was a really great panel recorded on Town Hall.

Thank you very much to Town Hall and a housing development consortium who put together the forum to really focus on the legacy of discriminatory housing policies and practices, including racist redline, restrictive race covenants, and exclusive zoning that continues to today, and how this segregation creates disparities in affordable housing opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities today.

So we wanted to lift up this important work through a proclamation this year, especially in light of the ongoing pandemic and the calls to stay home in order to be healthy We know that the individuals who are living housing unstable are more likely to be people of color and those experiencing homelessness, and this is very similar to those who are more likely to both contract and die from COVID.

We want to make sure that we're looking at these compounding disparities as we address our investments in the city, both through housing, public health, and our other policies that support the social determinants of health.

So I look forward to working with you as we lift up the good work, not just of the housing advocates for that one week, but what they do throughout the year to make sure that there is a safe place to call home.

It is core to being healthy and it is a core public health component in addressing the social determinants of health.

I believe my staff circulated the proclamation late last week.

You should have received an email from Aaron House and we appreciate as well that the mayor has signed on to this proclamation.

Madam President, I would love to turn it back over to you if you are interested in collecting signatures this morning.

I am.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda, for that.

So, colleagues, as Council Member Mosqueda has indicated, a proclamation declaring Affordable Housing Week in Seattle will be presented at this afternoon's City Council meeting.

Signatures will need to be affixed to the proclamation in advance of the presentation at the City Council meeting.

So, I am going to ask the clerk to call the roll in order to confirm which council member signatures may be affixed to it.

So we're gonna do a roll call here.

If you want your name, your signature added to the Affordable Housing Week proclamation, then you will vote aye or yes.

And if you do not want your signature added, you will vote no.

Are there any questions before I request the roll call?

Hearing no questions, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the affordable housing week in Seattle proclamation as described by Council Member Mosqueda.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Nine in favor.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The proclamation will be prepared with those council members' names added to the proclamation and in time for this afternoon's city council meeting.

Council Member Esqueda, anything else to report?

Yes, thank you, Council President, and thank you all for your support for this proclamation this afternoon.

We will also have with us the Housing Development Consortium to receive the proclamation, so it's very exciting.

I did want to provide an update as well as we head into this week around our budget deliberations.

Just a quick reminder, last week we had our public hearing on a select budget and we had over 200 constituents provide public testimony on public safety, services for our community, members who are sleeping outside and those who are housing insecure.

folks who were speaking up in support of workers' rights, economic relief, and the solidarity budget, police accountability, and many more issues.

We want to thank everyone who continued to provide public comment, not just in person.

Oh, I should not forget trees.

There was a lot of public testimony on trees.

So thanks to everybody who weighed in on all of these issues.

We also had over 122 council budget actions and statements of legislative intent that we walked through.

So thanks again to central staff for walking through those with us during the three-day, full-day sessions.

We heard a lot of good questions and comments, and as you all identified your priorities, we were furiously taking notes along with central staff.

So this week, what we're gonna do is follow up with you.

If there's any questions about those priorities and technical questions from central staff, we are gonna use this upcoming week to really draft the council's draft budgeting package, which will be available and presented on November 10th at 9.30 a.m.

If there's council members who are wishing to amend the proposed balancing package, once you see that next week, there are still chances to do that.

And we want to make sure that folks get the chance to get those Form C's ready.

And Form C's are an amendment to the draft proposed balancing package.

Again, the deadline for Form C's to change the balancing package is 10 a.m.

on Thursday, November 12th.

And any proposal that increases appropriations at that time must be self-balancing.

At this phase, either through a reduction in other appropriations or by new increased revenues, those are sort of the options that you'll have to take a look at as you see the proposed package as it comes to you.

Please note that if the proposed revenue increase requires legislation, the legislation will need to be introduced and referred to the Budget Committee by Monday, November 16th, and the committee vote on the proposed balancing package and amendments on November 18th and 19th in full day sessions as well.

If there are any other council members who wish to move council budget actions or statements of legislative intent that are not published on the November 18th or 19th agendas, the agendas must be amended and affirmed by a vote of the council, either with a majority vote if the information has been circulated the night before or by amending the agenda with a simple majority vote as we have done with the Form Bs.

So thank you as well for all of that process that you engaged in in the last few days.

Last week that was very helpful.

We'll send a reminder memo around so you have all of these dates and the process in front of you.

I hope you found that those weekly memos have been helpful for your teams as you're looking at internal deadlines, what's coming up with the budget, and any messages or public media that we're sending out to make sure that the public understands the process as well.

Thanks to all of you for getting that information out.

Madam President, I believe that that is it from me today.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Peterson, and then following Council Member Peterson will be Council Member Solano.

Council Member Peterson, good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

The Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on today's full council agenda.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee will resume its meetings on Wednesday, December 2nd after the fall budget season.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Hearing none, we'll hear from Council Member Sawant, and then we will hear from Council Member Strauss.

Good morning, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, and good morning, everybody.

There are no items on today's city council agenda from the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee, which has no regularly scheduled meetings until the budget deliberations conclude.

My office, We'll be preparing some form Cs we will submit for the final budget votes in two weeks, obviously, depending on what is included in the proposed balancing package.

And I wanted to thank.

Again, I thank all the council members who have supported the budget amendments from my office and the People's Budget Movement.

And likewise, I am happy to be supporting the progressive amendments from city council members.

Unfortunately, the most important budget amendments, such as stopping all the mayor's budget cuts by increasing the Amazon tax, defunding the police by 50% to fund restorative justice and other services, and also affordable housing expansion.

and taking the first steps towards community control over police by creating an elected community oversight board with full powers over the police were not discussed last week because other council members have been unwilling to co-sponsor them.

But I intend to propose those amendments for final vote so council members will still have the opportunity to support those community demands and I would really urge the city council to support those amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant for that report.

Any comments or questions?

Hearing none, thanks again for that report.

We will move over now to Council Member Strauss, and then I will conclude this section of today's agenda.

Council Member Strauss, good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

There are six items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction and referral calendar.

Four appointments to the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, one appointment to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, and one appointment to the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council.

As Council President mentioned, there are 32 items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's agenda, 19 appointments to the Design Review Board and 13 appointments to the Construction Codes Advisory Board.

So I will be speaking quite a bit this afternoon.

Please let me know if you have any questions ahead of time.

Regarding the budget last week, I just wanna thank everyone who supported the form Bs I put forward.

I'd like to call particular attention to a few of the form Bs I submitted to address public safety and wellbeing, including expanding the city's crisis response unit and moving it to human services department, increasing funding to preserve and expand the mobile crisis teams and increase funding to allow more residents to receive fresh bucks benefits.

Events last week on Thursday, I attended the groundbreaking seminar ceremony for Habitat for Humanity's new Loyal Heights project, which will bring permanently affordable home ownership opportunities to seven families in the neighborhood.

We need more of these projects in District 6 and across Seattle, and I'm excited to see this one break ground.

Here in District 6, this morning I joined the Ballard Alliance passing out I Voted stickers at the ballot box in downtown Ballard.

And I was happy to speak with residents who stopped in and discussing the issues facing our neighborhood.

I also want to thank OIR and the mayor's office for working with the governor's office to create guidelines that allow our businesses on the cafe streets to expand and understand their guidelines so that they're able to purchase the appropriate protective and heating elements so that cafe streets can be successful this winter.

As always, I host resident meetings every week, and during my resident meetings last week, we continued to discuss public safety, homelessness, and many other issues.

I spoke to folks from Woodland Park, Tangle Town, Ballard Industrial Area, Greenwood, and Fremont.

And one common theme throughout all of the discussions was discussing how we can work together to create and implement solutions that we can implement and work together on today.

So residents of District 6, please continue to send your meeting requests.

We host meetings during the workday and after 5 p.m.

as well.

And for folks listening, just for awareness, we are scheduling about two weeks out at this time.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, I'll go ahead and give my report.

There is no Governance and Education Committee scheduled for the month of November due to budget deliberations.

We do hope to have a committee meeting resume in December.

Nothing on today's Introduction and Referral Calendar related to the Governance and Education Committee.

And likewise on today's City Council agenda, there are no items from the Governance and Education Committee.

Last Thursday, I did have an opportunity to attend the General Assembly of the Puget Sound Regional Council meeting where we took action to adopt a major update to the region's growth plan, known as Vision 2050, and I was proud to be able to cast all of City of Seattle's votes in favor of the revised and updated Regional Growth Plan Vision 2050. That's it from my team and happy to answer any questions or hear any comments or hear anything else for the good of the order before we move into executive session.

Hearing nothing, we will go ahead and move into executive session.

Colleagues, as a reminder, we do have two executive sessions this afternoon.

As presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

The purpose of the executive sessions is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect the time of the executive sessions to end by no later than 1 p.m.

today.

If the executive session is extended beyond 1 o'clock p.m.

today, I will return to open forum and announce the extension and the expected duration.

So colleagues hang tight while we transition over.

And Council President Gonzalez, once I get the confirmation from IT, I'll go ahead and call the roll for you.

Thank you.

It looks like we are still recording.