Seattle City Council meeting 1/27/2020

Good afternoon.

This is January 22nd, 2020, and the meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2.05 p.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold, President Pro Tem of the Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Morales.

Here.

Peterson.

Here.

Strauss.

Present.

Lewis.

Present.

President Pro Tem Herbold.

Here.

Five present.

Next, we have presentations.

I'm not aware of a presentation for today.

All right.

And next, we have the approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the January 13th, 2020 City Council meeting have been reviewed.

There are no objection.

The minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objections, the minutes will be signed.

If there is no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Seeing no objection and hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will take public comment on items that appear on today's agenda and on the introduction and referral calendar.

And first, we have Reverend Harriet Walden followed by Sankash Kumar.

Public comment is two minutes per person.

Keep an eye on the city clerk.

She will let you know when your time is up.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and Happy New Year to the Council.

My name is Reverend Walden.

I am the founder of Mothers Police Accountability.

I am also on the Commission, but I am not speaking as the Commissioner today.

I would like to give my condolences to the family of the victim that got shot here in Seattle, and also a speedy recovery to the people who got shot here the other day.

And one of the things I want to talk about is that Mothers for Police Accountability has been calling for cameras in high-profile areas for a few years now with a sunset date.

I think we had cameras.

People shoot people in the daytime because sometimes they don't think they're going to get caught.

And, you know, we, Seattle has had a variety of programs downtown, initiatives to help stem the violence off and on.

And so, And, actually, it works for a while.

I mean, everything does.

And then we have to keep it going is what I mean.

We have to keep the initiatives going.

I, you know, hats off to Seattle Police Department.

I mean, you know, they did a good job.

And so that's one of the things I want to talk about is that.

But the other thing I want to talk about really is that we have a culture of violence, and it really is not only in Seattle, but it's across the country.

We have a culture of death that people are living on, so we have to create a culture of life.

And one of the things that we can do about creating a culture of life is that we have to speak what we want sometimes.

Sometimes we're always talking about what we don't want, and we get that.

So I want to bless the city today.

I'm going to spend my next minutes here, seconds here, doing what I do best.

I'm a spiritual person.

I am a minister.

I don't have a church, but my work that I do in the world is my ministry.

So I want to bless the city.

I want to bless all of you all.

I want to bless all the people that live in the city.

I want to call this to a higher standard.

I want to raise the energy, the vibrations, because we cannot solve this problem on the level that it was created.

So I want to speak a blessing today, and I just speak a blessing to Seattle, for all the people here, all the people who work in here, all the people who come here, all the visitors who come, and all the people who think they come in here to do something that's not right.

We want to bless you too.

because you can't bless one group without blessing everybody.

So I speak my time here.

I take the rest of my little time here to say I bless a blessing on Seattle and all the people here and all the people who are coming here.

This is a great place and we can even make it better because we can.

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

Sankosh Kumar will be followed by David Haynes.

I'm Santosh Kumar.

I'm a family of four living in Sandpoint area for the last 50 years.

My wife has been serving in the U.S.

Army and has reached the position of colonel.

So I'm addressing this resolution 31928. And I wholeheartedly welcome and support the grand resolution of 31928 so long as it does not compromise any similar strong bill to prevent and contain a covert terror cell by any group in the Seattle area.

Seattle is yes for one humankind on one planet Earth.

I'm sure Seattle is no for planting any intra-diversity conflict and terror in any part of the globe.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, David Ains.

A resolution reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city and condemning all forms of oppression throughout the world.

Sounds good.

After it's passed, perhaps council will personally send a copy to the police chief reminding her that drug pushers exempted from jail oppressively destroy lives daily.

causing present implosion of Seattle and then maybe send a copy of this resolution to the Human Services Department, government and non-government agencies to remind them you're not allowed to oppress houseless people further by using a racist race and social injustice lens to make final decisions based on racist past as to whether an innocent houseless person already oppressed by subhuman services and living conditions is even going to be helped.

Beware, new city council.

The old city council has already been around the block and is responsible for the very policies that imploded our community and oppressed local innocents.

This council is on a record-setting pace for the most committee cancellations, all while drug pushers get rich, exempted from jail, justifying a rejection of any SPOG contract.

We have Jason Reeves, be followed by Roy Wilkie.

Hello, my name is Jason Reeves and I'm here to ask City Council today to work with me and thousands of other gig workers across who are part of the pay up campaign and help us to raise the standards for the gig economy.

Roy and I both came here today to share our stories and requests that you take up this important issue.

I've been a DoorDash driver for three years now.

I have 2,900 deliveries under my belt.

I started doing gig work because I found traditional work didn't help me attend college.

I felt like I was contributing to the community and making good money on the side.

But after about a year, the pay was cut and I wasn't seeing any orders over $6.

And I found out that the actual company was subsidizing our tips through our subsidizing our pay through the tips, essentially stealing our tips.

Low payment that my car goes without maintenance.

I can't pay bills.

I have collectors calling me.

And it kind of hinders me from getting to the next stage of life.

Our campaign has recently put together a report based on pay reports from hundreds of DoorDash workers from across the country.

And we found that on average, not including tips and after expenses, DoorDash workers are taking on just about $1.45 per hour with an active job.

I see a lot of single parents doing this work.

I see children, or I see them working with their children.

I see immigrant workers.

I see members of nearly every community.

Somebody you probably know is a DoorDasher or Instacarter or Postmater.

It's flexible work and it's good.

but it can be a lot better.

That's why I'm representing 10,000 workers across the country who are organizing with the Pay Up campaign to ask you council members today to work with us to set paid standards for independent contractors.

We want to see pay standards that require companies like DoorDash to pay us a minimum wage plus the cost of our expenses to make sure the tips are always on top of our pay and to get transparency about what we're getting paid and why.

I'd like to invite you at this time to reach out and meet with us in private or whenever you can to help us set some higher standards.

Come on, we're Seattle.

We should act like it.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

The last person I have signed up is Roy Wilkie.

And just a comment, even though I mentioned earlier that we asked speakers to begin their comments focused on items on today's agenda and the introduction referral calendar, the rules allow us to permit people to speak to items on the council's work plan.

We are in a strange time right now in that we don't actually have an adopted work plan for the council, and this is why I'm showing some leniency to allow speakers to speak on items that are neither on the information referral calendar nor on today's agenda.

Go ahead.

Okay, was item K was other business, right?

I'm sorry?

Item K was other business, right?

Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it.

That's not the way our rules interpret it, but nevertheless, please go ahead.

So my name is Roy, I'm here to ask the City Council to take up the issue of underpayment and mistreatment in the gig economy.

I'm a freelance graphic designer, I work for part-time for Caviar, it's a food delivery company that's owned by DoorDash, so it is DoorDash.

I began work as a bike courier in 2002, and at the time the use of independent contractors was first breaking out, it soon became the only competitive business model.

As I grew my business as a courier, I learned about the best practices for hiring independent contractors, which included being clear on every detail of an order, allowing workers to reject jobs without penalties, and giving workers freedom to work for other companies.

The app-based food deliveries companies have come in and took on the restaurant delivery industry, which is very similar in many ways to the rush delivery service.

But these gig work companies have no best practices except for just making more profit.

Working for Caviar, I often make as little as $10 an hour before expenses.

The ability of these companies to abuse an already exploitative labor situation has created a nightmare scenario where we're coerced into relying on so-called bonuses, working only for one company.

while having unlimited competition, because they hire anybody who has a phone, and we never really know how much we'll make until after the work is done, all with one of the highest risk of injury jobs possible.

Worst of all, adding insult to injury, some of those companies have been caught stealing tips, like DoorDash.

Tips have made about 40% of my income from this work.

So we're here because gig workers are asking for the very basics of fair compensation, which is parity with minimum wage employment.

And we'd like to work with the city council to set a new standard in the gig economy in Seattle.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry I yelled at you when you called me on a campaign call.

I was on my motorcycle doing deliveries, and I didn't think you were going to be calling.

No problem.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, if there's nobody else signed up for public comment, we'll move on to the items of business.

Let's see.

So we'll start off with payment of bills.

Please read the title.

Council Bill 1197.36, appropriating money to pay certain claims for the week of January 13th, 2019 through January 17th, 2019 and ordering the payment thereof.

I move to pass Council Bill 1197.36.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Seeing no comments, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Council President Herbold.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

We have no committee reports to be presented today, and so we will just move right into adoption of other resolutions.

Please read item one.

Agenda item one, resolution 31928, a resolution reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city and condemning all forms of oppression throughout the world.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Peterson, do you wanna speak to the resolution?

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Herbold.

So a week ago, I shared this resolution at council briefing, and it's before us today for a vote.

We have a new city council and several new members, so this resolution reaffirms Seattle as a welcoming city, recognizes the good work of previous city councils, and states emphatically that we oppose all forms of oppression.

I'd like to move adoption of the resolution.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there comments?

Councillor Morales.

Sorry, this thing drives me crazy.

I have to say that I really don't support this resolution, but I want to explain why.

As a former Seattle Human Rights Commissioner, I think it's really important that when there are instances of human rights abuses throughout the world that we be very specific about what we are objecting to.

As elected officials, we're here to represent all the voices of our constituents, and it's important that we don't constrain the voices of our elected officials to speak out against issues directly.

As a representative of District 2, which is the most diverse district in the city, it's important that I look at issues that impact our constituents locally, but also that we stand in solidarity with international communities whose issues and identities are shared with the constituents that we serve.

It's important to denounce oppression everywhere throughout the world, but we must caution against universalizing the shared experiences of oppression itself.

Doing so can minimize the individual ways that different groups experience oppression by the systems in our society.

There are specific instances that deserve to be called out, and the list of resolutions referenced in this resolution demonstrate that.

We're talking specifically about strengthening public safety for immigrants and refugees, specifically about supporting immigrants through the DACA program, specifically about opposing the Trump administration's separation of families, specifically about protecting human rights defenders, and specifically about upholding the rights and dignity of Native people in our city and in our country.

So while I appreciate the intent behind this to make sure that we are clear that we are, as a council, committed to protecting people, I think it's important that we acknowledge a blanket statement like this can serve to obscure the violence that's committed intentionally upon marginalized groups.

As elected officials in positions of power, we have to continue to lift up the voices of those who have been silenced to the margins when their oppression has been brought to our attention, whether it's locally, nationally, or internationally.

We can't be silent when the issues of human rights are at stake.

will not be supporting this resolution.

Thank you.

listen very closely to Councilmember Rouse's remarks.

I agree with a lot of the sentiment that Councilmember Rouse just expressed.

That's why one of the things I do want to move, and I don't know if now would be the appropriate time, is there is a proposed Amendment 1 that was circulated, sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, and I just wanted to inquire about the procedure and when it would be appropriate to move that amendment or to speak to it.

I don't know if...

I do agree that procedurally it's important to get the amendment on the table, but I do want to show Councilmember Peterson the courtesy of responding to Councilmember Morales' comments, if he wished to do so.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales, for the comments.

For me, it is a yes-and situation.

This is reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city as one of the key components of the resolution, and there are, we should be having other resolutions about specific instances of oppression.

I mean, just looking on the Amnesty International website right now, there are scores of oppressive events occurring right now, Human Rights Watch as well, but That website has other issues that are being highlighted as instances of oppression, but we don't have resolutions for everything going on every day.

So this is reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city and condemning all forms of oppression throughout the world.

It also asks the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to continue to alert us about international issues that are impacting Seattle.

And the other final section, it states, it does not impede or limit any city council member's ability to introduce future resolutions.

Those two sections were added just this week, so I'm not sure everybody saw those, but I think that may help to address the concern that we should be having additional resolutions.

In fact, we have one scheduled for next week that we'll be discussing.

So it's not an either or situation, it's a yes and situation.

And again, I added those two sections at the end, which might have been obscured previously.

And would welcome an amendment that was raised earlier about defining oppression.

But again, I wanna be on the record agreeing with Council Member Morales that we're not meaning to exclude, but actually to cast a wide net and welcome more resolutions that are specific.

I know another council member mentioned often groups are coming to us, with specific requests and we want to honor those as well.

So I would, you know, this is not meant to exclude those for sure.

Council Member Pierson, it's music to my ears to hear you say that we want, as a council, to honor future requests for resolutions addressing those issues important to our constituents on other issues that may not be directly impacting the city.

And I also wanna speak to my appreciation that you actually included language in the resolution to make clear that the resolution does not impede or limit any council member's ability to introduce future resolutions.

Before we discuss the amendment, I just need to make sure that since we have a requirement, a rule for our council for the opportunity to be able to review amendments in advance.

We have a rule that we receive them by noon today.

We did not receive this particular amendment.

So I just wanna make sure there's no objection to suspending the rules to allow for consideration of this proposed amendment to resolution 31928. Hearing no objections, the council rule is suspended and we can consider the amendment.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

So this amendment actually came from a couple of different, it was thought about by a couple of different council members.

So it was confirmed this afternoon that it was actually wanted.

So we inserted a definition of oppression so that it made it more clear.

It's no surprise that it was an attorney on our city council who has suggested this.

So that is the amendment before us, whereas oppression is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as, quote, a situation in which people are governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom, and is defined by Merriam-Webster as a, quote, unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power.

And so, you are moving?

I would like to move this amendment to insert the whereas clause.

Thank you.

Second?

Second.

Very good.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the resolution.

Are there any comments on the amendment itself?

Okay.

All those in favor of the amendment, vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Are there any opposed votes?

and the motion carries, the amendment is adopted.

Are there any other further comments on the motion before us, the bulk of the resolution?

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President Pro Tem.

Having adopted that amendment, I don't mind clarifying for those in the audience or watching at home that I was the attorney on the council that expressed some concern about the lack of a definition of oppression.

I do think it's important to state with a reasonable degree of specificity exactly what we are condemning to the rest of the world.

I mean, we could discuss all day.

I'm not suggesting that we do right at this moment the exact and most perfect and comprehensive definition of oppression, but the ones that have been adopted as dictionary definitions, I think, are good enough to define the scope of the resolution, to describe the scope of generally what we are expressing our condemnation to.

I do just want to state that, and Council Member Peterson, I appreciate the additional changes to the resolution that were made over the last week as well.

I am not going to have this informed, limit, or stymie any potential resolution I may seek to consider in the future, nor sway my vote on the resolutions that my colleagues bring on whether I should or should not vote against it because it's included by incorporation in the sentiment of this resolution.

I'm just making that clear for the folks here, the folks, my constituents that have actually sent me emails concerned that by me voting for this resolution it will, for example, impact my vote on the CAA resolution that we will consider again next week.

I will state that I do appreciate Councilmember Peterson's resolution despite the fact that It could be somewhat duplicative with other resolutions that cite specific acts of violence, but I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to my colleague, and I will vote in favor of this having been amended to include the definition.

And those will be my comments on it.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

So before voting I just want to note that as we I think all have agreed that this resolution should not be considered as adequate to cover all situations that arise in the future.

It does not mean that council has to take action on every issue.

As council members we exercise a discretion on which issues we will take action on and I believe this council will continue to exercise that discretion.

But it's important to also retain our right and responsibility to take action when we believe that foreign relations are relevant to our constituents.

that our constituents are impacted, and when our actions here on the city council may be meaningful to those constituents.

And with that, if there are further comments, the proposer of the resolution?

No, okay, great.

Those in favor of adopting the resolution as amendment, vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, vote no.

The motion carries.

The resolution is adopted as amended and the chair will sign it.

Is there other business to come before the council?

Well, I have other business.

I move to be excused from the February 3rd, 2020 City Council meeting.

May I have a second?

Please.

Second.

Those in favor of the request to be excused vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no. motion carries and I will be excused on February 3rd.

It's also been brought to my attention that Councilmember Juarez excused absence made at the February 21st meeting needs to be amended to reflect the February 10th City Council meeting instead of February 5th which was what the motion approved on January 21st.

So I move to amend the motion excusing Councilmember Juarez adopted at the January 21st City Council meeting by amending the requested date to be excused from February 5th to the February 10th City Council meeting date.

Second.

Those in favor of the motion please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and Councilmember Juarez is excused from the February 10th City Council meeting.

It is now 2.32.

If there's no further business, we are adjourned.

Thank you.