Seattle City Council Briefing 1/4/2021

Good morning, everyone.

The January 4th, 2021 Council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.31 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Gate present.

Thank you so much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of December 14th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, nothing to report here other than just to say welcome back and Happy New Year to all of you.

Hope that you all had an opportunity to actually get some rest and spend time with your families.

virtually or otherwise.

I'm excited to be back this year.

It's a new year.

I hope we can start 2021 on a very strong note.

And of course, we still have a lot of challenges to face this particular year, but also a lot of opportunity.

And so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to accomplish much this year and look forward to doing that with each of you into 2021. Again, happy new year.

Welcome back.

Looking forward to digging back into all of the important work that lays in front of us.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and dig into preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

We'll go ahead and follow the roll call rotation.

order that we ordinarily follow.

So that order, as a reminder, is Councilmember Strauss, followed by Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Peterson, so on.

And then I will conclude this section of the agenda with my own report.

So again, good morning, everyone, and take it away, Councilmember Strauss.

Good morning, Council President, colleagues.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods committee on today's introduction and referral calendar, and there are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full agenda.

Our next scheduled meeting is on Wednesday, January 13th.

This coming week on Thursday, I'll be attending the Growth Management Policy Board for the Puget Sound Regional Council.

And in other reports from over the recess, my office has been assisting Yonder Cider, a small local woman-owned hard cider business, and we've also been assisting Ruben's Brewing.

Both businesses have needed assistance navigating city services and regulations.

Here in District Six, I'm very thankful for all of the conversations that I had with residents over the recess, and we are formally restarting our District Six office hours with resident meetings this week.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

That is my report for January 4th, 2021. Happy New Year, everyone.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Councilmember Herbold and then Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning, Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning and Happy New Year to everybody.

From the Public Safety and Human Services Committee agenda from before the break, we have one item on the full council agenda today, and this is Council Bill 119974. This is an ordinance related to civilian and community oversight of the police, creating a subpoena process for the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety, while ensuring due process for individuals who are the subject of subpoena.

The legislation will add new sections to municipal code and affirm the city's position that the OPA and the OIG can seek subpoenas of those who may have witnessed or been involved in potential misconduct incidents.

In addition, the legislation creates a process for OPA and the OIG to issue the subpoenas and enforce them by seeking a court order should the subject of the subpoena fail to comply.

The legislation requires that individuals and third-party record holders served with the subpoena are provided with a written notice of their right to due process.

The protection, that particular protection was not codified previously, and this addition is intended to increase civilian participation in OPA investigations and OIG audits and reviews.

The subpoena authority for SPOG and SPMA is, of course, still subject to collective bargaining agreement requirements.

The notice itself required in the ordinance recognizes that There are search warrant requirements needed that would need to be separately met for particular types of evidence.

And I just want to give a shout out of thanks to the city attorney's office, as well as the mayor's office, the office of police accountability, the office of the inspector general, and the community police commission.

We have all worked together on developing this bill.

As we, I think, all know, the 2017 accountability legislation sponsored by Council President Gonzalez, including subpoena authority, this builds on that legislation to provide clarity on the procedures and to process protections.

Just a quick update from the Human Services Department.

They will welcome Helen Howell as their interim director beginning today.

I understand that former interim director Jason Johnson will help with the transition over the next week or two.

I appreciate former director Johnson's willingness to ensure a smooth transition.

and look forward to working with Interim Director Howell.

HSD has recently provided some updates on its work to support vulnerable people during the pandemic last year.

I think this work is worth elevating, so I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

HSD has successfully redeployed approximately 130 employees throughout the department to fulfill mission priority work related to food distribution, set up of emergency shelters in city-owned buildings, and shelter staffing support, including overnight shifts.

Staff have also provisioned over $600,000 in PPE, sanitation supplies, and to-go food distribution supplies for emergency feeding providers.

As of September 13th, 2020, nearly 11,000 households were enrolled in the utility discount program.

through the COVID-19 online self-certification program, and the total number of households benefiting from UDP now exceeds over 40,000 households.

And finally, in March, AQSD's data performance and evaluation team built an interactive map of food bank and meal programs operating in Seattle and King County, which is regularly updated.

To date, the site has over 34,000 views, and you can find it And again, this is a interactive map of food bank and meal programs, and you can find it at Seattle.gov forward slash human services and click on COVID-19 emergency food resources map.

From public health, again, would like to of the update on the Seattle Fire Department COVID-19 tests administered at their four sites.

They're now nearly at 525,000 tests administered up to December 29th.

As we know, the holidays could be a difficult time for folks, even in the best of times.

Just want to uplift the existence of the Washington listens support line that helps people manage stress and anxiety they may be experiencing because of COVID-19.

The Washington listens support line is at 1-833-681-0211 or you can dial 711 for the Washington Relay Services.

Although Seattle has one of the lowest COVID rates of any American city, hospital beds in King County are filling up.

86% of ICU beds and 89% of acute care beds in our county are occupied.

It's really important to continue to take precautions now to keep yourself and others safe.

The governor has extended some temporary restrictions through January 11th, including indoor social gatherings with people who do not live with you are now prohibited unless you quarantine for 14 days prior or quarantine for seven days and receive a negative COVID test result.

And then outdoor gatherings are limited to no more than five people.

who do not live with you.

Just another plug for Washington Notify.

That's the app that notifies you if you come into contact with someone with coronavirus using randomized codes to protect privacy.

More than 1.6 million Washingtonians are using it.

You can find it at wannotify.org.

The city of Seattle has added several new free testing sites, including new self-testing kiosks.

If you feel sick or believe you're in proximity to somebody with coronavirus, you can get an appointment for free testing or find a kiosk by going to kingcounty.gov forward slash COVID testing.

And then I think that's all I've got.

I just want to give folks a heads up that we're working on making some updates to the proclamation honoring workers who have made it safer through citywide testing that we signed at the end of the year that I'll be sharing with you probably later on today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Juarez, followed by Councilmember Lewis.

Good morning, Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning, Anne.

Happy New Year, Council President and team.

Okay, so there are no items of the Public Asset and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

The committee meeting that was scheduled for the 5th is canceled, and we will resume on February 2nd at 2 o'clock.

My office is working with council central staff to update the 2021 work program, adjusting for changing conditions presented in 2021 major priority will be the next 6 year metropolitan park district strategic plan.

As you know, because of COVID, we couldn't go out and do all these community meetings that we normally would do to see how we were going to put together the six year plan and dispense the money on the capital side and the program side.

Decided to delay the engagement around this time to begin this spring in 2021 due to COVID-19.

I look forward to working with our partners and different communities across Seattle to create a robust plan that advances our shared values for public parks, use, and capital projects.

Week ahead, Thursday, January 7th, I have a Sound Transit Rider Experience and Operations Committee at 1 o'clock.

In district news, I'm sure you've all heard, 2020 ended with horrific news for the Greater Lake City neighborhood.

On December 28th, a two-alarm fire burnt down several businesses on Northeast 127th Street.

Seattle investigators have determined that the fire was intentionally set and have estimated the loss, I believe, around $2.7 million.

The Seattle police arson and bomb squad are carrying out a full investigation.

I went down there on Monday the 28th and had been in constant contact with the chief.

Thank you, Chief Scoggins.

Amazing job with Seattle Police Department, our firefighters at Station 39, and all 84 firefighters and police officers that responded immediately.

A big shout out to Kirsten Tinsley, Kirsten Tinsley, the public information officer at Seattle Fire Department.

She was right there with me, assisting us with information, assistance with the businesses and public statements and updates.

Um, and I want to think just a few quick thanks here, because it when these kind of things happen, you really kind of see how city government should work.

And on that day, I believe it did for working with our office and.

securing the blueprints for the building, the seven businesses that were burnt down so they could work with the Seattle Fire Department and Seattle Police Department and the arson folks to whether or not and how they could get in the building and safely either get in there or not get in there.

And what the, what the building structure was at that.

I think that was Nicole.

I believe for sell wonderful already had sent a business advocate to work with the owners to help them apply for grant funding and file insurance claims.

As you know, there are seven businesses that were completely destroyed.

There are eight buildings, but seven businesses were completely destroyed.

Office of Emergency Management, thank you so much for coordinating work with our office, OED, SFD, SPD, and everyone that was involved in the community and the businesses.

Thank you so much, OEM.

And it was great to be out there and just working with the people to help in talking to some of the business owners.

As I shared, even though this has been difficult, the Lake City community started planning a fundraising effort on behalf of the businesses.

And so we have Build Lake City Together and the Children's Home Society of Washington are coordinating a donation drive to support the small businesses that were lost.

Both organizations will work to evenly distribute funds among the businesses affected by the fire.

Please visit the Children's Home Society website for more information.

We plan to give this council and the community and obviously the public an update on the investigation and the efforts to assist these seven businesses that were completely destroyed by the fire.

This is just on a personal note, and I hope to give you more information later.

I don't know if you guys were listening, but last week and this morning, KOW started with Mark Trahant doing a tribute to a dear friend in Indian country, a great loss to all of us, and that is Hank Adams.

We lost Hank.

Hank is from Frank's Landing.

Interesting quick story, I just want to share this.

I've known Hank since I was pretty much a child.

I knew him as a child.

I knew him in high school, college, law school, public defender, when I was in legal services.

Hank Adams introduced me to the first Native American lawyer I ever met, and I think I was 13. And fast forward, that was under Boalt One.

Hank Adams brought Judge Boalt to the Puyallup Reservation to meet our people and understand the fight for our rights to treaty and to fish.

You fast forward 18, 20 years, and I am one of the trial lawyers in Boalt Two.

And Hank is still advising us.

Hank was not a lawyer, but he was the one that advised the lawyers, the historians, the anthropologists, the elders, our depositions.

He was a seminal and powerful voice that shaped federal Indian law and jurisprudence.

I hope to share more with you with the resolution.

I can't underscore what a great man he was, but more importantly, Hank was kind.

He was honest, he had dignity, and he created change, even though we took over buildings and rivers and did sit-ins.

And he never advocated for violence, but he advocated for us, like Uncle Billy, to have an open mind and an open heart.

And I will always, always be thankful that he was in my life.

So I'm hoping that we're working with the Franks Landing Indian community to put together some information and I'm hoping to have something for this council next week where we can have a resolution to honor Hank Adams.

As you know, Hank was in lockstep with Uncle Billy Frank.

and Mason Bridges and Allison Godforsen and all of these wonderful people at Frank's Landing Indian Community and the Puyallup and the Nisqually tribe, who not only secured and fought for our rights, their rights to fish, but the treaty rights in establishing that treaties are the law of the land.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez, for that report and certainly our deepest, most profound sympathies to the Native American community on the loss of Hank Adams.

Just based on your description, I can imagine how deeply it is being felt throughout the Native American community, not just here in Washington State, but across the country.

He certainly played a huge role in the movement building in places beyond our state here and appreciate you lifting up the opportunity for us to recognize his legacy and the important work that he did through a proclamation.

So thank you.

Thank you.

He was like Marshall.

OK, we're going to go ahead and go down the line here.

Before we do, I'm going to ask Councilmember Herbold to mute herself.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Next up is Councilmember Lewis, and then we will hear from Councilmember Morales.

Good morning.

Good morning, Madam President.

It's good to be here and back in the swing of things.

There are no items on this afternoon's agenda from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

This Select Committee will be meeting on January 27th, towards the end of this month, to continue our discussions on the bill that I put forward on streamlining certain land use controls around permanent supportive housing.

Over the recess, speaking of our response to the homelessness emergency, I had the great privilege of being hosted by Amy King for a tour at the Pallet Housing factory up in Everett.

where largely a workforce of people with lived experience, people who have in many cases served time in prison and experienced homelessness themselves.

are employed in good jobs making and constructing pallet shelter housing for a number of jurisdictions in the Puget Sound region, California and beyond.

Pallet houses are present, which are essentially a type of tiny house, are now present in 11 states and jurisdictions.

then it was really good to have this tour of this facility making very reliable, stout, easy to clean, and easy to reassemble and relocate housing options, rather shelter options, for people experiencing homelessness.

happy that this year we will be adding 545 additional transitional shelter spaces, which have four walls and a door that locks, as well as attendant on-site services for people who are experiencing homelessness in Seattle, so that we can offer a place that is better to go than a non-sanctioned encampment which as we all know are not desirable shelter locations for anybody in the city and that people are using purely out of necessity.

But we need to stipulate to the fact that 545 new shelter spaces is not nearly enough to meet the demand of what we are seeing and we need to work in the first quarter of this year to scale further the transitional shelter ad and to work closely with King County as they seek to purchase as many as 12 additional or as many as 12 motels and hotels to convert into permanent long-term transitional shelter and ultimately into permanent supportive housing.

I plan to make a standing agenda item in my committee throughout this year for the status from the Human Services Department and the executive on the expediency of contracting with hotels for the 300 hotel spaces, setting up the 125 transitional enhanced shelter spaces.

and the 120 budgeted tiny house village locations.

It is critical that we use our oversight prerogative as a council to continue to work with the executive and to continue to push for expediently standing up those assets given the crisis that we're seeing every day of unsanctioned encampments and that we are essentially as a city having a policy where unsanctioned encampments are the default shelter option for people experiencing homelessness.

That is not acceptable and that is something that is within our power to change.

With that, I don't have any other updates this morning.

I look forward to that committee meeting on the 27th, and I look forward to working with all of you in 2021. Hopefully, this year will culminate in us actually being physically together on the second floor again at some point.

And I look forward to that and seeing what that experience is like actually governing in City Hall.

So, thank you so much, everybody.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for that report.

It would be nice to be able to finally come back together as a council in 2021. I completely agree, and hopefully we're on a good path to accomplish that sometime later this year.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the line.

Councilmember Morales is next, followed by Councilmember Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, welcome back colleagues.

I hope everyone had a chance to relax and reconnect with your loved ones.

I will admit I have never been happier to say goodbye to the past year.

I also wanna say I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks thinking about where our family is and wanna acknowledge that I'm one of the lucky people in this city.

I still have a job.

I have a home.

I don't worry about my kids going hungry.

And while my family is still mourning the loss of one of my uncles to COVID, I'm grateful that so far, the rest of my family is healthy.

So I am hopeful that in 2021, we can continue to use our positions of power to serve the people in our city who share our fortune.

As chair of the Community Economic Development Committee, I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation about how we build community wealth.

I had to start that conversation last year, but the universe had other plans for us.

In our committee this year, we'll be talking about a public development authority to help preserve arts and cultural space, particularly for BIPOC artists.

We'll be undertaking a feasibility study to see how Seattle might launch a community investment trust that would allow neighbors to buy shares in commercial buildings so that we can increase community ownership of property, similar to what's happening in Portland right now.

We will facilitate the creation of the EDI advisory board and get those folks seated so that they can start working together now and prepare for the $20 million in community-led investments that will be coming down the pike in 2022. And I also, just as a side note, want to send a huge shout out and congratulations to Ben Hunter, to Chef Tarek, and Rodney Harrell, and all of the Black and Tan organizers on the recent purchase of their building in Hillman City.

I'm really excited to watch that community space come to fruition in the next year or two.

We'll also be working closely with constituents in Georgetown and Soto to think creatively about how to preserve commercial affordability in the area and how to support more small business growth in the industrial lands.

And look forward to working with Council Member Strauss and all of the folks who are really thinking hard about how to make sure that we are preserving affordability and really starting to build up what economic recovery and what more employment opportunities and entrepreneurial opportunities look like in that part of the city.

And we'll continue to advance the work of the participatory research projects, which will inform how we implement the participatory budget process so that we can radically change how we invest in improving community conditions to create thriving Black and Brown communities.

Before recess, my office did receive the preliminary research report on the Black Brilliance Research Project.

I'm sorry.

There we go.

We're reviewing the materials for completion and we'll be sending council members a copy this week.

If you have questions or suggestions regarding the report, I'd like to ask that you forward those to my office.

We'll be inviting the research team to my committee in February.

So we want to make sure that they're prepared to answer any questions that you have.

So, we have a busy agenda for 2021, but for today, there are no items on the afternoon's agenda from the Community Economic Development Committee.

That's my report, Council President.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales, for that report.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I know there's going to be much more information coming out from you and from all of our colleagues on priorities for 2021. I know that we have approved work plans for committees in light of 2020. I know that much of that will need to be retooled and adjusted and looking forward to supporting much of the work that I know needs to occur now in 2021.

Good morning, thank you, Council President.

I really appreciate the very thorough reports from everybody.

We're hitting the ground running as a city council, and I'm excited to be back.

On today's full city council agenda, the Transportation Utilities Committee has 13 items, which include four council bills and nine mayoral appointments to transportation-related advisory boards, specifically for bikes, pedestrians, and transit.

All of these items were recommended December 16 by our Transportation Utilities Committee unanimously, and I encourage my colleagues to adopt all of these non-controversial items today.

Regarding the four pieces of legislation, just a quick overview.

Council Bill 119976 authorizes SDOT, Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light to accept easements from the Port of Seattle.

Regarding a completed overpass at East Marginal Way just south of Spokane Street, Council Bill 119955 swaps small pieces of land near the city of Brenton between Seattle Public Utilities and the Washington State Department of Transportation to accommodate the freshwater pipeline located there.

Council Bill 119958 authorizes additional time to complete the necessary ecological thinning of trees to improve forest habitat and biodiversity in accordance with the Cedar River Watershed Habitat Conservation Plan.

Both the Muckleshoot Tribe and the Sierra Club supported this two-year extension with letters of support to the council.

Council Bill 119963 updates water regulations We actually heard that bill over two committee meetings to give extra time for consideration.

And the agenda item includes a helpful PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the nine changes being made to the water regulations.

Again, all these council bills passed out of our committee unanimously.

Our Transportation Utilities Committee meets next on Wednesday, January 20th at 2 p.m.

Normally, our committee meets in the morning, but we moved it to the afternoon because members of the public just might be more interested in watching the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris earlier that day instead of our committee.

So we'll have it at 2 p.m.

In District 4, during the week of Christmas, I volunteered at the Food Bank Family Works, which is located in Wallingford, Earlier in the year, I'd also had the opportunity to volunteer at the U District Food Bank.

I mention this because food banks continue to see high demand during the pandemic.

Appreciate Council Member Herbold's report on this as well.

This need was highlighted Saturday in the Seattle Times article entitled need for free food in Washington State has doubled as COVID-19 rips away jobs and security.

I was personally humbled by witnessing the perseverance of those struggling in poverty to feed themselves and their loved ones.

I also appreciate the generous volunteers for allowing me to help and the leadership of those nonprofits for the essential work they provide to our communities.

Many thanks to our own city government employees at the human services department and the office of sustainability and environment for the work they do to provide food security.

I know the council boosted funding for this as well as part of our budget process.

Even though the traditional season of giving may have passed, the need to feed our neighbors persists.

So if you're listening and are willing and able, you can Google Seattle food banks to find a nonprofit near you that needs help.

My office will restart our virtual office hours for District 4 this week, this Friday afternoon, so please sign up through my City Council website.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Peterson for that report.

Are there any comments or questions?

hearing none, we're going to go ahead and keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Szilagyi and then I will close out this agenda item with my report.

Good morning Council Member Szilagyi.

Good morning, President Gonzalez, and Happy New Year to everybody.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee will be Tuesday, January 26th.

Last month, alongside renters, community activists, union members, and organizations like BSEattle and the Tenants' Union of Washington, My office organized to demand Mayor Durkin and Governor Inslee extend the eviction protections for tenants, struggling small businesses, and non-profit organizations to the end of 2021. The support in the community for those demands, not surprisingly, was absolutely overwhelming.

In the final days of December, both Governor Inslee and Mayor Durkin extended the eviction moratoriums, which is a victory for the renters movement, but the extensions were only for three months, which is totally insufficient It means that renters who lost their livelihood to the economic crisis that capitalism has created out of the COVID emergency will spend the next three months in fear of potential imminent eviction and some will experience real anxiety at the prospect of becoming homeless.

and it also means that renters rights organizations must start organizing anew to demand the next extension after having just exerted a lot of effort to organize for this extension.

My office is working with city council center staff to develop legislation to extend Seattle's eviction moratorium through at least the end of 2021. We think that this is an absolutely reasonable proposal because not only of the crisis that has already faced renters in Seattle through the crisis of last year, but also the fact that COVID has far from gone away.

We have epidemiologists predicting that the new strains will be arriving in the U.S. anytime and that the crisis has every chance of compounding, especially in the context of Congress and the Biden administration refusing to carry out a real stimulus that is needed by ordinary people throughout the nation.

Some 530,000 Seattle King County residents have already filed for unemployment since March, and this is data from, I think, November of last year.

Struggling small business owners have had to close their doors with inadequate government support.

And even before the pandemic, 78% of American workers we know were living paycheck to paycheck, and nearly 75% reported being in debt.

Working people face a tsunami of evictions, foreclosures, and bankruptcies once the emergency declarations expire.

And yet at the same time, we have seen corporations like Amazon and Microsoft have registered staggering profits through the pandemic, and also major Seattle-area landlords like Essex Property Management and equity apartments have recorded hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

And these two corporate landlords, national real estate companies, which combined control of about 20,000 apartments in the Seattle area, recently reported more than $1.1 billion in profits in just the first nine months of last year.

Essex, by the way, is also one of the most evicting landlords in Seattle-King County, according to renters' rights organizations like Be Seattle.

And this is all aside from the overall statistic that we know that U.S. billionaires enriched themselves by a trillion dollars more throughout the pandemic.

Once a draft of the eviction moratorium extension legislation has been reviewed by the city attorney's office, my office will, of course, send it to other council member offices for review.

I really hope every council member will support this, what is a minimally necessary defense of our renters in our city.

So I'm looking forward to that conversation and also to the committee on the 26th.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant for that report.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay.

Hearing none, I'll go ahead and conclude with my very short report.

The Governance and Education Committee meeting that was regularly scheduled for Tuesday, January 12th, 2021 is canceled.

I do expect that the committee will need to meet on Tuesday, February 9th, 2021 at two o'clock p.m.

I do expect that we'll have a full agenda in February.

There's nothing from my committee on the introduction referral calendar and nothing on this afternoon's full council agenda from the Governance and Education Committee.

Okay, that concludes my report.

I promised it was going to be brief and I think I met that commitment.

Is there anything else for the good of the order before we adjourn this morning's council briefing?

Okay, hearing nothing else.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I see council council members.

Oh, no, Council Member Strauss was giving a high five, not raising his hand.

Okay, so I think there is nothing else to come before us this morning at council briefing.

I look forward to seeing you all this afternoon at two o'clock.

Colleagues, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

you