Council Briefing 6/17/2024

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is June 17th, 2024. The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.02.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Nine council members are present.

Thank you.

If there's no objection, the minutes of June 10th, 2024 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Okay, today we've got a presentation from the Office of Economic Development on business improvement areas and an executive session at the end of this meeting.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are six items on the introduction and referral calendar, including the weekly bill payment ordinance Council Bill 120801, an ordinance relating to city employment authorizing the execution of a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Seattle and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 77. An ordinance, Council Bill 120800, an ordinance relating to current use taxation, approving an application for current use taxation of property located at 4613 South Lucille Street.

Resolution 32136 relating to Seattle Public Utilities adopting a 2025-2022 30 strategic business plan for Seattle Public Utilities.

Council Bill 120799, which is an ordinance relating to street racing.

And Council Bill 120802, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department authorizing the execution of an agreement with the port.

All right, you can read all about that in the materials that are on the IRC.

And on the consent calendar, there is the weekly bill payment ordinance and four appointments to the Seattle City Light review panel.

And from committees, we've got four items on the agenda.

Council Bill 120795. an ordinance relating to city employment authorizing the execution of a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Seattle and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 77 Construction Maintenance Equipment Operator Union UNIT AND COUNCIL BILL 120796, WHICH IS THE SAME, IT'S ALSO A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT, BUT THIS ONE BETWEEN LOCAL 77 TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS UNIT.

AND I'LL DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE EMAIL THAT KARINA BULL SENT OUT ON FRIDAY, WHICH PROVIDES BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT THESE AGREEMENTS.

As has become our practice, I'll ask to suspend the rules so that Central Staff Director Ben Noble can provide a brief overview for the benefit of the viewing public.

That will happen tomorrow, and I hope that we can proceed with what has sort of become a common practice.

Also tomorrow we'll consider Council Bill 120778, an ordinance relating to the Seattle Police Department's use of automated license plate reader technology, and Council Bill 120797, an ordinance authorizing the Seattle Center Director to execute a fourth amendment to the Facility Use and Occupancy Agreement between the City of Seattle and the Seattle Rep. That is the fourth, which comes after the third.

So this is another amendment.

All right.

You'll notice that what's not on the agenda, colleagues, is the pay up reform legislation.

And I feel an explanation is in order because I'd indicated to Council Member Hollingsworth before her stakeholder meeting last Thursday that I'd been hoping to bring that in an existing package of amendments to a vote this week.

But then I put it together that three out of eight of the council members who can vote on this legislation are excused from the meeting, and it's certainly not good governance to vote with so many people gone.

And for transparency's sake, because they haven't been published yet, the most significant amendment in that aforementioned package would increase the required hourly payment floor to 110% of Seattle's minimum wage, so that would be $21.97 per engaged hour instead of $19.97, which is Seattle's current minimum wage.

And the network companies have agreed that they would still remove the fee at that compensation level, But talks are ongoing.

I've learned that there are additional possible amendments, and so it's on hold for now until further notice.

But I assure you, everybody, that I am as eager as anyone to get this off our plate.

So with that, we'll move to the following items.

Ordinarily, we'd go right into the presentation.

But because normally we have presentations at council briefings, we typically have them before our round robin, but Council Member Strauss has a hard stop to catch a train.

So if there's no objection, we'll consider item five out of order to allow Council Member Strauss to provide his remarks before our BIA presentation.

And then we'll move forward with our presentation before having the full from the rest of council members.

So hearing no objection, Council Member Strauss, you're recognized to present your report.

I will note for the, just going forward, I will, I discourage changes in the order of agenda items and roll call.

It throws people off and so just be mindful of that and please give me as much advance notice as possible.

Still no objection?

Go ahead.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

I have some important information to share, which is why I did not just be excused from today's meeting.

I also have to catch a train so that I can be here for Council Member Saka's Select Budget Committee tomorrow.

Council Member Morales and I are traveling to Association of Washington Cities.

conference all week.

So colleagues, I expect three pieces of legislation that will make up the mid-year supplemental budget package to be transmitted tomorrow.

So there are three of them.

There's the mid-year grant acceptance ordinance.

We saw a grant acceptance ordinance already this year.

We will have the mid-year supplemental budget ordinance.

And then we will have the annual wage increase, AWI adjustment ordinance.

When we get to the fall, you will also find that we have many different bills that make up what we colloquially call the budget.

And so this is no different where we have three bills.

Central staff has been already working with the executive and the CBO to have an understanding of what's in the package.

However, for them to do their full analysis and writing the memorandum, they do need to have it transmitted first.

And so once it is transmitted, we will have, A memo will have their analysis, and I want to give you some key dates as we're moving through this process.

The initial briefing on the mid-year supplemental package is scheduled for July 17th at the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

All council members are welcome to attend.

And I also suggest having a one-on-one briefing from central staff ahead of this committee.

I'm becoming a broken record when I say, if you ask all of your questions at committee, we will all be here until the end of the year.

And you all have really good questions that make this process better.

So please meet with central staff about the supplemental budget and the three pieces of legislation.

I also want, they're dense bills, they require your attention.

And really I ask you, if you are not getting answers to the questions or if departments aren't being responsive, let me know because I'm your partner in this work.

And if you're not receiving answers to your questions, then that leads you to a place where you can't vote on it.

And that doesn't work for me because I'm here to support you.

And so let me know.

I'm also gonna share with you that the amendment deadline for this is real.

I'm providing over a month advanced notice of the first committee hearing.

I'm providing advance notice of it even being transmitted.

This is a change in practice from the past because I want you all to have as much information as possible.

Usually we announce this type of thing once it's already been transmitted.

So if there are mid-year budget amendments you are considering, the deadline to submit those budget amendments is noon on Thursday, July 25th.

This is a full week after the...

first hearing, which is July 17th, which is in one month from now.

So five-week notice, and then there's a couple weeks where you will work with central staff between giving them notice of your amendment and having it come to my committee.

And so that time is there to give you and central staff the time that you need to get your amendments correct.

So please do send your amendment requests to Ed and Cizek with Tom Mikesell on copy.

I always would appreciate a courtesy copy in advance or at least just letting me know that you're thinking of an amendment or that you're doing an amendment.

Questions?

I see Council President.

I appreciate such long notice.

Do we know when the central staff memo will be available?

Because having a lot of time in advance is...

helpful if, it's helpful if we have the memo long in advance as well, because it's sometimes difficult to go through all the minutiae in that bill.

Council President, I had that exact same question as I was writing these remarks, and generally it will be a short period of time if the three pieces of legislation are very close to what central staff understands to be in them.

But if they are dramatically different or if there's something that they didn't catch that they need to raise, it'll take them a little bit longer.

And that's the benefit of doing the work ahead of time.

They get it tomorrow.

I think once they understand what's in it, what's not in it, that will determine the amount of time.

But I've asked for it very quickly.

Thank you.

Well, council members, you're welcome.

If you do have questions about the legislation in advance of the memo coming out, ask our expert central staff.

Exactly.

Thank you.

So that was the Select Budget Committee report.

In the Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments, this morning, Finance in Committee was a special meeting because of the rescheduled June 19th holiday.

I hope Association of Washington Cities figures this out for next year so they don't schedule their conference over a holiday.

Where we had one bill, the HSD, Aging and Disability Services, office lease.

This will come to full council next...

Tuesday, June 25th for a vote.

We also had five indigenous advisory council reappointments, which were unanimously recommended for confirmation.

And so I will be asking that they go to the consent calendar unless folks have issue with that.

We also heard the appointment of office of city finance interim director, Jamie Carnell today, and that will be up for a vote on the July 17th committee.

Moving into transportation, I'm not gonna spend time today speaking about my transportation levy amendments.

I'll save that for tomorrow.

High level.

I would like to earn your support on my amendments.

And so if there are issues with either the amounts or the funding source, please come tell me and I'd love to work with you.

Again, clearly I can't commit to meeting your needs without knowing them, but please know that if you're planning to not support an amendment, I would love to work with you to earn your support.

So it's worth checking in because I do want to do my best to meet your needs.

Full council, thank you, colleagues, for excusing me from tomorrow's full council for AWC.

As I've said, I will be there all week, remote for transportation.

And then, Council President, next week for council briefing is my meeting with Congressmember Jayapal.

I will not be here for council briefing, but I will be back for the parks levy, or the parks, Metropolitan Parks District Board meeting.

And thank you council member Kettle for making time in your committee to schedule the waterway public safety study.

We're looking forward to that next Tuesday.

And then council president, I wasn't planning on mentioning it, but I heard you say it just now that having been noble at full council meetings, this is a new practice of this year.

I didn't say anything about it at the beginning of the year.

Cause I thought it was a one-off, but today you said it was becoming a formal practice.

No, I didn't say formal.

I said common practice, as has become our common practice.

I will just say that I believe that council briefing is a more appropriate place for these briefings to occur.

This is a new practice that I was uncomfortable with at the beginning of the year, just letting you know today.

Well, people are, for some reason, I mean, I'm noticing that people are asking to be excused from briefings, so I wanted to make sure that people had the information before the vote actually, better late than never.

Just registering my, just registering for the record.

This is an interesting week where I won't be having office hours due to AWC, but I am just going to now turn it to the presentation that I will be remote for.

Yes, I'm already logged in remotely, so I'm not going to miss a beat.

Just to say that the BIAs, and especially the Ballard BIA, has been an incredible partner in my work.

It's not just in my district.

Soto BIA and the U District Partnership have been incredible partners, even though they're not in my district.

I'm looking forward to the presentation.

With that, any other questions on my presentation today?

Just to follow up on your comment, the coalition, was the first one that we voted on this year, and because so few people understood the specifics because they weren't either on the LRPC last year or don't serve this year, that is why we had that information.

And the same thing with SPOG.

There's great interest in the new SPOG agreement, and I felt that it was important for people to understand the financial impacts and some of the...

the very high level overview.

And so I'm operating on a sense of transparency and also the public tunes into our council meetings knowing that there is going to be a vote.

So it is likely that we will continue this practice and if, you know, I think that it's in the public interest to present that information as close to our vote as possible and on Tuesdays at the council meeting.

Thank you, Council President.

About the two previous moments, that's why I didn't say anything, but if it's becoming a common practice, I'm just registering it for the record.

Don't need any follow-up.

Appreciate your service.

Great.

Thank you, Council President.

Yep.

Okay, so, colleagues, I've said that presentations and council briefings are a good way to get members familiar with upcoming legislation that is complex or controversial or both, and I want to let you know that the BIAs are neither one of those.

The establishment, renewal, or amendments of BIAs, business improvement areas, go through the Economic Development Committee, and as you'll learn from the presentation, there's legislation that's anticipated to be in the pipeline for each of those scenarios, the establishment of a new, an amendment, or...

a renewal in the pipeline over the next few months.

And so with our limited legislative calendar before recess and budget, and with several new council members that don't really understand or may be familiar with how BIAs work as a legal city entity, I thought it would be a good idea to provide a sort of BIA 101 today.

so that you can start thinking about the legislation that will be for us, will very likely be before us later on this year, and so that you understand how important BIAs are to our neighborhood business districts, not just to them, but also to the vibrancy and well-being of our city as a whole.

So they're not neighborhood chambers.

They are something different, and they are sanctioned and they're a product of a lot of work on behalf of the staff at Economic Development, as well as our partners in the community.

So with that, please introduce yourselves and take it away.

We're just waiting for the presentation to load.

Thanks for the lovely introduction, Council President.

I think you set this up nicely.

We're here today to brief you about business improvement areas, affectionately known as BIAs.

As the Council President mentioned, we want to talk today about conveying the importance of BIAs for neighborhood care and economic development, and also the process to form BIAs, because it really is a team effort.

We like to say at OED that economic development is a team sport.

And so we brought a whole team.

So we're gonna do quick introductions and then we'll jump into the presentation.

Mark McIntyre, the Director of the Office of Economic Development.

Teresa Barreras, the Business Districts Manager at the Office of Economic Development.

Chris Lieberson, Project Manager for Build Lake City Together.

Monisha Singh, Interim Executive Director for the Chinatown International District Business Improvement Area.

Jeff Liang, Board President of the Chinatown IDBIA.

Erin Goodman, Executive Director, Soto Business Improvement Area.

So yeah, we brought the 18 today.

Allow me the opportunity to invoke our former president, Deborah Juarez, because when I hear Lake City, I'll note for the record that this was a topic of interest for her.

Go on.

Sorry to interrupt.

Go on.

That was a little D5 shout out there.

We like that.

Okay.

Next slide.

So this is just a quick reminder that a couple years back, OED worked with many of our partners, stakeholders, city departments to develop the future of Seattle economy agenda for economic recovery.

It's got five pillars within it.

Those were codified with a resolution that the city council passed.

One of the pillars is investing in neighborhood business districts.

And so thinking about downtown revitalization and neighborhood commercial corridors.

So within kind of the broader framework that OED operates in, this is one of those core pillars.

And so we do a lot of work with our business improvement areas.

They were crucial during the pandemic.

We certainly saw how important they were in attracting federal funds, deploying those, getting them out onto the street, having stable capacity and being a great resource for information on the ground from the businesses and the business districts about what the needs were, what was working, what wasn't.

Since then, they've been a critical partner in just about everything we're doing.

And so we're really eager at the Office of Economic Development to expand the number of BIAs across the city.

As Council President mentioned, they're not just another chamber, they really have a distinct relationship with the city.

You guys play a key role in formation, so we'll walk through that.

We wanted you to just be aware of Again, the importance of the BIAs and the formation process.

At the Office of Economic Development, we have a great team working on these issues.

Teresa is leading that team.

Casey is in the audience here.

He's managing a lot of our BIA work.

So we've really got a crackerjack team who are working on this day in, day out.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Teresa to walk through some of the nuts and bolts of what is a BIA and the process to form them.

Thank you.

BIAs are essentially a funding mechanism.

And they are extremely effective in revitalizing and managing business districts for the benefit of businesses, property owners, residents, visitors.

They're established through state law.

There's a Washington state law that oversees how they're set up and how they operate and what they can do.

And the city follows this law as well as our own internal policies that we've developed around how we want BIAs to be formed.

So they're an assessment district.

They have a boundary.

They have established rates and a method of how they're going to assess and who they're going to assess.

And they're enacted by city council through legislation and ordinance.

And an established ratepayer advisory board is set up to oversee the operations and budget going forward.

And the BIA themselves, the stakeholders who develop the BIA determine how they're going to assess, who they're going to assess.

And within our state law, there's a lot of flexibility here.

It can be business owners directly, property owners.

You can assess based on square footage, based on property values.

It's very flexible.

the folks in the community determine what makes the most sense for their neighborhood.

They also determine how they're gonna spend the funds, what their needs are.

There's some broad categories within state law of what's allowable, but there's a lot of flexibility within that of what they want to spend the funds on.

These are very broadly used across the world.

There are over 4,000 of these kinds of organizations across the world and 2,500 in North America alone.

And this year, we're going to be hosting, Seattle's going to be hosting the International Downtown Association Conference in September.

So we're very excited.

A lot of our BIAs will be showcased during that conference as well as welcoming a lot of folks from around the world to Seattle.

In Seattle, we have 11 BIAs.

You can see them here, a lot concentrated around the downtown core, and they generate about $38 million of enhanced services and programs.

There are a few big ones, a couple of big ones downtown that make up the majority of that amount, but they are across the city.

And really importantly, they have predictable and sustainable funding for their neighborhoods, and it's controlled locally.

All of the funding goes to that neighborhood, to that BIA, to support their needs.

And it's predictable, sustainable over time.

They can be set up with sunset clauses, or they can be set up in perpetuity, and some of them have been in perpetuity, and they can be renewed over time as things change.

OED provides support to them as they're getting started.

We help neighborhoods explore BIAs, and we help them through the legislative process.

And then our Treasury Services Department administers them.

They send out the bills, they collect the payments, and they reimburse the BIAs.

Who pays the assessment?

who pays.

Yeah, is it, did you mention that it's always property owners or usually?

Most often now we assess property owners, but it is possible to assess businesses, and several of our BIAs do assess businesses directly.

But property owners, it's become more, it's a little bit easier to set it up that way.

We have a good data set to use to establish those assessments, so it is more common, but it's possible, and we have flexibility.

Seattle tourism improvement is one example where it's assessed on hotels.

That's a very unique example, but value that flexibility that we have in our state law.

We can do some creative and unique things.

This year, we have one-time funding to explore more BIAs in Seattle.

As Markham mentioned, we are really interested in trying to grow BIAs across the city.

And we've seen that they're a great tool to maintain and improve business districts.

And so with this one-time funding, we are focusing on supporting BIAs in equity districts, which what we mean by that are districts that score high on the equity index of the city.

And so we're helping provide consulting services and also direct funding for those neighborhoods.

We're working with Lake City, MLK Othello, Rainier Beach, Central Area, Atlantic, Capitol Hill, and then we're also supporting Chinatown ID BIA to do some deep work exploring an expansion for their neighborhood.

So most of the BIAs that we've seen have formed in the wealthier, more developed neighborhoods, and so we really wanted to focus this one-time funding to support equity districts to explore this as a tool that could serve their neighborhood better.

And we also want to invest in really building our program, investing in education, trying to get the word out to even more neighborhoods beyond these six to help them understand what a BIA could do for them, understand what it is, and then invest in more best practices support for BIAs once they do get started to help them get started quicker and have some tools in place, as well as looking at our own city policies.

Here's a general overview of the formation process.

It starts in the neighborhood.

It takes local stakeholders, community members to really look at what their needs are, their priorities, review what kind of rate structure will work for them.

And these timelines I have in here are pretty best case scenario.

I mean, it could take a year, it could take longer often to do that work, to find your coalition, to work through all the details and trying to figure out what's going to work in your neighborhood.

And this is what we're investing in with our one-time funds for the exploration process for the six neighborhoods.

Once you have your proposal in place, then you have to get petitions from rate payers or proposed rate payers that represent 60% of that assessment.

And that can take anywhere.

Three to six months is maybe typical, but it can take longer, especially if you're going out for petition and having a hard time and you need to go back to the drawing board and try to re-revise everything, then you have to go back again.

And that's actually what happened in Ballard the first time.

They had to go back and restart their petition process because based on feedback that they were getting as they were trying to get signatures, Then once they have those signatures, they bring it to the city.

Our law department reviews the proposals.

Our office reviews them to make sure they're aligned with state law and that they really came up with a proposal that is providing benefit to the rate payers.

And then once the mayor's office submits it to council, it can take several months at council to go through all the steps that are required to establish the BIA.

There's a public hearing, and then that takes a few months in and of itself, and then the BIA can get started.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Erin Goodman, the Executive Director of the SOTO BIA, to talk about how she has used a BIA in the neighborhood.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.

I am Erin Goodman, the Executive Director for the SOTO Business Improvement Area.

And I also have the honor of serving on the board for the International Downtown Association, which, as Theresa mentioned, is the International Organization for BIAs or BIDs, as they're more commonly called outside of the state of Washington, around the world.

And just returned two days ago from Stockholm, where we were at the World Town Leadership meeting with organizations like ours around the world.

And so we're really excited that these folks are coming to Seattle.

There will be about 1,200 people coming to Seattle in September.

And as a board member for the organization, I strongly encourage any of our council members that would like to come in and get a sense of what this looks like on such a large scale.

It's pretty inspiring.

That's my plug, and now I'll get to my actual remarks.

So most of you are familiar with SOTO, but the SOTO BIA, you know, represents SOTO.

And what is SOTO?

SOTO has got a deepwater port to the west, I-5 to the east, I-90 to the north.

So basically the movement of goods and freight from the port to the rest of the country is a primary activity in SOTO.

Additionally, industrial supply, manufacturing, construction supply, automotive, sales service and supply, commercial kitchens, restaurant supplies, sign makers, creative studios, and so much more.

We are a unique district in Seattle as we do not have residents.

Instead, as a working district, over 50,000 people come to work in Soto each day.

And on nights and weekends, Soto comes alive with a wide range of entertainment options.

Literally millions of people patronize Soto's sports and entertainment facilities each year.

Home to a variety of nightclubs, music venues, and event spaces, we are also known for our wineries, breweries, distilleries, and cannabis facilities.

However, we face challenges as well.

The SOTO BIA was formed by city council ordinance in 2014 to help businesses deal with the various challenges SOTO faces, primarily public safety, public realm cleaning issues, transportation challenges, and economic development.

Our mission is to advocate for a safe, clean, connected and engaged SOTO.

And our goal is to enhance transportation, economic opportunity, safety and cleanliness for the benefit of SOTO's property owners, businesses, tenants, employee and patrons, by performing activities that go beyond the basic services provided by the City of Seattle.

And so we work on five main areas.

Clean SOTO, Move SOTO, Safe SOTO, Engage SOTO, and Economic SOTO.

And while we provide services and events in all of these, since the beginning, the primary concern has overwhelmingly been clean and safe.

And well over 50% of our budget is focused on activities in this area.

And our partnership...

Can we go to the next slide?

Our partnership with the city, I just thought I'd focus on a couple of things.

Since 2018, we have provided contracted homeless outreach social service providers, which we pay for by ourselves with a grant from a large commercial entity in SOTO.

However, in 2023, with seed funding from an OED NERF grant, we were able to launch a SOTO clean team.

For those of you who are familiar with the DSA and their ambassadors, this is something that I've wanted in SOTO for many years and knew that we could support, but getting it off the ground was a little outside of our budget.

But due to the grant that we got from OED, we were able to launch a clean team, which now provides daily pressure washing and graffiti removal services.

And additionally, we are focused not just on graffiti removal, but on graffiti prevention.

And since 2014, we have facilitated the installation of over 72 murals in Soto.

including the award-winning Soto Track, which if you've ridden light rail through Soto, you've seen that was a partnership with King County's 4Culture.

And thanks to a grant from the Office of Arts and Culture, we will be doing an additional eight murals in Soto over July in office with a theme of workers and makers, specifically using local artists.

Slide.

And so the next question I was asked to answer was sort of, what is the capacity that a BIA brings to a neighborhood?

So over the last 10 years, SOTO BIA has been instrumental in developing a more cohesive business community in SOTO, through communication, events, and providing much needed services for our business.

Our advocacy and voice has brought focused attention from city decision makers on the issues that matter most to Soto businesses and property owners, allowing them to focus on their business employee and customer.

Being a BIA brings capacity, stability, and equity.

Capacity in that this model of funding for neighborhood business district organizations means that the bulk of staff time is focused on mission-specific work rather than on fundraising or membership drives.

Stability in that our current authorization is through 2029, so I have a general idea of what my baseline budget will be for the next five years.

We pull new property values every two years, so it will go up, but it is stable.

and equitable in that each rate payer, which is a property owner in our case, we are property owner-based, pays according to the value of their property, which our formula in SOTO is 50 cents for every $1,000 of assessed value.

So in SOTO, that means that I have properties that pay over $100,000 a year and properties that pay less than $100 a year, and they all have access to the same services.

And so when you are looking at an organization to serve a neighborhood, you want the capacity to have staff to know that you are focusing all of your time and energy on serving the people that you are there to serve.

And so...

When I came into this from a chamber model, which there's nothing wrong with chambers, please don't take that.

But this has allowed us to stay focused on the needs, and the needs are great.

And so I obviously, as I've been in this role for 10 years and continue to do work to help other organizations, both here in Seattle and quite literally across the country and the world, create these type of organizations.

I'm a big supporter, so.

Great, thank you, Erin.

Next, we're gonna hear from Chinatown International District BIA, Jeff Liang, the board chair, and Monisha Singh, the interim director.

Good afternoon.

My name is Planisha Singh.

I am the outgoing executive director of the Chinatown ID Business Improvement Area.

The CID is one of Seattle's oldest neighborhoods.

It's a historic neighborhood.

It's a majority minority neighborhood.

It is one of the densest restaurant districts in our region.

It's home to residents and businesses and family-based properties.

And it is a cultural home to many in the region.

The CIDBIA was founded in 1994 by local business and property owners.

So this year is our 30th year anniversary.

The CIDBIA boundaries and rate payer list reflect a neighborhood from 30 years ago, but not reflective of the neighborhood and challenges that we have today.

The CID is one of the most complicated and outdated assessments in Seattle with over 530 rate payers amassing a maximum of $200,000 a year.

In 2023, we were only able to collect 154,000, making the BIA assessment about actually less than 20% of our operating budget.

This is not enough to pay our staff and operating costs, let alone the services that we are here to provide to the neighborhood.

The CIDBIA has four areas of work, that is sanitation, public safety, marketing and events, and advocacy.

We have relied on grants and sponsorships and donations to service the neighborhood for about 30 years now.

These funding streams are not sustainable and cannot meet the needs of the neighborhood.

For example, this year we received $200,000 from the Downtown Activation Plan, but that was one-time funding.

We use that to increase our service hours with our cleaning contractors, and now, in addition to other initiatives from SPU, are at what we consider a baseline of cleanliness.

However, since it is a one-time funding, we will have to reduce those hours next year.

And with sanitation, we know that consistency is key, and without a fully funded and sustainable BIA, we're not able to address the needs of the neighborhood.

It's also important to note that the CID BIA's assessment boundaries do not include Little Saigon, so it is what we consider west of I-5, just Japantown and Chinatown.

And the only way that Little Saigon can receive services for sanitation, marketing, and public safety is through grants administered as a pass-through from our BIA.

I'll turn it over to Jeff now to talk about the future of the CADBIA.

Yeah, thanks, Monisha.

And thank you, council members, for letting us be here.

And also, Markham, Teresa, and Casey, thank you, OED, for...

letting us present.

I am board president of the Chinatown International District, BIA.

I'm also a ratepayer.

I'm not a property owner, but as a business owner, I'm a ratepayer.

I have my own law office in the Chinatown International District.

But as Monisha mentioned, you know, we're using a...

We established our funding formula in 1994, so we're currently using a 1994 funding formula to address problems that are 2024. And so when I took over as board president this past year, one of the things I wanted to do was just do a review of kind of the operations, the services, and what we're doing as an organization.

And a lot of that work has been since, I would say, the start of February, is just doing a listen and learn outreach campaign.

So our board, along with working with the mayor's office and OED, We've just been trying to talk to ratepayers, property owners, and community members just about what the needs are.

And so that's what we're doing right now.

We're trying to assess what the needs are and what the, especially, you know, a lot has happened over 30 years.

the feedback so far, just to summarize a few bullet points.

One, public safety.

I mean, that's always a concern, as Aaron mentioned, too.

You know, I'm sure a lot of the other BIAs talk about that, too.

And also, just technical assistance.

You know, just businesses themselves having questions.

So, you know, for me, it's not enough to just know public safety, technical assistance.

I'm trying to dig down deep to get the stories and understand what's going on.

Because if I take it more from like a user-centered perspective, right, that's who these ratepayers are.

They are our clients.

I'm trying to understand, and I'm trying to, I'm helping our board too, and our staff members are really good at understanding the needs, but we're also just trying to get there too as we look at what the future holds.

So from there, the staff and I, we're actually taking the feedback, and just looking at how we can be responsive and see how we can change the funding formula.

All right.

Thank you.

And our next presenter is Chris Leverson, the project manager of Build Lake City Together, who's one of our BIA exploration neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Build Lake City Together is a small business support and neighborhood building program of a kin that we work in the city.

We have two full-time staff that do things from direct financial and technical support, facade improvements, promotion, micro-business guidance, and clean and safe programs.

Lake City, as you know, is an extremely diverse community, both culturally and economically.

And only recently has Lake City really begun to be identified with that diversity, and I think it's just taking some time for the investments to be significant enough to get out in front of issues of displacement and lack of opportunities.

The challenges for us include a growing number of empty storefronts, certainly strong issues with perception of safety, which is leading people in the neighborhood to shop and recreate elsewhere.

And certainly we feel there's a lack of vision for how the neighborhood will develop and grow.

But I know these issues are shared across the city.

I just think sometimes that Lake City suffers a little disproportionately because we have never really been a thriving business district.

We're challenged by a state highway that runs through our central business core and certainly with issues of walkability and pedestrian safety with that.

We have wonderful partners in the city, though.

Kathy Moore, our new district council member, we appreciate her.

We've worked well with Department of Neighborhoods, Public Utilities, Arts and Culture, but our biggest supporter has definitely been the Office of Economic Development, who we've been working with since 2014. And they're providing much of the support that allows us to do the work that we do.

So much appreciation to you.

We're looking forward to exploring a BIA in order to create more partnership among community and the city and enhance the support that the city is already committing.

As values increase in the neighborhood, we hope that the budget of the BIA will help to create a more sustainable model within our business district Again, we're thankful to OED for working with us to do this exploration, and we're looking forward to more focused conversations with property owners and businesses about how we address their biggest concerns through a formalized collaboration.

Thank you.

And just as was mentioned earlier, there are some BIA actions coming up in this summer.

We're hoping that the West Seattle Junction BIA will have an update to their BIA coming through council.

And then we also have Finney Greenwood who is creating a brand new BIA and is, very close to starting the petition process.

Hopefully that will go well and they would love to come in at some point this year, but they might miss the window.

We're hoping to support them through that.

And then we're also talking to Broadway.

They're interested in an amendment.

And then of course, Chinatown ID, BIA is working really diligently to try to pull together a new proposal and hopefully coming in in the next year or so.

So we are so very lucky to have such diverse and unique neighborhoods all across Seattle.

But I think we all know that they then have diverse and unique needs.

So we just wanted to demonstrate that we have a tool here at the city that is flexible enough to meet those needs in various ways.

We also wanted to demonstrate that these don't just happen overnight.

They take a lot of work, a lot of community organizing, a lot of work on our team, a lot of work with council and the mayor's office to make them happen.

But that once they do happen, they are this incredible, sustainable tool of economic self-determination for these neighborhoods.

So we did want to kind of showcase the pipeline that we're working on.

We're in Lake City, we're in this early initial exploration phase.

We're in the CID, we're working on trying to revamp or renew and update based on current needs.

And then SOTO BIA, who is doing great work, but still needs strong support and partnership with the city.

So with that, thanks so very much for listening and please let us know what questions you have.

Thank you very much for coming in and providing this information.

So I think that since I've been in office in January 2022, I think that I've presided or I've sponsored the legislation for two renewals or updates of the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

This is the assessment on hotels that provides money to not just promote leisure travel, now business travel as well, downtown, although it is assessed on downtown hotels only, but they also promote every neighborhood district and lots of other wonderful things about Seattle to draw visitors.

So there were those two, and then there was the big update of the mid-renewal, I mean, of the mid- legislation and that when you see the people in the chartreuse vests around downtown those those are paid for by an assessment on the property owners downtown and they those folks provide not just supplemental services but really really essential services for our downtown trash cleanup graffiti cleanup security etc and then also with the ballard um the Ballard Alliance update that we think of Ballard and you think about all those festivals and other benefits that that entity provides, not just the businesses, but the neighborhood as a whole and draws people from all around.

So what I always say is that when the businesses and property owners come to the city and ask for us to increase their assessment, then we should say yes and thank you.

And we are fortunate that we have so many neighborhoods and businesses and property owners that want to contribute not just to their own.

They're not just improving the situation for their own businesses.

They're making improvements in the whole district.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, if I'm not mistaken, the largest percentage increase for the mid-renewal and the ballot alliance, I think, was in the security category.

When I say security, I mean making sure that there is an added presence in, you know, either on the street or around businesses, primarily in the off hours, but sometimes during the day.

Is that not the case?

I hate to catch you off guard, but I think that that, I remember when I looked at the before and after the proposals, that that's been an area of increase.

I think that is an area of interest for all of our neighborhoods and all of our BIAs.

You heard that reflected by both Aaron and Jeff in talking about their two neighborhoods.

But we hear that routinely from all neighborhoods, whether they have a BIA or not, that one of their main concerns is public safety and all the kind of multifaceted ways that that shows up.

Thank you.

So just when you were talking, Erin, I wanted to thank your participation because you're so much more than an executive director for the SOTO BIA.

You are a source of advice and counsel and policy recommendations for the city as a whole because I've relied on you from day one, pretty much, or day 10 of being in office.

You've helped me understand what the businesses' needs are and you've come and reported to the Economic Development Committee twice.

with recommendations for how to not just improve the businesses in neighborhood within BIAs, but how we should go forward as a city with some policy initiatives that have ended up being quite beneficial.

So thank you much for your work and your leadership on that front as well.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I, first of all, want to thank Monisha and Jeff for being here.

I know, Monisha, we've worked for several years trying to get 200,000 here, 200,000 there to support additional cleaning in the CID.

But you mentioned the fact that you have 530 rate payers and you only generate $200,000 in revenue.

So I wonder, Markham, if you can talk a little bit about the difference in rates that are assessed and really the difference between these two or all of these BIAs in terms of the revenue they're able to generate.

I can imagine that Downtown is probably an outlier, but I know it has a million dollars, maybe more.

And the CID has 200,000.

So there's huge disparity and the neighborhoods that need the most help are able to generate the least amount.

So can you talk a little bit about that disparity and what OED does to support or could do to better support the BIAs that can't generate the kind of revenue that some of our other neighborhoods can't?

Sure.

Well, as Teresa mentioned, like the model is really flexible.

And so that, and it has to start rooted with community interest and community desire for BIA.

So if you put those two together, it really does open up a lot of possibilities for what you design and what you create.

And that's currently what we're talking about with the CID BIA is as we look at the old model that is 30 years old versus what a new model might look like.

A lot has changed in terms of where the value, where the property values are.

who owns them, and as Monisha and Jeff talked about, kind of the boundaries for the entire thing.

So we're currently in that discussion with them to try to revamp it because we think that there is more value that could be recouped to support a BIA at a much higher level.

You and I have been through that multiple year thing where you're trying to kind of find one-time dollars.

We want to get out of that.

We want to have that sustained level of support at the right resource level for a neighborhood that's as important as Chinatown International District.

So again, it really is that discussion.

That's why we call it BIA Explorations.

It's that discussion with community to kind of figure out what the needs are, what kind of value could be assessed, and then what that what kind of resource base that's created, and then what would you might need on top of that or different from that.

I'll mention that, I think I mentioned to you the pandemic, how some of the BIAs are really successful at seeking federal funding.

We've seen that happen past then too.

You district partnership did a great job working with commerce to bring in $5 million and they've really done some wonderful work along the AB there.

So it just demonstrates that once you kind of have that sustained capacity, you're able to then add on to it in a more thoughtful manner.

So I think for all of these neighborhoods that we're doing exploration, we're trying to figure out what is that baseline, what that's reasonable, how many of the needs does that address, and then what might be needed above and beyond that.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales caught my eye, so I called on her, but I don't know who is in, what the order of hands is here.

I see Council Member Kettle, Rivera, Wu, and Saka.

Check.

Council President, thank you.

Yes, I'm next up.

Thank you, and thank you very much for coming.

I have kind of two points, two questions.

I noted, like, within D7, District 7, you know, the downtown, the DSA is big.

Yes, visit Seattle, but that's more specific.

But the other areas of D7, you know, around the South Lake Union, East Lake, Uptown, Queen Anne, Magnolia are not represented.

That's one thing I've noted from this.

The second is, with Visit Seattle being a topic, I was gonna ask about topic-oriented BIAs, and then you mentioned Visit Seattle, which was perfect.

And I've done no outreach or no discussions on this, but I'm curious, like, arts and culture, could that be something similar to the Visit Seattle Hotel, the tourist and the like?

Is that something that could be developed in order to develop and support our arts and culture community?

I don't know, Teresa, I don't know if you've thought about that.

I think we'd have to think about what are you assessing would be kind of the first question.

Obviously, I think you're suggesting it would go in support of kind of arts and culture

which is D7 heavy, obviously.

Yeah, in District 7. I think we could certainly support that.

I think we'd want to start, just like with all this, we want to start with, like, what is the current kind of community organization around it, and what would we be assessing, and then what level of resource would that create, would be kind of some of the threshold questions to ask there.

I know that there are also some other models, particularly for arts and culture, that are being discussed.

around kind of creating some sort of district.

So I think we'd want to also sync up with those conversations to see if they fit or not.

And I guess it could also be part of, you know, because the DSA has their arts and culture program that I think I met you at earlier this year.

That might be another way to approach that.

I know the need is great for our arts and culture community and thinking about what ways we can support them across the board.

Obviously there's a public safety aspect to it, And I just wanted to highlight that piece and worth a follow-on discussion maybe.

Sure.

And the other piece too is, and as I joked this morning, I like to turn every committee and council briefing meeting into a public safety committee meeting and say thank you for your work on the public safety side.

As you know, the public safety committee and the council overall is pressing forward on public safety across the board.

But there's much more to do, as evident from the discussions and also from the community that I'm hearing from constituents across the city, not just D7.

And we need to work in a one Seattle way on this, and we will.

But moving forward on some of the agenda items that we have as we move forward through the year in terms of bills and the like, we'd definitely like to reach out to you via our stakeholdering process, because the bills that we're looking at and working on I think could be very helpful to the BIA community, because the need is great, just like I was saying with the arts and culture community.

So thank you ahead of time as we look to press forward in terms of improving our public safety posture, because I could see willing and very valuable partners in this process, so thank you.

And I'll just, on the theme of making every meeting a public safety meeting, the reason that I did mention security is that, you know, with the, we can't, we have to limit our reliance on the private security that BIAs make possible, and that it's difficult when we have such a short-staffed police department, but that is what is, you know, the BIAs are filling into to provide not a supplemental service, but often an essential service when it comes to security.

Council President, 110% right.

As you know, our mission is to create a safe base, and our vision is to have our kids travel on our buses safely, but then also have our businesses not have to rely on private security, and this is kind of like another version of that.

So that's part of our vision statement, and that's part of our goal, and we will definitely be pressing forward on that, too, so then...

We don't have to have this, you know, kind of holding down the BIA in a respect.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

And, you know, Council Member Kettle, there are actually four cultural districts, Uptown, Columbia City, and Hillman City's two, and then Central Area and Capitol Hill.

So, and I know in the past that Office of Arts and Culture and OED have been really good partners because we've taken the lead with the BIAs and they've been helpful with, you know, when those cultural districts were established.

So you can all talk more about the current partnership, but I know that it's been a partnership in the past.

So thank you for raising that because that is really important in supporting our arts and culture organizations in town in the similar way that the BIA helps support the small businesses in town.

And in particular, because we all know that arts and cultural organizations are also small businesses, In and of themselves, folks don't normally think of them as that way, but they are.

And so I know that there's, like I said, been partnership in the past.

I want to say also that I've had the pleasure of working with OED for a long time and also the BIAs.

And I can't underscore the importance of BIAs at the city.

I know, Erin, you and I have had the pleasure of working together, sadly, pre-COVID because of the public safety issues.

those public safety issues have become worse post-COVID.

I will, though, say that during COVID, BIAs were so instrumental in helping small businesses mitigate for the impacts of COVID.

And you all were such great partners when we were reopening businesses.

You know, everyone knows during COVID, we shut down the city.

The first things that opened were farmers markets.

which are also under the purview of OED actually, and then the small businesses reopened.

And the BIAs were such great partners in making sure that as businesses were reopening, you all were working with SDOT to do the outdoor cafes and things of that nature.

And we really relied on the BIAs to be that point of contact and working with the small businesses across the city.

And so I can't underscore the importance of the BIAs as we're working with small businesses across the city pre-COVID, during COVID, now post-COVID.

So really wanted to flag that, just the importance of the BIAs across the city to all the work that we have to do to support small businesses across the city, not the least of which is to deal with the public safety issues.

And even on that score, some of the BIAs have ambassadors that they've been able to employ to help with some public safety issues.

I know we have them in the U District in the D4.

And so really, I'm so grateful for the work that you all do and looking forward to the continued partnership and would love to see expansion of BIAs across the city because I know not every district has one.

And I think they're just invaluable.

So I wanted to say that as well.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Council Member Saka or Council Member Wu, who is next?

I think Council Member Wu is next.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, to your question, I would like to invite you to committee.

Council President Nelson is co-sponsoring in Sustainability, Arts and Culture and City Light Committee in Arts Creative Economy Roundtable.

Director Markham will be there, as well as Director Golgoon from the Arts and Culture Office.

And we're going to talk about creative economy and how we can uplift and leverage the creative economy, especially in our downtown core.

So it's at 930 on Friday.

And I will talk more about that later.

Schedules are tough, but yes.

But yes, and so I was always on the other side since I have business in the Chinatown International District.

I worked very closely with Director Singh and Director...

Jeff Lang, and these many years on the advocacy end of continually asking for funding and help.

And yes, our rates are very low, and it's difficult to ask for, to revamp the rates because the businesses have to vote and want to pay more so that we can get more services.

And that's always very difficult in the Chinatown International District coming out of the pandemic and just business in general in that area that these small mom and pop shops have to vote to pay more.

But these funds are essential.

Being able to call the BIA and ask for graffiti removal on the first story of the business, to call and ask for excrements or needles to be removed in front of doorsteps, to be able to call somebody and talk about the alley, mixed garbage pickups, and especially to have someone to go to with all their concerns, I'm sure You know, you get so many emails about public safety issues and encampments and 12th and Jackson.

And so it's tough being a BIA.

You have so much work.

And I know for the CIDBA, there's like three or four of you in the office, and you're only on a $100,000 budget, whereas, you know, DSA and other BIAs are working millions of dollars.

And so I want to thank you for all the work that you do.

Also want to thank all the BIAs for the work that they do because it's, we, I watch like what Don Blakeney's doing and U District and what Erin's doing and know that that's what the CID could also get.

And hopefully the members there and the misses there will see that and agreed for a rate increase so that we can get those services.

But it's all about building trust.

It's all about getting a return on investments and going forward.

And so I'm glad to hear that There is that.

You're going to bring that back for the businesses to look at and excited for the future of not just the CIDs as well as the new ones that will be coming online.

I've spoken to people in Othello, Rainier Beach, about how they want to start bringing or developing their BIAs.

But it's all about the businesses and being able to agree to pay into these rates.

But also, I know OED has a huge part in that in helping with funding and connecting people to resources, especially businesses to resources.

So thank you.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Thank you, Director McIntyre.

Thank you, everyone here.

I really appreciate the opportunity to hear, you know, kind of from directly from your perspective, at least in this forum.

And it's a good way for council to better, your presence here is a good way for council to better understand the importance of BIAs and up-level and amplify the impact that that each and every one of you all have every day.

And, you know, we heard that not every district, council district, has a BIA.

I feel that, you know, I'm in a privileged position because I have three BIAs in my district, District 1, so shout out to Aaron Goodman from SOTO.

I also note and see Chris McKay from the Junction, West Seattle Junction BIA in the audience here.

and, of course, the Alliance for Pioneer Square is also BIA.

So really, really important work that you all do.

And you all have been, from Aaron and Chris at the Junction and Lisa at the Alliance for Pioneer Square, have all been terrific governing partners as well.

And, you know, we get, me and my office, great feedback from any number of sources, including individual individuals and individual small business owners.

But it's also good to supplement that sometimes with the work that you all do, because you all here are kind of high-level themes.

And so anyways, I just want to say I appreciate the work that all BIAs do, but special hat tip to the ones in my own district.

I do appreciate the partnership there.

And also, call to action in terms of making sure that more neighborhoods and districts and areas, whatever you want to call it, across the city of Seattle are able to benefit from the great work that BIAs do.

I do, I am aware, me and my office are aware of two neighborhoods in District 1 that have expressed strong interest in creating their own BIAs, and that's South Park and Georgetown.

So talk about, from an equity perspective, neighborhoods that could particularly benefit.

Personally, a little disappointed to see those omitted from when you talked about equity and potential neighborhoods.

But regardless, way forward is, you know, I would appreciate.

And by the way, those are two neighborhoods that I'm aware of in District 1 that have indicated to me in my office that they strongly support equity.

know bia and i i am also personally aware that some of them would be open to a consolidated bia of some sort whether that's uh you know broader duwamish valley uh bia but regardless um you know it's as as you sort of aptly alluded to and kind of called out on the slide there it's a very highly complex and technical process to build up and and and uh stand one up And so I would appreciate the partnership and working with the stakeholders in South Park and Georgetown to potentially bring that to life if that's what's needed.

So thank you.

We are working with South Park to learn about BIAs.

We've already had them meet with our consultants to understand what a BIA does and just to get that early stage.

We're always trying to build that pipeline.

So we never close the door on anybody who's interested.

I think for this one time funding that we have, we really had to focus and kind of figure out how many we could do right now and try to push those forward first, but we're still building the pipeline for the future as well.

Totally.

That makes perfect sense.

So thank you for your terrific work that you all have been doing.

And I think what you're saying and what I'm saying, helping to amplify the voices and perspectives of my constituents, I think they're in perfect harmony.

So we can all coexist here.

So let's continue down that path.

Thank you.

And to call out an encouragement of the development of new BIAs is not offloading the city's responsibility to provide basic services in general.

So I just always feel like I have to get that in there.

So, I mean, to me, BIAs are the epitome of or the quintessential example of a successful public-private partnership in whatever form it takes or whatever the assessments are paying for, and that is a benefit to the whole city.

So thank you very much.

I mean, when you see the lights in downtown Seattle in holiday time, that is...

That's the mid or in any neighborhood.

That's usually the mid that's paying for that, putting those up and keeping them lit all season long.

So that's one example.

And Aaron, what Soto, my understanding, I've always been so impressed with what you help match incoming businesses to potentially open spaces.

I mean, you are a matchmaker, and you help people navigate the permitting system, et cetera.

So essential services to starting and growing a business also in Seattle, so thank you.

All right, if there aren't any other questions or comments, I will let you go.

Thank you very much for this introduction, and I'll be looking forward to whatever legislation comes my way.

Great, thanks for the time, and thanks to all of our wonderful presenters.

All right, moving on to our next item here is our usual presentation of upcoming council actions.

Today, the roll call starts with Councilmember Rivera.

So if you're ready to go, please take it away.

Thank you, Council President.

I want to say that I'm sorry I'll be missing the council meeting tomorrow.

My daughter's graduating from Ingram High School tomorrow afternoon, and so I will be with her and all the graduates at Ingram.

I want to congratulate all the students across Seattle graduating.

They should be proud of their hard work and accomplishments.

And I also want to acknowledge the graduates and families at Garfield High School and all they're dealing with post the tragedy.

My heart goes out to the students and families at Garfield, so I really want to acknowledge that in the midst of the celebrations.

There's also a lot of heartbreak, so I want to acknowledge both.

In the interest of keeping this short, because I know this meeting is running a little longer than usual, I will say last week I had the Office of Immigration and Refugee Affairs presented at the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

OIRA has been doing really great work in community, supporting immigrants from anything from you know, naturalization to language access across the departments and the city.

I will say they've also been working with the county and the state to help secure funding to help the recent migrants in our city and are very appreciative for their efforts.

Last week I also met with 43rd Legislative District Representative Nicole Macri.

I think it's really important to collaborate with our state partners, so I very much appreciated the meeting with her to talk about our shared priorities and goals.

I also got to host students from Bryan Elementary on the second floor.

I know they came to meet with Amir's office as well.

And my daughter was actually in the same class many years ago, the one who's graduating.

And so it was a bittersweet for me to see those kids here and know that my daughter was once one of those kindergartners who came to ask really great questions.

And so that was really a great event.

I always appreciate having youth come to City Hall and just engagement at all ages is really important.

And then I am meeting tomorrow, I'm gonna be having my first meeting and looking very forward to it, very much forward to it with Seattle Interim Chief, Sue Rahr.

looking forward to hearing about some of her priorities while she's interim chief and just in general looking forward to working with her.

And then I also want to take this opportunity to thank Council Member Kettle for his leadership and work bringing the automated license plate recognition we need to ensure that privacy concerns are being addressed and that we don't have this particular privacy amendment will deal with who at SPD is able to have access to the historical data that's going to be recorded and making sure that you know, there's parameters in place for who can have access to that information.

And I will say that SPD has been a partner with this particular amendment.

I appreciate it working with them.

And then Tommaso from our very old central staff, want to give him a shout out as well, who was very instrumental in helping me bring this forward.

So thank you, Council Member Kettle for that.

And I'll leave it at there for me.

All right.

Well, on to me, I suppose.

Well, thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Appreciate the passing the baton here.

Let me grab it and run from here.

So, colleagues, I don't know about you guys, but I still couldn't be any more excited and passionate about what's going on and the opportunity that we all have right now before us.

to deliver extraordinary basics in a new, profound, exciting way in Seattle, and that is with the transportation levy conversations, the legislation that we're crafting right now and putting together.

So tomorrow, as we all know, we have the select committee meeting, the very next one.

And at tomorrow's select committee, we're going to be discussing The words of the proposed chair's package that, as you'll recall, central staff briefed us during our last select committee meeting, because at that time there were so many of our collective terrific ideas that the heavy lift of actually committing those ideas to legislation wasn't...

yet done but now it is and so here we are we're going to discuss the actual words and text of the proposed chairs package which again broadly high level is intended to uh reflect consensus uh and you know council priorities and values at a high level uh and so we're gonna discuss that we're also gonna discuss individual council member amendments uh to the extent We've had them.

I have my own, of course, D1 specific one.

So that's the plan roadmap for tomorrow.

We are not voting on anything tomorrow.

It is presentation only.

And so what's gonna happen is we're gonna present essentially a, bless you, we are going to present basically a kind of snapshot, the summary of each individual council member amendment and individually we'll be provided the opportunity to speak to them.

And then I will present the proposed companion resolution of the chair's package.

And I appreciate every last one of your individual comments and suggestions to that document.

And so that's kind of the roadmap, the plan from there.

We will vote on the final, the final, proposed package and comprehensive piece of legislation at the following select committee meeting, which is two weeks from tomorrow, so Tuesday, July 2nd, and that will put us on track and on target to get something before voters.

Voters will be the ultimate sort of deciders of what we're doing here, but I'm excited about the that is being teed up and being presented.

It's really important and consequential because as we know, colleagues, it provides roughly 30% of SDOT's budget to deliver on these essential services.

And so I'm encouraged by where we're at so far and the path ahead to to really get this right.

So that is what's happening.

Again, I look forward to continuing robust conversations and discussions with each of you all, I guess, collectively as a whole select committee tomorrow, but I appreciate the individual collaboration outside of that as well.

TikTok, here we are, but I do feel great about the prospects and putting together a package legislatively that we can all be proud of and kick it off to voters and let them decide.

Yeah, that is it from my perspective.

Welcome any comments or questions now.

Of course, we're gonna have a more fulsome conversation tomorrow, but welcome any other comments and questions at this time, if any.

If not, pass the baton on down to Council Member Wu.

Thank you.

I'm excited about tomorrow's meeting.

I'll be there, as will all of us.

So this past week, I met with new leadership from Real Change and learned about their job program and how to support services for their newspaper vendors.

Colleagues, I want to thank you for confirming Seattle City Light GM slash CEO Dawn Lindell.

I went up to the mayor's office last week to watch GM CEO Lindell take her oath of office.

My office also attended the Department of Neighborhoods open house downstairs in the Bertha Knight Landis room and learned how DON works with departments like SBU and SDOT to ensure city projects are completed in a way that's mindful of those most impacted by their work.

I also attended a board meeting with the Asian Pacific Directors Coalition and met with friends in Little Saigon to get an update on their community center and was excited to hear that the Viet Hoa lines that were right in front of the Viet Hoa grocery store that just recently caught on fire were saved and will be placed in the new community center and will continue to greet people for many years to come.

I met with South Lake Union Chamber to learn about the unique concerns about issues faced in Belltown and South Lake Union, and also met with the American Institute of Architects to talk about the mayor's comp plan.

I was also invited for a coffee chat with neighbors of Finney Ridge, hosted by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, and it was wonderful meeting local businesses and nonprofit leaders and artists of Finney Ridge to hear about their concerns.

Also attended the Regional Policy Committee with Council Member Moore.

As the committee, we are discussing the implementation plans for the King County Crisis Care Centers.

I also had a tour of Mary's Place and spoke with their CEO to understand how we can support our nonprofit resource centers.

was especially excited to see an actual office to residential conversion, even though I know they're all very different, but they have an amazing facility in South Lake Union.

So in committee this week, at 9.30, spoke about that earlier, it will include our kickoff for the arts an economic round table.

And so this round table will be the first item on the agenda for the committee, and it'll happen every third Friday of each month.

So I'm excited and grateful to our department partners, Inspire Washington, Downtown Seattle Association, working together to bring and amplify the creative economy, and thank you to Council President Nelson for joining us and co-sponsoring this.

So the goals of these round tables is to inform and uplift the work happening right now to define the creative economy, trying to connect the arts with economic development and downtown activation plans.

Also during committee this week, Seattle City Lights will be following up on their MOA with Port of Seattle on improvements associated with Terminal 46 and Pier 66 shore power project agreement legislation for a vote.

And if there are no further questions or comments, I will pass this to Council Member Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Parks Utilities Technology Committee, it's gonna be next Wednesday, 2 p.m., the 26th.

We're still working on the agenda.

Last week, we had a presentation, last committee meeting, we had a presentation about the tree canopy at Parks and how we're preserving trees, how we're saving a lot of the trees and planting them for the future for our kids.

We also voted on Council Bill 120797, which is Seattle Repertory Theater and Seattle Center.

It's an occupancy agreement between the two.

Seattle Repertory Theater has been a phenomenal asset for our city.

So looking forward to earning everyone's support on that.

Last week, I met with the General Council of India, General Consulate Gupta, in their office over in a little bit north of Belltown, kind of next to the arena.

That was great to learn about all of the assets and relationships that we have with India.

Also, the community center in our district as well.

And then one of my favorites, I joined Council Member Morales at the Southeast Senior Center for a celebration of Juneteenth, which, colleagues, that is coming up on Wednesday, the 19th, which is a reminder of, it was two years after the emancipation of Proclamation.

on June 19th, where slaves in Texas were notified of their freedom.

African descendants of slaves and foundational blacks in our community have been essential in building the wealth.

And I know a lot of people have wondered, why are we celebrating Juneteenth?

Our country has two holidays.

And that's because July 4th, there were a lot of people that were not free on July 4th.

And a lot of things have been built by by foundational black Americans from our White House, our U.S.

Capitol, the banking industry, insurance industry, a lot of the colleges that a lot of us have attended have been built by those groups.

And African Americans are 4% of the wealth in our entire country, but we are 13% of the population.

Again, we are 4%, we have 4% of the wealth, but we're 13% of the population.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to celebrating that holiday this week on the 19th in remembrance.

And I urge my colleagues and people that are watching the Seattle Channel to continue to fund black businesses that are within our community because it's all about economic mobility for us.

So I'll be attending Jimi Hendrix Park on the 19th.

I also have a meeting this week with the Human Rights Commission and joining Council President Nelson and Council Member Kettle for our Board of Health meeting.

Looking forward to kind of just making movement on the fentanyl crisis that's in our city and how my goal is how we're going to keep our kids safe away from fentanyl.

from usage, from seeing it, from being around it, from smelling it, from interacting with it, keeping our kids safe.

I'm also gonna be attending the Ocean Pavilion.

That's gonna be the grand opening.

That's gonna be super fun.

That's been years in the making.

I've had a tour.

and while it was being constructed, and now I get to see it while it's the finished product, and so that's gonna be on Friday, and then I'm joining people at, I call it TT Minor, everyone knows it as the World School, but to me it's TT Minor, Volunteer Day of Service, which is a time where they're gonna replace the landscape, they're gonna also redo some of the play area for the kids, It's going to be really beautiful.

It's just right off of 20th and Union, or excuse me, 18th and Union, 17th and Union.

It's right next to Temple to Hirsch and the SAS Academy.

So looking forward to that.

And if I don't have any questions for me, I'm going to pass it off to Councilmember Bob Kettle, or Robert Kettle, Bob Kettle.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

I appreciate it.

And thank you for that reminder on Juneteenth, a very important holiday, new but long in the making.

I appreciate it.

And as someone who served as a White House Naval Social Aid, I echo your point about the White House and how it was built.

And as a graduate of Georgetown University, it too has had its issues and linkages and support connections related to that time period and that activity.

So thank you for that reminder.

Moving forward, no committee meeting, no public safety committee meeting this week.

There will be one next week, Tuesday the 25th on the kind of community or regional boards.

Last week had the Puget Sound Regional Council's Transportation Planning Board meeting.

And as Council Member Hollingsworth noted this week, we have the King County Board of Health.

Also kind of along this vein on the federal level, I will have a meeting with Representative Jayapal on Friday morning, same time as a very important committee meeting on arts and culture is going to be held.

So I apologize for not being able to attend.

Last week, I just wanted to note, went on a very good walkabout, if you will, with lead, co-lead in the Third Avenue project, along Third Avenue, but also at the Civic Hotel.

very important to get the on-the-ground look, building on a lot of other opportunities I've had over the past year.

On Tuesday, I had a meeting with the American Jewish Committee on some of the public safety challenges that they're facing and anti-Semitism.

Very important meeting.

Also on Tuesday, Public Safety had a visit with Fire Station 25. And I wanted to highlight this as well because I invite my colleagues to do this, not just those on the Public Safety Committee, but across the council too.

Maybe visit a fire station in your district and the like.

Also had a great meeting with Bellwether Housing about affordable housing projects here in Seattle last week.

midweek and then also had a great tree policy briefing by a combination of SDCI and OSC in terms of moving forward.

I did joke with them that I was channeling a little bit of council member Alex Peterson in that meeting.

But it's important to get it right related to our tree, particularly tree canopy, which goes to so many things in terms of our, and to include our health And also very fortunate to have done a unified care team at UCT right along through D7 in Belltown, you know, second in Bell in that area, Third Avenue, but also in Kinnear, the West Queen Anne Greenbelt, and Inner Bay along 17 Thorndike area of Inner Bay.

Very Very good tour, thank you to the UCT folks for that.

This week, I just wanted to highlight today, the Westpac, the West Precinct Advisory Council is having their public safety forum titled Healthy and Safe Streets tonight here at the Bertha Knight Landis room.

Great representation and thank you to everyone that is attending.

Again, that is sponsored and headed up by the West Precinct Advisory Council.

Later this week, I will have a Health One ride along.

I suspect others have done that as well.

Very important.

And of course, on Friday, we'll have another District 7 Neighborhood Council meeting, which is very important as we look to hear from all the neighborhoods within District 7. And then closing the week out with a tour of OPA, Office of Police Accountability with Director Betz and his team.

So that's it.

I'd like to pass to Council Member Moore.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I don't have a lot to offer.

Let's see.

The next meeting in the Housing and Human Services Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, June 26th.

The agenda is not yet finalized, but we are planning on having the housing levy, ANF plan, and housing policies back in committee for further discussion and possible vote.

I will note that my staff has connected with committee staff regarding the version that I plan to introduce, which I had mentioned at committee.

And we also note that we did push back the amendment deadline to Thursday at 10 a.m.

to give people a little bit more time to read through sort of a dense document.

Let's see.

Tomorrow, I will be bringing an amendment to the ALPR bill, just requesting that SPD notify the council if Axon is required to respond to a warrant or subpoena.

So, just wanting to keep track of what's happening with that, and that's been posted.

So, it's a pretty straightforward amendment.

And then last week I had the pleasure of opening the Lake City Farmer's Market, so I got to ring the cowbell as well.

Yeah, it was fun and awkward at the same time.

So anyway, I did enjoy that.

And it's a great, it's every Thursday from three to seven, and I highly recommend.

It's a great place.

And it has one of the most diverse set of vendors of all the farmer's markets.

So it's tiny but mighty.

So I strongly encourage people to attend.

For external committees, last week I attended the Regional Policy Committee.

At that time, we had a last-minute amendment to the Crisis Care Levy Implementation Plan around rapid property acquisition scenarios.

And I did offer the amendment that had been put forth was that it would provide for King County to acquire property expeditiously and then get sort of post facto approval from the relevant city jurisdiction involved.

My concern was that that did not allow for sufficient voice for the legislative body.

And so I did bring forth an amendment that would have required that the letter of support given to King County was signed off both by the mayor as well as council president.

Unfortunately, it did not succeed, so just noting that I will be reaching out to the mayor's office to talk with them about how we can make sure that we are working together should there ever be a sort of short-term emergency scenario to buy a site that is then going to serve as a crisis care center levy.

I think the council needs to be involved in that discussion.

That's really all I have to offer.

If there are no further questions, I'll turn it over to Council Member Morales.

Okay.

Thank you, colleagues.

I'll try to keep this short.

I was gone most of last week due to illness.

I'm not contagious, so happy to be here.

Let's see, the June 19th Land Use Committee is canceled in honor of the Juneteenth holiday.

I will be in Vancouver, as I've said before, for the rest of the week representing the city of Seattle at the Association of Washington Cities Conference.

So the next regularly scheduled land use committee will be on July 3rd.

I am anticipating that we will bring back the Office to Residential Conversion legislation for a vote out of land use.

We will also have three board appointments to the Equitable Development Initiative Advisory Board.

For a vote, one is a council appointment and two are board appointments.

Moving to department updates, I received a briefing from the Office of Housing last week regarding the upcoming legislation to update the ANF plan.

Also received a briefing this morning from OSC and HSD on our local food action plan update, which my understanding is that will be coming later in July.

I met with Judge Fay Chess to discuss recent budgetary and policy changes and how they may be impacting operations at the courts.

And my team met with FAS to discuss whether we can find some city facilities for our in-district office hours.

We will very likely end up at the Beacon Hill Library, which is lovely.

I did miss reporting last week on the Growth Management Policy Board meeting.

I do sit on that regional committee, so I wanted to take just a minute to share an update from that.

If you don't know, the Puget Sound Regional Council certifies area comprehensive plans from different cities across the four-county region of PSRC.

So one of the agenda items was to review their process for certification.

The comp plans are technically due at the end of December.

We are anticipating that ours will be late, but nevertheless, once we get it completed, they will be certifying our comprehensive plan.

And they do that for several reasons.

One is to ensure regional collaboration so that all of our regional cities are meeting requirements of state law.

But also, in order for us to receive federal transportation dollars, PSRC, as our federal transportation dollar allocation agency, has to certify our comprehensive plan.

So we do plan to submit that once our plan's ready.

They also have focus areas for their certification process, which does include our Growth Management Act transportation requirements.

Those are based on certain land use assumptions around how much housing we're providing, what our facility needs are, what our bike and pedestrian planning looks like, as well as to check with consistency and transportation plans across the region.

and consistency with their Vision 2050 and regional growth strategy.

So they have some particular areas that they are expanding their review this time around, so I did want to make sure folks are aware of that.

The expanded areas for review include racial equity, housing access, addressing health disparities, station area planning, anti-displacement, and climate change.

So they will be creating kind of a tracker on the PSRC website, and that is all under development.

Once it's available, I'll share that with you so you can go check it out.

Finally, district updates.

Last week I attended, as Councilmember Hollingsworth mentioned, the Juneteenth Picnic, hosted by the Southeast Senior Center.

Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for joining and for...

I think the kids these days call it spitting a poem, which I can't remember the name of, but I would love for you to share that with us.

It was great.

I'm proud to have sponsored the legislation that created this as a city holiday.

It is a state and federal holiday, but my hope in creating this as a city holiday was that city workers and all of us will take time to rededicate ourselves to the principles of anti-racism and remember that there have not yet been economic reparations for the centuries of unpaid labor that came from the transatlantic slave trade.

So I know we will all be, offices will be closed on Wednesday, but I hope we all take some time to reflect on what that means.

Finally, this week my staff will be attending several events in my absence.

including a Juneteenth celebration at Seward Park, the Yesler Terrace Community Council, Friends of Rainier View Neighborhood Meeting.

On Friday evening is the Somos Pride Reception, the Gallo de Orgullo, to celebrate with our Latinx community.

And there will also be a Seattle Women's Commission Community Night.

And that is all I have.

I don't see any questions.

Yes, Council President.

I am so excited to hear you mention the race and social justice tool that has been under production by the PSRC for months and months.

I got a test drive in a meeting that I attended last year, I think maybe in the stead of some of a regular voting member's absence.

And every time I see the director, Josh Brown, I always say, when is that going to be ready?

And I mentioned it, in fact, when he was here accepting the award.

you are going to be getting a presentation and then did you say that it's gonna be ready pretty soon?

When can we start using it is my question.

It's not quite ready.

It's up, but I'll just do a follow-up with him and see if we can get a specific date and I'll be happy to share that.

Great, thank you very much.

Any further questions for Council Member Morales?

Council President, if I may?

Yes.

I just wanted to share the poem.

It's called This Is Just Between Us by Dr. Mona Lake-Jones.

She is a renowned poet in Seattle, born and raised, and very, very talented.

So just wanted to throw that out there.

Thank you.

You're not going to share it with us, are you?

Oh, you said share.

I thought you said share who it was.

I was not a council member.

Maybe another time.

I got you.

Excellent.

Okay, I'll make this fairly quick.

So on the agenda tomorrow, there are two pieces of legislation that are from not the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee, but rather the Labor Relations and Policy Committee.

And so I am the chair of that committee and so therefore I am the official sponsor of Council Bill 120795, Council Bill 120796, authorizing the execution of collective bargaining agreements with the Construction Maintenance Equipment Operator Unit and the Information Technology Professionals Unit of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, local...

Again, please read the email from Karina, and we'll have more information during our meeting tomorrow.

And those are the only two items on the agenda that I have to report on for tomorrow's meeting.

The next meeting of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development meeting will be Thursday, June 27th.

And the agenda is still being formalized, but we will likely have possible votes on Council Bill 120781, an ordinance updating definitions in the SMC related to cannabis businesses to align with state law.

More on that next time.

That will be, it's a fairly technical bill, as I said last week, but it is, wanted to give two meetings to discuss and then voted out of committee.

I want to thank everybody who attended the committee last week because we had a very robust discussion of the implementation of the 2023 Office of the Auditors report on organized retail crime.

It was, we had presenters from, well, We had the Retail Association.

We had the Crime Prevention Division of SPD.

We had the new Director of Public Safety in the Mayor's Office and other folks together to discuss what more can be done, what is being done.

And I think that the takeaway of that discussion was that within the committee, at least, there was an abundance of political will.

to take next steps and to zero in on the recommendations that have not yet been fulfilled.

So there's, we say it over and over again how deleterious this is to the health of our business community, but also of the people that frequent and work in these businesses.

And so really looking forward to moving forward with that and be sure to catch it on the award-winning Seattle channel.

Okay, the Councilmember Kettle, Chief of Public Safety, mentioned this, but I will be joining him tonight at the West Precinct Advisory Council slash Belltown United's roundtable with a focus on its title, Healthy and Safe Streets for All Roundtable.

And it's downstairs in the Bertha Knight Landis room, starting at, I believe, 530. The door's open, and I encourage folks to go.

Here's the lineup.

Council Member Kettle.

There will also be Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, Amy Smith, Chief of Care Steve Strand, Captain Steve Strand of the West Precinct, King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion, Chief of Police for King County Metro, Todd Morrell, Sean Soth, who is the Director of Health Innovation and Integration for Evergreen Treatment Services, Stephanie Berg, Regional Director, of Central and South, my notes are cut off here, John Ehrenfeld, Program Manager of HealthONE, Karen Salinas, Director of Outreach for the REACH Program.

Lots of people, we're gonna be talking about what more can be done for public safety and the drug crisis, and so we'll both be at that.

It should be a very robust conversation.

So that's all I will mention.

I want to finish my remarks.

Thank you very much, Council Member Wu, for inviting me to participate.

I'm going to listen.

I am sponsoring, but my role is to listen and take the ideas and the recommendations back to my committee for future work from both the Office of Arts and Culture and from the Office of Economic Development.

They always say that commerce follows culture, and I'm going there to find out how we can best support culture.

Probably Councilmember Kettle is thinking through public safety.

All right, with that, if there's no further business, we'll move into the executive session.

I will note that, is there any further business?

Go ahead, Council Member Rivera.

Well, I just wanted to update on the PSRC, the equity tracker.

I also sit on the Growth Management Committee.

It's actually live.

It just needs to be updated so you can start tinkering around with it.

And if you have feedback, please...

Let either Council Member Morales or myself know because we both sit on that committee or also you can reach out to PSRC directly.

But it is a really interesting tool.

And like I said, you can go on there.

There's some information.

It's just not fully completed.

Thank you.

We should make sure that gets wide distribution or maybe the Office of Civil Rights is aware of this and perhaps using it as well.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

One quick housekeeping item.

Colleagues, again, thank you for your thoughtful engagement and work in this whole levy legislation, all these conversations.

You all have seen earlier this morning that Councilmember Moore's amendment was circulated, and just so you all know as well, it has now been published to the agenda for tomorrow's meeting.

So, thank you.

Okay.

Oh, I have one item of further business.

I will likely be excused from the council meeting next Tuesday.

Is there any objection?

Hearing no objection.

Hearing no further business, we'll now move into the executive session.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation, and the council's executive session is an opportunity for us to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorneys as authorized by law.

And a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that we are focusing only on the legal questions and not discussing policy.

I expect that the time of the executive session, that it will end by 4.50.

We've now been giving it an hour just to make sure that we have something for sure in there.

It could end early, but if it goes late, I will come back on and announce that it will be extended and provide the time that we are extending the meeting to.

And once it's over at the council meeting, this council briefing will end automatically.

All right, with that, thank you very much, and I'll see you in executive session.