Seattle City Council Committee on Finance and Housing 2/16/22

Thank you so much for joining the Finance and Housing Committee of the Seattle City Council.

Today is February 16th, 2022. I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of Finance and Housing Committee.

The committee meeting will come to order.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Madam Chair?

Present.

Madam Chair, that is four present, one absent.

Thank you so much and we will go ahead and excuse Council Member Nelson.

She let us know that she might not be able to join us this morning and appreciate the heads up on that.

Okay, colleagues, we do have a full agenda here with us today.

Thanks again for joining.

We have the appointment of Kristin Lee Sucas as member of the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Community Advisory Board.

We have the appointment of Julie Dingley as the Director of the City Budget's Office, and we'll have with us Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harold, who's with us on the line.

Our third agenda item is a briefing and possible vote on the Seattle Rescue Plan Number 4. This includes the grant acceptance and the fund swap legislation.

And finally, we're going to have a community panel on cannabis equity, as I mentioned earlier this week in our briefing.

This is about looking at the cannabis industry after legalization of cannabis and its impact on taxes and revenue, as well as worker safety and other equity-related issues in this sector, especially as we think about how to right some wrongs during the war on drugs.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, we do have a few folks on the line here for public comment.

We're going to go ahead and move right on into public comment.

As we've done before, we want to make sure that we get through everybody who has signed up for public comment.

We'll give folks two minutes to speak and offer a chance to provide comments on our agenda or our work plan.

You're going to hear an indication that you have been unmuted when your name has been called.

That is your clue, speakers, to go ahead and hit star six on your own phone.

Please make sure that your own phone is not on mute itself as well.

After you've hit star six, please start with your name, and you can go ahead and have the full two minutes.

At this point, we're going to open up public comment, and I do have two people listed on today's sign-in sheet to provide public comment.

And if the clerks could go ahead and tee up those folks who are in the waiting room and our clock, that would be great.

The first speaker is Adan Espino Jr.

And the second person is Jonathan Warren.

Good morning, Adan.

I see you are on mute.

If you can hit star six to unmute yourself, that would be great.

Perfect.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

OK.

Thank you so much.

Well, good morning, council members.

My name is Aidan Orazon Espino, Jr.

I am the executive director of the Craft Cannabis Coalition and Association of Cannabis Retail Stores, and I'm here to offer some comments regarding the upcoming community panel on cannabis equity.

Our cannabis businesses in Seattle are deeply committed to diversity, and we are proud of our strong track record on minority hiring.

The reality is, though, that cannabis businesses are hurting right now, impacted by not just the pandemic, a pretty serious spike of crime and armed robberies and we are concerned that we have not been consulted on some ideas that we hear are being kicked around behind the scenes.

We believe some of them could cause very real harm both to our businesses and to our workforce such as any new taxes or mandates and we just hope to be included in an upcoming conversation surrounding the issue so we can have all stakeholders present and ensure that the council won't just rubber stamp a proposal without broad stakeholder input and to listen to our concerns in good faith.

So we hope to engage with you all in the future.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And we'll make sure to reach back out to you.

Jonathan Warren, good morning.

Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good morning.

Yes.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Yeah, thanks for letting us go first.

Sounds like it'll be a fun meeting, but I'm happy to be able to submit this.

I'm a professor at the University of Washington, resident in Wallingford.

My students have put together a model to try to help deal with the housing crisis.

As you know, we're all painfully aware there's homelessness.

In addition, just your ordinary person can't buy a home.

anymore in the city or challenging.

So they've been struggling and working the last three or four months to get land that's modeled after cities such as Vienna, Singapore, and some pilot projects here in the US.

And they'd just like the opportunity to present their ideas to some of the council members, excuse me, or to this committee.

And we're just not sure how to go about that besides emailing council members.

So if there's any way that would be possible, I'd appreciate it if all of you, we're not sure what the process is, reached out to me at redstick, R-E-D-S-T-I-C-K, at uw.edu at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

And before you hang up, if you could just repeat your email, since it's already out there in the public, if you don't mind, we would be happy to set up a meeting with you.

We have finance and housing in this committee, so we'd love to hear that presentation.

And Freddy de Cuevas is on the line here that can help us schedule that.

Could you repeat it one more time?

Yeah, thanks.

Redstick, R-E-D, that's the color red, S-T-I-C-K, at UW.

So it's the University of Washington email address.

Thanks so much.

We will get that scheduled.

Thanks for reaching out.

Yeah, of course.

Thanks for calling in this morning.

Colleagues, that does conclude the number of folks that we've had signed up for public comment today.

I just want to double check before we conclude public comment.

There's nobody else in the waiting room.

There are no other public comment registrants.

Excellent, thanks so much.

Okay, that will conclude our public comment for today and we're going to go ahead and move on into other items of business on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, could you please read agenda item number one into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment 02096, appointment of Kristen Little-Sukis as member of the Sweden Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

And we have with us today, Alyssa Patrick from the Office of Sustainability and Kristin Spasukis.

Good morning.

Thanks for being here with us.

I understand Alyssa from the Office of Sustainability and the Environment are going to be giving us a brief introduction about the work of the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Community Advisory Board.

And then, Kristin, we will have you talk a little bit about your background.

Thank you again for applying for this position and for the work that you do in public health.

Your resume is very impressive and you know I'm a public health, well what's the word?

I want to be an epidemiologist in everything public health.

So I'm just so excited to talk about everything health-related and especially impressive work that you've done with the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at the Harvard School of Law and the work that you've been doing to reduce consumption of sugar through initiatives at the local and state level.

So really excited about the work that you've done and the interest in serving on the Seattle Sugary Sweetened Beverage Tax Advisory Board.

I'll go ahead and turn it over to Alyssa to do a little bit of background, and then Kirsten will turn it over to you.

Great, thank you so much.

Chair Mosqueda, and thank you to the committee for your time today.

My name is Alyssa, and I am at the Office of Sustainability and Environment, currently staffing the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

As you know, the Sweetened Beverage Tax Board was established by the same ordinance that created the tax in 2017. The role of the board is to develop recommendations for the mayor and city council on programs and services to support with beverage tax revenue that align with the ordinance, which is focused on benefiting Seattle populations that experience the greatest health and education inequities.

And that is really due in large part to community advocacy that that funding goes towards those to addressing food and education inequities.

According to the ordinance, the board consists of 11 members who are residents of the city of Seattle or work within the boundaries of the city of Seattle.

And today we are here to, for a confirmation hearing of Kristin Soukis for one of the public health seats on the board.

And I just want to thank also council for, we did an application process for the first time in 2021. This is a council appointed seat, but we worked closely with council member Mosqueda's staff to do an open application process.

So we thank you for that more equitable process as well.

And so now it's my pleasure to introduce Kristen.

As Council Member Mosqueda mentioned, she is an experienced public health practitioner with a mission to eradicate poverty, promote health, and combat climate change through food-related policy and programs.

Kristen received her master's from Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, specializing in community food security and public health.

She recently moved to Seattle from Boston, where she served as a policy analyst at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of the Harvard Law School, which seeks to improve care for underserved individuals at every point of interaction with the health care system.

Kristen also has a national perspective on sweetened beverage taxes as she led the Harvard Center's approaches to reducing the consumption of sugar initiative.

So she's also familiar with Seattle's policy through that work.

Throughout her career, Kristen has also worked in different parts of the food system, from farming and food service to compost and food policy research.

Recently, Kristen left her position at the Center for Health Law and Policy and now is working as a healthcare policy consultant focused on expanding opportunities to Medicaid managed care organizations to address health-related social needs.

So with that, the CAB is very excited to have Kristen be considered for this post, and I'll turn it over to committee for discussion.

Thank you, Alyssa.

Thank you, council members.

Kristen, thanks so much for being here this morning.

Do you want to talk a little bit about your interest in serving on the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Advisory Community Advisory Board?

Obviously, this is right up your alley, but we'd love to hear more about some of the things that you're looking forward to and anything else you'd like to share with us about your background.

Absolutely, thank you so much.

Once I figured out I was moving to Seattle, I was very excited to be living in a state and in a city that has a sugar sweetened beverage tax ordinance.

And as you just mentioned, it aligns perfectly with my interests.

I've been working on sugar policy pretty intensely for the past four years or so.

And approaches to reducing the consumption of sugar project with Chilpi.

And throughout my role in that project, not only did I educate Harvard Law students on how to be advocates in the sugar policy space and what that meant and what the pros and cons of all of the sugar policy ordinances had, but it also meant that I provided technical assistance at the local, county, state, and even federal level on sugar-related policy.

So as a result, through that, I became intimately familiar with Seattle's sweetened beverage tax, and as well as other taxes around the country, too.

Pretty intense analysis there, looking at the consequences, looking at the benefits, looking at how these taxes were approved, and all of the community engagement that are required and we're involved in the passing of this legislation, too.

And I am just very excited to be more involved on an intimate level.

And, you know, I also have a background not only working in food, but also as an educator.

So the two initiatives that this Sweetened Beverage Tax supports are very close to my heart.

I spent many years working in the classroom, And education is a core tenet of health, too.

So I'm extremely excited, and I look forward to answering any questions that you might have about my background.

Wonderful.

Well, I think we're fortunate, as well, that you are able to continue to work for the Center for Health, Law, and Policy Innovation with the Harvard Law School while being here in Seattle.

And having that direct connection to our local public policymaking is, I think, going to be a real asset.

Colleagues, are there any questions that folks may have for the applicant in front of us?

I'm not seeing any additional hands right now.

I think that you're going to find a lot of folks who are on this committee that actually have policy connections in their committees as well.

The direct connection with the community advisory board here is our work with direct work with finance.

That's why we continue to have oversight on this board.

Is there anything specific in like, let's say the first year of the work that you do on the cab that you're going to be your primary focus as you engage in conversations with the other board members?

I think for now I'm just excited about diving into budget recommendations and then of course looking at the strategic planning moving forward.

I know that some initiatives have been expanded recently and I'm excited to see where they're going, especially a focus on postpartum health and how that relates to both food and education too.

Great.

Okay, colleagues, I'm not seeing any additional hands.

Don't be shy, but not seeing any hands.

I think that you have made the case.

Well, and I do want to thank for a day with us, who is our clerk for the Finance and Housing Committee meeting, who also serves as my office's lead on health and public health related items, who had the opportunity to participate in all of those interviews.

So thank you, Fadi Bey, for your service as well to bring us this great applicant today.

All right, I move the committee recommends passage of appointment of Kristen Little-Sukis to the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Community Advisory Board.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the passage of the appointment?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Madam Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is a four in favor, none opposed.

is unanimous.

Congratulations.

Thank you again for your interest in serving.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointment passed will be sent to the February 22nd Seattle City Council meeting for a final vote.

Kristen, you do not have to be there in person because you have been at this meeting.

So we will sing your praises there and pass on our unanimous recommendation that the council approve the nomination.

at the February 22nd meeting.

Thank you as well, Alyssa, and thanks to all of the members for the CAB for your work, especially when it comes to the budget recommendations.

Those have all been very much appreciated.

Thanks, all.

Let's move on to the second item of business on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, would you please read item number two into the record?

agenda item number two, appointment 02105, appointment of Julie A. Dingley as Director of the City Budget Office for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Well, welcome.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Senior Deputy Mayor Monique Harrell.

Good morning, Julie Dingley.

It's great to see all of you.

Thanks again for being here.

Thank you very much to Acting Director Daley for the work that you've done in partnership with our office over the last few years, and also specifically for the work that you've done over the last two weeks in preparing to be here for this nomination process.

We, as always, sent a robust questionnaire, and you did a tremendous job of filling out that entire questionnaire in preparation for this confirmation hearing.

I want to thank Senior Deputy Mayor Harreld for being here with us today and for walking us through this process and for your office's continued interest and engagement with us, the council, in adhering to the full director confirmation process that we codified a few years ago.

Colleagues, as you can tell from the process that we have in front of us today, I'm really excited about the opportunity to feature not only the process, but the applicant in front of us.

Many of us have the pleasure of working with actor director Dingley through the American Rescue Plan for the last two years.

And we've also worked with her extensively in her role as acting director already this year.

And I wanna say personally, I continue to see you be very collaborative, very willing to be creative in addressing some of the solutions that we need to come up with together between the legislative and the executive branch.

And I appreciate the transparency and the approach to working on these issues together.

I also want to thank you for the work that you've done with especially our chief of staff, Sejal Parikh.

I know you and she worked closely together as we created the Seattle Rescue Plan and our legislative branch through the central staff who have been very much appreciative of the work that we've done together.

By way of an introduction to Senior Deputy Mayor, again, colleagues, as a reminder, this is related to Resolution 31686, which we passed in Council in 2018. I had the chance to work with the mayor's office this year on January 14th prior to transmission of the confirmation packet that you have in front of you for Julie Dingley, and we had the chance to weigh in on the 22 questions sent to Acting Director Dingley last Monday.

You received those on the 7th.

They were returned to us, excuse me, they were returned to us this past Monday on the 14th, and they are attached to the agenda for your review and for the community's review as well.

Council members, today, as part of our process, we will be able to hear directly from Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell about the remarks that she has for introductory comments about this role as a part of the executive branch, and also understand directly from nominee Dingley about the work that she hopes to accomplish as the possible director for the city budget's office.

I'm excited about the opportunity to hear more, and I will turn it directly over to Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell.

Good morning, thanks for being here with us again.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Chair Mosqueda.

It is, the more I come to your committee meetings, the more I actually would like more time on my schedule to sit here amongst you all.

You do a fantastic job and we have such an excellent, excellent council.

On behalf of Mayor Harrell, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Julie Dingley, Interim Director for the City Budget Office.

I will start by saying that, you know, When I first started just a few weeks ago and I was talking publicly about the quality of city employees, I was really speaking very highly indirectly about people like Interim Director Julie Dingley.

When I had an opportunity to get to know Julie and her work, it made me realize what talent we had at the city and how deep our benches and how phenomenal what a phenomenal staff and team that we have.

I have been overwhelmed by Julie's ability to work with the executive branch and council and to be able to, you know, move freely as a member of the team to be able to ensure that everybody's getting the information that they need to make really smart decisions.

Julie is excellently good at her job.

And I think that you've all had more of an opportunity to see that than I have.

And I just I remain impressed with the work that she's done.

But you don't have to just take it from me.

She was actually held in very high regard by her team.

They were the ones that brought her forward into the into the interim role.

She was she was brought forward by Ben Noble and the Deputy Jeanette Blankenship.

And when you have the people who are working directly with you and see everything about you on a day-to-day basis for a long period of time, when they're the one saying, like, she is the one, this is the moment, it makes it really easy to be able to say, you know, I see what you're talking about.

So I know you have all of the information from interim director, hopefully, Director Dingley's questionnaire.

I can't stress that I think that she's going to be a key partner between the executive branch and the legislative branch in being able to work with all of us.

And and I just I this is probably the day I've been looking forward to for the last month to be able to bring her her confirmation forward to all of you.

So I'm going to let Julie have the floor now and and just bursting with pride at this moment.

So thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you very much, Senior Deputy Mayor.

Thanks, Julie, for being here.

The floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, for that warm introduction.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda, Vice Chair Herbold, Councilmember Peterson, and Councilmember Lewis.

It's just a pleasure to be before you this morning.

I should probably take a moment to address the just lovely sound of my voice.

Unfortunately, yesterday I was I tested positive for COVID-19.

So after two years of successful avoidance, I just have excellent timing.

But thanks to modern medicine, I am upright in front of you today.

So I am very grateful for that.

I had planned longer remarks this morning, but I'm going to keep it a little bit shorter just to try to save my voice just a little bit.

I want to start out by just saying thank you so much, Chair Mosqueda.

For your kind remarks about my nomination, you and your team and Sejal have been incredible partners prior to today, and I'm really looking forward to strengthening that partnership in the future.

I also want to say thank you to Mayor Harrell for this nomination.

I am beyond humbled at the mere fact that I am sitting before you today and for the fact that he has put his trust in me for this position.

and also to Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell for your steadfast support.

And I am sorry again for being the one to always bring you terrible news, including that I have COVID the day before my confirmation hearing.

But I must say you have an admirable ability to take in disappointing information and maintain a positive outlook.

So thank you for that.

I want to thank the entire Finance and Housing Committee and the full Council.

As the Chair noted, we have already begun working closely together, and that is a pattern I intend to continue in the future.

I also want to take a moment to thank all of your legislative assistants and Council Central staff who do amazing work day in and day out to ensure that you have the best possible information.

And last but never least, I want to thank the entire CBO staff who are incredible and dedicated public servants.

They're not only committed to the core work of ensuring sound stewardship of our resources, but they've created just a beautiful community within CBO where we continue to learn and grow together.

To have worked with me is to know that my default mode is collaboration.

I believe we're at our best when we can have honest conversations and trust each other.

And that is why I've already begun conversations with each of you around our current financial situation.

We continue to face significant challenges, not just with the looming deficit, but also as we move toward being a more equitable city, trying to undo centuries of structural and institutional racism.

And I look forward to working with each of you to achieve our shared vision of a vibrant and more equitable city.

Thank you, chair, for the opportunity to say a few words and I'm happy to take any questions you have.

Thank you so much, interim director.

I'm really sorry that you have COVID.

very scary, I'm sure, and we would obviously be happy to accommodate you at any meeting.

But thank you for being here and for your work on that questionnaire.

I hope that questionnaire did not keep you up late at night, making you more susceptible.

And we want to just acknowledge all of the work that you've put into that questionnaire and know that maybe some of your voice can be saved by referencing back to the lengthy answers you provided as well.

Colleagues, Director Dingley is with us today and has made herself available, and we want to make sure to ask any questions that folks might have of her.

So please don't be shy.

Do you have anything that you'd like to ask the nominee in front of us today?

Please go ahead, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and welcome Interim Director Gingley and Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

I just want to echo the comments of both our Budget Chair and Senior Deputy Mayor.

Director Gingley, highly qualified, very excited about your nomination here.

I don't have any questions beyond the 22 that we already asked and you answered, which are online for the public to look at.

I appreciate, even in the midst of this appointment hearing, transparently delivering the tough news, reminding us about the budget situation that we're facing.

But I'm glad that you'll be at the helm to work on this.

And I know that a lot of us were used to working with Ben Noble and his incredible service to the city, and it's going to be great to continue working with you.

And I want to reiterate the comments you said about the city budget office staff.

They work so hard throughout the entire year and have to have different audiences in terms of working with the departments, but then also having to work with the city council and the mayor's office.

And it's just hard to please everybody when you're dealing with tough budget situations.

So I look forward to voting yes on this today.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson.

Vice Chair Herbold, please go ahead.

Thanks so much.

I want to make a couple comments.

No questions for Julie.

Thank you for being with us and powering through with your illness.

But I do want to thank Chair Mosqueda for her attention to Resolution 31868. especially since we're going to be seeing quite a few department head confirmations in the next few months.

This was legislation that Chair Mosqueda sponsored and the city council approved unanimously back in March of 2019. It lays out the process that the mayor expects, that the council expects, the executive to follow in considering nominees.

For the viewing public, this resolution requests that the mayor communicate to the committee chair on the plan recruitment process and that the clerk create an appointment file contained Containing that information and it lays out general criteria for council to consider in its deliberations just want to Appreciate here that we are following that process and our consideration of today's appointment And and my thanks to the mayor's office in the city clerk for doing so as well.

And then lastly I want to thank Julie for her years of public service and and And also her approach to this particular new opportunity.

I know from conversations with her that she has been very clear with the executive that she intends to work transparently and collaboratively with the city council and her willingness to pursue this opportunity was contingent on that understanding.

And in the spirit of One Seattle, I think that is the way that we can all best serve the public.

So really, really appreciate that approach to this role.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Herbold.

And speaking of powering through, thank you again for all of your service as well on this committee.

Any additional comments or questions?

Okay, thank you very much.

Julia, I do want to thank you and you mentioned your team at CBO.

I want to thank you in advance as well.

I know we're going to have some conversations about possible revenue solutions as we look at addressing the one-time nature of the federal funding and some of the issues that predated me as the finance chair here as we I think to see a growing population, 21% growth in our population over the last decade.

We have increased needs and along with those increased needs should come increased revenue.

And I think if COVID has taught us anything, it's that some of these issues that are manifesting right now in a very visible way were present prior to COVID.

They've just been worsened and, you know, maybe more exposed during this really pressing time, both for economic instability and for you know, the pressure, the stress, the trauma, and as Vice Chair Herbold says, the shadow pandemic that is plaguing our communities.

We need to invest in that stress, the mental health, housing, and also the infrastructure and small business needs of our community.

So I want to thank you in advance.

Your team has been really great to work with, and you specifically have been really transparent and available and accountable.

So thanks for that past work and a preemptive thank you for the work that we have yet to do, especially as it comes to revenue and addressing these issues together.

So I'm excited that you're here and that you want to do this work.

And I don't see any additional questions.

Deputy Mayor, Senior Deputy Mayor, is there any additional comments you would like to make?

You know, I am part of my pride in bringing Julie forward is just the fact that Julie is going to work collaboratively with us as an executive team and a legislative team.

And that's so critical to how we will move forward.

And so always grateful that you will allow me in your space and that I have an opportunity to work with all of you and really looking forward to our continued work together with Julie.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Vice Chair Hurdle, is that a new hand?

My apologies.

No, I'll bring it back.

No problem.

And Julie, I do want to let you save your voice unless there's anything else that you would like to add.

You're welcome to.

I just want to say thank you.

You all have been so incredible to work with, and I'm really looking forward to the work in the future.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

We also wish you the best of health, and do please lay down and get some rest after this.

As advocates for paid sick leave, we want you to take that, right?

The whole community.

And that includes us, too.

And just as I'm saying thank you, I want to thank Adam Schaefer from CBO's office, as well as Dan Nolte, the legislative liaison with the mayor's office, for their work with us on this nomination process, as well as the folks here in the room.

I think we're ready to vote.

Colleagues, I move the committee recommends passage of the appointment of Julie Dingley as the director of the city budget's office.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the appointment?

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is four in favor and none opposed.

Thank you very much.

It is unanimous.

Director Dingley, we will go ahead and move that the committee, excuse me, the motion carries and we will make sure that the committee recommendation that the appointment pass is sent to the February 22nd Seattle City Council meeting for a final vote.

Thank you very much again for your interest in serving in this role, the vision that you've brought to your team so far, and the answers that you provided to the questionnaire that really I think, elaborate on the leadership and collaboration that we've all commented on here today and that we've experienced as well.

And I don't believe you are required to be present on the 22nd, but of course, we welcome you if you're there.

And I'll double check with the council president's office just to make sure I'm not misremembering the process, but also want to make sure that you get well.

So that's the biggest priority.

Thank you so much for being here and congratulations on the unanimous motion carrying.

Thank you to that senior deputy mayor as well.

Thank you all very much.

Bye-bye.

We'll see you soon.

Let's move on to our third and fourth item of business.

I misspoke earlier when I mentioned that the fourth item of business was going to be the cannabis equity.

We actually have two items that are very similar.

They are related to the Seattle Rescue Plan 4. So we're going to read items 3 and 4 into the record.

And then just for clarification, item number 5 is our cannabis equity panel.

And we will get to that in probably 20 minutes, 25 minutes or so.

So for folks who are on the line here for that fifth item and last item on the agenda today, I just want to give you a sense of timing, probably about 20-25 more minutes.

Okay, Madam Clerk, could you please read item number three and four into the record?

Agenda item number three, council bill 120267, an ordinance related to the city's response to the COVID-19 crisis.

And agenda item four, council bill 120268, an ordinance accepting the gift of Google ad grant credits for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Okay, wonderful.

Well, I am pleased to see more members from the City Budget's office here with us today.

Thank you, William Chen, for being here with us.

We also have Deputy Director Ali Panucci from Central Staff and excited to have in front of us today the possible vote and briefing on the Seattle Rescue Plan item number four.

Colleagues, you'll recall last year that we passed Seattle Rescue Plans one, two, and three through a series of votes starting in mid-year of 2021. with Seattle Rescue Plan 1. We had a report as well in our January meeting on the spending, the allocation of those, excuse me, the implementation of those dollars that had already been allocated.

And we will continue to have quarterly updates from the city budget's office on the spending and implementation that council has approved to make sure that our federal dollars, our state dollars, and our local dollars are getting out there quickly.

And again, I want to thank the new administration, Mayor Harreld's administration, for the work that they are doing.

And I've continued to underscore the importance of getting the remaining funding that we've already allocated from Seattle Rescue Plan, one, out the door within the first hundred days.

I know that there is a shared interest in getting those dollars into community hands and making sure that they're being put to the relief that they were intended for.

Here we have Seattle Rescue Plan number four, and this includes almost $2 million in funding.

in funds and in-kind acceptance.

And so folks might already know William Chin from previous presentations, but I want to make sure to turn it over to Ali Panucci, our Deputy Director, and William Chin to talk a little bit more about Seattle Rescue Plan number four in front of us.

And happy to also take questions from our colleagues about the ways in which we're monitoring the spending later in the presentation.

Ali, I think I'm turning it over to you first, if that's right.

Welcome, Deputy Director Panucci.

appreciate you being here with us.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda, council members.

Thank you for the introduction.

As the chair described, there are two bills before you that relate to the Seattle Rescue Plan.

I'm not going to go into a summary as they're fairly straightforward, and I think I would just repeat everything William is prepped to go over in the presentation.

But I will be here to answer questions and or to help document any questions that need follow up after the discussion.

So with that, I think I'll turn it over to William.

Thank you very much.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Or is someone else sharing the slides on the screen or they're pretty simple.

I think you were but I can I can do it just if you if you want to start talking, I can get them up on the screen.

And I might be done talking before they even get up.

So I'll just be giving a quick, actually, you already went over Seattle Rescue Plan summary, so I can skip over that.

And then briefly describing what is going on in these two bills.

So this is Seattle Rescue Plan 4, because it is also ARPA funding the way that the first three Seattle Rescue Plans were, as well as that in-kind donation being related to an ARPA-funded program.

save lives, and make Washington a safer place.

One second, please.

There we go.

OK.

Please go ahead.

Thanks.

And so Council Bill 120267 includes acceptance of two new ARPA grants.

One of them is from the National Endowment for the Arts.

That's $500,000 competitively awarded to the Office of Arts and Culture for OPCOR, which is their Creative Workforce Recovery Program.

And the other new grant being from Health and Human Services Department, about $1.2 million.

And this is an ARPA-funded additional allocation for low-income home energy assistance program above the city's annual allocation.

and that helps pay for weatherization projects for both income-qualified homeowners and renters.

And then in addition, this bill makes a few technical changes that are just updates to appropriation details, making our tracking and reporting of Clifford funds easier, more consistent, and to minimize our audit risk.

There are no changes to programs here.

The dollar amounts stay the same.

This is just a technical change.

Next slide, please.

And the companion bill, Council Bill 120268, accepts that in-kind donation.

It is $500,000 in ad credits from Google.org.

solely for the use in promoting city reform.

And Google.org volunteers have been the city's partner in building that unified application portal that's going to, and has been already actually, improving accessibility to the city's programs.

And in addition, this bill provides the authorization for the city to accept further credits, if any, were to be donated faster rather than needing to come back with another bill.

And that's it.

Are there any questions?

Thank you very much, William, and thanks, Ali, Director Panucci, Deputy Director Panucci for sharing the screen.

Are there any questions on the presentation and Seattle Rescue Plan 4 in front of us?

I do have one question for you.

Could you please go to slide number 4?

Sorry, I cannot see on my screen.

Okay, thanks so much.

Slide number four.

Can you confirm that none of these technical changes change any of the funding from one time to ongoing or vice versa?

That's right.

The only change is the funding source, which keeps things consistent with other corporate funding that we've got going to the same purposes.

Okay.

And Deputy Director Panucci, is there any questions that you have or the issues that central staff may have looked into on Seattle Rescue Plan 4 that you want to feature for us?

No, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

We've reviewed the bills and didn't identify any issues for the committee.

I'll just add a little more on the technical changes just for the record.

As part of the adopted budget, there was about $70 million used for revenue replacement in the general fund.

And then there are also certain general fund expenditures that are eligible for direct use of the Clifford, the Clifford fund.

So all this is doing is just paying for certain expenditures that the council added like some for some food programs and that sort of thing.

directly out of the Clifford fund rather than out of the general fund.

So it really is technical in nature and we confirmed that with, um, with CBO who, uh, were sharing information, um, on the proposal as they were developing it to make sure we were all looped in.

So thank you.

Okay.

Wonderful.

Thanks for the work that you have done with the central staff team as well.

Colleagues, are there any questions or comments here on Council Bill 120267?

Okay, before we close, thank you very much.

I think you can go ahead and close the presentation.

I do want to welcome Council Member Nelson.

Thanks for being here today, Council Member Nelson.

We are on agenda items three and four, so we've read them into the record together.

Madam Clerk and team, before I move us to a vote, do I need to take these votes individually or should we vote on them together as well?

Chair Mosqueda, I think you need to move each one individually and vote on them separately unless the Deputy Clerk Sanchez tells us differently.

We'll go ahead and do that.

All right, well, thank you for joining us, Councilmember Nelson.

Just in time for the votes on Seattle Rescue Plan 4, your first Seattle Rescue Plan votes of your term, so exciting timing.

Okay, colleagues, we've had the briefing on Seattle Rescue Plan 4, and before we vote, I do want to remind folks, again, related to Seattle Rescue Plan 1, which was $116 million of ARPA funds.

A few additional million from the Clifford Coronavirus local relief funds.

We do have about $126 million that we allocated in that first tranche.

We're going to be getting updates on first tranche investments.

on a quarterly basis.

We had our first update in January of this year.

So these updates on implementation to ensure spending is occurring with all of the dollars that have been allocated, those are going to occur in the meetings following the newly created Revenue Forecast Committee.

So the Revenue Forecast Committee meets quarterly now.

I and members of the executive team, myself and Council President Juarez are members of the Forecast Committee along with two members of the executive branch.

We receive these reports in real time.

They will be published and broadcast on TVW, and if we were in person, they would be on in Chambers, I believe, as well, to make sure that we're sharing information out in real time about the revenue forecast.

That means Council and the executive get the information at the same time.

This is a very important piece of legislation that I have the chance to work on with the support of all of the previous colleagues who were on Council and Council President Gonzalez, who was a sponsor of that legislation as well.

We will be getting these revenue forecast updates in August, excuse me, in April, August, and November, if my memory serves me correct.

And I see Deputy Mayor, excuse me, Deputy Director Panucci nodding, which means that in the meeting that the Finance and Housing Committee has immediately following those forecast meetings, we will also have the chance to hear from the Revenue Forecast Director who will be reporting out what is shared at that forecast meeting.

We will then have the city budget's office come and report on other revenue-related items.

And then in the same meetings on a quarterly basis, we will have an update on the implementation of Seattle Rescue Plan.

So that way, we will be able to continue to see those dollars going out the door, and we will be able to ask any questions and have more transparency on the spending.

And I want to again thank the new administration for the transparency and the commitment to working with us to have eyes on that process because we know how important those dollars are.

So that's a quick preview, a little bit of a distraction from the vote that we are about to take, but I wanted to let you know how the Seattle Rescue Plan funding is going to follow with quarterly updates on the spending.

Okay.

Hearing no questions on that, we're gonna take these votes one at a time, and we'll first consider Council Bill 120267. Colleagues, I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120267. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Vice Chair Herbold.

Is there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on passage of Council Bill 120267?

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Madam Chair?

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, let's move on to the next bill, Council Bill 120268. I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120268. Is there a second?

Thank you very much, Vice Chair.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments?

Okay, hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 120268?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

One more time.

Oh, perfect, thank you.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Madam Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, both motions carry.

The committee recommendation that Council Bill 120267 and Council Bill 120268 will be passed on to the Seattle City Council February 22nd meeting for a final vote.

Thank you very much, Deputy Panucci.

Thank you very much, William Chen, for being here with us from CBO, and please pass on our appreciation to the CBO teams and the central staff team.

All right, we'll see you on a quarterly basis.

Let's move on to the fifth item of business, and this is our panel on cannabis equity.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number five into the record?

Agenda item number five, community panel on cannabis equity for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful.

So I want to welcome back to the stage here, our presenters, and I'll have a few opening comments to sort of orient us to the presentation in front of us.

Thanks for being here with us today.

Zion Gray from Have a Heart in Belltown.

Cody Funderbrook from Ponder.

Danica Adams from Freedom Project Washington and Key Porter from the Medical Cannabis Consultant.

I thank you for being here with us and we are going to have a presentation for you all.

let us know if you'd like to get that teed up to share your screen or if you'd like us to do that, we are happy to do that as well.

Just to orient us to the presentation in front of us today, this is an exciting opportunity for us to step back and have almost like a work session-like approach to hearing more about an area of interest that I know is growing for me and I know other members of this council as well, notably Council Member Herbold.

as the chair of public safety and her long work on public health issues has been interested in this topic.

And I know that this may be of growing interest to other council members as well.

Colleagues, we've been hearing from community members and workers in the cannabis industry for over a year who've been really needing to have a better understanding of what cannabis equity work could look like in this area in Seattle and our region.

And we know there's a conversation happening at the state level as well.

In 2012, Washington state voters approved initiative 502, which legalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

And since then, the cannabis industry has really grown and exploded in Washington state.

I think some of the issues that we've been hearing about over the last few years from constituents has been a concern about wealth and access to the industry and wanting to look at how that can be addressed from an equity lens.

And there's also concern that those who are from black and brown communities who were really targeted during the war on drugs are still feeling the effects of the war on drugs to this day.

And there's a question that's being raised about how and now legalized industry can help right some of those historic wrongs from the past days of the war on drugs.

I'm excited and thankful to the community and partners who have worked to raise this issue with us and the direct connection to the Finance Committee is really about how we look at wealth and finances within the industry and how it could help us address equity concerns that have been raised in our community and look at a number of potential options including revenue mechanisms, regulation, dedicated fund sources, specifically for working to address some of the workplace and workforce issues that have grown in this industry.

I want to thank colleagues for your interest and willingness to share, I think, shared interest areas and topics that do cross over into other committees as we just begin this conversation here today.

Thanks again for the opportunity to hear more from you all today on this panel about how cannabis can be looked at, the cannabis industry can be looked at through an equity lens.

to look at adequate funding opportunities, opportunities for workforce development, and we are excited to hear more.

I think that this will be the first of many conversations that we will have, so to the concern that was raised during public comment today about wanting to hear from a number of diverse opinions in the community, I think this is just the beginning of the conversation that we want to have with folks in the cannabis industry, within community, with workers and organizations.

including labor unions to have a set of maybe recommendations for our committee and other committees to potentially address as well.

So with that, I just want to orient us to sort of how this came about in our committee and the nexus to finance and also how those finances and growing revenue in this industry could help be redirected into making sure that we're looking at safety and workforce training issues as well as creating greater equity in our region and in this industry.

We do have with us today again Zion And I should note that the organizations that have been noted are just for.

orienting you to the type of work that they do in the industry, but not representatives necessarily of those companies, if that's correct.

And I'll turn it over.

I think Zion, you mentioned that you might be kicking us off here today.

And please let us know if you are able to share your screen.

And if not, we are happy to share it on your behalf.

Yeah, I cannot do the screen sharing thing.

So I'd appreciate it if you did bring up the display for me.

Great.

And there it comes.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for your patience.

And this is the last agenda item.

So you do have plenty of time today.

Thanks again for your participation today.

And Zion, thanks for getting us started.

My pleasure.

My pleasure.

Hi, everyone.

Council members.

My name is Zion Gray.

Thank you for having all of us here today.

Before we get started with the panel discussion, I'm going to quickly read through a few facts about the cannabis industry.

Next slide, please.

All right, in 2021, just over 60 cannabis stores located in Seattle sold over 185 million in cannabis products.

The median sales per month for a single location cannabis retail shop in 2021 was $484,807.

I want to personally say my store on average does double that.

The most profitable single location sold over 12 million in cannabis products in 2021. One retailer with five locations sold over 24 million in cannabis products in 2021. That is quite a big chunk of change.

Next slide, please.

All right, now what was once illegal is now essential.

Just 12 years ago, people in Seattle were arrested and convicted of cannabis crimes.

Black and brown people were disproportionately targeted for cannabis arrests.

Now there are nearly 20,000 cannabis jobs in Washington State.

During the pandemic, cannabis workers were considered part of the essential workforce.

However, cannabis workers are offered few protections on the job.

Next slide, please.

Definitely gonna talk about those protections later.

In Seattle, weed and seed targeted predominantly black residential neighborhoods.

Nationally, black people were arrested at a rate of nearly four to one for cannabis offenses, despite similar rates of use as all Americans.

Retail store owners in Washington are disproportionately white.

Black people were largely left out of cannabis ownership opportunities.

frontline minimum wage workers are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and or people of color.

I've also observed that a lot of our staff, our frontline bud tenders, happen to be female.

So I think that's worthy of noting as well.

Next slide, please.

Cities like Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, all have programs that provide cannabis equity funding training for cannabis workers, and social equity licenses.

Now, I also want to emphasize that California has what I would consider increased security measures regarding operations.

And I know that that's going to ring true to what I'm going to mention later on as well.

Next slide, please.

Last year, I was part of a process of identifying top community priorities around cannabis members of over 40 community groups.

These came out as the top three.

Invest in advancement, career growth, and ownership opportunities for black, indigenous, and people of color in the cannabis industry.

Increase training, benefits, and protection for workers in the cannabis industry.

Again, we'll talk a little bit more about that.

And then of course, this is the big one, correcting the wrongs, automatic record vacations.

And like I said, we'll talk a little bit more about that, because I'm the fourth panelist, I won't be speaking first.

And I'm not sure, I think, I'm not sure who's going first.

I know I'm going last.

But I'll leave it at that.

See, Danica, then Key, then Cody, and then back to you, if that helps.

OK, OK, OK.

All right, well, I'll pass it off to whoever's next.

And I'll let them kind of set the tone.

And then I'll come in last.

But thank you for the opportunity.

And I'm really hoping that we reach some ears today.

Thank you so much.

That's very helpful and appreciate the orientation.

And let me know if you prefer to go in a different order.

I see Danica, Kee, Cody, and then back to Zion in my list here.

And I do want to just note as well that the direct connection to the Finance and Housing Committee actually mirrors some of the recommendations that you just had in that last slide.

The Finance and Administrative Services Department within the city of Seattle came to our committee in December 7th, and they did a presentation last year in December from their Race and Social Justice Initiative team, and their RSJI team said that the finance and administration team is working on a high-level program framework incorporating interdepartmental collaboration with Office of Economic Development and Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection to help support businesses in developing work via the Office of Economic Development and the Department of Construction and Inspection is working to support the industry through expansion of cannabis zoning, but through a social equity lens, and that they were looking at funding and community partners that still needed to be identified.

And they looked at potential funding in the city's disbursement of the cannabis excise tax, which is $1.3 million to $1.4 million annually.

And they noted that the tax is currently distributed into the general fund.

But I think that what we've seen from the recommendations that you've just made is that the current revenues that we receive from this tax are not probably enough to adequately address the comprehensive items that are needed to reform the cannabis equity and workforce development that you've just outlined.

So I wanted to draw for our committee members a connection back to our December 7th presentation and just lift up how it highlights.

the connection with FAS.

And Council Member Nelson, if you don't mind, maybe I'll put you first in the queue, and we'll get through our community panel first, and I'll come right back to you as the first one up to speak.

Okay, thank you.

Danica, good morning, and thank you for letting me add that piece about the Finance and Administrative Services Department and the work that you all have done in community.

I'll turn it back over to you.

Good morning.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Danica.

I'm the Advocacy Director for the Freedom Project.

Thank you all for having me today to discuss why expungements of cannabis felonies are necessary.

And we should all just start with how we even got here.

On February 25th, 2021, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that our state's felony simple drug possession law was unconstitutional.

And the simple drug possession statute, or what we know as FLAKE, was ruled unconstitutional because it criminalized innocent in passive conduct.

Before legalization of cannabis, black people were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than whites in Washington state.

And 88% of those arrests were for cannabis possession only.

This unconstitutional drug law was the tip of the spear used by law enforcement and even prosecutors to directly target Black communities through programs such as Weed and Seed.

And as you all know, Weed and Seed was employed against the Central District in the early 90s.

And this racist ploy contributed to mass incarceration and obviously gentrification.

And in 1970, the Central District was 75% Black.

Today, the Central District is less than 15% Black.

And so cannabis felonies, or like I said, what we know as a plague issue continues to affect those convicted of them long after they have served jail or prison sentences.

A lot of people still believe that having a cannabis felony isn't harmful because it has been legalized in Washington state.

But that can't be further than the truth.

In fact, these felonies create several forms of discrimination against individuals convicted in the areas of employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service, just to name a few.

And we all should recognize that having a cannabis felony conviction still impacts those who are currently incarcerated.

People are currently serving longer sentences due to them having a felony possession charge on their record, which in return increases their standard range.

There are all different reasons why expungement is necessary to alleviate these discriminations.

But as we discuss expungement and funding, we have to ensure that those who have been directly impacted by criminalization of cannabis, as well as the war on drugs, are at the forefront of these conversations and that they are leading this initiative Too many times we talk to them and at them instead of listening to them and realizing that they have the answers.

There are currently Black-led, directly impacted organizations like the Freedom Project and others who are expunging records.

We are expunging records through our Beyond the Blindfold initiative.

And we should ensure that we allocate these funds into the community and not through any outside organization trying to co-op or gather funds through our bank.

So I will pass it back.

Thank you all for having me.

Thanks so much.

I have Key as my next person on the panel here.

Does that work?

Yes, it does.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you, council members, reps, aides, and other guests for allowing me today to have a moment to talk on the panel and to share briefly a part of my story.

I'm Kee Porter, a proud Central District native, an Evergreen College graduate with a BA in business management.

And I've had the privilege to have an extensive management career in the unregulated medical recreational ancillary cannabis market here in Washington.

I now work as a medical cannabis consultant and I work at a medically endorsed pot shop here in Seattle.

Approximately, I would say two months ago, I was staring down the barrel of a gun.

Two assailants came into our shop, and they didn't want any cannabis products at all.

What they wanted was cash.

They demanded for all the cash in the shop because they knew, like most of the workers in the cannabis industry, Our industry was a cash-only business, and depending on any given day, we could have $30,000 to $100,000 in money with limited security, with minimal training requirements, and that is what happened to us that night.

The security guard stormed into the building to apprehend and help us out, and they actually got pistol-whipped several times.

blood just spattered on the walls and dampened the floors.

And as they were preoccupied trying to rob our store, all I could remember army crawling closer and closer to the door was my two year old son who happened to be five blocks up the street.

And I wondered in that moment how desperately close he would have been, um, to a place where I could have potentially died.

Um, and, uh, In that moment, it didn't matter if I was a medical cannabis consultant who had dedicated her whole entire life to make sure that medical patients had accessibility to cannabis.

It didn't matter that I've had years and years of working with growers to make sure that we had strains available and sharing genetics.

It really didn't matter that I had eight years in this industry trying to make sure that it was innovative and reflective to the people that desperately needed cannabis on a medical level.

But I wondered if I had died that night, would there have been laws passed then?

Would there have been any policies and any reforms that happened then?

Would there have been any initiatives, you know, that would have been revisited then?

And I honestly don't know.

My community has risked our lives for decades, whether it had been 23rd and Union or 26 and cherry or when I clock in tomorrow at 730 am there is little pride, no support.

no representation programs, or even excitement about the BIPOC community, but more specifically, the African Americans and blacks that have lived in the Central District of Seattle, Washington, that has a history of being disproportionately targeted on the war on drugs, that have lived through that experience, that can say they have been awarded a license and that they have had years of pioneering and they can contribute their expertise to the industry that has now made millions.

As Zion had mentioned, we are now moving from illegal to essential.

And so we're all sitting here and wondering and trying to work together and say, well, what do we need?

What does this industry here in Washington need?

And personally, I feel it's reform, restoration, and redistribution, I had the opportunity to participate in a 13-week program in California that worked specially towards social equity applicants.

And no matter what state you were from, if there was any existence of a social equity market, they would work hand-in-hand with you to make sure that they found, whether you were a retail producer, processor, or a distro, They made sure that they found a location, vendors, a POS system, plenty of equipment, previous applicants that were awarded, licensees, anyone that would basically volunteer their time to basically help the next generation of pioneers definitely enter into the industry and make their own way.

I just really feel as if that experience gave me a light to see the potential of what could happen here in Seattle.

And through that experience, I noticed the relationship that actually that state had with its social equity applicants.

And it was really an exciting time for the next generation of us to figure out different innovative ways to where we could have accessibility to recreational and medical cannabis and even have other minorities enter in the cannabis ancillary businesses like myself.

So I just wanted to say thank you guys so much for letting me share my story today and my expertise and that I really recommend that we focus on expunging cannabis records definitely cannabis equity tax, making sure that those funds were definitely allocated back into the communities that have been having the most effect with the war on drugs, that we have an equity commission that definitely works with the community hand in hand to always get recommendations of what the community wants and needs, especially with those funds, and that there is definitely workforce development definitely protecting the workers, especially the bartenders who are on the front of the lines dealing with cash businesses like we are.

And I just wanted to say that I represent that community and we're here.

And whether we're on the other side of that gun, desperately barging in and wanting to rob or on the other side trying to make sure that people had accessibility, that all needs are being met so people don't have to have the same experiences that I have.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And thanks for your presentation and thanks for sharing that really harrowing experience.

And I know that that's just representative of what you're saying has occurred to other workers throughout the industry.

Very terrifying.

I too have a two-year-old and It breaks my heart thinking about all those images going through your head.

And I really think that you've drawn out for the community and for the committee here today, the experience that so many go through.

So thank you for sharing that story.

And I'm so incredibly sorry that that's happened, but sorry is not enough, right?

You're looking for policy solutions.

So looking forward to talking about those and hearing more about those other jurisdictions that you mentioned.

Cody, I think we're going to turn it over to you and then we'll go back to Zion to wrap us up and get to some of those questions.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Yeah, my name is Cody Funderburk.

I work at Ponder Cannabis in the Central District as a bud tender and medical cannabis consultant.

I've been at Ponder since January 2018, so about four years now.

And like he, our store was also recently robbed about three weeks ago at gunpoint.

Our security guard was pistol whipped as well.

I was fortunate enough to not be present during the robbery.

But just to echo the sentiment that that is a very serious and pervasive issue in the cannabis industry right now that needs to be addressed.

But yeah, I started as a bud tender after graduating college at Evergreen, Lake Key.

I also studied business, but I studied cannabis business.

I was one of the first students to study cannabis business at Evergreen.

It was a new program that they were offering.

And funnily enough, in lecture halls at Evergreen, we talked about a lot of the issues that we're discussing here today, specifically how Washington's cannabis industry is dominated by privileged demographics, by white men, and the moral dilemma of creating a cannabis industry that further stratifies social classes rather than attempting to correct the tragic impacts of the war on drugs in marginalized communities.

So therefore I'm really excited to be here this morning and to be able to talk about these things and to be able to talk about what I've experienced firsthand in my four years of working in the cannabis industry.

So yeah, let's get started.

One of the most important things for me as a young person who just graduated is upward mobility and career growth.

So while Ponder gave me a job and funded even my medical cannabis consultant training, I haven't really received the type of training or advancement that I would need to bolster my success.

In fact, I've kind of been strategically prevented from growing.

So.

In August of this past year, I applied to graduate school at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy to study medical cannabis science and therapeutics.

And I asked my employer for a letter of recommendation, which I needed for my application, and he refused to write one.

And I'm assuming that that's probably because we recently unionized the store and he's been pretty upset about that.

In fact, he's threatening to close the store and he's been talking about wanting to close Ponder, putting the property up for sale since last year.

So this has been like a really, really big battle for me.

But luckily, through the union, I'm able to get a free college benefit.

So I'm now in a post-secondary program, continuing my education in cannabis studies.

And this is really just preparing me for graduate school in August.

So through the union, I'm able to get the kinds of career training and development that I'm not getting from my employer.

And then job protection is also another really important point that I wanted to bring up today.

As our owner, John Branch, is threatening to sell the business after we formed a union, it's really important that we strengthen successorship laws so that in the event of a change of owners, our rights as workers to organize and bargain collectively is protected.

This is kind of like a chronic thing that we've been experiencing at Ponder.

After we formed the union, he also went and fired three of my union co-workers, which was illegal, and he ended up having to pay back pay to those three co-workers and also reinstate them to their former positions.

So we have that, right?

But it's important for us as like workers to be able to collectively bargain, that we strengthen those protections so that we don't have these types of issues going forward.

And then the last thing that I wanted to bring up that we've already talked about is my excitement for the development of the equity funds that will directly address the larger systemic problems under modern cannabis legalization.

I was lucky enough to collaborate with the Seattle Black Freedom Project and the Seattle NAACP to help draft this policy initiative.

Yeah, I'm probably running out of time, but I just wanted to highlight the major point that an equity fund and training can help to level the playing field and foster the types of career growth and pathways to ownership that I've been talking about.

Yeah, we have a strong need for equity in the cannabis industry.

It's clear that our current industry unfairly leverages power in the hands of privileged demographic a privileged demographic of wealthy white men who aren't investing in the success of working people.

So I think that these equity-driven policy reforms are very important.

They've been mirrored, as we've said, in other cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And as one of the first states to legalize cannabis, Washington should not be one of the last states to address the equity challenges therein.

So thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Cody.

Thanks for sharing.

your presentation as well.

And just want to say, additionally, the trauma of being intimidated or harassed in the workplace is also hard to hear.

And I'm thankful that you've shared it and that there was corrective action taken for reinstating those colleagues of yours.

But also, I know that you're asking for policy solutions so that this can be preempted in the first place.

I'm very thankful that you have union representation so that folks can speak up and feel safe in the workplace doing so.

But look forward to hearing how we can extrapolate that out across the industry, as you noted, so that there's greater protections, especially given the health and safety issues that we're facing and the need for upward mobility.

Okay, Zion, I'm going to move it back to you to wrap us up and then we'll get to questions.

Excellent, excellent.

All right, now a little about me.

I'm a father of six, born and raised in Minnesota, the Twin Cities.

I came here in 2016, shortly after the Philandro Castile situation.

I'm not sure if you guys, if anyone's familiar, but African-American man was shot a lot on Facebook Live.

He was like a legal registered carrier.

And the weirdest, most eeriest story is I actually used to sell weed to this guy.

Um, and I, I lived in St. Paul at the time, and it was just a means of just to make ends meet.

Uh, but he worked at the lunchroom at the school that was like two or three blocks away from my house.

And sometimes he would walk there and we, and we just have a short discussion, you know, and he knew a couple of people in the neighborhood or whatnot, but I didn't really understand it until I saw it on TV, who the person was.

And I was like, you know, I gotta get out of here.

So I ended up, after a careful thought of where to go, Seattle kept ringing true.

Just because it's such a progressive place and there's so much opportunity, we came.

And I've been a Budtender for a little over six years.

It's all I've done the entire time I've been here.

One reason is because I have a felony.

I did come to Washington with a felony and obtaining housing and employment was extremely difficult.

I found success working in the cannabis industry.

They gave me an opportunity.

And using the money that I've generated from working as a bud tender, I purchased my first home, which is, I mean, I'm super happy about that.

Me and my wife.

But also, I'm an army veteran.

I work as the union steward, the UFCW union steward for Have A Heart, which is like the number one downtown dispensary.

It has been for like six, seven years, for a very long time, back to the medical days.

Business management graduate.

And just like Cody mentioned, You know, I really was hoping to use my credentials, especially since I had been working for Havahart for about a little over two years, and I recently acquired my degree.

So I had, you know, the firsthand knowledge of all the operations and everything that's going on.

And, you know, I'm familiar with the operating system and all that good stuff, but I didn't get to be offered any type of opportunity.

And they do hire from within, so that's pretty appreciable.

However, there's a lot of things that need to improve within the industry, not just for my store, but for Cody's store as well.

And I also want to talk a little bit about what Danica spoke about for the, as far as the safety in these dispensaries.

The UFCW's been kind of, not kind of, we have been diligently, working towards developing a proposal for safety measures for all of the stores.

And I just wanna say this so it rings true in everyone's ear right now.

Double door security entry system.

Preventing people from barging in.

If you listen to the stories that everyone tells, they're overwhelmed at the door.

That's where it takes place.

And like I said, I'm prior service military.

I, I'm, my store has never been robbed.

We're right in the center of downtown.

I feel completely, you have, your objective isn't to get away with the money if you're going to rob my store.

But with that being said, I know other stores don't carry that type of security.

And one thing that would really scare me isn't looking down a barrel of a gun It's what I would do shortly after that.

And I know there's a situation, there's been a situation at Dockside off of Aurora where the guy, he, I wasn't sure what happened, but he reacted badly and he was severely injured.

He was shot multiple times.

And like I said, I'm a father of six.

And I know that when someone comes in, you're supposed to just give them everything.

But like I said, I'm a prior service veteran and my muscle memory and what goes to how I react would be immediately to defend myself and fight for my life.

And I've been working with that, but it really scares me the fact that that's still embedded in me as a reaction.

A lot of, none of our bud tenders have any formal training on what to do in a situation like that.

And I think that that's a great talking point there.

It's because either they haven't had formal training or the training that they have might interfere with what's probably best for the safety of the business itself.

And I'm gonna move on past that.

I wanted to kind of touch on job protections as well.

Before I worked at Have A Heart, I actually worked for a dispensary called Diego's.

It's no longer there anymore.

I think it's like a zip sale.

But it was a really up and coming dispensary.

It was owned by a really young 23 year old guy.

He found a better opportunity and he quickly sold the store.

The problem with it is that we've been working there for close to two years.

And like I said, I had had trouble finding employment, other avenues, as had other coworkers.

And it just put all of a sudden extreme disadvantage financially.

The new owners, their only objective was to keep the management so that they can kind of maneuver the employees and get them familiar with the operations.

But they got rid of everyone else.

I just wanted to emphasize that I strongly feel that there should be protections involved for those bartenders that have definitely been on the line.

And I want to move on to talk about expungement as well.

I know that, I think it was Kiera that talked about the ramifications or was it, I'm not sure who it was, but I remember hearing the ramifications of convictions and not just criminal, but regarding student loans and jury duty.

I think it was Danica that said that.

Yeah, and I wanted to speak, there is one other avenue that I've, it happens, It happened to me here, and I spoke with a judge from Florida, and even though this isn't Florida, but she did say that it is a problem there as they're taking medicinal cannabis users, or just recreational cannabis users, and it's having effects on dependency proceedings, and how they're viewed as parents, and also, That's a more grayer area, but divorce proceedings and custodial proceedings and stuff like that.

So I do want to shine light and make sure, you know, if there are protections for that and, you know, we rectify things that we look into that area too.

Cause I think that's very important and it's often overlooked.

Let's see.

I'm sorry.

I'm trying to keep up.

Oh yeah.

Equity fund.

Whenever I think of equity fund and cannabis, the only thing that pops into my head and excuse me for being forward is Sean Kemp.

I remember when they first opened up, they boasted of being Seattle's first black owned dispensary.

And I'm not gonna lie to anybody.

I am That night revised my entire resume.

I mean, I put all the bells and whistles on it.

Like I wanted to be a part of that operation because I felt like I would have more upward mobility there.

Like I really like, you guys should have seen my cover letter.

It was a mess.

It was great, but it was crazy.

I was really like hungry for that position.

And it was later on disclosed that it wasn't black owned.

At the time they made the statement Sean Kemp had less than 5% of the company.

It just goes to show that if it's worth mentioning, then they understand the value of it.

And I think that I would definitely love to see some Black-owned success as far as retail situations go.

and not just black-owned, but all people of color.

I just wanna see it not to go to one piece of the pie.

The owner of my previous shop and the owner of this shop didn't look like me and didn't look like none of my other fellow blood genders.

It is what it is, but I really would like to see change there.

And then moving on to the last part, I remember Cody spoke, spoke about this a little bit, safety training.

I think it's essential that, you know, ever since that medical has almost been phased out of Washington.

I think there are a few locations that do honor it, but what that does is it basically funnels medical patients and patients in need of medical grade advice and products to go to recreational stores in order to acquire this stuff.

And not all blood genders have, like top level training and top level understanding in order to help these people navigate these large catalogs of cannabis products that we have.

And I just think that like how it was said by Cody, training is very important.

And I think it would help everybody just kind of maintain a standard to know that when I come into any cannabis store that the people who I speak with regarding these products are going to have at least a starting entry level of knowledge to provide to me on whatever basis I may need.

And with that being said, I think that pretty much wraps everything up.

Yeah, that, and I want to emphasize again, double door security.

I really think that every store, that should be like policy across the board in Washington and stuff, to prevent robbery from happening.

Think that out?

sign up.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

And I know there will probably be a handful of questions from our colleagues here.

I did also see a lot of emotions of seconding what you were saying.

So, throughout your presentation, the panelists, I think, were supporting a lot of your recommendations here.

And I noted our appreciation for you sort of the panel here today providing an introductory framework for us to begin this conversation.

I think that this is a conversation that I'd be interested in having in our committee and probably other council members would be interested in having elements in their committees as well over the next few months.

Specifically, you mentioned some of the other jurisdictions that have been leading with an equity lens and an equity approach to distribution of So I'm looking forward to hearing more and perhaps we can schedule some time at our next committee meeting to hear directly from San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Portland, any of those cities that were mentioned in your slide.

And we do have some questions in the queue.

I'm going to turn it to Councilmember Nelson first.

Councilmember Nelson, just before I hand it over to you.

I want to thank again Councilmember Herbold, who has been working in public safety and criminal justice issues for a long time, notably around expungement in the past.

Council President Juarez, as well, has expressed interest in continuing to learn more about this area and I think is supportive of us tackling this issue together.

And I especially want to thank the mayor's office, The mayor himself and also the team through Dr. Devin Alisha Abdallah, who's the director of legislative affairs, and Gerald Hankerson, who is the lead for the mayor's office as the external affairs liaison, has been working in this area, I know, and has been in touch with the folks who've been having a series of listening sessions and other strategies.

So I look forward to working in partnership with the executive as well as we continue to learn more about this area and consider possible policy solutions.

And Aretha Basu, who is on the line here listening today from my office, is really helping to pull together the information from community and working with the mayor's office as well to see how we can help integrate this into our conversation as we look at the possibility of addressing equity and especially the nexus with finance committee on equity fund and how that can be reinvested into equity commissions and other safety measures that you all talked about.

So just wanted to get those thank yous out there because I know it's been a long process that you all have been engaged in to really raise these issues.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead with your questions.

Thank you very much Madam Chair.

So, um, this, you mentioned this has been a long process I am just now getting into the details of UFC W's proposal here, and so I might have a couple questions but I off the bat I want to make sure that I understand that.

This would be a tax on cannabis products, potentially regressive, I guess, because UFCW's presentation said 25 cents on flower, regardless of the quality.

But the point is that have you brought up, let me just skip that.

I recognize that that workers are on the front lines and that cannabis retail operations are extremely vulnerable to public safety threats, and that was a big part of our discussion in last week's committee.

And so that is why I support adequately staffing our police department.

Oscar Velasco, excuse me, Schmitz of Dockside is interested in the city pursuing some hardening along the right-of-way to keep people from being able to drive cars into these buildings.

So what you're talking about is I support.

I'm wondering if the training that you're talking about or the protections that can be provided to the workers through this tax Is that going to be effective against this, the general deterioration of public safety because of increasing crime?

That's, so I just want to make sure people, I know that you're talking about training, like how breweries send their folks to a Cicerone training.

So is that what you're talking about?

And I'm just wondering if you've talked to your owners about that, because that's the benefit of being organized, is being able to negotiate with ownership.

And then also the issue of, I just want to make sure that this proposal is trying to solve problems that can be solved through this mechanism because the expunging of records, maybe that is, is that something that we take up with the, you know, the municipal or the county courts, et cetera.

So those are some of my initial concerns.

thoughts and questions, but I have some others.

I don't know if you wanted to address those or just have me put them all on the table at once.

I think that's good for now, Council Member Nelson, and we can also come back.

I want to clarify something, though, before the panel might have some questions or answers to those comments as well.

This is step one of, I think, what will be a longer process for looking at possible policy solutions.

So there is no draft legislation that our office has approved of.

There is not a draft piece of legislation that the mayor's office has sent down.

We are in the process of looking at policy solutions and really appreciate that there's been a robust engagement through community organizations and I think really a frontline worker led effort here to make sure that there's a handful of policy options for our consideration.

But I just want to make sure that the committee members know we are going to go through our own process of looking at other cities.

I mentioned those four other cities that I'd like to hear from as well.

We are going to have a process of hearing more from industry as well.

As we always have done, whether it's hotel worker protections or domestic worker protections, we always go through a process in our committee of making sure that there's a broad tent to hear from both folks who are workers and and folks who are employers as well.

And I think that the orientation that we are seeking to receive today has been a request a long time in the making to make sure that we understand more about what's going on in this industry, especially if you look at those first few slides that were presented in terms of the opportunity for funding to potentially be recouped and invested into addressing worker safety protections and an equity through an equity lens to make sure that more workers are seeing the benefit of this industry.

That's, I think, the nexus to the Finance Committee.

But just for clarification, and I probably should have started with that.

There is a longer conversation to be had here within council about what a possible policy solution or suite of solutions would look like.

And that would obviously be led by the discussions that have been occurring here today and directly from the folks who are working on the frontline and experiencing these issues that we've heard from today.

And also I wanna check in with some other jurisdictions as well.

So just wanna make sure that that orientation of the timeline and the process is really clear.

Zion, please go ahead, I see your hand up.

Yeah, I just wanted to kind of reflect on some of the points that I just heard.

One, speaking with the owners in regards to training, specifically like for safety, the owner of our store, we're unionized.

And we recently had a resigning of our union agreement and our payment.

We just have some discrepancies right now.

And it's not good on either end in regards to employee towards the owner, the owners towards the employees.

So I don't think that we are even in a position we don't even have a good opportunity to have any traction on that.

I guess in the end, there's no policy that requires the owners to designate funds for training regarding safety.

And I guess the same goes for cannabis knowledge as well.

I would agree, I definitely would agree that it should be up to the owner to make sure that you're hiring trained, um, train people.

Um, and definitely, uh, however, this, I can attest that it isn't always done.

Um, you, we don't always get, I mean, it's a recreational store.

Um, people don't get their degrees and say, we're going to flock here, you know?

Um, so it's, it's, it's, it's kind of difficult.

We just, uh, we've been working with what we got and, um, That's all I have to say as far as the training goes for that.

And then the safety provisions, the only safety provision that I really was proposing was, I understand that you guys were talking about the barriers to stop cars from impacting in, but I strongly feel that the double doors, the double door security system would definitely have a large impact on those robberies of A, of people barging in, and then also B, suppose that they did come in and they would still have to present identification before receiving entry into the store.

Therefore, the people who are robbing you have already been identified, which is a huge factor there.

I think that would be a significant deterrent for crime.

But not burglarly.

I mean, after hours, that's a different story.

Now, like I said, the owners don't want They don't want to cough up this money.

It's a cash operation, like they're forking it in.

And a lot of times, a lot of the stores are frequently understaffed, because there's more you can bring in.

I think that these programs and the trainings and the safety provisions can be paid for by the revenue generated by cannabis itself.

I think that it's a great opportunity to just raise the standard here in Washington.

And I know they do the double door entry thing in California, and it seems to be the standard there.

So I was just hoping that we could kind of get rid of this grandfather policy that we kind of got here.

Thank you.

And Cody.

So I just wanted to remark on that, especially with regard to like the police.

I think it would be more economical and make more economical sense to place security burdens on the owners of the store, because police don't prevent crime, they just respond to it after it happens.

So right, so if we're going to actually prevent these robberies from happening in the first place, we can't rely on the police.

We have to have proper security measures up front.

Great, thank you very much.

Council Member Nelson, do you have any follow-up?

Because I'd like to turn to Vice Chair Herbold for some questions as well.

We can also come back to you.

Yeah.

Um, so, um, many, I mean, double doors, securit uh, and many, many canna to do that because we dr We're there, so I appreciate Council Member Mosqueda, you saying that this is an idea and we're gonna be developing it.

Going forward, I wanna make sure that before even talking about policy solutions, I want the problems defined so that we know whether or not the solutions are, that will help narrow our solutions.

So does anybody, When we're talking about an additional fee to pay for things that the union is maybe unable to win at the bargaining table, I want to make sure that people are aware.

Does anybody know how much the Washington state cannabis excise tax does not if you do?

What was your question?

I'm sorry.

I'll just get to my point.

Washington state has a 37% state excise tax for cannabis.

That is much higher than Oregon, higher than any other state in the country, and possibly any other country.

So as the economic development chair here, I do have to say that before this gets too much legs, I want to make sure that the retailers are brought to the table.

I know there's the Kraft Cannabis Collective was not involved in any of these discussions so far.

I think that should happen sooner rather than later so that you do understand the competitive disadvantage that Washington does have amongst the nation, which does trickle down, sorry, but it does impact the jobs that we can provide and also the benefits for workers.

So I'll just leave it there knowing that other folks want to talk.

Thanks so much.

And I want to reiterate, this is not a quizzing opportunity for any members of the community, nor any frontline workers.

This is an opportunity for us to do exactly what was just requested, which is understand the issues that are facing frontline workers and especially the inequities in this industry.

I think the concerns have been really well articulated today.

And if that's part of what folks are interested in hearing, I hope folks have had a chance to hear the full presentation because many of those concerns in the industry, and especially as experienced frontline workers, were really clearly discussed this morning.

And before I turn it over to Councilmember Herbold, I again will reiterate, we of course are in the beginning stages of having a longer conversation, but this is, I think, an important opportunity for us to hear that lived experience.

folks who have taken the time to share with us today what has happened to them as individuals and also within their stores and front lines.

So I see Cody and then Zion and I'm going to go to Vice General.

Awesome.

So yeah, I was gonna say I've worked in the cannabis industry in California as well.

I moved there at the start of the pandemic in 2022 before coming back.

And I can say without a doubt that cannabis products in Washington State are cheaper than pretty much any other state.

So adding a nominal tax on cannabis products would not affect the cannabis market in a way that would deter consumers or prevent job growth.

Thank you, Cody.

Zyle?

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna have to double down on that because, you know, if you talk to, I mean, we deal with customers from all across the world, and they come in from Manhattan, they come in from Chicago, they come in from Florida, they come in from, you know, some places that aren't legal, some places that are legal, and all I hear is that your prices are absolutely incredible, or they say, where's the tax at?

We pay $21 for a pre-roll.

And it's like, you know, here at Washington, we have $3 pre-rolls.

You see the 25 cents per gram.

When we have eighths that we're selling for $15, and when you have customers that are willing to pay $60 for the super top shelf stuff, then I don't understand.

I mean, $15 an eighth, you had 25 cents on that.

And who's going to complain or a $60 at $5 on that.

Who's going to complain when they're going for the top shelf, the creme de la creme, it doesn't matter to them.

I've, I've, I've seen it time and time again.

And, and, um, I know that there's a small increase in on concentrates, People, we have concentrates at $15 a gram.

I mean, this is stuff that you can't even fathom in other states that are already recreational.

It's just that their legislation is shaped where more money is coming out of it.

I haven't even had an opportunity to really assess the dynamic, but I can assure you the flower here is extremely affordable.

And from what I'm hearing, the only place that can beat our prices is Oregon.

And that's because they have a severe surplus.

Thank you very much, Zion, for that expert analysis.

Council Member Herbold, Vice Chair and Chair of Public Safety, thanks for your patients here with us, please go ahead.

so much and I just wanna let our guests know, I apologize for being off screen.

I had an injury a couple of weeks ago and I'm bed bound.

I would love to actually point you on camera, but I am unable to do so.

Really appreciate you being with us today and sharing with all of us your experiences as frontline workers.

because the question has been asked, I did want to provide a little bit of additional information.

Chair Mosqueda did touch upon this in her remarks.

We do have an interdepartmental collaboration with OED and SDCI working on cannabis zoning for social equity licenses and The city will receive at least two of those licenses, although the request from.

I think there's a lot of support at the city for doing so, but with a recognition that in order to do so, we might need to make some zoning changes.

And so that is upon Councilmember Strauss's committee.

Another issue that might touch upon work that could be done in the land use committee relates to building code requirements.

I, was working with the council and working for a council member who sponsored much of the early zoning and building code requirements for cannabis as it was just becoming legal first for medical.

And there are some security requirements within the building code, especially for cannabis businesses.

But I agree with the presenters that we We really need to take another look at that.

And I think the suggestions around double security doors are brilliant.

Lastly, as it relates to the city's portion of the existing cannabis excise tax, We do note that community partners need to be identified for to pull down on making sure those connections are made.

And then lastly, because I do chair the Public Safety Committee, I do want to express my interest in your recommendations as it relates to expunging records.

The city has done some work in the area of vacating records, and I appreciate that there's a difference between vacating records and expunging records.

In 2018, the city vacated 542 convictions for possession.

That is because the city really is only able to, to my understanding, impact the offenses that it enforces.

specifically misdemeanor offenses, that was the universe that we could address.

And so these are 542 convictions for possession from 1996 through 2012. 2010 and then there were no prosecutions at all after 2010 and so that's the vacating of records.

I'd really like to understand more about what you're proposing around the expungement of records and how the city could help on that front.

My understanding is that once a record is vacated it remains information.

Perhaps there's a way to legislate expungement since even though it's apparently expunging is already banned by state law, but maybe we could make an argument.

This is a special case because These actions are no longer crimes.

And so the idea of not making this information public information seems like a wise decision, but was very interested to know a little bit more about what your recommendations are in this area.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Councilmember Herbold.

I'm excited as well about the questions that you asked about how the city can take that next step from vacation to expungement and look forward to hearing more from some of the folks on the line here today and any other folks who might be interested in working on that issue with myself and Councilmember Herbold.

and appreciate your long history in working on this area as well.

Are there any, excuse me, I didn't mean to cut anybody off.

If there was any comments or questions in response to Council Member Herbold, you're welcome to do that.

We have just about three or four minutes left of our meeting, and then we're gonna wrap up.

Okay, I didn't see, I don't see any hands, so I'll just say thank you very much, Council Member Herbold, your comments are very much appreciated.

And Zion, I do see your hand, please go ahead.

I wasn't sure if anyone was speaking there.

I'm I'm I am aware that there is a difference and someone brought have brought that to my attention last year the difference in between vacating and expunging.

I guess from what I heard mentioned earlier by Danica is something I'm actually unfortunately familiar with.

is the felony points.

The felony possessions carry points.

And from my understanding, those points can be used against you until seven years after the probationary period ends.

So it's not just the sentencing.

It's not just the parole or probation.

It would be seven years after that duration.

and then those felony convictions for that act won't be used against you to increase the amount of time in the recommendation window.

Now, what I was speaking about was, it's a little bit harder to keep up with this.

And I, to be honest, I really don't even know how to articulate it properly.

I feel like this is, it would be something for an attorney to speak on.

Um, and I do know one or two that could, um, but, uh, dependency proceedings, uh, uh, parents who have been deemed unfit, uh, to be, or negligent, um, to some capacity in which cannabis use, uh, uh, recreationally, or even medicinally has been used to, uh, support those determinations.

Um, and that, to be honest, I'm gonna be frank, is a very large can of worms that I have no clue where to start with that way over my head on that site.

So I saw I can.

Yeah, no, thanks for putting it on our radar.

And I think that's a good area for us to look into as well.

And again, good questions from customer herpled.

Danica, please go ahead.

Just real quickly, I'll be real quick and sorry, my camera's off.

So just to speak on the felony marijuana possession, we have a board member who was tried as an adult at 17 years old and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, right?

And so he was able, with our help in the communities, to go back and be resentenced based on the marijuana possession, what we know as the Blake issue, the felony possession, unconstitutional possession law.

And he was resentenced with time served, and he was released immediately about a couple of days after his resentencing.

And so I know there's a lot of things that we need to draw out and continue to work together on the city level.

But it is very important.

Our courts right now are backlogged.

And so we're trying to help support and make this process quicker because there are thousands of individuals who can also be resentenced and be released.

by just taking their youthfulness into consideration.

I just want to go on and on and on and on.

So I just want to just reiterate how important it is for us to expunge, vacate, whatever it is, we're here to help.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I want to thank the entire panel for being here today.

Danica, Kee, Cody, Zion, thank you for sharing your stories.

Again, beginning of the conversation and we look forward to hearing more from folks within the industry, both workers and some of the industry representatives, but also hearing from these other jurisdictions.

I think that's my next step is to reach out to see if some of these other jurisdictions would be interested in sharing the process that they went through.

I'm sure that there are some good lessons learned there and we in Seattle are often on the cutting edge of exporting good progressive ideas.

But when other jurisdictions are doing things well, I don't want us to reinvent the wheel.

I want us to learn from those who have great examples that you all think have a good equity lens applied there as well.

So I'm going to be reaching out to those other jurisdictions and seeing if we can offer some time at an upcoming meeting.

I also heard three R's, and I missed the last R.

I think, Key, you mentioned it.

Reform, redistribution, and restoration restoration restoration yes most important okay so i'm going to be thinking about these three r's um as we think through possible policy solutions here um and whether that's on you know the worker training and safety side whether that's on equitable taxation and fund side I look forward to hearing more about the social equity applicants and the process that Councilmember Herbold and myself mentioned, and we'll be reaching out to Finance and Administrative Services, our SJI Change Team, and the other departments that they're working with as well to get an update on that process.

I also would love to just continue to extend an invitation to all those who are listening to continue to give us ideas as we continue down this path of policy analysis and development and building upon some of the conversations you all have had and policy recommendations that are coming from the community.

This is the beginning of a process that I do hope will lead us to some good policy solutions here so that stories and the anecdotes that you shared and the data that you provided do have systemic policy solutions to help address the inequities and the safety concerns that you've brought up.

So thanks for helping to kick off this conversation today and for bringing your expertise to this discussion.

Really appreciate it.

If there's nothing else for the good of the order, I'm going to wrap this up real quick.

We have reached the end of our agenda.

Our next Finance and Housing Committee meeting will be on March 2nd at 9.30 a.m.

We're going to have a Human Resources Appropriations 2022 bill.

Cannabis, I guess I'm going to just call it a cannabis sort of update from other jurisdictions if they're available.

and possibly the Office of Housing, Staffing and Appropriation changes, change legislation.

And we'll be briefing all of our committee members on those items so that you know more about those coming your way.

Thanks colleagues for your time today.

And we are about three minutes over on my clock.

So have a great rest of your day.

And thanks again to our panel for sharing your stories, your ideas, and your expertise.

Take care, everyone.