Seattle City Council Briefing 3623

Councilmember Herbold?

Councilmember Lewis?

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council President Pro Tem Strauss.

Present, and I think we had a couple more join.

Thank you, I see that.

Council Member Herbold.

Hello.

Hello.

And Council Member Lewis.

Present.

One, two, three, four, seven, present.

Wonderful.

And one last joinee.

Councilmember Nelson.

Hello, Councilmember Nelson.

I see here it looks, thank you, eight present.

Thank you.

If there's no objection, the meetings of February 27, 2023 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

On today's agenda, we have no proclamations or letters to sign.

We will have individual reports by council members.

You should have received a copy of the roll call.

We will begin with Council Member Herbold today.

Please note, we will have one 30-minute executive session today.

Jasmine Marwaha provided the information pertinent to today's executive session to each council member last week.

We will not have a legislative briefing by OIR today.

They will return next week.

On tomorrow's agenda the consent calendar will include the minutes and payment of the bills as well as 12 appointments including four to the Seattle immigrant and refugee commission, one to the Seattle Youth Commission six to the Pike Place market preservation development authority, and one to the historic Seattle preservation and development authority governing council.

All were recommended by the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

We will take one vote on all items on the consent calendar unless any Council Member requests that an item be removed for consideration separately.

If so, that item will be taken up at the end of the agenda.

There is one item under committee reports on the agenda tomorrow.

It is the first quarter 2023 employment ordinance, which makes adjustments to positions on the civil service system.

Karina Bull on central staff has the information on this if you have questions prior to tomorrow's vote.

Information on all of items on tomorrow's agenda is available online.

The next council briefing will be at 2 p.m.

March 2nd, March 13th.

Agenda item, signing of letters and proclamations.

I'm not aware of a letter nor proclamation for signature today.

Item four, Preview City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

We will begin our next discussion on the Preview of City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

And the order of discussion is established by the Rotated Roll Call for City Council Meetings, which is designated alphabetically by last name, with the Council President called last.

This week's roll call rotation will begin with Council Member Herbold.

And I will sum it up with Council President Warren's notes.

And then finally, with my own comments about the Land Use Committee.

With that, Council Member Pro Bold, when you're ready, please begin.

And from there, hand it over to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Council President Pro Tem.

So there are no items on tomorrow's full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

and the Public Safety and Human Services Committee does not meet this week.

Our next meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee is Tuesday, March 14th at 9.30 a.m.

Just a few updates on the Human Services Department side of things.

I meant to mention last week that the mayor had announced his nomination for permanent director of the Human Services Department.

And that nominee is current acting director Tanya Kim.

Just letting folks know that the requirements of resolution 31868 lays out a process for council consideration of such appointments.

And the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will consider this nomination at the April 11th committee meeting.

My office will be working to compile questions for Acting Director Kim's written response.

I expect to circulate those questions to committee members at the end of the week for your review and potential additions to the questions.

Another item that you might be seeing in the news and some background and some next steps.

Last year, the council provided funds for a wage equity study.

examining the low wages offered to human services workers here and elsewhere, and comparing those pay levels for human services jobs with jobs in other sectors that require similar levels of responsibility, skill, and experience.

The study has recently been completed.

It's researchers from the University of Washington that's been doing the work.

And it's a really important read for anybody who's concerned with ensuring that we have a strong pool of workers, a workforce who is willing and able to take on mission critical work, such as operating shelters and affordable housing and caring for our children.

So the upshot is that human services workers in the nonprofit sector receive an annual median, a median annual pay that is 37% lower than non-care industries.

And there are some specific recommendations included to address this crisis.

I appreciate the reporting on the study from Crosscut and Publicola recently, and just wanting folks to know that next week's Public Safety and Human Services Committee will include a presentation by the study's authors Just noting that the Crosscut article this morning includes, I think, a particularly astonishing finding, and that is workers are leaving for higher paying careers in the for-profit sector, including fast food and retail, and organizations are struggling to hire new workers to fill vacant positions.

So, very sobering.

Other items just to uplift on the public health side.

Folks might recall that the Board of Health last year voted to repeal a law requiring mandatory helmet usage for bicyclists.

I am now on the Board of Health.

I was then when we voted on this.

voted on the change in the regulation as part of the King County Board of Health.

I think all of us were very, very clear that we know and we believe and know from the data that helmets save lives and that everyone who cycles should wear one every time.

But we just received a study from public health that demonstrates that the laws repealed did not cause helmet usage to drop.

So I'm really pleased to learn that because that was a really important message that we wanted to push out there that the change in the regulation is completely unrelated to the facts that helmets do save lives.

The study observed that 2,000 people at more than 50, at 50 different locations and found that 91% were helping.

And then I think the last thing I wanted to just mention today is I serve on the Domestic Violence Prevention Council as one of the co-chairs representing the city council and at a meeting on Friday, We both said our goodbyes and gave our appreciation to a long-term member of that group, Judge Eisenberg, who is departing.

But we also heard from the mayor's office about their really important progress on Executive Order 2022, 2022-5, which directed SPD to assess policies and practices related to survivors of sexual assault.

And so there was a presentation from the mayor's office, specifically Andrew Meyerberg, giving the Domestic Violence Prevention Council an update on the progress on implementing the executive order.

And happy to give folks additional information offline about that progress if there's interest.

That's all I have for today.

And if there are no comments or questions, I will pass it off to Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Not a whole lot of updates today, Council colleagues, so I will probably be able to get through them briefly as our time this afternoon implies.

At the March 15th committee meeting for the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee, we are hosting the Human Services Department for their quarterly HOPE team report, which will also include a review of 2022 as a whole.

We will also be hoping to receive legislation from parks related to the restoration of Rainier Playfield, which I alluded to at last week's briefing was postponed.

We haven't confirmed whether that will be an agenda item next week, but I'm hoping to be able to confirm by next week's briefing if we anticipate taking up that legislation at that time.

Clean City Initiative.

The data for February 21st to February 24th indicates that 587 needles were recovered and 55,400 pounds of garbage from 68 park pickup locations On Seattle Public Library, the Wannaware's Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute, which trains community members in the techniques and best practices of oral history and black memory work, is accepting applications for its next six person cohort of community oral historians.

Those interested can find out more about the Institute and apply at www.wannaware.org, and that's spelled out as all one word, so W-A-N-W-A-R-E.

awari.org.

The deadline to apply is Friday, March 10th, 2023 at 1159 p.m.

The institute runs from June 2023 to June of 2025. Over two years, cohort members will work with historians, archivists, geographers, librarians, artists, and others to learn and explore the ethics, techniques, best practices, tensions, and dilemmas of oral history and Black memory work.

Cohort members will acquire skills in archival research methods, audio recording techniques, oral history interviewing techniques, transcription, story editing, audio editing, and public art proposal and activation processes.

Additionally, I want to just bring to the attention of the full council.

I know several members are also aware of this and have been made aware by business districts within their district boundaries, The many small businesses recently received award letters from business improvement area partners for vitality grants to clean storefronts, replace broken windows, complete tenant improvements, preserve building facades, and other such improvements and repairs.

These are federal ARPA grants administered by the State Department of Commerce and have a strict deadline for project completion, which is May 31st of this year.

Many businesses are being told they need approvals or permits from the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections and that in many cases those timelines are running past the May 31st deadline.

I want to my office has has reached out to the relevant department and to the mayor's office to really drive a priority behind this.

And I just want to raise this for colleagues and I know a number of colleagues are aware of this and similarly working independently on this.

to work with the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections, Office of Economic Development, and the Mayor's Office to ensure that small businesses can receive these vital funds and that we aren't leaving federal money to help our small businesses on the table due to the expiration of the deadline.

So I want to appreciate the business owners who have brought this to my attention, and we will continue to work with you if there's any hurdle on our end to push the city to help get those funds out the door before they expire.

Finally, I did attend last week a roundtable with businesses in the Queen Anne neighborhood regarding several recent incidents of crime that the neighborhood business district has experienced, ranging from burglaries to violent assaults to a number of other tragic occurrences that are not unique to the Queen Anne neighborhood, but indeed are happening in places all over the city.

the large turnout for that meeting to candidly share those incidents and to work with the city on how we can work together to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future and how we can work with all of our business districts to make sure that they're safe and vital places for the community.

It was great to see Councilmember Nelson there as well as have attendance both from our West Precinct Captain, Captain Stephen Strand, and our West Precinct Ops Lieutenant Randy Ward, in addition to Barb Biondo, our Public Safety Civilian Coordinator in the West Precinct.

And I look forward to following up with those business owners over the course of the next several months as we work on new additive public safety strategies to help protect and expand our small business districts.

And with that, President Pro Tem, I don't have anything else to add.

I'm happy to take questions if there are any.

Seeing and hearing no questions, I will pass it along to Council Member Morales.

Thank you very much Councilmember Lewis good afternoon colleagues.

I will start with my committee, as Council Pro Tem President Pro Tem Strauss indicated, I do have several appointments on the consent calendar for tomorrow's meeting but no other items from the neighborhood Education Arts and Rights Committee.

Our next committee meeting will be this coming Friday, March 10 at 930. We've got three agenda items, including a resolution on approving a memorandum of agreement with the UW Medical Center Northwest campus.

That is a major institution master plan.

discussion.

And so I will just remind colleagues, this is a quasi-judicial matter.

And when we're discussing items that are quasi-judicial, it means that we cannot engage in ex parte communications.

So just a reminder as that comes before us.

The second item is going to be an update on the passage of initiative 135, creating a Seattle social housing developer and a public development authority.

I will be briefing.

Thanks to the help of our central staff.

I think Esther handy may be there but Tracy is not able to be there so she's assisting me and getting a presentation ready.

And then the third agenda item is Council Bill 120525, which would codify our race and social justice initiative.

for a briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

I really want to thank Mayor Harrell, Interim Director Derek Wheeler-Smith, Asha Venkatraman on Central Staff, and my Chief of Staff, Alexis Turla.

They have all been working very hard on this on this bill for over a year, and I think we are finally there so I'm very excited to be bringing that to committee, and do hope to be able to vote it out of committee this week as well.

Okay, this week I met with Department of Neighborhoods to get briefed on the resolution that we have regarding the UW Medical Center.

I also have my monthly check-in with OCR, and we'll be getting briefed later this week on OPCD's 2023 work plan, so looking forward to that.

And then some quick district updates.

Last week I joined the Cascade Bicycle Club to bike around District 2. I will say it was lunchtime and we saw lots of folks using their bikes to run errands, to take their kids to preschool, go to the grocery store.

So it was great to see people navigating through the neighborhood.

on their bikes and was just a reminder about how important it is that we continue to focus on making sure people who aren't driving can also get around their neighborhood safely.

My staff also had a meeting with the Save Andrews Bay group, we've been working with these folks for several years now.

And a group of neighbors in the south end, they were very excited about the progress that we're making to try to deal with some of the noise and other issues that we see at Andrews Bay particularly in the summertime so glad that we are able to address some of those concerns.

This week, I'll be having in-district office hours.

On Thursday, I will be meeting with constituents at Cafe Red at the Othello light rail station.

We will be taking a lunch break, I believe from 12 to 1, but we'll otherwise be down at the Othello station area at Cafe Red, so invite folks to come join us.

I'll also be attending the first meeting of the year of the build a neighborhood group.

This is a coalition predominantly black and brown developers finance folks who have been meeting be.

This is a meeting convened by Curtis Brown with cord.

That really focuses on community led development projects, but is really sort of a group that comes together to workshop and provide each other.

Some technical assistance support to address the issues that they face particularly around finance and acquisition.

and some of the other challenges faced by Black and Brown developers.

So we will be attending that meeting to listen and to try to understand what we could be doing as a city to make sure that these folks are able to participate in the process better.

Colleagues, that is all I have, unless there are questions or comments.

I'm not seeing any.

I'll pass it to Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

I apologize for not being here last week.

I was out due to being sick.

I wanted to flag 2 items from last week's introduction and referral calendar that you probably have already seen already.

1 of those from last week's calendar is the multifamily tax exemption extension.

This legislation will ensure that we keep the program in place and that the program can play a vital and pivotal role and ensuring that we are avoiding any impacts of expiring units while the office of housing works with.

The Seattle City Council and stakeholders at large to develop a more comprehensive update to the program in 2024 next year, office of housing staff members, along with Tracy from central staff have reached out to community members to provide briefings and updates on the legislation that was on the introduction referral calendar.

And we will have this item in an upcoming housing and finance committee meeting this month.

But if you would still like a briefing in advance of that finance and housing discussion, please do reach out to Tracy Radcliffe as well to arrange a briefing.

The second piece of legislation that I'm really excited about that you may have seen on the introduction or referral calendar relates to paid sick leave.

As you might remember, my office, specifically SAGE Up Reek, chief of staff in our office, She worked with stakeholders and the mayor's office early in the pandemic on emergency legislation in 2020 to ensure in particular that during the COVID-19 emergency, the declared state of emergency that frontline delivery workers had access to paid sick and safe leave to ensure.

both equity and broader public health goals were met.

These protections are slated to end at the end of April this year.

So we are acting with urgency and in partnership with the mayor's office to advance the paid sick leave legislation that was on the introduction and referral calendar last week.

We've had an opportunity over the last few months to partner with the mayor's office to ensure that our broader public health goals are continuing to be met.

and that we are meeting these goals by offering a permanent extension of these policies with some enhancements based on the ever evolving policy that Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Lewis are leading on related to the pay up legislation.

So we wanted to harmonize some definitions and include changes based on the actual implementation and practices that we've observed over the last two years as workers and community members sought to access their paid sick and safe leave.

So much of that has also been informed by real-time feedback with our Office of Labor Standards over the last few years.

And I'm really looking forward to being able to codify these protections, and we will have a robust discussion next Wednesday and have an opportunity for a follow-up conversation at our subsequent meeting as well later this month.

As a reminder, to avoid any gaps in coverage for workers and to ensure that we are avoiding a stop, start, stop, start situation for the apps, we do need to pass this legislation and get it signed into law by the end of March to avoid our deadline that we had put into place when the emergency legislation was originally passed.

So, over the course of the upcoming few weeks, we have 2 meetings to discuss those 2 items and a handful of others.

Our next finance and housing committee meeting will be this upcoming Wednesday.

Sorry on next week on Wednesday, March 15th.

we are going to have 4 items on the agenda for that.

That includes the paid sick leave legislation I just mentioned.

It also will include the city budgets office quarter one grant acceptance ordinance.

It will include a overview of the Seattle rescue plan 2022 year end report.

Thanks again to the crew.

Um, led by Adam shaver in the CEO's office, who've been providing us regular American rescue plan act and Seattle rescue plan implementation reports monthly.

And we like to have these quarterly reports in our committee meeting.

This is an opportunity for us to get a full year and report in this 1st quarter as well.

And the last item that will be up for discussion on Wednesday, March 15th is going to be the Burke and building property folks probably remember that building as part of our discussions and deliberations during the budget where we are purchasing that building and is leading on that effort.

So this is follow up from that budget deliberations and the company ordinance to enact the direction that we included in last year's budget.

As I noted, we have another meeting scheduled for later this month on March 20th.

This is a makeup meeting for the meeting that was canceled last week because I was out taking my own paid sick leave.

So the makeup meeting will be March 20th at 930 AM.

I believe, colleagues, you should have received a calendar hold, and I believe that that date was verified with your offices before we scheduled it.

At this meeting on March 20th at 930 AM, we intend to have the MFTE legislation that I mentioned and the final briefing discussion and vote on the paid sick leave legislation.

Just want to double check.

That does conclude our items that we have in the Finance and Housing Committee meeting.

Councilmember Nielsen?

Are you ready?

Let's move on to Councilmember Peterson.

We can come back to Councilmember Nelson in just a moment.

Thank you, President Burkham-Strauss.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

There are no items from the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

Our next committee meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will be tomorrow, Tuesday, March 7 at 9.30 a.m.

This past Friday, we published the agenda online and it shows we will tackle three items at committee tomorrow morning.

First, our committee will devote most of its time on a briefing and discussion of SDOT's recent report on its Vision Zero Traffic Safety efforts.

Last month, the city received a $25 million federal grant to make streets safer, and the executive wanted that additional time to incorporate the new funding into its initial solutions.

SDOT published their Vision Zero report on their blog on February 23rd.

In addition, SDOT's PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow is attached to our online committee agenda.

Next, our committee will vote on the solid waste plan from Seattle Public Utilities that we already discussed at our February 21st meeting.

Since that initial committee meeting, central staff has completed their memo, which is available from the online committee agenda.

One of the key goals of the updated solid waste plan is to better align our progress metrics with more relevant standards supported by the Washington State Department of Ecology and other environmental experts.

If you have any questions about SBU's solid waste plan update, please contact Brian Goodnight from Council Central staff.

And finally, we'll have a preliminary briefing and discussion of a request to have the city vacate an alley that runs north-south directly west of I-5 and bordered by Denny Way and Stewart Street in District 7, which is officially part of the Southlake Union Urban Center.

a for-profit developers requesting that the city vacate the public alley to facilitate the development of their proposed 15-story research facility.

The petitioners currently own the parcels that include a tattoo shop, a hookah lounge, the El Corazon and Fun House Magic Clubs, and an auto repair shop.

The proposed development would displace those businesses and demolish the existing buildings.

This is very early in the process for the potential alley vacation, and it won't be ready for initial conditional approval until later this year.

A central staff completed its memo, and so if you have any questions, please contact Lish Whitson.

A key issue will be the public benefits.

What benefits would the public get in exchange for potentially granting the vacation of the public alley?

It's a standard process that we go through using an SDOT process.

Thank you.

That concludes my report and we can go back to Council Member Nelson.

No questions.

OK, I. I apologize for being late, I was trying to finish something up and find my screen anyway.

Hello, everyone.

This week, the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee will meet on Wednesday at 930 and we've got three things on the agenda.

The first is a briefing discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120518, an updated surveillance impact report, or SIR, on forward-looking infrared real-time video, or FLIR.

Now, this is mounted on King County Sheriff's Office helicopters and used for law enforcement, emergency management, and search and rescue purposes.

Council approved the original FLIR SIR in 2021. And just to recap, pilots can see infrared images on a live stream video, but no one on the ground right now can see it.

The pilots have to describe what they see in the video to officers on the ground vocally.

Last year Council approved receipt of a federal grant so that SPD can purchase downlink technology that would let officers on the ground view that video in live in real time, as well as hear the voice.

We need to update the SIR to reflect that the downlink constitutes a slightly different use, but the update does not change anything in terms of what information the may be collected by SPD or how SPD will hold on to or use that information.

And they will not, the technology does not give SPD the capacity to record that video.

So this legislation is time-sensitive, which is why I'm hoping to present it and vote it out in the same meeting, because in order to use this grant money, this legislation has to be voted out of council on March 14th.

And if we don't do that, we leave money on the table by missing the deadline.

So Lisa Kay, central staff, Member Lisa Kay has distributed a memo and she's available to answer any questions if you want to get into specifics before that meeting.

All right, the second item on our agenda on Wednesday is a presentation from Seattle IT on its work in 2022 and its priorities for 2023. And then lastly, Seattle City Light will present the city's transportation electrification strategic investment plan Which lays out the principles for the city and how they plan to.

you know, implement the the rapid, hopefully, the rapid electrification of vehicles in the city.

And then in related news for the committee and moving into what happened last week, the the nominations and applications for the Film Commission are now open.

So that went live last Thursday.

And anyone who wants to nominate someone or apply themselves, needs to get their materials in by March 12th.

And there is a website on the Office of Economic Development's homepage where you can submit materials.

That's very exciting.

Last week also, I attended the Puget Sound Regional Council's Economic Development Board meeting, and I appreciate Council Member Lewis giving a summary of the meeting with Queen Anne Small Businesses.

I will not go into the content itself, but I just know that like I often say, these businesses are ready to see some change.

They have experienced repeated thefts, property damage, threats to employees, and I pledge to continue working on crime against small businesses going forward.

Let's see, the Comic-Con was last Friday, was last weekend downtown.

I was not able to go this year, but I have been told that it was a success, that it was great to see people in costume all over downtown.

And I'm told that the festival generated millions of dollars for the city.

And so it's great to see that spark of life downtown this past weekend.

Anyway, oh, I have in my notes, 75,000 people came to the Sold Out event.

This week, I will be meeting with the President of the Republic of Finland tonight at the National Nordic Museum's fireside chat with him and also Senator Mike Blyas.

I will be joining the Beacon Hill Community Council meeting on Tuesday, tomorrow, to introduce myself, what I've been doing, and hear about what's going on in the neighborhood.

And on Wednesday, I'll be joining the Green Lake Community Council to hear about issues and concerns that they're facing.

And then Friday, or Saturday, my staff and I will attend the Wing Luke Museum annual dinner and auction.

That's it for me.

Any questions?

All right, seeing none, I will now, We'll pass it to Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

There you are.

Thank you and good afternoon, everybody.

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

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is Friday, March 17th at 9.30 a.m.

That committee will discuss legislation from my office to cap late fees for renters at $10 and several appointments to the Seattle Renters Commission.

Council members will likely know that this Wednesday is the deadline for legislation in Olympia to be voted out of the House of Origin, which means that this is a time when many progressive bills are killed by the Democratic Party without ever being brought to a vote.

As of January 2023, Democrats control both houses of the Washington State Legislature.

Democrats hold a 58 to 40 majority in the House of Representatives.

and a 29 to 20 majority in the Senate.

But it's not just about this year.

Democrats have controlled the Washington state governor's mansion for 30 out of the last 30 years, the Senate for 20 years, the House for 23 years.

Democrats have controlled all three centers of the government for 15 of those 30 years, and at least two of the three centers of government power for 28 out of the 30 years.

They've had a majority in the Senate since 2018 and in the House since 2002. So this is the fifth year in a row with a majority in all houses.

And for all that time, the Democratic Party has played a game with progressive activists where they propose bills for renters' rights and other things working class people need, but they never call them to a vote.

The bills die without any politicians needing to go on record having voted no.

Rents keep going up and they want us to believe that nobody is to blame.

Right now, House Bill 1389, which would create a form of rent control, is in this limbo.

It has massive corporate loopholes, which is bad, but it would still limit outrageous rent increases for many renters if it were passed.

Unfortunately, I would be shocked if it were actually called to a vote because legislators play these games with working people's lives.

House Bill 1124 is another renter rights bill in limbo right now in Olympia.

It would cap late fees like the legislation my office has proposed for Seattle in the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee.

House Bill 1124 would also increase the notice landlords need to give renters for rent increases.

like the legislation from my office that the city council passed in 2021. These also have significant loopholes, and I urge legislators to prevent any preemption of stronger renters' rights in cities like Seattle.

But as I said, it's not looking likely that any of these bills would even be brought to a vote, but I would urge the Washington state legislature to actually go ahead with these bills.

It would be better if they didn't have corporate loopholes.

but I know renters will appreciate any kind of reprieve statewide, so it is important that we can win whatever we can, but I'm just putting this out there because I don't have high expectations, but we'll see what happens.

I don't see any questions on the Zoom, so I should pass it to you Council President Pro Tem Strauss.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Colleagues, I'm going to first read the report from Council President Juarez of District 5, and then I will conclude with my remarks regarding the Land Use Committee, which is only going to be increasingly more busy as the weeks go along.

From Council President Juarez, on Monday, we welcomed a delegation of 35 leaders from the city of Detroit, including Detroit City Council Member Scott Benson.

It was a pleasure to have them visit City Hall.

Council President met with the Human Services Division regarding outreach to homeless encampments in District 5. Council President met with Aaron Goodman, Executive Director of SOTO BIA, to discuss public safety improvements in the SOTO neighborhood.

Council President's team attended the Sound Transit Ridership Experience and Operations Committee to discuss FAIR Ambassador Program and hear an update on Sound Transit's FAIR strategy.

She also heard a presentation on the performance metrics and the system's performance tracker.

Council President attended a sound transit tour of the West Seattle Ballard link extension, along with my councilmember Dan Strauss his teammate, Naomi Lewis in preparation for an upcoming vote by the sound transit board on the preferred alignment on March 23. Thank you Council President for extending that invitation.

to Naomi.

She loved it.

Many great stories.

Council President would like to remind colleagues that Sound Transit System Expansion Committee will be meeting this Thursday, March 9 at 1.30pm to consider options for the West Seattle Ballard Link light rail extension.

This is the committee vote that will proceed the full board vote on March 23rd.

If you would like to make any comments about the System Expansion Committee meeting or the board meeting, please let Council President's Office know as she would like to assist you.

Coming up this week, Council President's Office will be meeting with multiple constituency groups regarding the remaining outstanding issues related to the Sound Transit West Seattle Ballard Link rail extension project Council President will be meeting with the Sound Transit North King sub area leadership group including King County Councilmember McDermott, along with Sound Transit CEO Julie Tim and Sound Transit staff the North King sub area is an opportunity to speak with staff on issues specific to Seattle and the cities north of Seattle.

Just a moment while I lost where I was.

Council President will also be receiving an update on Metropolitan Improvement District.

And that concludes Council President Juarez's report.

Sounds like D5 is in good shape.

Thank you, Council President for all your work.

Now transitioning to my council member Dan Strauss' committee report from the Land Use Committee.

There are no items from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

The next regularly scheduled Land Use Committee is this week on Wednesday, March 8th at 2 p.m.

We anticipate hearing the following items.

Both are informational.

One is a presentation on non-conforming uses in our city.

I mentioned this at the last two council briefings, where Marcus Johnson, a UW graduate student, created a GIS map of duplexes, triplexes, quads, and small apartment buildings focused in my district, because he couldn't do the whole city, as well as small commercial storefronts that currently are in zones that do not allow These types of buildings.

That's why this is called a nonconforming uses presentation.

What we know is that duplexes, triplexes, quads, small apartments and storefronts are already a part of the fabric of our city and make it more vibrant.

And this is showing what different types there are throughout our city.

During this presentation, Marcus will explore with the committee the different types of low density density that already exist within our neighborhoods.

And in many cases, fit the neighborhood character better than the McMansion boom that we've experienced in the recent past.

Following Marcus's presentation, we will have an ADU annual report briefing and discussion.

City Council passed a bill in 2019 before I or many of the members of the Land Use Committee were elected to allow for DADUs and ADUs.

with that legislation requires a report to be provided each year.

So this is the report with no legislative action at this time from OPCD on how the ordinance has been working.

The presentation is longer than I anticipated when I did the pre-briefing with OPCD.

So please do review the presentation in advance.

I'll be asking for questions to be held to the end.

So as we're going, make sure to take notes on the page numbers.

And I will try to make more time.

I think we do have the benefit that there's just two presentations.

And so if we're able to move through quickly, I just don't want to exceed the two hour mark that is scheduled for the committee.

I want to give everyone an update on the tree legislation.

The legislation has not been transmitted.

When it is transmitted, I will also release the schedule for hearing the bill.

Again, we plan on segmenting this legislation, focusing on one section at a time for amendments and discussion, then moving on to the next section.

We will begin the process with an overview of the entire bill, and then move section by section, brief the entirety of the bill as amended, and pass to full council.

There is a 30-day public hearing notice requirement, so once the bill is transmitted, we will work quickly to get that information posted for public review and schedule a public hearing for 30 days later.

This bill has been worked on for 20 years by some, 13 years by others, and five years by me, for me that is.

And so with this much anticipation, the process over the next month, month and a half may feel faster than expected because of so many years of inaction.

I just want to ensure that for the viewing public, we will take the time needed to fully examine and amend the bill if needed.

And we will be moving quickly so that we can ensure tree protections are put in place as fast as possible.

And we'll be taking the time needed to ensure that the bill is well-rounded.

So with that colleagues, any questions on my report or council president's report?

I am seeing none.

So if there is no further business, we will move into the executive session.

Hearing no further business, we will now move into an executive session.

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

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

The council executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorney's office As authorized by law, a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by i'm going to give us a couple minutes to get all situated i'm going to say 330pm.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration at the conclusion of the executive session.

This council briefing meeting will automatically be adjourned.

The next regularly scheduled council briefing is on March 13th, 2023 at 2 p.m.

The council is now in executive session and colleagues provided