Seattle City Council Council Briefing 12/9/19

Good morning everybody.

Good morning everybody.

We're winding down.

Every morning is good.

Thank you for being here for our December 9th Council briefing.

We're joined by Councilmembers Sawant, Juarez, Begshaw, Peterson, and Gonzalez.

And if there's no objection, the minutes of the December 2nd, 2019 meeting will be approved.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are approved.

Let me speak as we go around the table and look at today's full council actions and sort of what's going on today.

Let me say a few things.

We will have Resolution 31920, which is a council rules update resolution, and I want to thank all of you for your feedback and discussions on that.

There's one amendment I will advance that's sort of coming from the clerk in the law, and that is It's fairly straightforward.

It's relating to the external committees when there is a council vacancy.

And similar to language for standing committees that we would have the incoming council member assume the duties to the external committees as well.

It could always be changed after the fact, but without action it will default to the external committees that the outgoing council member had assumed.

Does that make sense?

And then we have clerk file 314442 up for vote this afternoon, which is an extension, a six month extension for completing the remaining surveillance impact reports known as the SIRs from March 1st to September 1st.

And the reason for that is we did get through two of them.

There's still close to 20, a high number of 20. types of technologies that still need a review from a surveillance impact standpoint, from a privacy, protection of privacy rights standpoint.

We want to get this right.

We want to do it thoroughly.

And just the request for more time is, I think, is reasonable.

And again, there's a lot of process that goes into that kind of approval process.

So we don't want to lose that.

The next piece is a Council Bill 119707, which is on the city light side of things, filling in for Council Member Mosqueda.

Pretty straightforward modification of an easement grant that was given to King County in 1958, but it's no longer needed.

And so we simply relieved parts of the easement for King County to move forward.

Again, we had already, I think, vacated the property.

And the last one is resolution 31919 that came out of committee, which is on the technology matching fund program.

And in that one, we were looking at how we approve technology matching grants, such a rich program, getting matching funds out to underrepresented communities.

The process by which we approve the budget and it actually gets into the hands of the small sometimes not small, the nonprofits in these organizations, we think is taking much too long.

And so we wanted the, we're requiring the department to come up with ideas to sort of accelerate that process.

And you may recall many of these grants are 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, none over 50,000.

And so we want to make sure we had a more effective process.

So that's what that resolution calls for.

This morning, we'll hear from our state legislative team.

We'll just have a discussion This morning I want to thank the team for working so feverishly on making sure we have a document that reflects all of our priorities and interests.

We will vote on that, not today, but next Monday.

So again, we will still have a little more time to process, but I think we have done a pretty good job of making sure your needs are met.

I'm going to pass out another subject, a proclamation.

for celebrating our 150 years and at 11 o'clock today I'm going to present this at a reception in the Norm B. Rice room.

I'll read this 150th anniversary proclamation so I'd ask all of you to sign it.

This Wednesday on December 11th, I'm just sort of, I'm not doing hard segues into the Subjects, I'm just getting it all off my chest here.

So bear with me if when I do a not a smooth pause this Wednesday We may likely have a regional policy committee Once again, our three o'clock at least is scheduled depending on how the discussion goes another councilmember Bagshaw I have some things to say about that during this briefing Thursday at 930 we once again have we'll have a special meeting select committee on homelessness and housing affordability.

That's Thursday at 930 And then, of course, last but not least, this Thursday at 4 o'clock, we have a farewell reception for a few folks like myself that are parting waves on good terms, I should say.

So we invite all of you to attend that.

That's this 4 o'clock.

And we're going to have Josephine Howell, who's an acclaimed singer here in town, and has some refreshments.

And so it should be a great evening beginning at 4 o'clock.

Let me make sure I didn't miss anything.

Nope.

Okay, so having said that.

Council President Harrell?

Yes, Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I just have a quick question for you.

Yes.

In terms of the legislation accepting grants and allowing certain agencies to accept grants directly, I just wanted to confirm that the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs was ultimately included in the resolution that we're going to be considering today.

Very good.

So, it would have been yes, and what I said during the hearing is I certainly received that well as did the presenters of the legislation.

We ended up not adopting any of the legislation.

We didn't vote on it.

And the reason being, and just for those that, to give you some context, is that we were presenting some legislation that had originated out of the law department that allowed a little more flexibility in how the city allows receiving public funds, philanthropic funds.

It could be $100, it could be $50,000 and there's what's known as a city catalog and that's a system that's been around for decades and there was legislation to allow basically departments to receive money directly and then it could go into their coffers and the legislation didn't have a lot of oversight so councilmember Herbold and I discussed the committee and so councilmember Gonzalez we what we were concerned about was we understand that council may not have to have oversight on all of the funds and $100 gift as an example to the city, but we are concerned about Whether number one there had been an RSGA analysis on how it could play out if for example one neighborhood and a few philanthropic folks just gave a lot of money and aggregated their funds in certain area and other parts of the town were unable to achieve that same kind of a whether we need to put some kind of safeguards in place to see if we could have more parity, and whether the council should have some role, some oversight, some checklist, some safeguard in place to make sure that the investments are, in fact, just not dedicated to the departments.

put in a daylighted kind of format such that we can make sure that it's performed.

And so, since we had really no time to have a stakeholder process or an RSA analysis, we just sort of punted it down the road for next year.

And I would, and I, we asked central staff to bring it up early next year to make sure.

But I, but your suggestion, your amendment was well received.

Okay.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Ask me a question and you'll get a long answer, see.

I wanted you to have some context because it was actually I was really excited about the legislation and we thought that it could be a means by which we could receive more funds from the public and we wanted to thank the I think it's the code register person or the attorney the position we created in the law department to find these kinds of Deficiencies where we can really improve some of the things we're doing.

So that was one of his first Discoveries and I think it has great potential.

We just thought it may need a little fine-tuning so customers want

Good morning everyone.

Good morning.

Just wanted to mention quickly that I believe Council Member Herbold is bringing an ordinance to extend the moratorium that we established last year on the filing, acceptance, processing, or any approval of application for mobile home parks.

And those who are watching will remember that the residents of the Halcyon Mobile Home Park themselves and aided by community activists were able to bring this issue to the city council.

And we were able to provide initial protections because they were facing very urgent threats on what is for them the only option for affordable home ownership and in fact affordable housing of any kind.

And so I just want to say I definitely support that.

The second thing I wanted to report which many of you might have heard is Contrary to what Mayor Durkan was planning, which is to evict the North Lake tiny house village, which was going to be a bad decision overall from all standpoints, especially given that it was going to be in as we head into a cold winter.

I'm really happy to report that in addition to the real activism of many community members, including the residents of North Lake itself, but also many affordable housing and homeless activists, in addition to all of that, my office was able to initiate a public petition urging the mayor to back down from evicting the tiny house village and giving them at least until the end of March to figure out a sort of a process of exit and given that we have faith leaders who are willing to host the tiny house village but they will need a little bit of time to figure it out.

And so with the support of more than 2,000 community members, and in fact, almost all of them signed our petition within a 30-hour period.

It was an incredible show of support, and I must say I'm extremely heartened by that.

on top of the election results, which are a total repudiation of right-wing anti-homeless ideas and Chamber of Commerce ideas about what we should do to solve homelessness, which is, you know, a rejection of inhumane ideas.

And so this is an extremely important victory for the movement.

And last night, Nicholsville Tiny House Village in Northlake held a celebration that had about 50 people there.

My office staff were there as well.

And people are really energized to continue fighting for homeless services and for affordable housing.

And talking about evictions in the winter, I'm sure council members saw the letter that we had from the Renters Commission.

in which they urge the city council to take action in line with the city's homelessness state of emergency by pausing all evictions effective immediately and to continue a moratorium on evictions to the end of winter.

They sent this letter in early November and I was planning to bring a draft legislation forward on this but we were in the middle of the budget and so as soon as the budget was over, I asked central staff to work on it, and they've been kind enough to immediately work on it right after their Thanksgiving break, which I'm really grateful for.

And today in city council meeting, I want to put that into that legislation on the introduction and referral calendar.

Just some background on this.

As the renters' commission, just to quote from their letter, During winter in Seattle, temperatures regularly fall into the 30s overnight.

And according to All Home King County's Count Us In, a report for 2019, 41% of homeless neighbors sleep outside every night, with an additional 19% sleeping in vehicles.

Neither of these situations provide much protection from the elements, and both can be deadly.

According to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, 191 homeless individuals died last year, and 57% died outdoors, in a vehicle, or in an encampment.

While exposure to the elements cannot be blamed for every one of these deaths, because often it's scientifically hard to isolate the cause of death, it is most certainly a contributing factor, as exposure to harsh weather and living conditions only exacerbates many medical-related issues.

And in addition to this, According to the National Coalition for Homelessness, 700 people experiencing homelessness die annually from effects of hypothermia in U.S. cities.

And we believe that during a season, this is not, I'm not quoting the Renters Commission anymore, I'm just relating some statistics.

And I think during a season requiring home heating, higher home heating costs is especially inhumane to evict renters struggling to make ends meet.

And we already know that there is an ongoing epidemic of evictions in the city, which disproportionately affects women and communities of color.

We've seen this through studies.

And the King County Bar Association and the Seattle Women's Commission reported last year that nearly nine out of 10 tenants who are evicted eventually end up homeless.

And so I think given all of this background, I think the Renters Commission make a very strong case for why there should be laws limiting evictions in winter months, that is between November 1st to March 31st.

Not every single aspect of questions that might come up in relation to this law has been figured out, so I would really urge council members, if you have questions, please send them to my office.

Either, you know, just have your staff stop by and let Adam or Jonathan in my office know, or send them to us by email.

We want to make sure all the questions are answered.

And just a little bit of more background, there's no such law anywhere in the United States, and in fact, France has, you know, from the basis of housing being a human right, France has a law like this, and they've had this law on the books, I think, for 70 years, as far as I understand, and it's been working.

Not that it's a panacea for all evictions, it's not going to be a replacement for other, you know, actual citywide policies to address the affordable housing crisis like funding social housing and rent control, but it does provide a protection during the harshest months of the year.

And so I believe this is the right thing to do, but I also want to make sure that all the questions are answered.

So please let me know what questions you have.

And also just in closing, I wanted to share a really interesting article.

about this from CityLab, I think from two years ago, about whether cities in the United States should do this and what the motivation for it is.

So as I said, I will be bringing this to the introduction referral calendar.

The idea would be to have it voted on next Monday, December 16th.

But I want to make sure all the questions are answered.

And if not, then early January.

But I want to make sure we do this as soon as possible.

And if the outgoing council members are especially excited about doing this, then please let me know.

Then let's do it on Monday.

Thank you so much.

Can I just ask you, what does our law department say about this?

Because you're on a very good track.

I just want to make sure we don't lead with our chin and have another lawsuit brought against us.

Yeah, we're not going to do that.

And for specific questions, I'm happy to have sit-down meetings between my staff, central staff, and your staff.

But just to, and thank you for asking that because I didn't mean to mention it, we've made sure that central staff involve the law department from step one, so they're very well aware the whole process of drafting has gone through their oversight.

So they have some, you know, obviously they're giving us a well-rounded sort of description of what we are up against.

They sent a memo, so please make sure that you look at that and also let me know if there are further questions based on that.

But I don't believe that this is something that we cannot do.

They also have our attorney-client privilege, so I won't speak more about it, but I can assure you that the law department has been involved from day one.

It's not like we're going to consult them now.

So yeah, I'm gonna are you finished comes from so what I'll do comes from where is to stop with the Preview of today's full council actions.

I'll go back to the order of the gin and bring up OIR I did want to say on the proposed moratorium No, no, I passed it to you and I then I looked at and I was gonna we were gonna come back So we'll we'll continue there I think Ali Panucci's central staff working on this legislation, number one.

I haven't spoken with the law department on this particular legislation.

It struck me just on the surface of being somewhat problematic, but I'm going to try to speak with the law department and Ali this week, determine whether there's a need to go into a session.

I don't know.

Some of the policy questions I had were, My guess would be, having been around the block a few times, that even if it passes next Monday, there may be some lawsuit initiated, even if we think we're on solid footings.

And so my question is, how can we look, and I think it's a great policy, we don't want people evicted during the cold months.

I think we could all agree there.

What kinds of funds does the city make available, or organizations, us, the city, organizations with help from the city, if in fact there are evictions?

Another approach could be to make sure that there's ample money in there, and I couldn't imagine it's millions of dollars There's probably like thousands of dollars if available for people people may who may suffer eviction during those three months trying to see what kind of dollar amount there might be necessary to fund people such that they aren't evicted and I don't know if maybe you know that on top of your hand, but I'm hoping that Central Staff is listening so we can at least think along those lines as well.

Certainly.

I don't know that I have a direct answer to your question, but what I was going to say is, one, I did ask, I did have Central Staff ask the Law Department whether we should do an executive session today, but it seemed like they didn't feel there was a compelling need, but I'm sure they would be happy to answer questions individually or, you know, if our staff wanted to sit together and figure that out, I would be happy to be involved and I would urge that you let my staff know as well so we are on the same page.

And as far as the Your other point, I think the starting point would not be if evictions happen, what can the city do?

I agree that we should include that, but I think the starting point would be what are the conditions under which landlords would still be able to evict, if any, what are the conditions if any, landlords would still be able to evict despite if this law went into effect?

And so what we're looking at, the French law, It does have a clause for extreme hardship.

I can't give you details at this moment about what that constitutes.

And I don't know if that would be a carbon copy for our city or not.

We'll have to look into that.

But certainly that is one of the questions to be answered.

Do we want to put any extreme hardship?

And so when I say extreme hardship, it's not the tenant, it's the landlord.

For the landlord to have extreme hardship in which case they need to evict the tenant.

But it's sort of a strange thing because a tenant is also in extreme hardship if it's coming to that.

But anyway, I just want to let you know that these are things we are trying to clarify.

And by the way, what I'm looking at is a draft FAQ that we've prepared in our office, but I haven't handed that out because it's not, it's sort of half ready, not fully ready, but something that we want to share once we have some more answers to our questions.

And we've also urged the members of the Renters Commission to provide answers also, because they are the ones who initiated this thinking.

And so we've shared this draft FAQ with them, hoping that they will also fill in the blanks for us.

And I'm hoping that we can have more answers in the coming days.

Very good.

OK, let's do a pause there and bring our team up.

And we're going to go over our proposed legislative agenda, which is baked.

Hopefully the final draft.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Quinn Majewski, Office of Intergovernmental Relations on loan from SDOT.

Robin Kosky, Office of Intergovernmental Relations and the Office of Housing.

So a few announcements since we last briefed you.

Both Christina Postowate and Karen Cargill on our state team have moved on to new opportunities.

So I first wanted to thank them both for the incredible work that they've done in OIR over the past several years and very excited for them to move into their new opportunities.

Also, we're very grateful to both SDOT and the Office of Housing for supporting us building a team for this interim session.

Quinn is going to be helping us, given his transportation expertise, on really pulling forward with some of the challenges that we now face at the local and the state level around the passage of I-976.

And Robin, given her housing expertise, will be helping us with the housing portfolio and many other issues as our new state director.

So we're very excited to have them both on board today.

And with that, we will brief you on kind of a high-level overview of the legislative agenda for 2020 We've worked hard to incorporate several rounds of edits.

So if we have missed anything, though, there's still a little time as I understand you'll work towards passage next week.

So I think there's some room for particularly some requests from Representative Pollack that came in later last night.

I'm so happy to do that.

I'm going to ask you some organizational questions because I'm aware of Quinn and Robin through the city work.

So a little unclear on your team.

So they are on loan during the legislative session and how long have they been on loan?

because I haven't heard about this.

So how is this going to play out?

Are you in the process of looking for candidates while they're on loan?

Maybe you could walk us through that.

Yeah, they're just joining us for this current interim session.

So Quinn specifically will be focusing on transportation, but is still at SDOT.

And then Robin is going to be still doing work at the Office of Housing, but taking on the role as our state director.

And these are very recent developments.

So she'll continue with the team?

Yes.

After, I see, okay.

As far as we know.

How do you use your recruiting methods to get your IR team?

Do we generally look for the city first or do you do outreach looking for diverse candidates?

What is your process?

We do.

I'm not involved in that at all.

Yeah, we actually, we had initiated a hiring process in partnership with HR, and then for our state lobbyist position, and then there were some additional changes to our state team.

And I think, you know, as excited as we are to see the departure of some of our team when opportunities come up, just given the timeline and moving into this short session so quickly, we are very grateful to have folks that we were able to poach from other departments.

just go to HR and they do the search, or do you use, like, there's different companies out there that do outreach for external candidates, and they do try to achieve a certain level of diversity in some of their efforts as well.

So, but you, does HR run the search, or do you run the search?

HR was initially running the search for the state lobbyist, and then our, kind of the structure of our state team changed.

We have delegated that out to them and they were going through a process and making sure that those considerations were included.

So that process did not move forward during the interim, just given several additional changes, but we will be going through that likely in the future.

All right, please proceed councilman Gonzalez.

Thank you in terms of the of the Draft that we have before us Lily.

You just mentioned really quickly that you got I don't some information from representative Paulette Are you gonna are you going to address?

Those particular points at the table today.

I will

Okay.

And have those changes been incorporated within this draft?

They have not.

Okay.

I don't know when or who intends to address that, but if you can make sure that you clearly flag that so that we can take that into consideration as we have the discussion, I'd appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

I'll just start there before I dive into the briefing, and Council Member Peterson may want to add there, but Representative Paulette, who chairs the local government committee, has asked us to prioritize some additional revenue flexibility, specifically eliminating the 1% cap on property tax and indexing that to something tied to population growth and inflation, which would be more reflective of the needs of our communities.

So that is a proposal that he is putting forward this coming session.

I don't know if Councilmember Peterson wants to add anything in light of that request.

I'm sorry, 1% cap elimination on the property tax and replace it with

something tied to Population growth and inflation and we can work on incorporating that additional language per his request if you'd like I would All right, let's keep diving is that is that it that's the only one I believe so unless councilmember Peterson has any other additions I

Sure, I can add to that.

So, yeah, Rep. Paulette, Chair of the Local Government Committee, sent in some comments.

Thank you for explaining that one about the 1% increasing that.

He also talked about the Multifamily Tax Exemption Program, sort of suggesting that be tightened to focus on the most affordable housing, the most low, the extremely low-income tenants.

He talked about accessory dwelling unit legislation, making sure that further changes don't preempt local control.

He also talked about Seattle Public Schools to benefit Seattle Public Schools to modernize the school construction assistance program formula so that Seattle Public Schools could potentially get more funding.

Those are the four things in his email that I received.

And he's mentioned several times as we have been exploring MFTE in partnership with his office, just wanting us to continue to work with him on making sure that we have accountability in that process.

So Robin, when she reviews some of our housing and affordability issues today, is gonna touch on that specifically, but we will continue to stay engaged with Representative Paulette and his office as we move to advance a proposal this session.

And when can we anticipate seeing the revised draft language for this since we're supposed to be voting on this on Monday?

We will incorporate that this morning and hopefully get it to you this afternoon.

Okay.

As soon as we're done here.

And with that, although there is...

And just to be clear, I want to make sure that we're able to have a conversation about not incorporating these recommendations as well.

Absolutely.

The city's legislative agenda.

Absolutely.

It was a request from Councilmember Peterson, so I'm happy to entertain that discussion.

I mean, first, it's the Monday before we're supposed to vote on this.

I'd like to get a sense of exactly what the contours of the proposals from a policy perspective are.

And, you know, before we start signaling that we're on board with any four of these, I'm just unclear where the space is for us to have a conversation about whether or not to include these in contrast to, you know, the multiple pages of the lobbying agenda that we have before us that we have actually that we've had in our possession for, I think, well, upwards of four weeks at this point.

So I just want to make sure that I get a clear understanding of how this is going to play out.

Let me respond to that, and Council Member Sawant, thanks for those comments.

And so we may have to slow it up at the moment, right now, if we want to have a little more dialogue about it, because we are, we only have, this is an agenda for the council, not this council, but the next council.

So we want to get this one right.

And I don't see how we, unless we schedule, unless all of you can meet with OIR this week and then we can have another briefing Monday before we vote it.

I guess maybe that would, so Council Member Gonzalez, I share her concern that we're trying to move quickly.

My question, listening to Council Member Pietrusz's suggestions with Representative Paulette, he's a rep, right?

Yeah, Representative Paulette.

I don't know if those are good or bad for the city.

They all sounded good for the city, but I just wanted to better understand it.

So why don't we sort of make sure that there's ample discussion, and if there's a need to have this on the briefing separately again next Monday, I just need to know.

I wasn't planning on doing it next Monday, but if there's a need, then we'll certainly put it on there.

I will leave you with this that may be helpful given the timeline.

I am confident that the language that we've included, because much of it is very broad, although there are some specific bills that are referenced in our agenda, most of the language that we include is broad enough to give our team the ability to work on issues as they come up in various topic areas.

So I'm confident given the flexibility around progressive revenue sources that as proposals come forward, if Representative Pollitt introduces a bill that we could engage with you all, develop the city's position and work to advance or change or oppose things in that area as the draft, as it's currently written now.

But if you do feel strongly about incorporating that specific language, we can, we will happily brief you again.

Okay.

Governor Schwartz, did you have any comments?

No, not really much except to say that I share the concerns that Council Member Gonzalez just expressed.

And also, and just to add to that, it's also at a time when not only the original draft has been there for weeks, but also as council offices are running into the holiday schedule and, you know, my office is certainly impacted by that.

It was also going to be a period where I was going to hoping to take a break for health reasons just to be able to recuperate from the whole year.

So just I don't know how many hours we'll have to deal with new things as they come up and I really I hope that everybody keeps that into account that, anyway.

You know what I'm saying.

Understood.

And why don't we follow up with your offices specifically?

We'll work through the current language in this draft and hopefully can ensure that it meets the needs for our ability to address various revenue proposals as they come up, which I'm confident that it will.

And Council Member Christian, you shared your emails with

I don't know if that's something that's been discussed with all of us.

Not yet.

I shared it with OIR because it just came in over the weekend.

So for me, it's really just coming into the process at this time when it's already been worked on by other council members and just trying to catch up and share do my own due diligence really.

So I don't feel strongly about any particular proposal.

I'm just trying to pass along the information from obviously a key stakeholder.

And also to better understand the process for how you go about getting input, how OIR gets input from council members so that I could be providing that input.

And we've got three other council members starting soon too.

And this is the 2020 legislative agenda.

So just sort of understanding the process.

I want to be respectful all the time everybody else has put into it and not scuttle anything.

It's just to catch up with the process.

Just to understand, so Council Member Peterson transmitted ideas to the OIR team.

We just we received an email.

I think Sunday evening that represent wasn't shared with us.

I just forwarded it to OIR.

It was not shared.

I was just I thought maybe they already had it.

I just had no idea.

Got it.

So OK, well, we all could do our jobs the way we do it, but in the future it does help to share with people that are voting on it as well.

So we know and then it's very transparent and even the public could.

All our emails are subject to the public so we can have open, transparent conversation on that.

So OK.

And I just want to be, Billy, you keep talking about just the 1% cap elimination on property taxes, but I'm hearing Councilmember Peterson lay out at least four different potential bills that we haven't seen drafts of yet that could be primarily sponsored by Representative Pullett.

For me it's just an issue of at least the way I've looked at the lobbying agenda is that the language is generally done very broadly to avoid the need to go into the granular details of referring to specific bills from specific people because that work comes later as we see the actual language of the bills and then can actually formulate an opinion as to the legislation that is being proposed by the state legislature.

Are we deviating from that normal procedure at this juncture or not?

No.

And while we keep a lot of broad language in the agenda, some of you have asked for specific legislation to be referenced, which we're happy to incorporate.

I think in this instance and given the timeline, particularly around the 1% cap on property tax, we have language included here that will allow us to help move through that analysis with you all around specific legislation.

I think around the MFTE program, he has asked us to work closely with his office as that moves forward.

I believe that language is also included, or I feel I am confident that language and the authority is included in our agenda.

And he was concerned around preemption issues as it relates to the accessory dwelling unit legislation, and that is also covered in our legislative agenda.

Opposing preemption, correct?

Opposing preemption, yes.

Correct.

These are the little details that I think are important.

So I just wanted to make sure that we, I can acknowledge and appreciate Council Member Peterson, your desire to catch up and want to include some of the things that are important to you in the agenda.

But I also want to make sure that we're not deviating from past practice in terms of the, intent to keep it broad enough to allow for analysis to occur once we actually see legislative bills.

You know, it has been my experience that sometimes the intent is communicated orally in a certain way, but then appears very differently in the introduced bill or how it evolves through that legislative process and want to be careful about slipping away from how we ordinarily frame some of these issues.

That's a great point.

And along those lines, the broad language that we have included around something like MFTE, I'm sure there will be more than one proposal.

And some we may support, some we may oppose.

We may have to work through the process of amending legislation as that happens.

So we will work very directly with all of your offices to do that analysis as we move through the legislative process.

I want to be cognizant that the term preemption is a term that I think we want to be careful about because essentially any state law is preemptive in some way.

And oftentimes in local jurisdictions, when it preempts us in a way we don't like it, we use the term preemption.

But when it mandates something that we want to see happen, then that's a good requirement.

And so we've passed some really good backyard cottage legislation, at least that I think is good legislation, at the City of Seattle.

And I think that type of legislation should be available throughout the state, and I know there's been efforts to do that.

And while that may dictate what local jurisdictions need to do, if it's consistent with our values, I think that is a good thing and don't see that as restricting us.

And so we've been monitoring that legislation very closely in the past few sessions, and I know there's been conversation happening this fall in anticipation of what might happen, but I want to I think the term preemption is often used to connotate something negative for localities, and I think we use that.

You know, a carbon tax would be a preemption of sorts mandating what we have to do, but we would think that might be a good thing if it were done the right way.

Anyway, I think you all get the nuance there.

Thank you.

I think that's an important reminder this last legislative session.

There was preemption in some of the bills that we were willing to tolerate because it set a minimum standard of what we expect, particularly in the space of housing.

And so I think that I want to be careful about making sure that we get a full understanding of when legislators say preemption, what exactly they mean and how that impacts our local control.

Thank you.

And I'm going to go ahead and dive in beginning on pages one through three and do a high-level overview of under the heading a safe city where residents can live safely and securely.

Our legislative priorities in this area include sustainable revenue, access to education, job creation, criminal justice reform, and gun responsibility measures.

There is reference to specific legislation to ban assault weapons, lift the preemption of local jurisdictions' ability to regulate firearms or enact rent regulation, as well as eliminating the death penalty in statute.

In the area of civil rights, victim protections, and support for survivors of sexual assault, the city will continue to support restricting federal immigration enforcement access to the workplace.

Excuse me.

Data sharing with ICE, continued support for the expansion of the statewide legal defense fund, funding for the Washington State Crime Lab to test sexual assault kits, efforts to decriminalize sex work, change the charge of patronizing a prostitute from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor, and strengthen requirements for hospitals to make sexual assault kit testing with appropriately trained providers accessible to victims of sexual assault.

Moving forward, on the beginning of, excuse me, on the top of page four, under a vibrant city, one that supports innovation, education, economic development, and the environment, the city will continue to support student access, closing the opportunity.

I'm sorry, Councilwoman Morris?

I just have a quick question.

I forgot I turned this on.

On the STEM.

It's from Beacon County.

I have to remind myself what microphone goes where.

They're relatively new.

They've only been here a few years, so don't worry about it.

I'm getting old, okay?

I'm just going to say it.

Before you launch in, you're going into Vibrant City, and I was looking at some of the stuff that we talked about, and I see that you put it in more of a text format.

Did we where is in here where we talked about the LGBTQ and people using their First Amendment right to deny them health care?

Housing and other issues based on their religious preferences, which we know is a law that sweep in this country It's certainly been a a plank in this administration's Social justice and how they're using it is that in here it is and that's actually included under there's a health care section tucked into an affordable city which is towards the end and

We'll be reviewing that towards the end.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

So on the top of page four, the city will continue to support student access.

I think we reviewed some of the apprenticeship opportunities, STEM access, and training for high demand fields, as well as environmental sustainability proposals.

Specific legislation that the city will work to advance includes special education funding, Representative Goodman's comprehensive ECAP childcare access study, continued funding for students in need through the Workforce Education Investment Act, and which created the Washington College Grant that is the new state need grant, backfill essentially, and potentially expanding access through increased funding.

The Washington State Opportunity Scholarship, adopting a clean fuel standard, electrification, and investments in clean energy, stable MACA funding, building vehicle and vessel electrification, including shore power, and restrictions of plastic straws and plastic bags at the state level as well.

And then moving on to the top of page 8, I'm going to turn it over to Quinn Majewski who will speak to the city's transportation priorities under the heading of an interconnected city when supported by a cohesive and multimodal transportation network.

Thank you, Lily.

Under the Interconnected City, the first section has two main components.

The first is a broad statement in support of additional funding for local governments and the City of Seattle specifically, for our multimodal investments, for any projects that help us meet our greenhouse gas emissions, and for our maintenance and other backlog needs.

The second half of the first section includes requests either to secure or maintain a variety of local authorities that we either have or want to have.

This includes automated enforcement for block the box and transit lanes, which is a high priority for our department and for our city, the ability to set and regulate speed limits at a local level to a greater extent, retaining our ability to develop and implement a potential congestion pricing model, raising the bid limits for public works contracting, and some additional flexibility around the commercial parking tax.

We also speak to the importance of freight mobility and rail infrastructure and rail safety.

There's a section, section four, deals with the regulations around disability parking placards and one piece of legislation that We're specifically looking at is to create a permit that for individuals who use wheelchairs so that we can provide more specific infrastructure and help meet their needs.

And then the final section deals with shared mobility and new mobility, preserving our ability to regulate transportation network companies and gig economy workers at the local level and making sure that we don't have I think in this case preemption would be the right use of the word by the state.

One and two, make sure that we have as autonomous vehicles become more prevalent and the regulations around those are developed, making sure that those are done in a thoughtful manner that includes input from the city.

And then finally, increasing the safety standards and regulations for commercial vehicles that operate on our streets.

Thank you, Quinn.

And I'm going to turn it over to Robin, who's going to highlight some of the general areas in the housing and affordability section.

Good morning, everyone.

So I think many of you know that last year, the 2019 legislative session, there were many pieces of legislation that addressed housing affordability.

And this council and the mayor also did work over this past year and included in the budget some ways to use these new options that the state legislature gave us to increase resources for affordable housing.

There was a landmark investment in the Housing Trust Fund of $175 million.

There was House Bill 1406 that allowed us to retain sales tax, and we're using that to fund the capital development as well as the operating and maintenance of permanent supportive housing.

We'll actually be announcing some of those investments this afternoon at 1 o'clock, which is very good news.

We also are utilizing the reauthorization of the Real Estate Excise Tax for Affordable Housing, or REIT.

That, too, will be included.

Revenue will be included in our announcements this afternoon, which is also very exciting.

And then there was also a pretty big piece of eviction reform legislation that extended the notice to pay or vacate from 3 to 15 days.

So the reason that I highlight all of those issues is that I think that our delegation has been telling us and trying to manage expectations around what will get done this year in a short legislative session that's just 60 days long.

I think that our partner advocacy organizations have been trying to right-size pieces of legislation to what they think can really get done this year.

And to that end, the Housing Trust Fund ask this year is rather modest.

It's a $10 million ask focused on preservation.

So the city will certainly be supporting that.

And it's also paired with a nice little piece of legislation that would create an exemption to the real estate excise tax if a building were being sold to be used as affordable housing.

And that might encourage sales for preservation.

Did someone have a question?

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

Sure.

And then we will be working on MFTE legislation.

I think there's great concern around what will be happening with units that are expiring and some interest in trying to preserve affordability around that.

I think we've heard from our delegation that there's concern around opening up that piece of legislation very broadly, but sort of, that we do want to address that issue of expiring units.

I also think that there's an understanding that, you know, we have to balance the public benefit with the exemption that is realized by the developers.

And so that any legislation would have something included in it that would, you know, limit the rents and make sure that they were affordable if you were going to get that extension of an additional 12 years of the tax.

the tax exemption.

And I'll also say that, you know, the state legislation for MFTE is very broad and has to address a number of different community needs around the state.

We have the ability at the local level to make sure that whatever happens at the state level, we right size and can tailor here at the local level.

So I do think that necessarily anything that happens at the state level is going to be broader than what we might do here in Seattle locally.

There will also be, I think, an eviction reform cleanup bill.

I think there were some loopholes that were noticed, and so I know that you'll certainly be interested in following that legislation.

I think there's a couple of small tweaks that need to be done that are being explored.

So we'll be working on that.

There will also be the just cause eviction bill, again, revisited from last session, and that will be, you know, to do something similar to what we have here in Seattle statewide, but will also allow us to extend to tenants at the end of their lease.

So that's good news.

And then finally, another small issue, I think a right-size issue, is that the Aged, Blind, and Disabled program is just $197 per month of a stipend given to people in great need.

There's actually a shelter exemption that further limits that $197 to just $120.

So there will be an effort to make sure that that shelter exemption is not applied so that everyone who is eligible for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled program can get that $197.

$297 and then councilmember whereas I just wanted to address in this section of that.

I'm looking at the Healthcare discrimination piece is the third paragraph down on page 9 The last sentence reads the city also supports efforts to guarantee health care and prohibits discrimination against transgender individuals Thank you, okay, that's remember schwan has a comment or concern I

Thank you.

Is your mic on?

I'm always doing this.

I mean, not that I have a problem hearing you, but.

But no, it's correct.

It's the sixth year and still making that same mistake.

So in the paragraph where you say we support raising new state revenue and increasing flexibility for local tools such as bondable revenue stream, I think we need to specify that we support raising new progressive state revenue because it's a very, very important thing.

And then in the increasing flexibility for local tools, And I'm assuming we have broad agreement on the city council for this, but just sort of also adding very specifically there that increasing flexibility for local tools, such as municipal progressive revenues or something like that, because our tools are so limited for doing it at a municipal level.

Sorry, local tools for progressive.

For raising local progressive revenues.

Raising local progressive revenues.

And then one other point, and maybe I'm missing it and it's already there.

But making, you know how we have, the city council has now, this is the second year that we did it for the upcoming year, is allowing city-funded attorneys for renters facing eviction.

But there are states where it is by right.

If you're a renter that's facing eviction, you get you get, if you need, that is, you know, if you, but I don't think we should make it means-tested or anything, we should just guarantee that right.

So I think we should add a sentence about that, that, I don't know how you'd say it, but renters facing eviction have the right to an attorney, trained attorney or something like that.

Right to legal counsel, yes, thank you.

Start working at 100% here.

But yeah, absolutely, I think that's an important thing to add.

Just because, I mean, in general, I think if housing is a human right, then it should be part of the program from the state.

But the impact we have seen just from minimal funding from the city to guarantee right to council has just monumental impact on whether people end up getting an eviction on their record or not.

And that is such a do or die thing for them, for renters.

If you get an eviction on your record, it's really, it's a downward cycle.

We'll make sure to incorporate that and make sure that everyone gets an updated draft of that language.

Are we pretty much through?

Friendly in here for me anywhere?

You know, I don't know if we did, but I will check and incorporate.

It's part of the vibrant city.

Councilmember Peterson Again, just playing catch-up here doing a track changes of earlier version in this version.

It looks like under an affordable city You added we support additional tools and funding to address the homelessness crisis that then you added increased density And so is there a way to sort of incorporate the the smart growth principles that we I think we all share in terms of increased density near transit or to foster affordable housing or something that is just not a vague statement about increasing density for density's sake.

Absolutely.

And we incorporated that language around some minimum density proposals that Council Member Gonzalez was engaged in last session.

So we can expand on that if you'd like.

I'll just add that I believe we're at now, we'll get a briefing in my committee this week, but 70% of all people live within a 10 minute walk of frequent transit.

So yes, near transit, that's most of the city now.

So that's, at least that would be my argument, not just light rail.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's especially that way across the city because that's really the only way we, it's the only areas legally we're allowed to have density right now because of the way we have our urban village strategies.

I don't have an opposition to giving a nod to additional frequent transit, but to the extent that we're going to play around with the language increased density, I want to make sure that we're not narrowing our possibilities and opportunities around the conversations around density issues.

If it's going to be language that restricts the city's commitment to increase density, I would oppose that.

But if it's a conversation about generally framing a desire to see increased density throughout the city and tools at the state to allow us to advance those strategies, I would be supportive of that.

I agree with that.

OK.

So still fine tuning.

Thank you very much for being here.

Thanks for you guys for coming on board as well.

I look forward to working with you.

I'm sorry, before you leave, I do have one more question around the transportation area.

I'm so sorry.

I'll make it quick.

So on the automated enforcement piece for transportation, I recently saw on the interwebs this weekend the automated enforcement strategy that is being utilized in New York City around having bus-only traffic enforcement cameras on buses.

as opposed to installing them on utility poles or on red light cameras.

And I just wanted to sort of signal my interest in exploring that as a possibility when we're talking about automated enforcement.

In this space we have traditionally talked about it in the sense of red light cameras and other sort of statically installed cameras for purposes of enforcement of our bus only lanes.

But I am intrigued by the technology that is being deployed now in New York City in the space of automated enforcement where the enforcement camera is actually installed on the bus.

And setting aside the question who the most frequent offenders are in our city, I am intrigued by that technology and wanna make sure that we have ample space and opportunity to have a conversation about those evolving technologies at the state legislature as a creative way for us to prioritize the city's ongoing desire to see some more efficient types of enforcement in our bus-only lanes.

And thank you for, oh, please, Council Member.

privacy rights or anything it strikes me it's it's the same the same arguments are going forward but I really like it because I don't know enough about the technology maybe councilmember O'Brien or others do in this space is being sort of the chair of the Transportation Committee but my my rudimentary understanding of the technology is that it's installed on the front of Metro buses and if there is a non Metro bus that is in in the bus lane in front of said bus, then it clicks a picture.

So theoretically, the field of view would be restricted and immediately before the bus in the bus-only, transit-only lane.

In theory, it would be a narrower field of view.

But again, this is why I'm saying that I'm intrigued by the technology, recognizing that there still may be some ongoing privacy concerns.

But I'm hopeful that if they are able to resolve those in a place like New York City, we certainly would be able to do the same here.

I'll just add, I mean, I'm assuming it would trigger some of our surveillance work, which we want to do.

That's at the local level.

The goal would be to get as much flexibility from the state legislature to do this type of work.

I believe, you know, as the bill evolved last year, it was down to just a handful of intersections as a pilot.

And that is better than nothing.

And I would say that the most we can get for let's get something this session, that we could try, it would be outstanding if we had the flexibility to use bus mounted, recognizing we'd go through our own internal process to make sure we're consistent with our surveillance and privacy ordinances.

And I'm going to ask, defer to Quinn on his expertise in this area.

But one thing I just wanted to highlight, Disability Rights Washington has been an incredible partner to us as we've worked to advance this legislation.

And I think well-meaning interest in how flexible we can be around this policy.

We've had some questions about bustling violations only.

And I just wanted to recognize that.

Given the partnership we have with our friends at Disability Rights Washington, I think it's really critical that we keep that language intact in the legislation as we move forward.

But, of course, we're interested in looking at as many flexible ways to do the enforcement in the most comprehensive way as possible, which is my assumption.

Yeah, and I'm certainly not suggesting that it's an either-or strategy.

It's a both-and.

We're hearing, I think, both crosswalk blocking issues, but we're also hearing about inappropriate or illegal use of our bus-only, transit-only, dedicated lanes.

We need in the space of automated enforcement when we're talking about it I want to make sure that we are advocating for a broad set of solutions to address all of those concerns In a way that that suits our needs specifically Very good Okay, thank you very much for being here and hopefully we'll have a nice piece of legislation approved next Monday so I just want to remind you that we do have an executive session following this and I

And I have an 11 o'clock, I'll have to leave a little early, event I have to do upstairs.

So Council Member Juarez, you have the floor.

Thank you.

I will be brief, Council President.

Our civic...

Brief is a relative term in politics.

Not for me.

Do you want me to go first?

Not for me, buddy.

Our Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee occurred last Wednesday, December 4th.

Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez and Bagshaw for attending.

I'll be presenting 20 items at full council this afternoon as you see listed in the agenda.

three park appointments, 14 appointments to the newly formed Central Waterfront Oversight Committee, and two ordinances, one regarding the Ocean Pavilion and one regarding the city buying Petrus Park.

Last week, I attended my Sound Transit meeting, the Rider Experience and Operations Committee meeting.

We heard from the CEO, Mr. Peter Rogoff, regarding the independent safety review of the tragic Amtrak derailment that occurred almost two years ago.

Sound Transit conducted an independent review by a consulting firm based in Oregon that identified several preventable errors related to the incident.

If you're interested in the report and a brief overview, please contact Nageen in my office.

Second, on Thursday morning, the King County Regional Policy Council Committee voted to amend the Regional Homeless Authority, ILA, Thank you Councilmember or Council President Harrell for being there and assisting me or actually making the amendments as we laid them out for the King County Council.

I'm not going to go to all the outstanding issues because some of them we've addressed and we've agreed upon and I'll let Councilmember Bagshaw talk mostly to what you have proposed in front of us, the crosswalk and the memo and the new ILA.

But again, thank you, Council President Harrell, for assisting and being over at King County with me and the mayor's staff and central staff.

Jeff and Tracy, where are you?

Thank you so much for being in the front row and your relentless commitment and determination to get the changes that we got.

I appreciate that.

This is, of course, an important initiative that provides a regional response to homelessness across, and we want to get this across the finish line.

My understanding is we have tentatively a meeting set up, as Council President Suggest stated, on December 11th, Wednesday at 3 o'clock with the RPC.

That's the county.

Hopefully we'll bring these amendments that Council Member Bagshaw just provided to me and spoke to me yesterday about.

And then on Thursday, as you know, we have the Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness from 9.30 to 11.30, where we can hopefully come back with the King County's response and hopefully vote on this and get it across the finish line, because we know that this city is committed, as is the county and the executive and the mayor, to a regional response to homelessness.

And I, for one, am very happy and excited about the changes that were made and can agree to those.

So thank you so much for your work, Council Member Bagshaw.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Bagshaw.

Do you want to put me last?

Okay, then we'll come back to the homelessness strategy.

Okay, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, and I'd like to echo Council Member Juarez's comments.

Thanking you both for attending that and Council Member Bagshaw for shepherding this forward for regional response.

Thank you very much.

So there are no items from Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee on today's agenda.

The next agenda, however, there is a land use item with which Councilmember Sawant referenced, sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, about mobile home parks.

The next PLUS committee will be Wednesday, December 18, at 930 here in Council Chambers.

Last week, I attended a few events in District 4, which I'd like to highlight.

I spoke at the North Precinct Advisory Council, which discusses public safety issues each month.

And as we know, the North Precinct by land area is by far the largest geographic precinct for our police department, spanning three city council districts with just the one out-of-date police station there.

There was a presentation on disaster preparedness reminding people to stock up with enough food and water to last several days in the case of a natural disaster.

I visited Fire Station 17 in the University District on 50th Street.

It's one of the busiest fire stations in Seattle.

Firefighters are on the front lines of our homelessness crisis and we talked a lot about that, the challenges firefighters face.

I spoke at the Wallingford Community Council meeting on Wednesday and then went to the to visit the residents at the North Lake Tiny Home Village, which Council Member Swatt referenced as well.

And that village, I think it's important to point out, was warmly welcomed by the Wallingford neighborhood nearly two years ago.

And I had also spoken to the nonprofit Lehigh, local businesses, our human services department, the mayor's office.

As Council Member Swamp mentioned, on Thursday, December 5, our Human Services Department announced that as it continues to deal with the contract dispute, they are going to allow them to stay until March 30th.

So I was relieved that that had happened.

On a much lighter note, I'll be speaking tomorrow, 70th anniversary of the world famous Candy Cane Lane holiday event.

Everybody's welcome to come.

And here are the incredible comments that I'll be making.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As a couple of my colleagues to my left have mentioned, on the full council agenda today is Council Bill 119696. This is an extension of the moratorium at the Halcyon Global Home Park.

The current moratorium expires on February 6th, and because the first city council meeting of 2020 occurs on January 6th, if the council chooses to extend the moratorium, action on the bill must happen by the last council meeting of 2019 to allow the bill to become effective prior to the initial moratorium ending.

I've been tracking this issue as well as the executive's work on this issue since the previous moratorium.

We all received an email from Ketel Freeman on Council Central staff last Friday.

OPC has been working on the issue as indicated by some budget documents that we've received, but they have not yet published SEPA threshold determination or submitted a proposal to the council.

So continuing this moratorium will allow that work.

The other, I think, really exciting point that central staff's memo makes is that not only can potential regulations that the executive and council might consider working on over the next six months may not only be what we were thinking of earlier, which is a land use designation to protect a mobile home park.

But now because of recent news on the legal front, we also could take a look at a requirement that mobile home parks provide tenants a right of first refusal at the site.

So we have a couple of different options, and I'm really excited about having the opportunity over the next six months to pursue them.

We did receive an email from Michelle Chen this morning with a letter from the purchaser of the property indicating that the property has been sold to Halcyon MHPLLC, who indicated in the letter that they intend to maintain its operation as a mobile home park.

Today's full council meeting will include a public hearing and depending on the will of the council we could if there is strong support and not a need for continued deliberations if there's A result of the public hearing is positive.

We could vote if the council so wishes with a waiving of the rules.

Actually, I believe we've discovered that it would not require a waiving of the rules in this instance because it is not a land use decision.

So, in any event, we have that before us today at 2 o'clock.

As far as items that I have coming up on my committee agenda this week, this is the last committee meeting of the week, and I have the following items on that agenda.

An appointment to the Museum Development Authority, four appointments and five reappointments to the Seattle Arts Commission.

One reappointment to the Seattle Music Commission.

One reappointment to the Commission for People with Disabilities.

Four appointments and one reappointment to the LGBT Commission.

Three appointments to the Human Rights Commission.

One appointment to the Seattle Women's Commission.

We also have two Seattle Public Utilities easements.

One is a purchase, another is a relinquishment.

We have a briefing from SPU on their risk and resiliency assessment and framework and their affordability strategic plan.

And then finally, we'll have the Moss Adams annual entrance audit plan.

I think that's all I have.

Oh, I do want to mention that I will be out of town next Monday.

So I will look to one of my committee members to report out to speak to these items at full council on the 16th.

Very good.

Thank you, Councilman Herbold.

Councilman Gonzalez.

Okay, so I wanted to there's nothing on this afternoon's agenda from my committee We do have our regularly scheduled meeting this Wednesday December 11th at 930 a.m.

We will be considering some appointments to the immigrant and Refugee Commission And we will also consider an appointment to the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Oversight Committee.

And then we will conclude the meeting with a panel and presentation briefing and discussion on the Clean Campaigns Act, which is the campaign finance reform bill that is working its way through my committee.

So really looking forward to welcoming several national subject matter experts on that particular topic and looking forward to a good conversation around the various components of that bill and how to advance it here in the city.

The evening before on the evening of December 10th, that's a Tuesday, I'll be joining several organizations over at the Seattle First Baptist Church on Capitol Hill at a town hall hosted by Fix Democracy First.

It'll start at 6.30 p.m.

and conclude at about 8 p.m., and that'll be a conversation on money and politics and the Clean Campaigns Act as well.

So invite you all who are interested in joining us to join us at that community event.

Again, that's gonna be at the Seattle First Baptist Church at 1111 Harvard Avenue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood from 6.30 to 8 p.m.

Really looking forward to joining them.

On Thursday, December 12th, I will be attending the Firefighters Pension Board meeting here at City Hall.

I think that's my, it'll likely be my last meeting and definitely Council Member Bagshaw's last meeting representing the City Council and the Firefighters Pension Board.

and looking forward to that meeting with those good folks.

Wanted to give folks a really quick update on last week.

Last week, we had an opportunity to hold a special joint meeting and public hearing of my committee and the Labor Relations Policy Committee in conjunction with the Community Police Commission.

It was our first public hearing on the impending labor negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

I want to thank Council President Harrell and Council Members Herbold and Peterson for joining me at that committee hearing.

We were there for about two hours listening to public testimony and to some presentations from the accountability entities and really appreciated your all's attention and willingness to attend.

More to come on that in the new year, of course.

And then let me see.

Oh, also just wanted to alert people and remind folks that our statewide paid family medical leave insurance program is about to kick off on January 1st of 2020. really excited that other people are very excited about it as well.

And there is a state website that we will push out on our social media networks and via our newsletter to make sure folks know exactly where they can go to get information about how to apply and how to qualify and who is eligible to participate in that program.

But effectively, most employees, if not all, if they've worked the requisite number of hours in Washington State, will be able to qualify for 12 to 16 weeks of paid family leave.

And there is also military leave afforded through the statewide program.

So very exciting to see this law finally receive funding and be implemented and get kicked off.

So really, really excited for all of the benefits that so many people are going to receive as a result of this in our city and across the state and was really proud to be part of the coalition in 2016 that was fighting hard to make the case for funding and finally making our family medical leave insurance program a paid family medical leave insurance program and to have the most progressive version of this law in the country feels pretty darn good.

So very excited about sort of getting this kicked off and making sure folks get the benefit of it.

So that is it.

Very good.

Excellent.

Outstanding.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

Sustainability and Transportation Committee has one item on this afternoon's agenda.

We have a street vacation for Harborview.

This is an aerial vacation, so it's, I guess what I would call is a sky bridge, although it's actually like a lot of office space up in there, or medical space up in it.

It's almost a 20-year process that's been going on, so we finally concluded all the details, and so the conceptual approval was granted before any of us were on the council.

But this is the final approval now that they've met all the public benefit requirements and have worked out an arrangement for the purchase of the actual right-of-way of the vacation.

That's the only thing on this afternoon's agenda.

It's the last agenda item.

The Sustainability and Transportation Committee has one final committee meeting this Thursday.

I want to say afternoon, but I should check here.

We have a number of items on the agenda.

We're going to start at 1 o'clock in committee this week, just because it's quite a full agenda.

So for folks planning to attend, I imagine there'll be a fair amount of public comment on a number of the items.

And so I'm guessing the committee will get rolling around 1.30.

with the actual agenda items and probably go close to about four.

We're going to get an update on the Green New Deal, so have some of the community members that have been pushing the Green New Deal at the table talk about what's been, what's happened to date and their hopes for what will carry on into 2020. We're going to consider expansion of the resolution that would consider the expansion of the commuter benefits ordinance.

That was the ordinance we passed a year ago that requires all employers over a certain size to offer pre-tax deductions for transit passes for employees in the city of Seattle.

That has a multi-year rollout of when it would take effect and when enforcement would start, so we're still in the transition phase of that.

But a lot of transit advocates are interested in using that framework to expand benefits to employees.

And so this resolution would simply lay out some things to be researching.

And so we'll have that for discussion, hopefully a vote.

We will have some appointments, one appointment to the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee and an appointment to the Sugary Beverage Tax Committee.

We will get an update on the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

This is the vehicle license fee and sales tax funded work that provides close to about $50 million, mostly of that going to buy up transit service for King County Metro, my comment earlier about the 70%, that's what I believe is the number of households that are within a 10-minute walk shed have ticked up about 3% in the last year because of additional transit routes.

And so now we have about 70%.

So that's a little bit of a teaser, I guess, for the committee.

But we'll be getting an update from the department on all the different investments they're making and where those are to date.

Just acknowledging that the Nearly half of that fund is funded through vehicle license fee, which is tied up in the legal work around 976. But this presentation is less about the specifics around 976 and more about historically what has happened and what are the investments going forward.

Obviously, with the uncertainty around the legal challenges, it's not totally crystal clear, but we'll see what the plan is for now.

Finally, we'll have a briefing on Vision Zero and the Pedestrian Master Plan, another, you know, week before last, tragic event.

Collisions of co-pedestrians died on Aurora.

It's been a really horrific year when you look at the data for pedestrian safety and so Want to hear back on what are our plans?

What do we what have we learned this year from those those collisions and What are the types of investments we're looking to do moving forward?

and so that's a pretty important important next step and how I we make sure that 2020 does not repeat the kind of horrific numbers we've seen in 2019.

Can I ask a quick question on that?

We've got, like, tons of material we still have to get through here this morning, and I just want to quickly ask, like you were saying, we've been focused so much on Vision Zero, but yet it appears that...

I mean, Aurora is just an amazingly bad example of how many terrible things happen there.

Is there a plan for...

additional barriers or expanded sidewalks or something especially in those routes where we've got a lot of traffic and we've got a lot more apartment buildings going up in that neighborhood.

Are there, will you hear about that in your committee?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the things we'll hear and speed is a big factor in all this.

We know that, I don't remember the exact numbers, but You know, someone traveling at 40 miles an hour with an interaction with a pedestrian or bike, there's a 90 percent chance that it's going to be a serious injury or fatality.

And when you get down to 20 percent, it's like only a 10 percent chance.

I mean, so the speeds really matter.

We did pass legislation a few years ago that made the default speeds on our arterials 25 miles an hour and on our non-arterials 20 miles an hour.

But to make the transition to arterials from down to 25 requires some study, and so that work has been taking a lot longer than I think a lot of us had hoped, but, you know, there may be opportunities to accelerate that.

Obviously, Aurora is a state highway, Lake City Way is a state highway, Rainier Avenue, you know, some of the most dangerous or deadly places in our city require coordination between WSDOT and SDOT too.

And so hopefully we'll hear a little bit about what that coordination looks like.

And then there's, you know, a whole host of other things that we can be doing, too.

You know, it's about enforcement, it's about engineering, it's about education.

All those need to be pieces of it, too.

Very good.

Thank you, Captain O'Brien.

Okay.

Everybody good?

All right.

I feel like it's me against all of you guys here.

And now we're going to come back to Sally Bagshaw.

Today we've got a number of items from the Finance Committee for this afternoon's vote.

A couple of historic preservation, some surplus property transfer, and a number of appointments.

This week I also have a Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.

This will be our last one.

Again, a lot of appointments.

We're going to have a public hearing and briefing on HSD's draft annual action plan for HUD grants.

And we do have our fourth quarter supplemental.

We had a briefing on that last week.

This will be potentially a vote coming up.

So a lot of exciting things happening in the Finance Committee this week.

But I need your assistance now in diving in on the ILA.

And thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much.

I wish my two colleagues here were back for this because I'm going to need you all to help me weigh in.

So, first I'm going to distribute this interlocal agreement.

This is without the red lines that you will see, and there are some red lines in here that are the result of an excellent two-hour meeting that I had had.

Councilmember Herbold, Gonzalez, and Peterson joined me this last week.

Oh, thank you so much for coming back.

I feel passed out that direction and I'll keep one here.

So I'd like to tell you what and where we are with this.

I'm also going to distribute and do you guys want to be at the table?

Yeah, come on up.

So Tracy, Jeff, and Emily have been just amazingly helpful in pulling this together.

And that's a comparison chart of what the ILA that passed out of RPC last Thursday said and what our recommendations were.

And in the document I distributed, we do have the red lines that we added on Friday.

Okay, so here's where we are.

The RPC, the Regional Policy Committee, met last Thursday and they passed out unanimously this interlocal agreement without the red lines that you see.

And I think it was quite a contentious meeting based upon what I heard.

And again, Council Member Juarez, Council President Harrell, thank you for going and for providing the city's position.

So that was helpful.

Are there 12 members of the Regional Policy Committee?

At any rate, there were Sound Cities, King County Council, and City of Seattle.

So this is now passed out without our red lines, out of the RPC.

That was the last RPC meeting they're going to have this year.

I thought there was going to be another one this coming Wednesday.

There is not.

It's been officially canceled.

We've got a couple of decisions to make.

That's sort of hot off the press, because the chair did say at the meeting that there was a placeholder for that date.

Correct.

Hot off the press.

RPC on Wednesday has been officially canceled.

Power play.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

So here are our options.

We can move forward with the draft that we came up with on Friday, and this was thanks to council members again.

I affectionately called them the West Wing last week, because the four of us were here.

And the recommendations were, I thought, excellent.

based upon evidence-based strategies, some language in there that just made it clear that the investments for the new regional governance would be based upon strategies that are emerging national best practices.

And I thought that was terrific.

There was one other item in here, which I think is the last remaining issue that we have to deal with, and that is the number of individual votes that would be required from members of the governing committee should they want to change the plan, the budget, or to fire the CEO?

That's a quick summary of what we're dealing with.

And the point that Council Member Juarez brought up is that that group will meet four times a year.

It is, first of all, with regard to the voting, it's not an issue that anybody's gonna have to face for at least six months to a year because we don't have the governing board set up.

We don't have the implementation committee set up.

If we were to recommend that we pass what we came up with last Friday, it changes the voting structure that the RPC had recommended.

The RPC recommends a quorum of nine, and that a two-thirds majority of that nine potentially could be six, that that's what it would take in order to change the budget, fire the CEO, or change the plan.

Our recommended document on Friday suggested nine members out of the 12 would have to vote affirmatively to do any one of those three actions.

The other things that have been incorporated in the ILA based upon our work last Friday, last Thursday, but incorporated Friday morning that are redlined in your document are important.

yet there's an argument that they're already there.

Like an example was on page six of the interlocal agreement.

We added a red line that said evidence-based approaches of what we have to incorporate, but it also says that two paragraphs down.

So there's not really a question of whether or not we're talking about including evidence-based approaches.

So you go through all of this and it boils down to the last real contentious item is this number of governing committee members who would have to vote for those three items that we talked about once again, firing the CEO, changing the budget, or changing the five-year plan.

So we've got a couple of things we can do right now.

And we're not voting on anything today because there's nothing in front of us, but I'm trying to make this as clear as possible about what our next steps are.

Since the RPC is not meeting again, King County Council will in all likelihood vote for and endorse the recommendations of the RPC this coming Wednesday.

And that is their last full council meeting for the year.

If we were to say going forward that we would accept the ILA as it was voted out, we would do so this coming Thursday at our Special Committee for Housing and Homelessness.

One of the values of doing this, which would be to approve the ILA as it was voted out of the Regional Policy Committee.

If we were to do that, we would be in sync with county council, be able to have this done in 2019, then move forward with selecting the implementing board We have to bring the teams together from King County and from the city of Seattle, get moving and get the work done that we have all wanted to do, which is to get more people off the streets.

So that is option A.

Option B is to pass out.

So what I'm gonna ask is I'm gonna see if I could come back down if I may because we have an executive session as well I'm gonna ask the clerk to give the script to go in executive session to whoever be the appropriate person to read it But I just can't participate in this discussion now just because it's the 150th and there's dignitaries up after

Okay, I appreciate that and I think we're all at least half of us are supposed to be up there as well I are you're part of the probe you have to introduce Let me see if I can Okay, that'd be it'd be great because I need to get a sense of the of the group here on what we want to do is because there's a very valid argument to say we are 95%, maybe 99% there with all of the terms of this agreement that was voted out from the Regional Policy Committee.

But I think I'm making myself clear, and you probably have some things that you would like to say.

The other option is the option B, which is for us to vote on the agreement as we had discussed it on Friday.

If we should do that, then it definitely rolls over into January with you being one, Council Member-elect Dan Strauss being two, who's also clear on what we've been doing here.

but we will have two completely new people on the board.

And I talked with Council Member Gonzalez this morning recognizing I want to hear from those of you who are going to be here, because if I hand this back to you and we're down to one issue, I believe, on this number of vote count that is really significant, if you want to bring that up again in January, and it does require groups to get back together, it would require the RPC opening it up again.

It would require King County Council opening it up again for conversation.

And I think, frankly, the question is, do you want to make that the issue?

that we are really going forward with with swords out?

Or can we make a decision that the interlocal agreement is good enough, but we would have a resolution attached to it that says we are going to make sure that all the evidence-based language and everything else that we passed on Friday is going to be part of what we're expecting going forward?

I would just love to get a sense from those of you who are here, how you're feeling about it.

Jeff and Tracy, do you want to bring anything else up since you guys have been as deep as you can be on it?

Can I ask a quick question?

Yes.

Because I just really want to get a handle on what the differences are.

I don't have my little chart in front of me.

It should be attached to the...

No, I don't need it.

I'm confident that you guys can answer.

The previous iteration that we discussed in the Select Committee last week said that the following action shall, as it relates specifically to the Governing Committee, the following action shall require an affirmative vote of a two-thirds majority of committee members present provided quorum requirements.

So that version had a quorum requirement.

And I just want to refresh my memory, that in practice would be six members, correct?

If only nine people show up, that is correct.

Minimum six, if only nine people showed up, right?

That is correct.

This version, what we had discussed in committee was a version that would require an affirmative vote of nine members.

Correct.

No quorum requirement, but it required an absolute nine members.

Correct.

All right, and this version is eight.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

The version in front of us is eight.

Let's go follow up is the is it different for how you deal with the executive director versus amending the budget and changing the plan.

I thought it was a higher threshold even in the RPC version for the executive director.

The RPC, you're correct that the RPC version has a higher threshold.

It's a minimum of nine to remove the CEO.

Okay.

The other two actions were two-thirds of however many are present, so as low as six, as high as eight.

The draft before you would be all three of those items are treated equally, the actions I should say, and it's all eight, regardless of quorum or anything like that.

But we believe that there's support on the RPC for that approach.

For a trade?

For having the same threshold for all of the actions as opposed to there being a bifurcated threshold.

And for that threshold to be?

So here's my answer to that question is, I believe that there is an appetite for that, but I can't deliver that to you.

I can't give you names.

I've had conversations with individuals who have said yes, that they would support that going forward.

Even that's going to take another action by RPC because since they aren't meeting Wednesday, it has to come back to them in January.

So we can pitch eight, we can pitch nine, but either way they're going to have to come back and say yay or nay.

If they say no, then we have to decide at that point how serious and deep we want to go on this.

I would recommend at this point, in order to move this forward, that this body consider a compromise on that voting piece.

Who is the chair of the RPC right now who canceled the meeting?

Peter von Rockbier, but there's a co-chair as well, correct?

I think one of the smaller city representatives is a co-chair.

His name is Skacy right now.

I apologize.

That's just unfortunate that the cancellation of the meeting is sort of driving, it's like the tail wagging the dog in terms of a good policy.

It'd be nice if they would just meet so we could have a discussion there.

Well, it's entirely possible.

Didn't we talk about this of having a phone, a telephone special meeting?

I believe they have the same rules that we do.

Just to be really clear, if you were to act this week, we would not have to act again.

It would be back to the County Council in 2020 or this year if they wanted to call a special meeting, for example.

So we could say this is our best and final that we can do, given that we have a body just like you have a body that has the ability to weigh in on this ILA.

And this has been your first opportunity to weigh in on this ILA.

We've had lots of conversations, but this is the first time you've had the actual legislation in front of them, just like was the case last week for them.

So you could act, and yep, they would have to, in fact, call another meeting, RPC would, and then the full council, but they could do that in 2019, or they could do it in 2020.

Let me make a point since I've been on the RPC with Councilmember Sawant and I want to thank Councilmember President for showing up with me Wednesday.

When we moved from a PDA model to an ILA model, as far as the text itself and the big moving pieces to have a regional approach, it wasn't much of a change.

The PDA, they just wanted to make sure it didn't have tax and authority, which by law it would not of any way.

So this was kind of some compromises that we made, even though some of us didn't want to, we did.

But the PDA model, which moved to an ILL model, which, you know, they don't want an executive director.

They wanted a CEO.

Some of that were just kind of like, I would say, to some degree, moving the chairs on the deck.

Is that what that term is called?

It didn't, for me, it wasn't offensive, like, oh, this wasn't a core agreement, or this isn't what we decided.

So we have been dealing with this since at least June.

And being briefed by Leo, I think this council was briefed three times, and I was briefed three times over there.

And it didn't get lost on us, and particularly Council President Harrell, that we pointed out many times that the City of Seattle was putting in $73 million, and King County was putting in $53 million, and the sound cities were putting in zero.

And so, and it got a little contentious, but you know, it should.

And, you know, I want to thank Council Member Bagshaw because she worked over Thanksgiving, she worked over this weekend, and I'm comfortable with, even though we were holding the line on some particular, it was 80% and what that would mean, the bottom line came down, I won't speak for the Council President, but for me, working with Council Bagshaw this weekend or talking to her yesterday, the bigger picture is, are we committed to a regional approach in getting it across the finish line?

I'm not going to get hung up on is it 80%, is it 75%, is it eight members, because I think, I don't know if it was Council Member Herbold or Gonzalez who did some of the amendments, what I really like, and thank you very much for doing that work.

Having eight members present four times a year to vote on the three most important issues to me is a success.

It looks like success to me.

I'm good with that.

But I will obviously look to my colleagues what they would deem appropriate.

for the quorum requirements.

And I think all in all, we got just about, I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Council President and Council Member Bagshaw, I think we got about 90% of what we wanted.

And you don't always get everything you want, but as far, if the bigger picture is a regional approach to where this city has more than a major vote and voice about how we shelter the unsheltered, then I think we've done that.

I don't know if you want to add anything.

I'm good.

I have to go upstairs in like five minutes.

I came back.

Thank you No, I'm good.

I Are we waiting for direction or yeah, that's what I'd like an opportunity to make comments Why don't you go ahead councilmember Gonzales?

This is important.

Sure.

So I want to start off by by Really making clear for the record that the questions that I raised last week during the committee that we had on the first and only committee hearing that we've had on the draft language of the ILA, which is intended to operationalize this regional cooperation theory.

I don't, that should not, those questions should not be received or perceived as being against a regional approach to addressing what is a regional issue.

So I just wanna make really clear that I do support a regional authority to address this regional issue.

What I am concerned about at this point is that the ILA before us, and I wanna move past the PDA versus the ILA conversation as well because that sort of ship has sailed, as they say.

And I think that we've sort of had enough of a conversation around there.

This is not about whether this is a PDA or whether it's an ILA.

It's about what we are trying to accomplish here in terms of a theory of change in the structure of the regional authority.

And the prior hearings, and there's been a lot of reference by you, Council Member Bekshaw, and Council Member Juarez about the number of times we've all been briefed.

I just want to be really clear that the number of times we've been briefed have been on a PDA model, first of all.

Second of all, have all been briefings, or primarily briefings, from Mark Dones, who is the consultant that we were paying.

I understand we paid him $500,000 to give us a set of recommendations on how to structure this regional work.

And that one of his primary recommendations behind this regional governance authority was you have to insulate funding decisions, first and foremost, and primarily from political influence, from undue political influence.

And that meant a recommendation that focused on subject matter experts who understand what it means to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness and to make it a one-time rare experience.

I am not that subject matter expert.

I am a civil rights attorney who sues government by trade.

That is what I did.

And so I value the recommendations that we got from a consultant that we hired specifically for the purposes of giving us that recommendation.

So for me, the policy question before us is not, you know, a petty one in terms of this vote.

It's the vote count for the governing committee is fundamentally about whether or not the recipe is such that a body made up of entirely of elected officials with the exception of three people who represent lived experiences of those who've experienced homelessness, whether or not the governing committee has effectively usurped the ability to be able to veto the subject matter experts that are represented on the implementation board, which to me means that we are agreeing to continue to maintain a close to status quo or status quo model that reinserts political influence.

And so for me, it's really important to have a conversation from that perspective.

It's not just about a numbers issue.

It's not about a numbers game.

It's not about how much the county trusts the city or the city trusts the county or the sound city associations trust all of us.

It's about whether or not we have set the dial at a place where we feel confident that as a theory of change, we are not making it so easy for an entity that consists of almost entirely elected officials to effectively have veto power over the implementation board, which is where the subject matter expertise exists.

So for me, I am hung up on that number because it's really not about the number.

It's about the underlying purpose of what it represents.

which is as I've articulated already.

So I really, and I'm frankly upset that this regional policy committee was canceled for this week because I do feel like that was a bit of a power play and that we are now as a council being held over a barrel or they think that we're gonna be held over a barrel.

I believe that what we should do is advance our policy goals as we believe they should be, and it will be up to the County Council to either reject or accept those based on whatever their process might be.

But I agree with Tracy's perspective, and I communicated this to you, Councilmember Bagshaw, I think once we've taken our action, I don't think there is an environment where we would have to take an action again in January.

So if we vote on December 16th saying this is where we're at, take it or leave it, they can then choose based on their regional policy committee perspective and on their own King County process as to whether or not to go in that direction or accept the RPC recommendations.

And I think that that would be a good way to also prevent additional delay for further deliberation in January, at least as it relates to a city council process.

Other comments?

I concur.

I think that if the council can get to consensus on Thursday, I think we've done a lot of good work.

Council Member Begichau, you've been the one leading this, and I'm really grateful for that, to reach a document that I think reflects a lot of our values and acknowledges a lot of the values of other folks around the region that want to see something in there.

It is unfortunate that there's not enough time, it sounds like, to do another iteration of this.

But that said, I feel like we have pretty good clarity where we want to go.

I think we have made a lot of modifications to date to accommodate a whole host of other perspectives.

And if we are in consensus in the committee on Thursday on where we want to be, I think it makes sense to pass legislation and we can hand it back to folks.

Let them see what that is.

I don't necessarily characterize it as necessarily take it or leave it because there's an opportunity to continue to work this into 2020. It'll just take longer.

But I believe that where I think we can get on Thursday is making some very reasonable modifications.

to the document that was passed out of RPC and put it back in their lap to entertain those, hopefully accept them.

If not, there'll be future folks to go forward.

If we don't have consensus at the council, if there's strong divisions, then I think we probably should just wait and let 2020 council members work on that further.

But my hope is, based on the work you've done to date, is that we can reach consensus on Thursday.

Great.

Thank you for that.

We'll spend some more time in the next couple of days.

I will continue to reach out to my RPC colleagues and just see if there is a sweet spot there.

All of the policy and principles that you articulated, Council Member Gonzalez, I think are accurate.

And we talked about this on Thursday, is that the reason to have the governing body not the elected body, the governing committee they're called, not be able to meddle in the recommendations that are coming from the implementation board are to put into force the recommendations.

that we heard from Mark Jones and others.

And I hear that loud and clear.

And I'm looking at, OK, who's going to be on there?

What are the chances?

I hope that we can whittle it down to this one thing, have further input in the next couple of days.

Thursday, we'll have something in front of us we can vote on.

I just want to thank you for all your work on this.

Council Member Gonzalez, you have something else?

I also wanted to echo the thanks.

I know I'm speaking in a big voice on this issue, but I don't want you to take that as a...

a signal of lack of appreciation for the work that you have done and for, you know, just the number of hours that you have spent on this issue.

I really do appreciate your sincere desire to want to strike the right balance.

And I think I've been consistent in communicating to you my interest in making sure that this last remaining issue, which I hope is not going to be the hangup, But I do think that it's an important policy question about whether or not we are insulating the implementation board from undue political influence of the governing committee in these really three critical areas of either amending the budget, firing the CEO, or amending the five-year strategic plan.

I think those are big issues, and holding the governing committee membership, which is largely made up of elected officials to a higher standard, I think is really critically important in order to comply with and to be intellectually honest with recommendations that we saw coming out of Mark Jones and his group.

So I hope that there will be some reasonable space to be able to find that consensus across the street and know that you have a real sincere commitment in hoping to find that.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, I think we can, unless there's any other comments.

The only thing I will just let you all know, we had to reintroduce the ordinance because of the change from a PDA to an ILA.

So you will see on the introduction referral calendar today, the ordinance that would be up for your consideration on Thursday with the attachment, as you have it in front of you right now.

Right now it does reflect the eight number, but obviously you will have that in front of you on Thursday to have further discussion about before you vote.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much.

All right.

We'll call this like in a intermediate phase between now and Thursday.

I'll see what more I can bring forward to you.

And you are about to call an executive.

She's got that golden rod.

Indeed I do.

So to call the executive session as presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

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

The council's executive sessions are an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys 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 sessions.

I expect the executive session to end I believe we're looking at 1135. If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.