Good morning, thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled council briefing on April 29th 2019 We have a shortage in which is good, but I must remind you that we will have an executive session Scheduled for 10 o'clock right after this meeting and it shouldn't take very long.
I That session shouldn't take very long as well.
Real quickly, I'll just say on the full council, I will introduce and we'll hopefully adopt three resolutions at full council today.
Basically, I want to welcome our newest council member, Council Member Abel Pacheco to the table, and three resolutions that will pertain to that addition.
One resolution will update our standing committee structure.
We're basically, Council Member Pacheco's name will be in place of former Council Member Rob Johnson.
The other one will update the present pro tem schedule.
And the other one will update our assignments to King County committees and regional committees, state committees, and City of Seattle committees for 2019. Also, I did want to say that Many of you might have read that I-1000 passed last night, and that's huge news for a lot of folks, and so a lot of work went into that, so I'm very happy to share that news for those that hadn't heard.
Okay, let's go around the table a little bit and see what we have for today.
Council Member Sawant.
Thank you, President Harrell.
Good morning, everyone.
There are no items on today's city council agenda from the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renters' Rights Committee.
The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for its regular time, Tuesday, May 14th at 2 p.m.
I also wanted to invite council members to a community meeting my office is holding along with the U.S.
Postal Service to discuss restoring the Central Area's post office.
As many of you know, there used to be a post office on 23rd and Union, but it was caught up in the redevelopment and there are plans to bring it back, but that'll be at least a few years.
And it's not very clear whether that will be entirely possible or not.
But now, right now, there's a white swath of the central area that is a virtual post office desert.
And we've heard from hundreds, if not thousands, of community members that this is a real problem.
It's affecting small businesses, elderly people, and working families, especially of color.
And so we are hoping to see the U.S.
Postal Service build a post office in that area soon.
The community meeting will be this Thursday, May 2nd at 6 p.m.
at the Garfield Community Center.
And I also just wanted to let everyone know that there is a small business called The Postman on MLK, and they have been a really useful service for a lot of people, and they also agree that actually we need a U.S.
Postal Service in addition to that.
And as everybody heard, of course, that there was a very, very tragic that happened when one of the construction cranes was being dismantled at the new Google Tower in South Lake Union.
And just wanted to say that our condolences go out to everybody who lost their lives, including a student at Seattle Pacific University and two workers, one iron worker and a crane operator.
And also, I think it's a...
It's an important opportunity to recognize how many of the workers who assemble and dismantle cranes do it at night because they want to reduce the impact on traffic.
Also, it's a safety precaution because obviously if you did it at a time when a lot of people are out and about, that is a bigger risk.
But that also means that the workers themselves take on a lot of risks and this just brought that risk to the light of day.
And, you know, we stand with the workers and the unions, the operators union and the iron workers union.
And also, I just wanted to let everybody know that the Iron Workers Local 86 is doing a collection for the bereaved families.
And if members of the public or elected officials wanted to donate to that, I think that would be much appreciated.
And I will be sharing that from my office.
thank you for mentioning that customer herbal thank you as far as what we have on the full council agenda today the civil rights utilities economic development Arts Committee has items as follows the I would like to make a motion to approve the Seattle office of civil rights director Lockhart confirmation.
It is coming forward.
We had two hearings in our committee to interview and And just a little bit of background as a reminder, per Council Bill 1191.20, this year, Director Lockhart has been engaged in a confirmation process that was designed to create greater transparency and engagement from SOCR staff, community members, and SOCR commissioners.
You may recall the mayor appointed Director Lockhart as interim in 2018. and the expectations letter from the council, proposed to be signed by myself and Council President Harrell, has been emailed this morning for your review.
In addition, we have on the full council agenda an ordinance related to the application of the herbicide Imazapyr, to treat invasive knotweed in the Cedar River watershed.
This ordinance allows for three additional years through 2021 of a limited spraying of imazapyr with the goal of eradicating the weed.
This is an extension of Seattle Public Utilities' ability to use this application that we have renewed every few years since, I believe, 1990s.
items that we have coming up this week.
There is an Economic Development District Board, which is one of the PSRC regional committees.
We also have the Regional Water Quality Committee.
And items coming up this week, in addition to committee assignments, include the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce Breakfast.
I'll be going out on Friday to participate with schools in the Fauntleroy Salmon release.
and also attending, Friday, the Evergreen Treatment Services Luncheon.
And finally, on Saturday, we'll be attending Interim CDA's 50th Anniversary Gala.
And then Friday evening, I should mention, the Port is having a welcoming event at T5 for Matson.
Thank you.
We're bringing forward for exempt status.
And then we've got two appointments to the Pioneer Square Preservation Board, Elyse Kuwahara-Day and Audrey Morton.
The next Finance Committee meeting is a week from this week, 2 o'clock on Wednesday, May 8th.
Now, also for Deborah Juarez, who's not with us this morning, but intends to be here this afternoon, she's got two items on the agenda.
One is the appointment of Jesus Aguirre as Superintendent of Parks and Recreation.
We went through a lengthy search and Jesus is returning to us And the second is an ordinance relating to a partnership between the Seattle Academy and the South Park Community Center I'm sure you've been very much involved councilmember her bolt on that.
And then on behalf of D5, this Saturday is the official opening of the Aurora Pedestrian Bridge.
And Council Member Juarez says that we funded this project to beautify the bridge for the community and to add lighting.
And she wanted to thank the Aurora Licton Urban Village for leading this project.
Thank you, Council Member Juarez.
Council Member Esqueda.
Good morning.
There are no items on today's full council agenda from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.
The next committee meeting will be on May 2nd at 9.30 a.m.
The appointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Committee will include Will Pitts from Teamsters 117, Gay Gilmore from Optimism Brewery, and Marilyn Watkins from Economic Opportunity Institute.
We also have the chance to discuss and hopefully, possibly vote on the Office of the Employee Ombud Director We sent questions around two weeks ago.
We received your feedback on those questions.
We've sent those to Dr. Khan for her to fill out, and we should be able to circulate those back to you all prior to the May 2nd hearing for you to weigh in on and take a look at.
We encourage you to join us if you can.
Again, really excited to see that this included participation from the interdepartmental task force, folks from the silence breakers, and folks in the front line who work at Protech 17 were involved in the process and excited to hear the answers to the questions.
So thank you all for submitting your additional questions.
We'll also have the hotel workers industry standards on our agenda.
Again, you'll hear me bring this up almost every meeting over the next three or four months here as we work towards coming up with some legislative solutions, thanks to all of the offices involved.
Last meeting we heard stories from the workers at Unite here, and this time we'll have a chance to hear from some of the hotel industry folks who are also weighing in on the various drafts.
Lastly, we'll have a Fort Lawton plan and land use discussion.
The legislation has not been sent down yet, but we will be getting a chance to get a full briefing on the proposed redevelopment plan and legislation that is forthcoming.
And salute.
Later this week, I will be scheduling a, sorry, later this week, I'm scheduled to attend a tour at Gay City.
This was part of our District 3 tour.
that had to be rescheduled and really excited about doing that.
Also want to make sure, though, that we get a chance to celebrate our newest colleague on Thursday, so I may be rescheduling that.
So thanks in advance to our folks at Gay City, and I'll be coming this week no matter what.
But I also want to come to you.
I want to just take a quick second to acknowledge one incredible person, Miriam, who works at the Office of Housing.
It is her last week this week, and she is the Deputy Director We'll be honored to honor her on Thursday this week as this is her last final week But given that this is her last full briefing before she takes a leave of absence I just want to just thank Miriam for all of her incredible work that she's done and And look forward to working with her in her next iteration wherever that may be hopefully back at the city.
I I want to give you guys a heads up.
We're going to be having a work session on confronting harassment and discrimination, best practices, especially for public employers, as we work on addressing worker needs, as we think about how we respond to the Me Too movement, and when individuals, especially in rank and file, speak up, how we change our public policies or change our policies in public institutions.
This will be held at the University of near the University of Washington University friends meeting place at four zero zero one Ninth Avenue Northeast from five to from 530 to 7 p.m.
On May 8th We'll be joined by University of Washington postdocs, members of the bargaining team of the University of Washington postdocs, UAW 4121, experts on harassment and retaliation and discrimination who are also researchers, and our friends and representatives from the University of Washington as well who hopefully will be able to give us a synopsis of what they're doing to address intimidation retaliation.
I'll be speaking up as well about some of the work that we've done on the IDT and the resolution that you all passed last week, which was resolution 31879, supporting a safe and responsive workplace, especially here in the legislative department.
In closing, I just want to echo the words that were said earlier to echo our both solidarity and sincere condolences to the individuals, the families, and those who were injured in the crane incident this weekend.
Our heart goes out to those who are the operators, the iron workers, the individuals who were passers-by who both were killed and were also injured or traumatized by the event.
I want to thank as well the firefighters and the police officers, union members as well of IAFF 77 and SPOG for their quick response.
And we reached out to the building trades and iron workers over the weekend.
I expressed that we're all here to do whatever we can.
Thanks to Council Member Swann for putting us on notice of the funds that they're raising.
We stand in solidarity with creating safe workplaces and communities across the city.
And it really was tragic.
Also want to just say we also stand in deep sorrow with those who experienced and have continued to be traumatized by this weekend's shooting in California coming six months after the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.
And our city stands with the Jewish community and those who've just finished celebrating Passover.
We do recognize that this is a growing trend that we as a community continue to fight back on.
and will not be silenced about our outrage over gun violence.
Council President Bruce Harreld also mentioned the incredible work of this last legislative session, noting the passage of Initiative 1000, thanks to the state legislature.
And I just want to say a quick thank you to our incredible legislative team.
Last night, I think that they wrapped up in the wee hours of the night and they've spent, you know, I think one tweet I saw was that they were working until 5 a.m.
one day.
So thanks to all of the work that our colleagues in the state legislature have done this year, some really incredible work from everything from making sure that we had denser communities, green transportation, the school levies, environmental package, and making sure that we got some additional funding for housing.
Really excited.
And lastly, no spoilers, but anybody who watched Game of Thrones last night, I just screamed, go girl power, it was really exciting.
Your workshop again is May 18th at 5.30, just to be clear, correct?
So sorry, May 8th.
May 8th, okay, I wrote it down.
So next Wednesday at 5.30.
Okay, May 8th.
Very good.
I think we do have a quorum issue Just let us know if you're interested in coming and we'll make sure that we don't go over quorum and thanks for reminding me I neglected to make it very clear that Thursday May 2nd at
4 p.m.
Thursday, this Thursday at 4 p.m.
down in Bertha Knight Landis, we're having a swearing-in ceremony and reception for our newest Councilmember Abel Pacheco.
So all of you are not only invited, expected to be there.
So that'll be this Thursday at 4 o'clock.
Councilmember Pacheco.
Thank you, and thank you everybody for being so welcoming.
So I want to start first with the introduction and referrals.
There are two plus items on the introduction and referral.
Council Bill 119505, which adopts the Ballard Neighborhood Design Guidelines in D6.
Council Bill 119506, which adopts the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Design Guidelines in D3.
For the full council, there will be no plus related items on the agenda today.
And there will be the next plus committee will be this Wednesday, May 1st, there will be four items on the agenda, a briefing and public hearing on CB 119471, which clarifies the definition of a vessel in response to a hearing examination decision, an annual update from the office planning and community development.
an annual update from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, and a presentation on SDCIOPCD's Race and Social Justice Initiative Report.
With the crane collapse, I want to express my condolences to the families impacted and the individuals who lost their lives this weekend.
It was a very tragic crane collapse in South Lake Union.
And as a chair of the committee that oversees SDCI, my team is working with the department to understand the details of what happened and the city's role in response.
SDCI has yellow-tagged the building, meaning that access is limited.
SDCI is a senior building inspector on site on Saturday and has a structural engineer on site who is assessing the safety of the building.
We will be hosting SDCI Director Nathan Torgelson and the plus committee this Wednesday, and who will provide an update on SDCI's response.
So I welcome other members of the council to attend to have any questions answered.
And with that, I thank you.
Thank you.
Well done.
Council Member Gonzalez.
Thank you.
Good morning and welcome also to Council Member Pacheco.
Really glad that you're with us and excited to hear that you're already digging in.
Looking forward to an update on all those materials from SDCA.
Okay, so there are 10 items on this afternoon's City Council agenda related to the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.
All 10 are appointments and reappointments to the Community Police Commission.
Four are council appointments, three are mayoral appointments, and one mayoral reappointment.
And there will also be one CPC appointment and one CPC reappointment to the Community Police Commission.
And all of those 10 items are on this afternoon's a full council agenda.
I will try to go through them as quickly as possible because it is a lot, heavy on volume there on the appointments.
Really quickly, just wanted to review what I'll be doing this week in community.
So Tuesday, April 30th at 12 p.m., I will be attending the Alliance for Gun Responsibility annual luncheon.
Really excited to continue to stand with Alliance for Gun Responsibility as we continue to And I think it's important that we continue to demand safer gun laws and common sense reforms to gun safety laws across the country, including here at home.
Thursday, May 2nd, after I have the pleasure of being a witness to the swearing in of our new council member, I'll have an opportunity to head out to join DESC at their annual dinner.
I'll be joining them for the reception, and then I will be ending off the evening attending the dinner for Capitol Hill Housing.
Their annual fundraiser is also on May 2nd.
On May 3rd, I will be joining Councilmember Herbold and many others and sitting with the SOTO BIA folks attending the Evergreen Treatment Services annual dinner at noon on Friday, May 3rd.
And then I will be joining community the evening of May 3rd at 530 p.m.
at the 29th annual Cinco de Mayo celebration at the Columbia Tower which is right across the street.
So if any of you are interested in popping by you can just walk right on over and join us in celebrating the kickoff to a celebration weekend for Cinco de Mayo.
On Saturday, April 4th, I will be heading down to the Show Wear Center in Kent for the Calsa Day celebration.
It is an event that is celebrated by the Sikh community.
And this event is going to occur again at the Show Wear Center.
beginning at 10 a.m., the doors open at 8 a.m., and the day includes services exhibits for the Sikh community, cultural displays, and martial arts demonstrations, and the turban experience.
So highly encourage all of you who want to learn more about our Sikh community to join us in Kent at the Show Wear Center.
They will have a parade that starts at approximately 3 p.m., so it's gonna be a day full of fun, and I'm really excited about joining members of that community in Kent on Friday, on Saturday.
And then I will end the evening by going to the interim CDA's anniversary gala.
It is their 50th anniversary gala this Saturday at 5 p.m.
That's it for me.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Councilmember O'Brien.
Thank you.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee has one item on this afternoon's agenda.
We have an EV, Electric Vehicle Readiness Ordinance Bill.
This is a bill that came out of committee the week before last.
Quick overview, this essentially is a requirement for new construction to, where they're already providing parking, that some of those parking spots be ready to hook up an electric vehicle charging station.
So what that means is there needs to be electrical wire pulled to the spot.
They can either install the actual outlet or not.
There needs to be sufficient electrical capacity in the building.
The panel needs to be all set up so that it's a very simple operation when someone wants to come in and put a charging station in.
The requirement ranges depending on the size and type of the building.
For small residential projects, either single family homes or townhouses where parking is likely to be private, so each individual has their own spot, there's a requirement that each spot be EV ready.
As you get to larger buildings above, I think it's seven or eight units, then it starts to phase down to what is about a 20% requirement where you have shared parking.
And so in a shared parking situation, that would mean that 20% of the spots would need to have a outlet.
But the current technology and expected technology with charging stations is that a charging station with the proper software should probably be able to manage five vehicles per outlet.
So that actually could get us to 100% EV readiness.
with the 20% of the spots having an outlet.
So, pretty excited about this.
The requirements for commercial buildings, a little bit less, it's about 10%.
So, you know, grocery store, those types of facilities that may have folks just passing through or places of work.
But it's really applaud the folks at the Office of Sustainability and Environment and SDCI did an amazing amount of work in looking at other jurisdictions.
I feel like they've taken the best of what some of the other peer cities have done and combined it into a single ordinance, so this will be great.
Other thing I just want to mention, I'll say that the Sustainability and Transportation Committee does not meet this week.
Our next meeting will be next Tuesday.
On Friday, I just mentioned that we had the last elected leadership group.
So thanks to all of you who were there.
Out of that meeting, We made a set of recommendations to the Sound Transit Board.
They will be making a decision later in May.
The decision they're making, to be clear, is which segments of the Sound Transit 3 project to be studying in the environmental impact statement.
So this isn't a decision on what the alignment is going to be yet or what the station is going to be, but rather what to study.
What the ELG did and the electric leadership group included a number of city council members, the mayor of Seattle, County Executive Constantine, County Executive Dave Summers from Snohomish County, and Stephanie Bowman from the Port of Seattle.
And essentially endorsed a set of investments or a set of alignments and stations ranging from Ballard to West Seattle.
The priority at both ends of the line, including Ballard to West Seattle, was a tunnel crossing of the ship canal and a tunnel station at the Alaska Junction.
There were a couple alignments that the ELG asked to not move forward because they were so problematic.
movable bridge crossing the ship canal in Ballard, and the other was an elevated station, what was referred to as the Orange Line, that ran through the neighborhoods just north of the Alaska Junction.
There was a recommendation to study a higher elevated bridge in Ballard that's not movable, and an elevated alignment in West Seattle that largely stayed along the right-of-way as alternatives, lower cost alternatives to tunnels.
Throughout the rest of the alignment, there was really pretty broad consensus.
The one area where there's still a lot of work to do is the Chinatown International District.
There essentially have been kind of four possible station configurations all around the Chinatown International existing station.
And the recommendation was to continue to study all four of those possibilities through the environmental impact statement to continue to get more information and help the community better evaluate the tradeoffs between those options.
The board will hopefully take our recommendation seriously.
I imagine they'll probably add a few other things in that they'll be required to study legally.
The board, of course, has elected officials from the three county regions, so they may have a broader perspective, and so we'll see how that happens.
But this work was all done to really move along as swiftly as possible, getting to an opening day as soon as possible for Sound Transit 3. And we were able to take a lot of options off the table, which will help them focus their study efforts in the next couple years in the EIS on the areas where I believe we had pretty broad community consensus in the process.
So I'm really proud of Sound Transit and the city's work on that.
Thank you.
Yeah, we took some options off the table.
We did.
Thank you for that.
I look forward to talking to everyone today at two o'clock on these issues.
Okay, so 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, and this gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorneys as authorized by law.
However, a legal monitor is always present to make sure that we ensure policies questions of policy for our public open session.
So I expect this session to last for 29 minutes, and so it'll go till 1030. And if it goes beyond that point, I'll go on back on the public session and announce its continued or extended duration.
With that, let's move into executive session.